I have changed my ratings. You all have provided your insight. I have stirred up controversy by saying many hot takes. This time, I will give my rational thoughts in detail. This is where you can point later and say "aha you were wrong" two years down the road. I won't be releasing a tier list for this because my thoughts are still subject to change but here it is. The complete Nocturne Listing.
Nocturne ItselfThe set is... not Donald's finest work. The cards play fantastically enough on their own, but play the entire set as a whole and it becomes a giant sloggy mess.
Don't believe me? If you care about building engines like me, you're going to be disappointed. There are engine cards in Nocturne, but the best way to put it is this: Nocturne is the Medic Class of Dominion. Most of the cards are nice complements, supports. There is not too much that just straight up wins you the game, but a lot of subtle moves. Now is this subtlety because of fantastic design or because of the cards being weaker? Is there really a difference? Anyways, your full random boards on average will be a lot more interesting with Nocturne around. Just don't go playing all-Nocturne unless you love playing variations of money most of the time.
Druid The best of the +buy $2 cost series (if that is even a thing) which includes such hits as Candlestick maker and Pawn. Candlestick Maker is more consistent so you can easily make the case that it is better, but Druid contains so much potential upside and flexibility. The Workshop, Will-O-Wisp and Trash Boon are all worth pursuing; the odds of one or more of them showing up is 62%. Not that statistics with Druid even matter in the context of the particular instead of the abstract. Druid is heavily board dependent.
Grade: CFaithful Hound Tons upon tons of cute tricks with Faithful Hound make this card have more utility than Moat, but at the end of the day it's still a Moat draw. Try Faithful Hound with cyclers like Dungeon and Forum! You will not be upset.
Grade: C+GuardianIt's Lighthouse, except you can't draw it dead, you get only one turn of economy from it, and you can tactically buy it to use on the same turn. Eh.
Grade: C+MonasteryAbsurdly strong trashing card. It's straight up delayed Bonfire at worst, and it can trash other stuff from your hand too. It can't trash midturn for the rare cases where that matters but man do you even care.
Grade: APixieThis is an underrated card from the cantrip do something $2 cost series (if that is even a thing) with cards like Pