Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[filovirus]

I would like to put together a project that creates a tiered list of all the Dominion kingdom cards. This would be different than anything done in the past when considering card ranking.

It would be similar to list created by ehunt found here: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13822.0, but with key difference. In ehunt’s list, he focused on “key cards”. I would rather have a focus more on the perceived cost to benefit ratio.

A few of problems with ehunt’s list. First, it was created in August, 2015, so it doesn’t incorporate Adventures, Empires, the new cards added to Dominion: Base and Intrigue, a couple of Promos, nor the soon to be released Nocturne set. Second, it was created by one user, and adjusted by responses made in that specific thread, so it didn’t incorporate a lot of community input. Third, it has three of the tiers in the common tiered system for ranking, but it is missing the crucial “S” tier.

This would also offer better card power understanding than currently found in the Qvist ranking system found here: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=16373.0. Although the Qvist ranking system is very thorough and informative, it too is missing some key aspects.

First, it does compare cards to each other that are of the same cost, but has no way of comparing cards to each other if they have different costs. So a Remodel can be ranked against Smithy, both of which are 4 cost cards, but cannot be ranked against Cellar, which is a 2 cost card. Second, it is very arbitrary. Is Smithy actually a better card overall than Remodel, or Poacher, or some other 4 cost card. In a recent article written by Adam Horton found here: http://adamhorton.com/flog/?p=538, his view of the card ranks differed by around 30% from the communities ranking. His point was that “A bunch of different people rated Dominion cards using whatever criteria they felt was appropriate.” I agree; this is a problem. Third, it is very hard to maintain. With each new expansion, a whole new poll needs to be completed incorporating new cards. This is both time consuming and tedious.

I would like to take a different approach than both ehunt’s and Qvist’s approach. I would like to create a tiered system that has 4 tiers. Each card would be assigned a tier, as voted on by the community. The 4 tiers would include an “S” tier, an “A” tier, a “B”, tier and a “C” tier.

The “S” tier would include those cards that are clearly overpowered. The ones whose cost to benefit ratio is very good. It would probably include ~3-7% of the cards overall. These would be the cards that cannot be ignored in any given kingdom. A prime example would be Chapel.

The “A” tier would be those cards that offer better than average cost to benefit ratio. It would probably consist of the upper 30% of total cards. Cards that fit well in most decks and synergize with many cards. I would rate Sentry as an “A” tier card.

The “B” tier would include those cards whose cost to benefit ratio of pretty accurate. It would probably consist of the middle 30% of total cards. Those cards that can fit well in a lot of decks, but may not be the main players all the time. They synergize well with some cards, but fall flat with others. Festival would be a prime example in my opinion.

The “C” tier would include those cards that are underperformers. It would probably include the bottom 30% of total cards. Those cards that may well synergize really well some few specific cards, but otherwise can usually be ignored in most kingdoms. Scout would easily fit in this category.

What I need is help defining the 4 groups. What is the wording to use in each of the four groups to most represent the cards found within each group? After the groups are defined, I would like to create a poll that the community can participate in that gives each card a tier designation. If we have enough participants, the cards can even be given a (-) or (+) to the tier they belong to.

[faust]

I don't think "cost to effect" is a very good system for rating differently priced cards. What does it even mean? Is a $4 as good as a $2 in this system if it gives the benefit of 2 $2? If we do it like that, I can tell you right now that almost all $2s will be ranked C. Effect does not scale linearly with price.

[filovirus]

I don't think "cost to effect" is a very good system for rating differently priced cards. What does it even mean? Is a $4 as good as a $2 in this system if it gives the benefit of 2 $2? If we do it like that, I can tell you right now that almost all $2s will be ranked C. Effect does not scale linearly with price.

You are correct. I would foresee that a lot of lower cost cards do indeed fall into the "C" category. In games like this, benefit should be increasing at a slightly faster rate than cost. This is what makes the higher costing cards worth it to spend coins on. However, I also foresee than many $2 cards do indeed fall in the "B" and "A" categories, with Chapel probably even falling into the "S" category.

[werothegreat]

[filovirus]

I understand what you're getting at. But most competitive games, esports, etc. are using this type of system to rank power levels. I don't find it crazy that Dominion could follow suit. It's already tried and true in other venues.

[crj]

I understand what you're getting at. But most competitive games, esports, etc. are using this type of system to rank power levels. I don't find it crazy that Dominion could follow suit. It's already tried and true in other venues.

It would be pretty difficult to do for Dominion. Whatever structure you pick, exceptions will abound.

That's a large part of what gives Dominion its depth.

[Qvist]

I can tell you the same thing that I told Adam and many other people. I am not sure why a broader rating/ranking system is better than a more in depth one. You would lose so much info.
Also btw, I allow comparing a $2 card to a $4 card. Many just don't do that as it is both tedious and way less relevant. I have a list for all the cards, I just didn't post it yet because I did got burned out and had another project going on. You could just take all the lists and put 80%+ cards in tier 1, 60-80% cards in tier 2, ... 0-20% in tier 5 and done. That is the big upside of using percentages and doing it the way I do it.

[weesh]

Third, it has three of the tiers in the common tiered system for ranking, but it is missing the crucial “S” tier...

if you think 4 tiers are necessary, why not 'A' through 'D'?
Personally, I find 'S-tier' to be Stupid.

That said, I'm interested in seeing a list with the modern cards.

[GendoIkari]

Third, it has three of the tiers in the common tiered system for ranking, but it is missing the crucial “S” tier...

if you think 4 tiers are necessary, why not 'A' through 'D'?
Personally, I find 'S-tier' to be Stupid.

That said, I'm interested in seeing a list with the modern cards.

It's not his invention... "S" tier is used in other tiered ranking systems such as the Smash Brothers tier lists. Dunno where it came from originally.

[werothegreat]

xkcd

I understand what you're getting at. But most competitive games, esports, etc. are using this type of system to rank power levels. I don't find it crazy that Dominion could follow suit. It's already tried and true in other venues.

But the thing is Dominion doesn't have a metagame the same way CCGs do.  Everything is dependent on what you're actually given.  Sure, Mountebank might be rated higher than Witch, but it doesn't matter if they're not both in the Kingdom.  We're never going to see something like "well I'll only ever put Mountebank in my deck, never Witch" because of the nature of the game.

[filovirus]

I can tell you the same thing that I told Adam and many other people. I am not sure why a broader rating/ranking system is better than a more in depth one. You would lose so much info.
Also btw, I allow comparing a $2 card to a $4 card. Many just don't do that as it is both tedious and way less relevant. I have a list for all the cards, I just didn't post it yet because I did got burned out and had another project going on. You could just take all the lists and put 80%+ cards in tier 1, 60-80% cards in tier 2, ... 0-20% in tier 5 and done. That is the big upside of using percentages and doing it the way I do it.

Thanks for responding Qvist. I have watched all your YouTube videos on your 2016 ranking (you never completed the 5-cost or 6+cost cards). Your ranking system does offer a lot of good information. However, a few statistical items arise in your system of ranking. Firstly, the sample size is relatively small to get a truly representation of what the community thinks. With your system is would be tough to get a truly representative rank. Those that take your poll need to be very familiar with every card in the game and make non-arbitrary comparisons. The causal player with less understanding of each card will greatly skew your results. Second, there's bound to be some very high standard deviations for given cards because it is a mix of highly competitive and casual players, which would make too hard to put any credit in their ranking.

If I have a kingdom with Hamlet (ranked 5th for two cost cards), Wishing Well (ranked 26 for three cost cards), and Trader (ranked 54 for four cost cards), and have 4 coins in hand, which would be my best cost to benefit ratio? Hamlet would probably be "A" tier, Wishing Well "B" tier, and Trader "C" tier. Would I want to overpay for Hamlet? Overpay for Wishing Well? Or get a Trader? Obviously it may depend on the kingdom, but Hamlet may be the best option overall. It is tough to make those comparisons with such a stringent ranking system and not knowing where the 2-costers rank according to the higher costing other cards.

A 4 tier system would help alleviate the confusion.

[filovirus]

xkcd

I understand what you're getting at. But most competitive games, esports, etc. are using this type of system to rank power levels. I don't find it crazy that Dominion could follow suit. It's already tried and true in other venues.

But the thing is Dominion doesn't have a metagame the same way CCGs do.  Everything is dependent on what you're actually given.  Sure, Mountebank might be rated higher than Witch, but it doesn't matter if they're not both in the Kingdom.  We're never going to see something like "well I'll only ever put Mountebank in my deck, never Witch" because of the nature of the game.

But it doesn't matter. Both would be probably be "A" tier cards. Then it's comparing the two within the other kingdom cards. But what about Junk Dealer compared to Festival? Both will probably have different tiers. Now the comparison would be valid. I also disagree that their is no META game in Dominion. Most Effective Tactic Available does show up in this game. Knowing Ill Gotten Gains is a strong META card, and Rabble not as much is part of Dominion's overall META. Whether they show up together in a kingdom or not, it is still worth while to know relative power.

[trivialknot]

Thanks for responding Qvist. I have watched all your YouTube videos on your 2016 ranking (you never completed the 5-cost or 6+cost cards). Your ranking system does offer a lot of good information. However, a few statistical items arise in your system of ranking. Firstly, the sample size is relatively small to get a truly representation of what the community thinks. With your system is would be tough to get a truly representative rank. Those that take your poll need to be very familiar with every card in the game and make non-arbitrary comparisons. The causal player with less understanding of each card will greatly skew your results. Second, there's bound to be some very high standard deviations for given cards because it is a mix of highly competitive and casual players, which would make too hard to put any credit in their ranking.

(Emphasis mine)  You appear to be complaining that Qvist's sample is not representative of the community, and simultaneously too representative.

If I have a kingdom with Hamlet (ranked 5th for two cost cards), Wishing Well (ranked 26 for three cost cards), and Trader (ranked 54 for four cost cards), and have 4 coins in hand, which would be my best cost to benefit ratio? Hamlet would probably be "A" tier, Wishing Well "B" tier, and Trader "C" tier. Would I want to overpay for Hamlet? Overpay for Wishing Well? Or get a Trader? Obviously it may depend on the kingdom, but Hamlet may be the best option overall. It is tough to make those comparisons with such a stringent ranking system and not knowing where the 2-costers rank according to the higher costing other cards.

That... is exactly the wrong way to use a card ranking.

[Qvist]

Thanks for responding Qvist. I have watched all your YouTube videos on your 2016 ranking (you never completed the 5-cost or 6+cost cards). Your ranking system does offer a lot of good information. However, a few statistical items arise in your system of ranking. Firstly, the sample size is relatively small to get a truly representation of what the community thinks. With your system is would be tough to get a truly representative rank. Those that take your poll need to be very familiar with every card in the game and make non-arbitrary comparisons. The causal player with less understanding of each card will greatly skew your results. Second, there's bound to be some very high standard deviations for given cards because it is a mix of highly competitive and casual players, which would make too hard to put any credit in their ranking.

That is why the voting is weighted. Higher rated player's votes have a higher weight than lower people's. And if you look at the history of past votings, it is pretty impressive to me how some cards stayed constistent over the time while others (where the meta indeed changed) have adjusted properly. I think the list are a reasonable well approximation at the strength. Having few voters is indeed a problem, but that is just due to the fact that this is Dominion and not Magic: The Gathering or Hearthstone. I can't change the popularity of the game.

If I have a kingdom with Hamlet (ranked 5th for two cost cards), Wishing Well (ranked 26 for three cost cards), and Trader (ranked 54 for four cost cards), and have 4 coins in hand, which would be my best cost to benefit ratio? Hamlet would probably be "A" tier, Wishing Well "B" tier, and Trader "C" tier. Would I want to overpay for Hamlet? Overpay for Wishing Well? Or get a Trader? Obviously it may depend on the kingdom, but Hamlet may be the best option overall. It is tough to make those comparisons with such a stringent ranking system and not knowing where the 2-costers rank according to the higher costing other cards.

A 4 tier system would help alleviate the confusion.

I don't understand how that would be better. The lists are not for telling you what you should buy if you have X coins in hand. You should buy what is best for your deck. If you need a Counting House, come and buy one. There is Chapel, better get all of them if it is the best card in Dominion. It doesn't tell you how many of each card you should get and in which order. That is not the purpose. It's just how impactful and relevant those cards are on the board. I think you are approaching those lists incorrectly.

Btw, I posted the rest of this year's list in the forum and it is on the wiki as well.

[markusin]

I can tell you the same thing that I told Adam and many other people. I am not sure why a broader rating/ranking system is better than a more in depth one. You would lose so much info.
Also btw, I allow comparing a $2 card to a $4 card. Many just don't do that as it is both tedious and way less relevant. I have a list for all the cards, I just didn't post it yet because I did got burned out and had another project going on. You could just take all the lists and put 80%+ cards in tier 1, 60-80% cards in tier 2, ... 0-20% in tier 5 and done. That is the big upside of using percentages and doing it the way I do it.

Thanks for responding Qvist. I have watched all your YouTube videos on your 2016 ranking (you never completed the 5-cost or 6+cost cards). Your ranking system does offer a lot of good information. However, a few statistical items arise in your system of ranking. Firstly, the sample size is relatively small to get a truly representation of what the community thinks. With your system is would be tough to get a truly representative rank. Those that take your poll need to be very familiar with every card in the game and make non-arbitrary comparisons. The causal player with less understanding of each card will greatly skew your results. Second, there's bound to be some very high standard deviations for given cards because it is a mix of highly competitive and casual players, which would make too hard to put any credit in their ranking.

If I have a kingdom with Hamlet (ranked 5th for two cost cards), Wishing Well (ranked 26 for three cost cards), and Trader (ranked 54 for four cost cards), and have 4 coins in hand, which would be my best cost to benefit ratio? Hamlet would probably be "A" tier, Wishing Well "B" tier, and Trader "C" tier. Would I want to overpay for Hamlet? Overpay for Wishing Well? Or get a Trader? Obviously it may depend on the kingdom, but Hamlet may be the best option overall. It is tough to make those comparisons with such a stringent ranking system and not knowing where the 2-costers rank according to the higher costing other cards.

A 4 tier system would help alleviate the confusion.

This doesn't tie in so well with Tier being determined by effect/cost. Wishing Well might be B tier and less efficient than the A tier Hamlet, but Wishing Well costs $3 instead of $2 and maybe to total effect of Wishing Well is higher than Hamlet. This becomes more likely with the B tier cards that cost $4, and even more likely with the $5 cost B tiers and so on.

To know what to buy with $4 using tiers, with cards cheaper than $4 also being considered, the tier of each card would have to be determined considering only its effect, ignoring cost altogether.

Qvist's ranking doesn't ignore card cost when factoring rank, but neither does the proposed tier system. Whether you use Qvist ranking or tiers, solving the problem of knowing what to buy requires cards to be compared to all other cards in terms of raw strength, ignoring cost.

This is what is at the heart of Adam's criticism of variations in how players rank cards making the ranking system not as helpful as it could be. Regardless of ranking scheme, what should be emphasized is how players are expected to compare cards.

[Seprix]

This is a terrible idea, just drop it altogether. Ratio of cost to effectiveness doesn't help anyone play any board better. We have Qvist rankings and now Adam rankings, do we need a third list? Just take Adam's rankings and tier those.

[filovirus]

This is a terrible idea, just drop it altogether. Ratio of cost to effectiveness doesn't help anyone play any board better. We have Qvist rankings and now Adam rankings, do we need a third list? Just take Adam's rankings and tier those.

Thanks for your opinion. I tend to think that the Adam rankings are probably a little more accurate than the Qvist rankings, but the problem that keeps coming back is that it is based on 1 person's assessment of each individual card, as opposed to a community poll. The Qvist rankings can be a better indication of community assessment IF a sample size were larger and ranking guidelines were given OR if the poll was only given to a select few who are considered the "best" at the game. This would alleviate the high standard deviations that some cards received.

I think I will still try to create a poll. I will probably put it on boardgamegeek, just because the polling system is much more advanced on that site than this site. Am I allowed to create a thread with a link to that site? If there is poor turnout or as much kickback there as here, I can eventually scrap the whole concept.

[filovirus]

I don't understand how that would be better. The lists are not for telling you what you should buy if you have X coins in hand. You should buy what is best for your deck. If you need a Counting House, come and buy one. There is Chapel, better get all of them if it is the best card in Dominion. It doesn't tell you how many of each card you should get and in which order. That is not the purpose. It's just how impactful and relevant those cards are on the board. I think you are approaching those lists incorrectly.

Btw, I posted the rest of this year's list in the forum and it is on the wiki as well.

I never implied that it would tell you which card to buy. It would only give an indication of the relative power and usefulness of the card. Nor did I imply that it would mean to purchase all ten Chapels because it is a good card. My poor wording probably led to your misunderstanding.

What I would like, is a quick system where a player such as me, who has no experience with Empires, Cornucopia, Guilds, or Dark Ages, can evaluate quickly the given cards in a kingdom and what the community thinks of their usefulness. Is Chariot Race good in most decks? I don't have the foggiest idea. I think this idea could help out those casual players as well.

Of course it will have no usefulness for those experienced competitive players. But then again, neither do the Qvist rankings or Adam's rankings.

So as a returning player to Dominion, this is what I would like to see.

And Qvist, truly I like your ranking system. It is very informative. Sorry if I came across as completely dismissive to it.

[filovirus]

These are the tier ranking qualifiers I came up. I would like some critique. Also the Dominion: Base cards as I would order them according to the qualifiers.

S – This card is good in 95% of decks. This card makes 95% of decks better. This card synergizes well with most other cards. This card cannot be ignored when in any given kingdom. If my opponent gets this card and I don’t, there is a good chance he will win. If I get this card and my opponent doesn’t, there is a good chance I will win. This card is the focal point of a major strategy.

A – This card is good in 75% or more of decks. This card makes 95% of decks better. This card synergizes well with most other cards. This card should not be ignored when in any given kingdom. If my opponent gets this card, and I don’t, he is likely to win, but other strategies may be just as good. This card can be a focal point of a major strategy OR this card is a good support card for major strategy.

B – This card is good in 50% or more of decks. This card makes 75% of decks better. This card synergizes well with about 50% of other cards. This card can be ignored when in any given kingdom. If my opponent gets this card, and I don’t, the outcome is still based on who plays better and not on card interaction.  This card is rarely a focal point of a major strategy, but often a good support card for a major strategy.

C – This card is good in less than 50% of decks. This card makes 50% or decks better. It is difficult at times to get good use from this card. This card often is ignored when in any given kingdom. If my opponent gets this card, and I don’t, the outcome is still based on who plays better and not on card interaction. This card is never a focal point of a major strategy, and rarely a good support card. However, this card may have amazing synergy with another, specific card.

Celler - B
Chapel - S
Moat - B
Harbinger - C
Merchant - B
Vassal - C
Village - B
Workshop - C
Bureaucrat - B
Gardens - C
Militia - A
Moneylender - B
Poacher - A
Remodel - B
Smithy - A
Throne Room – A
Bandit - B
Council Room - A
Festival - B
Laboratory - A
Library - C
Market - A
Mine - C
Sentry - A
Witch - S
Artisan - B

[Mic Qsenoch]

Cellar - C
Chapel - S
Moat - B
Harbinger - B
Merchant - B
Vassal - C
Village - A
Workshop - B
Bureaucrat - D
Gardens - D
Militia - A
Moneylender - A
Poacher - B
Remodel - B
Smithy - A
Throne Room – S
Bandit - B
Council Room - B
Festival - A
Laboratory - A
Library - B
Market - B
Mine - D
Sentry - S
Witch - S
Artisan - S

[filovirus]

Cellar - C
Chapel - S
Moat - B
Harbinger - B
Merchant - B
Vassal - C
Village - A
Workshop - B
Bureaucrat - D
Gardens - D
Militia - A
Moneylender - A
Poacher - B
Remodel - B
Smithy - A
Throne Room – S
Bandit - B
Council Room - B
Festival - A
Laboratory - A
Library - B
Market - B
Mine - D
Sentry - S
Witch - S
Artisan - S

Thanks. As you can see, according my criteria for each tier, you have far too many "S" cards. "S" should be saved for only the best of the best. This is what I need help with. Creating a set of criteria that produces an even distribution for A, B, and C, with few cards ever reaching the "S" tier.

[Mic Qsenoch]

In my opinion, rating is much more valuable than ranking, no need to shoehorn things into distributions or worry about precise orderings.

[trivialknot]

Thanks for your opinion. I tend to think that the Adam rankings are probably a little more accurate than the Qvist rankings, but the problem that keeps coming back is that it is based on 1 person's assessment of each individual card, as opposed to a community poll.

Adam's ranking wasn't just his own assessment.  It was based on a poll of 35 people.

It's nice that Adam performed an independent poll, but I think the most useful contribution he made was not the data itself, but the analysis and discussion.  If he had instead borrowed data from Qvist and analyzed that, it might have been slightly better or slightly worse, but it wouldn't have made a huge difference.  Like, he still would have been able to write a pretty cool article and all.

I am skeptical of the value of giving survey respondents very specific instructions on how to rate cards.  The thing is, you don't actually know that people are following your instructions.  Imagine all the people in this thread who are disagreeing with you, but now instead of voicing their disagreement out loud, they are quietly filling out your survey according to their own views.  It just can't be helped.

[DG]

These sorts of ranking systems will only be any good if they can rate cards like outpost. There tends to be one set of kingdoms where outpost is useless and another set of kingdoms where outpost is fantastic and not much in between. You usually don't need to buy many outposts even when they're good and they are not going to score you any points on their own. The pile is one of the least likely to run out. It's still however a key card and when outpost is good, a person who buys outpost will reliably beat a person who doesn't.

There's not much point in creating a new set of rankings that can't rate cards like outpost.

[Beyond Awesome]

You shouldn't rank on how often you buy, but probably impact instead or a combination of the two.

[JW]

You shouldn't rank on how often you buy, but probably impact instead or a combination of the two.

I would say, roughly, if two very good and equally good Dominion players were to play full random kingdoms, and one were to commit to not gaining this card or buying this event voluntarily, how much would this decrease their win probability.

[FemurLemur]

I am skeptical of the value of giving survey respondents very specific instructions on how to rate cards.  The thing is, you don't actually know that people are following your instructions.  Imagine all the people in this thread who are disagreeing with you, but now instead of voicing their disagreement out loud, they are quietly filling out your survey according to their own views.  It just can't be helped.

I couldn't agree more. Especially since, more detailed instructions means more words, and more words means less people will actually read them. A good survey aims to design the User Experience in such a way that it is almost impossible for the respondents to answer any question other than the exact question you're trying to ask, rather than prepping them beforehand and hoping that they understood and will be obedient.

I also second Mic Qsenoch's opinion about not shoehorning distributions. I think it would be better to collect pure data, then let that data tell you the story of what the tiers are, rather than trying to force the data into predefined tiers that were picked somewhat arbitrarily. Can you really know if 4 tiers will be the proper number without first collecting the data?

[FemurLemur]

Don't we already have access to some "Win rate with" statistics from Isotropic? Has such data been collected in any of the subsequent implementations of Dominion Online?

[Polk5440]

I like ehunt's approach and would like to see it updated. I like the idea of "key" card for the following reason: these are the cards you look for first around which to build your deck. Cost/benefit puts the focus on the wrong place: on the turn to turn buying decision at the expense of the overarching strategy decision.

[Qvist]

Just a few notes though as not sure if people are aware and then I won't say anything I swear.

You can and could RATE cards in my lists on any scale you want. So basically you can tier the cards like you did, filovirus, in for example 5 tiers on my website by putting in numbers from 1-5, or if you wanted from 1-1000 or whatever. What the app then does, it transforms these values in a normalized way, meaning percentages depending on how many cards got each number. That alleviates the problem of some people vote cards tentatively higher while other rate cards tentatively lower, normalizing both. If people want I can elaborate why I think this is needed. So no matter which of the ways I offer to vote, eventually all cards have a percentage value. So I could just use Adam's poll and run it through my algorithm, basically.

Where do we draw the line, if I exclude "bad" players. Is it level 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 of Dominion Online? This is just an arbitrary cutoff. I rather like the approach of weighting each vote depending on the player's level. Low ranked players barely have any influence anyway, but who am I to tell them they are not allowed to vote? But that aside, from the data I have seen, most of the players that take the time to vote on a rating/ranking of Dominion cards, of course are experienced players at the least, meaning this is certainly nothing to worry about. I can guarantee you that the ratings are not affected by "bad" votings. The only thing I have noticed that if the opinion on cards change over a time, the lists are slow to adapt. But that is rather a fault of the people's perception. For many it takes some time to admit that the value of a card changed. Even top players fall into this trap. I remember the Urchin/Urchin opening discussion where even top players at that time didn't realize the power of that opening and Urchin in general. Just to name an example.

Also, to get a bit philosophical. Those lists have the aim to be objective. But what is objective anyway? Let's say a card, is in reality a real power house card, but most players just didn't realize it yet. Of course then this card might be represented undervalued in the list. BUT the list is the status quo of the community's view. So the real strength of a card might not always be reflected by the current opinion of the masses. If you look in the history and other fields of society, like science, the opinion of the masses wasn't always equal to the truth. But for card games like Dominion this isn't so easy to determine as there is such things as a meta. Let's take Sea Hag as an example. It was voted #1 in the $4 list, but now suddenly drops drastically. What would you say is true? Was the card ranked previously incorrectly? Was the meta just wrong and the card was not that good at all? Or was it correctly at #1 for that time given the at that time available expansions? This is very hard to answer in my opinion. It might be a bit of both. But who decides that? We had sites like councilroom.com in the past that helped finding objective answers. But if we look at cards like Sea Hag, Ill-Gotten Gains and Venture, I have a hard time believing that only the addition of expansions changed their value that much. They might have been good back then, but probably not that good as reflected in the rankings. So how do we alleviate that? I can't find a better solution to what I am doing right now. Even if cards are not fully correctly valued, it is still the best representation of the opinion of the masses. I wish we had a site like councilroom.com now where statistical analysis would help ranking the cards better.

P.S: If people think that Adam's list is more correct than mine, don't forget that his list is like 9 months newer. So it is just obvious that especially Empire cards are probably better ranked.

[Qvist]

Oh and I forgot something. I want to say that I agree with DG's comment. Cards like Trading Post or Doctor that are excellent on a 5/2 but get so much worse in upcoming turns are very hard to rank. Also cards like Outpost and to a lesser extent Gladiator or Scavenger where you like rarely want more than 1 are very hard to rank as well even with the tier system. For victory cards you have to define other criteria as well, and so on and so on.

[Donald X.]

As you can see, according my criteria for each tier, you have far too many "S" cards.

This is reality-defying. It could be that half the cards were "S" cards; the power-level curve can look like anything. You can't simultaneously say "these are cards you want 95% of the time" and "it's 3-7% of the cards." Combined they are data you don't have, that you are trying to find even.

[filovirus]

As you can see, according my criteria for each tier, you have far too many "S" cards.

This is reality-defying. It could be that half the cards were "S" cards; the power-level curve can look like anything. You can't simultaneously say "these are cards you want 95% of the time" and "it's 3-7% of the cards." Combined they are data you don't have, that you are trying to find even.

Huh? I could want Chapel 95% of the time. But if Masquerade were in the kingdom, I may choose it instead of Chapel, making up the 5% that I don't want Chapel in my deck. That doesn't take away, nor even interact with the 3-7% that are "S" cards. It just means that even for an "S" card, there may be a better option, which is probably taken by another "S" card. Plus, 95% was just an arbitrary number; something to get discussion going. It could be even higher. 98%? 99%?

By the way, I love the game.

[filovirus]

I like ehunt's approach and would like to see it updated. I like the idea of "key" card for the following reason: these are the cards you look for first around which to build your deck. Cost/benefit puts the focus on the wrong place: on the turn to turn buying decision at the expense of the overarching strategy decision.

Yeah, ehunt's method and mine would actually be very similar. At least as far as letter rantings go. Basically it would assign cards into one of 3 groups, A, B, and C, with a select few power cards that would qualify for an S tier. These are the strong outliers. With enough poll participants, it could even be separated into A, A-, B+, etc, as many cards would be voted as both A and B if they are on the cusp of both.

[FemurLemur]

As you can see, according my criteria for each tier, you have far too many "S" cards.

This is reality-defying. It could be that half the cards were "S" cards; the power-level curve can look like anything. You can't simultaneously say "these are cards you want 95% of the time" and "it's 3-7% of the cards." Combined they are data you don't have, that you are trying to find even.

Huh? I could want Chapel 95% of the time. But if Masquerade were in the kingdom, I may choose it instead of Chapel, making up the 5% that I don't want Chapel in my deck. That doesn't take away, nor even interact with the 3-7% that are "S" cards. It just means that even for an "S" card, there may be a better option, which is probably taken by another "S" card. Plus, 95% was just an arbitrary number; something to get discussion going. It could be even higher. 98%? 99%?

By the way, I love the game.

But like, how can you know that 3-7% number is realistic without having first collected data? It could be in actuality that 20% of Dominion cards are "broken". Same with other tiers. Maybe Tiers A, B, and C shouldn't have a perfectly equal distribution. What if 75% of Dominion cards are equally terrible? Why refuse to put a card where it belongs just to suit a pre-defined restriction of how big or small the tiers must be?

[Donald X.]

As you can see, according my criteria for each tier, you have far too many "S" cards.

This is reality-defying. It could be that half the cards were "S" cards; the power-level curve can look like anything. You can't simultaneously say "these are cards you want 95% of the time" and "it's 3-7% of the cards." Combined they are data you don't have, that you are trying to find even.

Huh? I could want Chapel 95% of the time. But if Masquerade were in the kingdom, I may choose it instead of Chapel, making up the 5% that I don't want Chapel in my deck. That doesn't take away, nor even interact with the 3-7% that are "S" cards. It just means that even for an "S" card, there may be a better option, which is probably taken by another "S" card. Plus, 95% was just an arbitrary number; something to get discussion going. It could be even higher. 98%? 99%?

By the way, I love the game.

Thanks.

If you graph how powerful cards are - let's say a bar graph, each card gets a bar, height is power level - the graph can look like anything. There are no requirements on the reality of the cards. It could be that they were all equally powerful. It could be that half sucked and half rocked. And so on. It could be that they were all equally powerful and weak, so that you slowly clawed your way to victory; it could be that they were all equally powerful and strong, so that the first player always won when they played their first card.

When you are trying to determine what this graph looks like - that is to say, rating the cards - you don't know ahead of time what this graph looks like. It is the thing you are trying to determine. You don't know if 3-7% of the cards will be goes-in-95%-of-decks. That's something you find out by analyzing the cards. It could be that 0% of the cards go in 95% of the decks - they're all narrow. It could be that 50% of the cards go in 95% of the decks - lots of cards are broad and interchangeable.

You can say, "let's divide up the cards by power level, so that we have four bins, for the best, next best, next best, worst." That's fine; then 25% are indeed in the top 25%, assuming we can sufficiently distinguish the cards. But that's not what you said.

[filovirus]

P.S: If people think that Adam's list is more correct than mine, don't forget that his list is like 9 months newer. So it is just obvious that especially Empire cards are probably better ranked.

I haven't yet compared your two lists together, but I would bet that the top 25% and bottom 25% of both your lists are very similar. I think the middle 50% would show wide differences. It truly is hard to justify that Remodel is better than Poacher, or vice versa. But if they were both in the same tier, it's a lot easier to justify. This is especially true with comparing a card that is near the upper 75th percentile of the list with another that is near the 50th percentile of the list.

The biggest problem with Adam's list is that the participants were offered too many options to rate a card. 1-10. I would only really offer 3 well-defined options, and separate them on percentages voted for each category. If Remodel is deemed A by 25% of the community, and B by 75% of the community, it would probably end up with a B+ rating.

[Qvist]

I don't get what you are saying. Why is offering less options giving a better result? And how is S, S-, A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C different to a 1-10 rating?
If you are so desperately want tiers, depending on what you want and what DXV said, you can just grab my lists and either divide equally in 4 bins or divide into 0-25%, 25%-50%, 50%-75% and 75%-100% groups. Isn't that exactly what you want? Just a different represantation of the same thing.

[filovirus]

As you can see, according my criteria for each tier, you have far too many "S" cards.

This is reality-defying. It could be that half the cards were "S" cards; the power-level curve can look like anything. You can't simultaneously say "these are cards you want 95% of the time" and "it's 3-7% of the cards." Combined they are data you don't have, that you are trying to find even.

Huh? I could want Chapel 95% of the time. But if Masquerade were in the kingdom, I may choose it instead of Chapel, making up the 5% that I don't want Chapel in my deck. That doesn't take away, nor even interact with the 3-7% that are "S" cards. It just means that even for an "S" card, there may be a better option, which is probably taken by another "S" card. Plus, 95% was just an arbitrary number; something to get discussion going. It could be even higher. 98%? 99%?

By the way, I love the game.

Thanks.

If you graph how powerful cards are - let's say a bar graph, each card gets a bar, height is power level - the graph can look like anything. There are no requirements on the reality of the cards. It could be that they were all equally powerful. It could be that half sucked and half rocked. And so on. It could be that they were all equally powerful and weak, so that you slowly clawed your way to victory; it could be that they were all equally powerful and strong, so that the first player always won when they played their first card.

When you are trying to determine what this graph looks like - that is to say, rating the cards - you don't know ahead of time what this graph looks like. It is the thing you are trying to determine. You don't know if 3-7% of the cards will be goes-in-95%-of-decks. That's something you find out by analyzing the cards. It could be that 0% of the cards go in 95% of the decks - they're all narrow. It could be that 50% of the cards go in 95% of the decks - lots of cards are broad and interchangeable.

You can say, "let's divide up the cards by power level, so that we have four bins, for the best, next best, next best, worst." That's fine; then 25% are indeed in the top 25%, assuming we can sufficiently distinguish the cards. But that's not what you said.

OK, I understand your argument. A way to work around that is to offer 3 options, and no S option in a poll. Then take the top 3% as voted on by the community, and assign them the "S" tier. However I would guess that too many cards would qualify as "S" tier anyway.

But if I also understand what you are saying as a counter argument, you theoretically made 50% of the cards extremely powerful compared to the other 50% of the cards. That may be fun to theorize about, but most likely not true. I think we would hear a lot more complaints about dud cards for that to be true. But you may be right that peak of the curve could be nearer the A-B area and then have a long tail through the rest of the B through C designations.

[werothegreat]

I also disagree that their is no META game in Dominion. Most Effective Tactic Available does show up in this game.

What?  That's not what "meta" means.  "Meta" is not an acronym.  "Meta-" means that there is something above, outside of.  Think about "metaphysical".  In a competitive game's meta, it's not about "most effective tactic available", it's about knowing what everyone else is playing.  So in Hearthstone I might include a card that destroys Pirates because a lot of people are running decks with Pirates.  That's what meta means - it's any gameplay decisions that aren't based on the specific match you're playing, but the overall, overarching competitive scene.  "Metagame" literally means "the game outside the game".

And that just doesn't exist for Dominion, not in the same sense as for CCG's, because you're given a random set of cards to play with.  You might make decisions like "They'll probably get Witch, so maybe I should get a Moat", but that's not nearly on the same level as "I'll probably play a bunch of people running a Pirate deck today, so I should include this card that destroys Pirates, even though it doesn't really fit the theme of my deck".

[filovirus]

I don't get what you are saying. Why is offering less options giving a better result? And how is S, S-, A+, A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C different to a 1-10 rating?
If you are so desperately want tiers, depending on what you want and what DXV said, you can just grab my lists and either divide equally in 4 bins or divide into 0-25%, 25%-50%, 50%-75% and 75%-100% groups. Isn't that exactly what you want? Just a different represantation of the same thing.

Less options which are clearly defined makes it easier for a participant to justify a rating that they give a specific card. It is the post analysis, after the poll closes, that further separates the tiers into (-)'s and (+)'s. A participant would rate a card as either A, B, or C, instead of 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 or 9 or 10. It is easier on the participants overall. Ease makes it more likely for a participant to finish the poll.

[filovirus]

you can just grab my lists and either divide equally in 4 bins or divide into 0-25%, 25%-50%, 50%-75% and 75%-100% groups. Isn't that exactly what you want? Just a different represantation of the same thing.

It doesn't work that way. Chapel is most likely an outlier for 2-cost group. And how would I incorporate the 2-costers with the 5-costers? It would be bad statistical analysis to assume that the top 25% of the 2-costers are on par the the top 25% of the 5-costers.

[filovirus]

I also disagree that their is no META game in Dominion. Most Effective Tactic Available does show up in this game.

What?  That's not what "meta" means.  "Meta" is not an acronym.  "Meta-" means that there is something above, outside of.  Think about "metaphysical".  In a competitive game's meta, it's not about "most effective tactic available", it's about knowing what everyone else is playing.  So in Hearthstone I might include a card that destroys Pirates because a lot of people are running decks with Pirates.  That's what meta means - it's any gameplay decisions that aren't based on the specific match you're playing, but the overall, overarching competitive scene.  "Metagame" literally means "the game outside the game".

And that just doesn't exist for Dominion, not in the same sense as for CCG's, because you're given a random set of cards to play with.  You might make decisions like "They'll probably get Witch, so maybe I should get a Moat", but that's not nearly on the same level as "I'll probably play a bunch of people running a Pirate deck today, so I should include this card that destroys Pirates, even though it doesn't really fit the theme of my deck".

In competitive games, META is indeed an acronym that means "Most Effective Tactic Available".

[Qvist]

But that makes the result worse. If I would force a 1-100 rating, people might be overwhelmed and couldn't decide between a 75 and 76 rating, but in the end it isn't a big difference anyway but gives more options. And if people want they could still decide to only vote 0, 33, 67 and 100. Voila, the same as S, A, B and C. In any case. My web app allows to vote for any scale you want. So if you want to vote S, A, B, C you can already (just change to 1-4 of course). If people want to be more specific, they can. But limiting the people in advance and using an abritary scale makes the result worse.

[werothegreat]

I also disagree that their is no META game in Dominion. Most Effective Tactic Available does show up in this game.

What?  That's not what "meta" means.  "Meta" is not an acronym.  "Meta-" means that there is something above, outside of.  Think about "metaphysical".  In a competitive game's meta, it's not about "most effective tactic available", it's about knowing what everyone else is playing.  So in Hearthstone I might include a card that destroys Pirates because a lot of people are running decks with Pirates.  That's what meta means - it's any gameplay decisions that aren't based on the specific match you're playing, but the overall, overarching competitive scene.  "Metagame" literally means "the game outside the game".

And that just doesn't exist for Dominion, not in the same sense as for CCG's, because you're given a random set of cards to play with.  You might make decisions like "They'll probably get Witch, so maybe I should get a Moat", but that's not nearly on the same level as "I'll probably play a bunch of people running a Pirate deck today, so I should include this card that destroys Pirates, even though it doesn't really fit the theme of my deck".

In competitive games, META is indeed an acronym that means "Most Effective Tactic Available".

Well, that just tells me competitive gamers are stupid and need to take more humanities classes.

[filovirus]

I also disagree that their is no META game in Dominion. Most Effective Tactic Available does show up in this game.

What?  That's not what "meta" means.  "Meta" is not an acronym.  "Meta-" means that there is something above, outside of.  Think about "metaphysical".  In a competitive game's meta, it's not about "most effective tactic available", it's about knowing what everyone else is playing.  So in Hearthstone I might include a card that destroys Pirates because a lot of people are running decks with Pirates.  That's what meta means - it's any gameplay decisions that aren't based on the specific match you're playing, but the overall, overarching competitive scene.  "Metagame" literally means "the game outside the game".

And that just doesn't exist for Dominion, not in the same sense as for CCG's, because you're given a random set of cards to play with.  You might make decisions like "They'll probably get Witch, so maybe I should get a Moat", but that's not nearly on the same level as "I'll probably play a bunch of people running a Pirate deck today, so I should include this card that destroys Pirates, even though it doesn't really fit the theme of my deck".

In competitive games, META is indeed an acronym that means "Most Effective Tactic Available".

Well, that just tells me competitive gamers are stupid and need to take more humanities classes.

[filovirus]

But that makes the result worse. If I would force a 1-100 rating, people might be overwhelmed and couldn't decide between a 75 and 76 rating, but in the end it isn't a big difference anyway but gives more options. And if people want they could still decide to only vote 0, 33, 67 and 100. Voila, the same as S, A, B and C. In any case. My web app allows to vote for any scale you want. So if you want to vote S, A, B, C you can already (just change to 1-4 of course). If people want to be more specific, they can. But limiting the people in advance and using an abritary scale makes the result worse.

But in keeping with the rating system found in other competitive games it would make sense to use the S A B C system. The recent trend is going to this type of system. It just makes it easier for people transitioning for other competitive games to understand the results.

I have been playing Clash Royale for over a year. The tier system is a quick and easy way to understand the general power of specific cards, and craft a deck from those results.

[Awaclus]

Plus, 95% was just an arbitrary number; something to get discussion going. It could be even higher. 98%? 99%?

90-93% would be a good starting point, I think.

[JW]

Here is some useful data compiled by a forum user (not me) on gain rates of cards based on the top 20 players on Goko/Making Fun (as of one snapshot from the Isotropish leaderbboard). I can't recall what the time range of the games played, but it was pre-Adventures.

For example, Tournament is gained by top 20 players in 93.94% of games (sample size: 594 games with Tournament, of which it was gained 558 times). No other card was gained in at least 90.0% of games.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13mQ1humtQbPLY9nbKscR65dV7hbGPdI3AQkNjMHZpeM/pubhtml?gid=495443102&single=true

[Seprix]

Actually, seeing the win rate for card openings for ShuffleIT would be awesome. I miss that.

[Bowi]

I also disagree that their is no META game in Dominion. Most Effective Tactic Available does show up in this game.

What?  That's not what "meta" means.  "Meta" is not an acronym.  "Meta-" means that there is something above, outside of.  Think about "metaphysical".  In a competitive game's meta, it's not about "most effective tactic available", it's about knowing what everyone else is playing.  So in Hearthstone I might include a card that destroys Pirates because a lot of people are running decks with Pirates.  That's what meta means - it's any gameplay decisions that aren't based on the specific match you're playing, but the overall, overarching competitive scene.  "Metagame" literally means "the game outside the game".

And that just doesn't exist for Dominion, not in the same sense as for CCG's, because you're given a random set of cards to play with.  You might make decisions like "They'll probably get Witch, so maybe I should get a Moat", but that's not nearly on the same level as "I'll probably play a bunch of people running a Pirate deck today, so I should include this card that destroys Pirates, even though it doesn't really fit the theme of my deck".

In competitive games, META is indeed an acronym that means "Most Effective Tactic Available".

Well, that just tells me competitive gamers are stupid and need to take more humanities classes.

I've played many different competitive games (and browsed forums for said games) for about a decade and I have NEVER seen that acronym.

[filovirus]

I also disagree that their is no META game in Dominion. Most Effective Tactic Available does show up in this game.

What?  That's not what "meta" means.  "Meta" is not an acronym.  "Meta-" means that there is something above, outside of.  Think about "metaphysical".  In a competitive game's meta, it's not about "most effective tactic available", it's about knowing what everyone else is playing.  So in Hearthstone I might include a card that destroys Pirates because a lot of people are running decks with Pirates.  That's what meta means - it's any gameplay decisions that aren't based on the specific match you're playing, but the overall, overarching competitive scene.  "Metagame" literally means "the game outside the game".

And that just doesn't exist for Dominion, not in the same sense as for CCG's, because you're given a random set of cards to play with.  You might make decisions like "They'll probably get Witch, so maybe I should get a Moat", but that's not nearly on the same level as "I'll probably play a bunch of people running a Pirate deck today, so I should include this card that destroys Pirates, even though it doesn't really fit the theme of my deck".

In competitive games, META is indeed an acronym that means "Most Effective Tactic Available".

Well, that just tells me competitive gamers are stupid and need to take more humanities classes.

I've played many different competitive games (and browsed forums for said games) for about a decade and I have NEVER seen that acronym.

A quick google search can clear up any confusion. Just one example of many: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20747845699

[Commodore Chuckles]

I think the overarching issue is: Does relying on any sort of tier system to make in-game decisions actually make you a better player? I don't think I've made a single in-game decision by comparing cards' Qvist rankings. I make all my decisions based on intuition and experience, and I think all the top players do as well.

I think somebody actually pointed out on the Qvist ranking thread that the rankings are mostly just made for fun. There's just so much information that a ranking can't tell you: How many copies of a card to buy, at what stage of the game to buy a card, how your opponent's strategy affects things, niche cases that make a weak card good, etc. Looking at a list and seeing that a card you were ignoring is actually really good might be helpful to a beginner, but I'm not sure it's actually THAT helpful. A player could buy Governor solely because of its high ranking and still lose because they don't know how to play a Governor deck. It's not enough to know a card is good; you have to know WHY it's good.

[Accatitippi]

I also disagree that their is no META game in Dominion. Most Effective Tactic Available does show up in this game.

What?  That's not what "meta" means.  "Meta" is not an acronym.  "Meta-" means that there is something above, outside of.  Think about "metaphysical".

Literally, meta means beyond, or after.
Funnily, metaphysics doesn't mean "beyond the physical world". Aristotle's works on the argument were generally placed right after the book on physics, and were thus aptly named "the book that comes after physics".
Aristotle himself called metaphysics "the first philosophy".

And that was all for today's lesson in history of philosophy.
See you in a couple of months.

[filovirus]

I think the overarching issue is: Does relying on any sort of tier system to make in-game decisions actually make you a better player? I don't think I've made a single in-game decision by comparing cards' Qvist rankings. I make all my decisions based on intuition and experience, and I think all the top players do as well.

I think somebody actually pointed out on the Qvist ranking thread that the rankings are mostly just made for fun. There's just so much information that a ranking can't tell you: How many copies of a card to buy, at what stage of the game to buy a card, how your opponent's strategy affects things, niche cases that make a weak card good, etc. Looking at a list and seeing that a card you were ignoring is actually really good might be helpful to a beginner, but I'm not sure it's actually THAT helpful. A player could buy Governor solely because of its high ranking and still lose because they don't know how to play a Governor deck. It's not enough to know a card is good; you have to know WHY it's good.

Yes, I agree completely. I however, don't know all the ins and outs of card interaction, nor even their over all power. I think it could actually help someone like me. Yeah, I'll eventually outgrow it's usefulness, but I'm not at that point yet.

It would also be a good way to see where different types of cards rate in the overall META. Are gainers mostly rated as B's? Are attacks mostly rated as A's. What about sifters? Are they mostly rated as C? Are alternate treasures all over the board for ratings, or are they mostly A's? It would be a good way to be able to compile a bunch of data quickly.

[Accatitippi]

More on topic, I've suggested a rating system before, based on "how heavily does this card influence the kingdom?"
The hypothetical potential usefulness would be to help new players read kingdoms and know what cards to look for in a glance, to start analyzing a kingdom. Something that experienced players do thoughtlessly.

Then I pretty much gave up on the idea. It would be kinda fun, but I came to realize that at this point dominion doesn't need more consensus-based power estimating tools. Dominion needs hard, councilroom-like data.

[chipperMDW]

I've played many different competitive games (and browsed forums for said games) for about a decade and I have NEVER seen that acronym.

A quick google search can clear up any confusion. Just one example of many: https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20747845699

I'm pretty sure that's just a backronym. Meta did not originally "stand for" anything; that phrase you found is just some cute false etymology somebody came up with that was vaguely reminiscent of what the term already meant. Sorta like how people retrofitted Acme to stand for "American Company Making Everything," or Perl to stand for "Practical Extraction and Report Language." Those words don't really stand for those things, but they're humorously appropriate, so people have tongue-in-cheek pretended that they did, and as time passed, other people have gotten confused and mistakenly believe that's how the terms originally came about.

In fact, a quick Google search on "Most Effective Tactic Available" tends to give me people parroting that phrase followed by other people correcting them:

https://forums.warframe.com/topic/635199-i-give-up-what-does-meta-mean/

Not that the joke is inaccurate, but this is called a "backronym". The word "meta" is older than the funny acronym "Most Effective Tactic Available"

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Meta-does-not-mean-Most-Effective/page/2

Except that’s not where the term came from. It is not an acronym at all.

https://us.battle.net/forums/en/d3/topic/20757697689

Actually, it entirely had to do with the prefix until randoms decided to make it something other than what it was. It's never been an acronym.

https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/63w3zk/fyi_meta_is_not_an_acronym_for_most_effective/

FYI: Meta is NOT an acronym for 'most effective tactic available'. I don't know why people started saying it, but please stop.

https://forums.galaxy-of-heroes.starwars.ea.com/discussion/128933/what-do-meta-and-op-mean

No. Meta is not an acronym. Most Effective Tactics Available is a backronym. It's origin is from the Greek word.

Your definition shows up in Urban Dictionary somewhere in 2015. So, wherever it comes from, it must be pretty recent.

[FemurLemur]

I think the overarching issue is: Does relying on any sort of tier system to make in-game decisions actually make you a better player? I don't think I've made a single in-game decision by comparing cards' Qvist rankings. I make all my decisions based on intuition and experience, and I think all the top players do as well.

I think somebody actually pointed out on the Qvist ranking thread that the rankings are mostly just made for fun. There's just so much information that a ranking can't tell you: How many copies of a card to buy, at what stage of the game to buy a card, how your opponent's strategy affects things, niche cases that make a weak card good, etc. Looking at a list and seeing that a card you were ignoring is actually really good might be helpful to a beginner, but I'm not sure it's actually THAT helpful. A player could buy Governor solely because of its high ranking and still lose because they don't know how to play a Governor deck. It's not enough to know a card is good; you have to know WHY it's good.

Yes, I agree completely. I however, don't know all the ins and outs of card interaction, nor even their over all power. I think it could actually help someone like me. Yeah, I'll eventually outgrow it's usefulness, but I'm not at that point yet.

It would also be a good way to see where different types of cards rate in the overall META. Are gainers mostly rated as B's? Are attacks mostly rated as A's. What about sifters? Are they mostly rated as C? Are alternate treasures all over the board for ratings, or are they mostly A's? It would be a good way to be able to compile a bunch of data quickly.

(Emphasis added)

Other, better players can feel free to chime in, but in general, all types of cards are all over the board. There are powerful and weak attacks, villages, sifters, alternate treasures, trash for benefit, throne rooms, remodelers, gainers, pseudo-attackers, durations, reactions, etc. Part of what has given Dominion so much longevity is that Donald X has done a great job at throwing wrenches in any rules of thumb. Each new expansion not only adds new mechanics, it adds some cards which incentivize certain behaviors that would previously be losing strategies, or deincentivizes the common winning strategies.

To get to intermediate level play, rather than trying to worry about which cards tend to be the best most often, I feel that your best bet is to learn what mechanics each card plays nicely with. Knowing what to look for to see if you can make your Tunnels trigger, or to make your Gardens work, or to build that Poor House strategy, is going to be far more beneficial (and a more efficient use of your time) than learning/compiling a tier list so you can buy the card that has the highest tier. In each game, you have to be able to look at each card and try to find all of its supporters and counters. Once you've done that for all 10 Kingdom cards, you'll end up seeing a handful of approaches you could take. It's then your job to try and figure out which of those will work best. And when you're new to the game, you're going to make the wrong choice a lot. That's just how we learn.

I love analysis, and I love that you want to analyze the cards, but I think that the vast majority of Dominion cards are in a huge middle tier- one which is highly situational as to whether the card is good or bad. It's just not the type of game that lends itself well to this specific type of analysis. I think that's what some here are trying to explain to you.

If you're mostly just looking for a beginner overview of what cards are generally very good and which ones aren't, you really are best off following the Qvist rankings. I don't see what you have to gain by trying to reinvent the wheel there. And that's not to say that we couldn't use a different type of ranking. But it sounds to me like the thing you're aiming for has already been done well enough. When you're in 100% doubt on what to do, feel free to pick the highest rated card on the Qvist rankings, try it out, and if you lose, then you've learned a lesson in one of the thousands of exceptions that Dominion has to offer.

That's just the best way to learn right now. Read articles, try to find cards that play nicely together in the Kingdom (just based off of their language), play a lot of games, and pay attention to the advice of people like Mic Qsenoch (currently the 2nd highest on the Dominion Online Leaderboards), who handed you his personal list of rankings for Base Set on a silver platter based on his years of experience. No need to split hairs over whether or not he gave too many cards the S rank. If he tells you that Chapel, Throne Room, Sentry, Witch, and Artisan are all top-tier, I would take his word for it

[Commodore Chuckles]

Other, better players can feel free to chime in, but in general, all types of cards are all over the board. There are powerful and weak attacks, villages, sifters, alternate treasures, trash for benefit, throne rooms, remodelers, gainers, pseudo-attackers, durations, reactions, etc.

In general, yes, all types can be weak or strong. Looking at the Qvist rankings I do think some patterns emerge though. Junking and handsize attacks tend to be strong, while trashing attacks tend to be weak. Cards that can trash 2+ cards in a single turn tend to be very strong, while cards that force you to gain a card when you trash are usually pretty weak. In general the cards on the weak side tend to be ones that rearrange your deck and don't do much else (Pearl Diver, Duchess, Chancellor, Navigator, Scout, Harvest) or ones that either are treasures or involve treasures in some way (Beggar, Masterpiece, Bureaucrat, Pirate Ship, Cache, Stash, Harem, Adventurer, Philosopher's Stone, Diadem, Bag of Gold.) There are, of course, a ton of exceptions to the above observations, and knowing these patterns probably won't actually help you be a better player, for the reasons I already mentioned.

[Awaclus]

There are powerful and weak attacks, villages, sifters, alternate treasures, trash for benefit, throne rooms, remodelers, gainers, pseudo-attackers, durations, reactions, etc.

There are no weak villages, no weak thrones and no weak trashers. Well, maybe Trader is just a B but certainly everything else in those 3 categories is at least an A simply by virtue of being a splitter or a trasher.

[FemurLemur]

There are powerful and weak attacks, villages, sifters, alternate treasures, trash for benefit, throne rooms, remodelers, gainers, pseudo-attackers, durations, reactions, etc.

There are no weak villages, no weak thrones and no weak trashers. Well, maybe Trader is just a B but certainly everything else in those 3 categories is at least an A simply by virtue of being a splitter or a trasher.

You don't feel that in general Loan or Moneylender are weak? Also, Remodelers are a subset of Trashers, so do you also think that there are no weak Remodelers (Mine comes to mind), or were you just talking about non-Remodeling Trashers?

Also, I'd disagree with there being no weak Villages, but could concede that there may be no weak Throne Rooms (but would still say that they vary more than OP is expecting)

[werothegreat]

There are powerful and weak attacks, villages, sifters, alternate treasures, trash for benefit, throne rooms, remodelers, gainers, pseudo-attackers, durations, reactions, etc.

There are no weak villages, no weak thrones and no weak trashers. Well, maybe Trader is just a B but certainly everything else in those 3 categories is at least an A simply by virtue of being a splitter or a trasher.

You don't feel that in general Loan or Moneylender are weak?

Loan?  Yes.  Moneylender?  That is a solid opener on most boards.  Great for spiking, and Copper is evil.

[Bowi]

Loan

Here we go

[Commodore Chuckles]

There are no weak villages

Shanty Town.

no weak trashers

Trade Route.

[Donald X.]

I also disagree that their is no META game in Dominion. Most Effective Tactic Available does show up in this game.

What?  That's not what "meta" means.  "Meta" is not an acronym.  "Meta-" means that there is something above, outside of.  Think about "metaphysical".  In a competitive game's meta, it's not about "most effective tactic available", it's about knowing what everyone else is playing.  So in Hearthstone I might include a card that destroys Pirates because a lot of people are running decks with Pirates.  That's what meta means - it's any gameplay decisions that aren't based on the specific match you're playing, but the overall, overarching competitive scene.  "Metagame" literally means "the game outside the game".

And that just doesn't exist for Dominion, not in the same sense as for CCG's, because you're given a random set of cards to play with.  You might make decisions like "They'll probably get Witch, so maybe I should get a Moat", but that's not nearly on the same level as "I'll probably play a bunch of people running a Pirate deck today, so I should include this card that destroys Pirates, even though it doesn't really fit the theme of my deck".

In competitive games, META is indeed an acronym that means "Most Effective Tactic Available".

You can't fool me. In the world of board/card games, "meta" is short for metagame, a term for making decisions based on information from outside the game (e.g. from other games, or about a player's personality). For MtG in particular it refers to picking a deck based on what decks you expect other people to play.

There's an online version, but it's not a video game, and anyone saying "meta" in a Dominion context is not using the term as you are.

[Donald X.]

I love analysis, and I love that you want to analyze the cards, but I think that the vast majority of Dominion cards are in a huge middle tier- one which is highly situational as to whether the card is good or bad. It's just not the type of game that lends itself well to this specific type of analysis. I think that's what some here are trying to explain to you.

The intention was to have the power level curve be completely flat; the cards will naturally be distorted based on the set of cards available, and that was supposed to be what dictated everything. You get the best chance for something interesting if by default the cards are all in contention.

That isn't how things turned out for a bunch of reasons:
- It's not really possible; you can only fine-tune so close.
- I made a bunch of mistakes, especially early on.
- I made some categorical mistakes, which new cards somewhat cling to, so that e.g. a new trasher doesn't automatically go untouched if an old trasher is out.
- Shifts in power level based on what other cards are out favor some kinds of cards more than others.

You can obviously still get entertainment and conceivably information from ranking cards, as people have done endlessly, especially Qvist's project.

You can also rank cards in non-power-level ways. For example you could look for what cards are especially broad (go in lots of decks), what cards are especially narrow (don't go in many). You can look for what cards you tend to want just one of when you want it, and what cards you tend to want lots of.

[Gazbag]

There are no weak villages

Shanty Town.

no weak trashers

Trade Route.

Have you ever decided to not go for an engine because Shanty Town is out instead of regular old Village? If a card adds a unique effect to the board you'll still go for it if the payoff is there so sure these two may be weaker relative to other villages and trashers (debatable in Shanty Town's case I think) but it doesn't matter because the base effect of +2 actions or trashing is so good. I think this is the point Awaclus was making.

[Commodore Chuckles]

There are no weak villages

Shanty Town.

no weak trashers

Trade Route.

Have you ever decided to not go for an engine because Shanty Town is out instead of regular old Village? If a card adds a unique effect to the board you'll still go for it if the payoff is there so sure these two may be weaker relative to other villages and trashers (debatable in Shanty Town's case I think) but it doesn't matter because the base effect of +2 actions or trashing is so good. I think this is the point Awaclus was making.

When it comes to Shanty Town, I agree that it opens up new strategies simply because of its +2 actions. It's unreliable enough, though, that other strategies might be better.

Trade Route is so bad that it's often not worth it even if it's the only trasher. Especially if you have a very limited terminal space, it'll just get in the way a lot of the time.

[filovirus]

OK, based on feedback from the majority, the community does not want me to create a rating poll, so I won't. It been called a "terrible idea", already done, to "reality-defying".

I was really hoping to offer a different perspective from a rating system. One where a new-comer, like myself, could glean some information. But I guess the Qvist ranking system is sufficient for the majority.

I'll probably hang out in the background for the next little bit, and focus on bot games to get a better feel for the Dominion cards.

Who knows, I may even participate in the next Qvist ranking if I feel I can actually rank the cards comparatively.

[Donald X.]

OK, based on feedback from the majority, the community does not want me to create a rating poll, so I won't.

The system works!

I was really hoping to offer a different perspective from a rating system. One where a new-comer, like myself, could glean some information. But I guess the Qvist ranking system is sufficient for the majority.

What is there that you want to know, that you can't see from Qvist's thing?

I mean, put it like that - "here's what I want to know" - and who knows, maybe someone will know and tell you.

It's just, "what you want to know" can't be "which 3-7% of the cards do you buy 95% of the time," or any other question that presupposes a made-up statistic.

[markusin]

There are powerful and weak attacks, villages, sifters, alternate treasures, trash for benefit, throne rooms, remodelers, gainers, pseudo-attackers, durations, reactions, etc.

There are no weak villages, no weak thrones and no weak trashers. Well, maybe Trader is just a B but certainly everything else in those 3 categories is at least an A simply by virtue of being a splitter or a trasher.

You don't feel that in general Loan or Moneylender are weak?

Loan?  Yes.  Moneylender?  That is a solid opener on most boards.  Great for spiking, and Copper is evil.

Yeah, don't disrespect Moneylender. It's enough to get the classic Festival/Library engine going in a Base set only game. It works nicely with a trasher that can get rid of Estates, but is likely still a key card in games where it is the only trasher.

Loan...

Loan

Here we go

[Kirian]

As you can see, according my criteria for each tier, you have far too many "S" cards.

This is reality-defying. It could be that half the cards were "S" cards; the power-level curve can look like anything. You can't simultaneously say "these are cards you want 95% of the time" and "it's 3-7% of the cards." Combined they are data you don't have, that you are trying to find even.

Huh? I could want Chapel 95% of the time. But if Masquerade were in the kingdom, I may choose it instead of Chapel, making up the 5% that I don't want Chapel in my deck. That doesn't take away, nor even interact with the 3-7% that are "S" cards. It just means that even for an "S" card, there may be a better option, which is probably taken by another "S" card. Plus, 95% was just an arbitrary number; something to get discussion going. It could be even higher. 98%? 99%?

By the way, I love the game.

Thanks.

If you graph how powerful cards are - let's say a bar graph, each card gets a bar, height is power level - the graph can look like anything. There are no requirements on the reality of the cards. It could be that they were all equally powerful. It could be that half sucked and half rocked. And so on. It could be that they were all equally powerful and weak, so that you slowly clawed your way to victory; it could be that they were all equally powerful and strong, so that the first player always won when they played their first card.

When you are trying to determine what this graph looks like - that is to say, rating the cards - you don't know ahead of time what this graph looks like. It is the thing you are trying to determine. You don't know if 3-7% of the cards will be goes-in-95%-of-decks. That's something you find out by analyzing the cards. It could be that 0% of the cards go in 95% of the decks - they're all narrow. It could be that 50% of the cards go in 95% of the decks - lots of cards are broad and interchangeable.

You can say, "let's divide up the cards by power level, so that we have four bins, for the best, next best, next best, worst." That's fine; then 25% are indeed in the top 25%, assuming we can sufficiently distinguish the cards. But that's not what you said.

This is much less funny without the bacon comparison.

[Donald X.]

This is much less funny without the bacon comparison.

Where's 2.71828..... when you need him.

[Awaclus]

You don't feel that in general Loan or Moneylender are weak?

Loan and Moneylender are both extremely strong cards. IIRC I rated them both 9/10 in Adam's rating, although I'm not sure if Moneylender was a 9 or an 8.

There are no weak villages

Shanty Town.

no weak trashers

Trade Route.

Both of those are strong cards. They are on the weaker end of splitters and trashers, respectively, but that's like being one of the dumbest guys at a Mensa meeting.

Trade Route is so bad that it's often not worth it even if it's the only trasher. Especially if you have a very limited terminal space, it'll just get in the way a lot of the time.

This is just wrong. If you're going for an engine, you buy any trashing that's available. Trade Route can get rid of your Estates, it gives you a +buy and it can act as mediocre payload in the very late game. That's already a lot better than Trader.

[Accatitippi]

You don't feel that in general Loan or Moneylender are weak?

Loan and Moneylender are both extremely strong cards. IIRC I rated them both 9/10 in Adam's rating, although I'm not sure if Moneylender was a 9 or an 8.

There are no weak villages

Shanty Town.

no weak trashers

Trade Route.

Both of those are strong cards. They are on the weaker end of splitters and trashers, respectively, but that's like being one of the dumbest guys at a Mensa meeting.

Mmh. Note that the consensus doesn't seem to support this. On Qvist 2016 Shanty Town and Trade Route were respectively ranked 31st and 41st out of the 46 3-cost cards (plus 3 dropouts).
That puts them respectively in the 33rd and 11th percentile. Hardly Mensa material. (to get into Mensa, you must be in the top 2%)

So I guess this means that again, if you, Awaclus, were to rate cards, you'd give more S ratings than those Mensa gives to people. But I personally wouldn't rate these two S, in my own scala.

[Mic Qsenoch]

Mmh. Note that the consensus doesn't seem to support this. On Qvist 2016 Shanty Town and Trade Route were respectively ranked 31st and 41st out of the 46 3-cost cards (plus 3 dropouts).
That puts them respectively in the 33rd and 11th percentile.

It just doesn't make any sense to argue about a card's strength by where it places in a ranking, it says essentially nothing about how good a card is in an absolute sense.

FWIW I consider Trade Route clearly weak, and Shanty town not weak at all, but there's a lower bound on how weak Trade Route can be just because of boards where trashing is 100% mandatory and Trade Route is the only trasher.

[Gazbag]

I think the idea of blanket rankings for cards is pretty distracting and not really relevant to an actual game of dominion. If Shanty Town is the only village on a board then it is an S rank card- in the context of that board. Perhaps a way to do it would be to put cards into categories and rank them within those categories. E.g. Farming village would be in the village and sifter categories. It would be like an average C as a village and an F as a crummy sifter.

[Accatitippi]

Mmh. Note that the consensus doesn't seem to support this. On Qvist 2016 Shanty Town and Trade Route were respectively ranked 31st and 41st out of the 46 3-cost cards (plus 3 dropouts).
That puts them respectively in the 33rd and 11th percentile.

It just doesn't make any sense to argue about a card's strength by where it places in a ranking, it says essentially nothing about how good a card is in an absolute sense.

I was just objecting to Awaclus' comparison, which made it sound like TR and ST are part of some sort of "elite" group of dominion cards. They are below average - otherwise we wouldn't be making this discussion.
That said, they are pretty good, because dominion cards are on average good.

But they are below average, so the comparison didn't hold.


Gazbag, I'd also like to rank/rate cards by category. It would be cute. I mean, the question "how does Moneylender compare with Sentry?" is more interesting than "how does Sentry compare with Courtier", because they are totally unrelated cards.

[Awaclus]

I was just objecting to Awaclus' comparison, which made it sound like TR and ST are part of some sort of "elite" group of dominion cards. They are below average - otherwise we wouldn't be making this discussion.

They aren't below average, people just compare them to other splitters and other trashers and that's why they seem weaker than they really are. You won't be buying Trade Route on boards where Catapult is present, but that's just because it fills a similar role in a redundant way and it's the weaker of the two, but Trade Route still makes an enormous impact on an engine board where it's the only trashing (quite possibly making it an engine board if it wouldn't have been one otherwise). The same can be said about Shanty Town except you might still buy one or two even when better options are available due to its low cost and the fact that it's actually a pretty strong card when you have lots of other splitters in your deck but only one ST — generally, you won't be buying half a pile of STs, but when you have to, you're still extremely happy to do so instead of going for a non-engine strategy.

[Shvegait]

I was just objecting to Awaclus' comparison, which made it sound like TR and ST are part of some sort of "elite" group of dominion cards. They are below average - otherwise we wouldn't be making this discussion.

They aren't below average, people just compare them to other splitters and other trashers and that's why they seem weaker than they really are.

There's still value in comparing trashers with each other, because there are many boards with 2 or more trashers. For newer players, there is value in knowing which options are stronger than others. If Forager and Trade Route are both available, it doesn't make sense to call Trade Route a power card. Since Trade Route loses on most of these comparisons, it's called below average.

There's also a point where if your engine has to be made up of the weakest pieces of each class, say... Trade Route as the only trasher, Nobles as the only village... even if the payload is pretty good, a Big Money type strategy might just be faster. So there is still some value in considering how good an engine piece is, even if it's the only one available and mandatory if the engine is the way to go. But note that this is a bit of circular reasoning, because determining that engine is the way to go depends in part on the engine pieces available.

[Accatitippi]

I was just objecting to Awaclus' comparison, which made it sound like TR and ST are part of some sort of "elite" group of dominion cards. They are below average - otherwise we wouldn't be making this discussion.

They aren't below average, people just compare them to other splitters and other trashers and that's why they seem weaker than they really are. You won't be buying Trade Route on boards where Catapult is present, but that's just because it fills a similar role in a redundant way and it's the weaker of the two, but Trade Route still makes an enormous impact on an engine board where it's the only trashing (quite possibly making it an engine board if it wouldn't have been one otherwise). The same can be said about Shanty Town except you might still buy one or two even when better options are available due to its low cost and the fact that it's actually a pretty strong card when you have lots of other splitters in your deck but only one ST — generally, you won't be buying half a pile of STs, but when you have to, you're still extremely happy to do so instead of going for a non-engine strategy.

Again, I'm not arguing that they are bad - but according to the Qvist rankings, they are below average. Then in your opinion maybe the ranking should be different, but in that case I'd be interested in hearing what are the 23 3$ers that you esteem worse than Trade Route.

[Awaclus]

in that case I'd be interested in hearing what are the 23 3$ers that you esteem worse than Trade Route.

Chancellor, Great Hall, Woodcutter, Fortune teller, Masterpiece, Sage, Workshop, Banquet, Caravan Guard, Tunnel, Storeroom, Oasis, Oracle, Smugglers, Farmer's Market, Shanty Town, Chariot Race, Gladiator (not counting Fortune), Wishing Well, Guide, Expedition, Enchantress, Market Square, Warehouse are the cards I'd say are weaker, in the order from bottom to top. I made this list by going to Qvist's 2016 rankings, starting from the bottom, and for each card, asking the question "is this weaker than Trade Route?". I didn't keep track of how many I already had and I didn't actively try to get to 23. It's funny how close it turned out to be regardless (in case you don't want to count them yourself, I got 24). I briefly considered including Develop but decided against it and I'm very confident that my decision was correct, and I briefly considered skipping Scheme, decided against it, not super confident in that decision.

It's interesting that the only cards I skipped were other trashers (and obviously TR itself).

What's also noteworthy is that there are a lot of $3 cards that are extremely strong, because there are so many trashers there. If I repeated this with all the cards in Dominion, I'm pretty sure Trade Route would end up in a higher percentile.

If Forager and Trade Route are both available, it doesn't make sense to call Trade Route a power card. Since Trade Route loses on most of these comparisons, it's called below average.

Exactly, and I'm saying it shouldn't be the case that it's called below average just because it loses on most of those comparisons.

[Seprix]

in that case I'd be interested in hearing what are the 23 3$ers that you esteem worse than Trade Route.

Chancellor, Great Hall, Woodcutter, Fortune teller, Masterpiece, Sage, Workshop, Banquet, Caravan Guard, Tunnel, Storeroom, Oasis, Oracle, Smugglers, Farmer's Market, Shanty Town, Chariot Race, Gladiator (not counting Fortune), Wishing Well, Guide, Expedition, Enchantress, Market Square, Warehouse ... and I briefly considered skipping Scheme ...

Like, does this confirm Awaclus is a troll? This is maybe the silliest thing I've read from Awaclus, ever.



No player this high in the Leaderboard rankings can possibly think this.

[Awaclus]

in that case I'd be interested in hearing what are the 23 3$ers that you esteem worse than Trade Route.

Chancellor, Great Hall, Woodcutter, Fortune teller, Masterpiece, Sage, Workshop, Banquet, Caravan Guard, Tunnel, Storeroom, Oasis, Oracle, Smugglers, Farmer's Market, Shanty Town, Chariot Race, Gladiator (not counting Fortune), Wishing Well, Guide, Expedition, Enchantress, Market Square, Warehouse ... and I briefly considered skipping Scheme ...

Like, does this confirm Awaclus is a troll? This is maybe the silliest thing I've read from Awaclus, ever.



No player this high in the Leaderboard rankings can possibly think this.

So how is the effect of any of those bolded cards, other than Scheme, better than removing a junk card from your deck?

Sorry for my rating, it's usually 10-20 ranks higher.

[Donald X.]

If Forager and Trade Route are both available, it doesn't make sense to call Trade Route a power card. Since Trade Route loses on most of these comparisons, it's called below average.

Exactly, and I'm saying it shouldn't be the case that it's called below average just because it loses on most of those comparisons.

However if one or another of those comparisons tends to appear in any game with Trade Route, then of course it's a below average card. It's moot if there's a big line of cards it would be better than, if only, when the "if only" part rarely comes true for you. You can factor in "sometimes it's the only trasher," rate that highly, and still come up with below-average. I haven't done this math but obv. that's what people are responding to; they remember all those games where Trade Route was a dud, and know better than to think "in some technical sense it's great though."

[crj]

They are below average - otherwise we wouldn't be making this discussion.
That said, they are pretty good, because dominion cards are on average good.

Hmm.

What do you mean by "good", if by your definition the majority of Dominion cards are good? Are you comparing with the six of spades and get out of jail free?

[Accatitippi]

They are below average - otherwise we wouldn't be making this discussion.
That said, they are pretty good, because dominion cards are on average good.

Hmm.

What do you mean by "good", if by your definition the majority of Dominion cards are good? Are you comparing with the six of spades and get out of jail free?

They do their thing in an efficient way, and their thing is useful.

I mean, the majority of cards is good, but we still have duds to remind us about how good the average cards are. All the removed cards, harvest, and transmute are the worst offenders, but there are several meh cards that are not as terrible as those, but they are a few.
Between harvest and rebuild we enjoy a wide range of power levels, but the cards are not uniformly distributed in the range.

[Jack Rudd]

They are below average - otherwise we wouldn't be making this discussion.
That said, they are pretty good, because dominion cards are on average good.

Hmm.

What do you mean by "good", if by your definition the majority of Dominion cards are good? Are you comparing with the six of spades and get out of jail free?

They're being compared with William H. Harrison. Oh no, sorry, wrong topic.

They're being compared with nothing. (Seriously. Nothing is always a valid option for a buy in Dominion.) Also, and this is particularly important for $3 cards in Dominion, they're being compared with Silver.

[FemurLemur]

I was just objecting to Awaclus' comparison, which made it sound like TR and ST are part of some sort of "elite" group of dominion cards. They are below average - otherwise we wouldn't be making this discussion.

They aren't below average, people just compare them to other splitters and other Trashers and that's why they seem weaker than they really are

That's because it's an important comparison to make. By my slapdash estimate, there are 53 Trashers for thinning your starting deck with*, including Loan. That would mean that in 87.63% of games with Loan, there will be another Trasher in the Kingdom. If we're to assume that Loan is the weakest Trasher, that leaves only 12.37% of games where Loan is out and I actually want it. So I don't think it's helpful to tell a new player there are no weak Trashers. What you're really trying to tell them is: "Trashing as a mechanic is very powerful", which is different. Even though there are hypothetical Kingdoms where I want Loan, the majority of the time that it's out, I don't want it.

In response to everyone else saying Moneylender is solid: maybe I'm wrong then. I just always thought there were many better terminal Trashers. Thinning coppers is sweet, and the cash boost gives a nice head start. But it becomes a dead card soon (and if I'm gonna trash it, why don't I just open with that other Trasher instead?), it only defends against one specific subset of Junking attacks, and I'd rather be trashing my Estates than my Coppers. If it's the only Trasher, sure, I want it. But even in Base-Only Moneylender games, 60% of the time I'm gonna see Sentry and/or Chapel as well.


*Excludes Dame Anna (since you may have to dig through some Knights to get to her, whereas you can open Loan on the first shuffle), Cards that only trash themselves/cards from supply/cards as they're being gained (Watchtower, Gladiator, Small Castle, Engineer), and Events. Like I said, it was a quick slapdash tally. I could have missed some Trashers or counted some that don't actually work on starting Coppers/Estates.

[Jack Rudd]

There are some trashers that don't work on starting Estates/Coppers. More importantly, there are trash-for-benefit cards that work best on things that aren't your starting cards. Remodel/Loan is a solid opening for that reason; Remodel is not a good way to trash Coppers, but it's an excellent way to trash Loans that have outlived their usefulness.

[Awaclus]

That's because it's an important comparison to make. By my slapdash estimate, there are 53 Trashers for thinning your starting deck with*, including Loan. That would mean that in 87.63% of games with Loan, there will be another Trasher in the Kingdom. If we're to assume that Loan is the weakest Trasher, that leaves only 12.37% of games where Loan is out and I actually want it. So I don't think it's helpful to tell a new player there are no weak Trashers. What you're really trying to tell them is: "Trashing as a mechanic is very powerful", which is different. Even though there are hypothetical Kingdoms where I want Loan, the majority of the time that it's out, I don't want it.

That would apply to Trade Route, but Loan is one of the stronger trashers in the game. Most of the time when you have Loan and another trasher in the kingdom, you get both.

Even though it does apply to Trade Route, it doesn't mean it's a weak card. If Forager is present, you're not going to buy Trade Route, but if you did buy Trade Route instead of your second Forager, you wouldn't be that far behind an opponent who just got two Foragers, and you would be quite far ahead an opponent who got something that doesn't trash instead of a second Forager in most kingdoms. In other words, if you swindle your opponent's Forager while he still wants to keep the Forager in his deck, you shouldn't give him a Trade Route, you should give a Silver or something.

[FemurLemur]

There are some trashers that don't work on starting Estates/Coppers.

Which I excluded from my comparison for not being comparable to Loan. Did you read the footnote?

It sounds like you're arguing that this is a point in Loan's favor or something. By excluding things like Watchtower, I made Loan look more favorable in the results. If you want, I can throw Watchtower and those other cards in to make Loan look even crappier than I already made it look.

More importantly, there are trash-for-benefit cards that work best on things that aren't your starting cards.

Which is why I said "If we're to assume that Loan is the weakest Trasher". Arguing that it's not sounds like denying the antecedent to me. This discussion is predicated on Awaclus' suggestion that: "people just compare them to other splitters and other Trashers and that's why they seem weaker than they really are".

Remodel/Loan is a solid opening for that reason; Remodel is not a good way to trash Coppers, but it's an excellent way to trash Loans that have outlived their usefulness.

Feel free to list all possible edge cases of Loan/X, and all of the edge cases to those edge cases (for instance, I'll still prefer a single Chapel over a Remodel/Loan), and I'll update the percentages. I think you'll find that it's not going to boost Loan's favorable % very well. I don't think the general consensus is that there are a lot of Combos of Loan/X that make it a good opener.

[FemurLemur]

Most of the time when you have Loan and another trasher in the kingdom, you get both.

I promise you, I don't. Most other Trashers can Trash 1 copper per shuffle, which is all Loan does for me, and I don't face the same high risk of them failing on other treasures the more my number of coppers decrease. A Trade Route in hand is far more likely to trash that last Copper (since I'll have 4 other cards in hand) than a Loan in hand milling through a deck of 3-4 Silvers and one final Copper. To make Loan work fully, I'm going to need Loan, another Trasher, and some non-terminal money from Action Cards (or +Card, or some other form of control that makes this strategy a house of cards).

Even though it does apply to Trade Route, it doesn't mean it's a weak card. If Forager is present, you're not going to buy Trade Route, but if you did buy Trade Route instead of your second Forager, you wouldn't be that far behind an opponent who just got two Foragers, and you would be quite far ahead an opponent who got something that doesn't trash instead of a second Forager in most kingdoms.

What an awfully contrived scenario. Trade Route will put me quite far ahead IF my opponent also buys something stupid on the 2nd buy? Well man, in that case, Pearl Diver is an amazing 2nd buy if your opponent buys a Curse on their 2nd buy. In fact, I'd say you'd be really far ahead in that case!

What exactly is your point? If I buy a better card than Trade Route first, Trade Route isn't going to sting quite so badly? That's a point in the other card's favor, not in Trade Route's favor. You admit yourself, you would not open with a Trade Route, and even if you buy a Trade Route over the 2nd Forager, that can only be worse or equal to opening with 2 Foragers. You can't just brush it off with "You won't be that far behind". You'll still be behind. It's still a worse decision to buy Trade Route than almost any other Trasher, and it's still most likely that any other Trasher will be there.

[markusin]

I was just objecting to Awaclus' comparison, which made it sound like TR and ST are part of some sort of "elite" group of dominion cards. They are below average - otherwise we wouldn't be making this discussion.

They aren't below average, people just compare them to other splitters and other Trashers and that's why they seem weaker than they really are

That's because it's an important comparison to make. By my slapdash estimate, there are 53 Trashers for thinning your starting deck with*, including Loan. That would mean that in 87.63% of games with Loan, there will be another Trasher in the Kingdom. If we're to assume that Loan is the weakest Trasher, that leaves only 12.37% of games where Loan is out and I actually want it. So I don't think it's helpful to tell a new player there are no weak Trashers. What you're really trying to tell them is: "Trashing as a mechanic is very powerful", which is different. Even though there are hypothetical Kingdoms where I want Loan, the majority of the time that it's out, I don't want it.

In response to everyone else saying Moneylender is solid: maybe I'm wrong then. I just always thought there were many better terminal Trashers. Thinning coppers is sweet, and the cash boost gives a nice head start. But it becomes a dead card soon (and if I'm gonna trash it, why don't I just open with that other Trasher instead?), it only defends against one specific subset of Junking attacks, and I'd rather be trashing my Estates than my Coppers. If it's the only Trasher, sure, I want it. But even in Base-Only Moneylender games, 60% of the time I'm gonna see Sentry and/or Chapel as well.

I think you still likely want Moneylender in a Sentry game to complement your Sentry, maybe even opening with Moneylender to help you hit $5 as it's functionally a Silver. Moneylender will speed up your trashing and clear out the straggling Coppers that Sentry has trouble finding.

[FemurLemur]

I was just objecting to Awaclus' comparison, which made it sound like TR and ST are part of some sort of "elite" group of dominion cards. They are below average - otherwise we wouldn't be making this discussion.

They aren't below average, people just compare them to other splitters and other Trashers and that's why they seem weaker than they really are

That's because it's an important comparison to make. By my slapdash estimate, there are 53 Trashers for thinning your starting deck with*, including Loan. That would mean that in 87.63% of games with Loan, there will be another Trasher in the Kingdom. If we're to assume that Loan is the weakest Trasher, that leaves only 12.37% of games where Loan is out and I actually want it. So I don't think it's helpful to tell a new player there are no weak Trashers. What you're really trying to tell them is: "Trashing as a mechanic is very powerful", which is different. Even though there are hypothetical Kingdoms where I want Loan, the majority of the time that it's out, I don't want it.

In response to everyone else saying Moneylender is solid: maybe I'm wrong then. I just always thought there were many better terminal Trashers. Thinning coppers is sweet, and the cash boost gives a nice head start. But it becomes a dead card soon (and if I'm gonna trash it, why don't I just open with that other Trasher instead?), it only defends against one specific subset of Junking attacks, and I'd rather be trashing my Estates than my Coppers. If it's the only Trasher, sure, I want it. But even in Base-Only Moneylender games, 60% of the time I'm gonna see Sentry and/or Chapel as well.

I think you still likely want Moneylender in a Sentry game to complement your Sentry, maybe even opening with Moneylender to help you hit $5 as it's functionally a Silver. Moneylender will speed up your trashing and clear out the straggling Coppers that Sentry has trouble finding.

Fair enough. I'll test it sometime. I don't doubt that Moneylender/Sentry can work well, and I'd do it if that's what I can afford first. But do you think that, on a turn you get $5, you'd really get a Moneylender over a 2nd Sentry?

[Awaclus]

Most of the time when you have Loan and another trasher in the kingdom, you get both.

I promise you, I don't. Most other Trashers can Trash 1 copper per shuffle, which is all Loan does for me, and I don't face the same high risk of them failing on other treasures the more my number of coppers decrease. A Trade Route in hand is far more likely to trash that last Copper (since I'll have 4 other cards in hand) than a Loan in hand milling through a deck of 3-4 Silvers and one final Copper. To make Loan work fully, I'm going to need Loan, another Trasher, and some non-terminal money from Action Cards (or +Card, or some other form of control that makes this strategy a house of cards).

Most other trashers don't also give you a Peddler effect in addition to trashing 1 Copper per shuffle. You don't face a high risk of Loans failing on other Treasures if you don't have many other Treasures and you almost certainly shouldn't have 3-4 Silvers even if Loan wasn't in the kingdom.

What an awfully contrived scenario. Trade Route will put me quite far ahead IF my opponent also buys something stupid on the 2nd buy? Well man, in that case, Pearl Diver is an amazing 2nd buy if your opponent buys a Curse on their 2nd buy. In fact, I'd say you'd be really far ahead in that case!

It's not supposed to demonstrate a scenario that happens in the game. It demonstrates how strong the effect of Trade Route is, even if you never buy it.

[FemurLemur]

Most of the time when you have Loan and another trasher in the kingdom, you get both.

I promise you, I don't. Most other Trashers can Trash 1 copper per shuffle, which is all Loan does for me, and I don't face the same high risk of them failing on other treasures the more my number of coppers decrease. A Trade Route in hand is far more likely to trash that last Copper (since I'll have 4 other cards in hand) than a Loan in hand milling through a deck of 3-4 Silvers and one final Copper. To make Loan work fully, I'm going to need Loan, another Trasher, and some non-terminal money from Action Cards (or +Card, or some other form of control that makes this strategy a house of cards).

You don't face a high risk of Loans failing on other Treasures if you don't have many other Treasures

Which is why I said you're going to need non-terminal money from Actions as well, which you left out when you said that Loan is good with other Trashers. You aren't just going to do Loan/Remodel by themselves. It relies on either non-terminal money or terminal money with reliable Villages or Throne Rooms. So this scenario in which Loan is a rock star keeps getting more and more specific the more we talk about it. What you're telling me sounds a lot like saying that your entire strategy gets hijacked in the attempt to make Loan not be really bad.

Compare that to just buying the other Trasher by itself, which will probably not need all of these moving pieces to make it feasible.

and you almost certainly shouldn't have 3-4 Silvers even if Loan wasn't in the kingdom.

My point of course being that the more treasures you have, the more crap Loan is for your deck. As opposed to most other Trashers which are going to keep working for you without discriminating over whether you get your money from treasures or actions.

What an awfully contrived scenario. Trade Route will put me quite far ahead IF my opponent also buys something stupid on the 2nd buy? Well man, in that case, Pearl Diver is an amazing 2nd buy if your opponent buys a Curse on their 2nd buy. In fact, I'd say you'd be really far ahead in that case!

It's not supposed to demonstrate a scenario that happens in the game. It demonstrates how strong the effect of Trade Route is, even if you never buy it.

Same with mine. I'm not saying your opponent would actually buy a Curse on turn 2, just that it demonstrates how strong the effect of a Pearl Diver is, even if you never buy it. Pearl Diver is like an 8 or 9 out of 10 by virtue of being a Cantrip and not being as bad as buying Curse on Turn 2.



Go ahead and take the last word, and then please stop responding to me. As I've explained once before when asking you to not talk with me, I don't think you're willing to be wrong about anything, and I don't think debate between the two of us will be fruitful.

[Awaclus]

Which is why I said you're going to need non-terminal money from Actions as well, which you left out when you said that Loan is good with other Trashers. You aren't just going to do Loan/Remodel by themselves. It relies on either non-terminal money or terminal money with reliable Villages or Throne Rooms. So this scenario in which Loan is a rock star keeps getting more and more specific the more we talk about it. What you're telling me sounds a lot like saying that your entire strategy gets hijacked in the attempt to make Loan not be really bad.

Compare that to just buying the other Trasher by itself, which will probably not need all of these moving pieces to make it feasible.

I'm not saying that you need Remodel to make Loan good. I'm saying that Loan/Loan and Loan/Silver are perfectly good openings if there are no Actions you want in the opening.

My point of course being that the more treasures you have, the more crap Loan is for your deck. As opposed to most other Trashers which are going to keep working for you without discriminating over whether you get your money from treasures or actions.

That's something you have to take into account when playing with Loan, not a reason to skip Loan.

Same with mine. I'm not saying your opponent would actually buy a Curse on turn 2, just that it demonstrates how strong the effect of a Pearl Diver is, even if you never buy it. Pearl Diver is like an 8 or 9 out of 10 by virtue of being a Cantrip and not being as bad as buying Curse on Turn 2.

Unlike Trade Route, Pearl Diver is not almost as good as Forager on turn 2. That analogy doesn't work.

Go ahead and take the last word, and then please stop responding to me. As I've explained once before when asking you to not talk with me, I don't think you're willing to be wrong about anything, and I don't think debate between the two of us will be fruitful.

It is true that I don't particularly enjoy being wrong. That's why I usually put a lot of effort into not being wrong, change my views when my old views turn out to be wrong, and shut up instead of talking out of my ass when I think there's a considerable chance I might be wrong.

[markusin]

I was just objecting to Awaclus' comparison, which made it sound like TR and ST are part of some sort of "elite" group of dominion cards. They are below average - otherwise we wouldn't be making this discussion.

They aren't below average, people just compare them to other splitters and other Trashers and that's why they seem weaker than they really are

That's because it's an important comparison to make. By my slapdash estimate, there are 53 Trashers for thinning your starting deck with*, including Loan. That would mean that in 87.63% of games with Loan, there will be another Trasher in the Kingdom. If we're to assume that Loan is the weakest Trasher, that leaves only 12.37% of games where Loan is out and I actually want it. So I don't think it's helpful to tell a new player there are no weak Trashers. What you're really trying to tell them is: "Trashing as a mechanic is very powerful", which is different. Even though there are hypothetical Kingdoms where I want Loan, the majority of the time that it's out, I don't want it.

In response to everyone else saying Moneylender is solid: maybe I'm wrong then. I just always thought there were many better terminal Trashers. Thinning coppers is sweet, and the cash boost gives a nice head start. But it becomes a dead card soon (and if I'm gonna trash it, why don't I just open with that other Trasher instead?), it only defends against one specific subset of Junking attacks, and I'd rather be trashing my Estates than my Coppers. If it's the only Trasher, sure, I want it. But even in Base-Only Moneylender games, 60% of the time I'm gonna see Sentry and/or Chapel as well.

I think you still likely want Moneylender in a Sentry game to complement your Sentry, maybe even opening with Moneylender to help you hit $5 as it's functionally a Silver. Moneylender will speed up your trashing and clear out the straggling Coppers that Sentry has trouble finding.

Fair enough. I'll test it sometime. I don't doubt that Moneylender/Sentry can work well, and I'd do it if that's what I can afford first. But do you think that, on a turn you get $5, you'd really get a Moneylender over a 2nd Sentry?

I did get Sentry/Moneylender instead of Sentry/Sentry in a game I played recently. I was going for a Minion stack, and I absolutely had to trash everything I could to get the deck where I wanted it to be. Native Village was on the board too, so I wanted to increase the chance of using Sentry to topdeck Province to set aside on the Native Village mat.

Admittedly, I was getting Minion over a second Sentry there.

[FemurLemur]

I was just objecting to Awaclus' comparison, which made it sound like TR and ST are part of some sort of "elite" group of dominion cards. They are below average - otherwise we wouldn't be making this discussion.

They aren't below average, people just compare them to other splitters and other Trashers and that's why they seem weaker than they really are

That's because it's an important comparison to make. By my slapdash estimate, there are 53 Trashers for thinning your starting deck with*, including Loan. That would mean that in 87.63% of games with Loan, there will be another Trasher in the Kingdom. If we're to assume that Loan is the weakest Trasher, that leaves only 12.37% of games where Loan is out and I actually want it. So I don't think it's helpful to tell a new player there are no weak Trashers. What you're really trying to tell them is: "Trashing as a mechanic is very powerful", which is different. Even though there are hypothetical Kingdoms where I want Loan, the majority of the time that it's out, I don't want it.

In response to everyone else saying Moneylender is solid: maybe I'm wrong then. I just always thought there were many better terminal Trashers. Thinning coppers is sweet, and the cash boost gives a nice head start. But it becomes a dead card soon (and if I'm gonna trash it, why don't I just open with that other Trasher instead?), it only defends against one specific subset of Junking attacks, and I'd rather be trashing my Estates than my Coppers. If it's the only Trasher, sure, I want it. But even in Base-Only Moneylender games, 60% of the time I'm gonna see Sentry and/or Chapel as well.

I think you still likely want Moneylender in a Sentry game to complement your Sentry, maybe even opening with Moneylender to help you hit $5 as it's functionally a Silver. Moneylender will speed up your trashing and clear out the straggling Coppers that Sentry has trouble finding.

Fair enough. I'll test it sometime. I don't doubt that Moneylender/Sentry can work well, and I'd do it if that's what I can afford first. But do you think that, on a turn you get $5, you'd really get a Moneylender over a 2nd Sentry?

I did get Sentry/Moneylender instead of Sentry/Sentry in a game I played recently. I was going for a Minion stack, and I absolutely had to trash everything I could to get the deck where I wanted it to be. Native Village was on the board too, so I wanted to increase the chance of using Sentry to topdeck Province to set aside on the Native Village mat.

Admittedly, I was getting Minion over a second Sentry there.

Cool! Thanks for the idea!

[filovirus]

I took the Adam ranking system and assigned a rating based on his raw data. I rated each card in either S, A, B, and C tiers. This was what I was looking for. The peak number of cards fell into the A-/B+ range. Nine "S" cards. Four "C-" cards.

I know not many people will find this data useful for them as expressed in the thread, but if you would like a copy, PM me directly and I will give you a copy of my Excel spreadsheet.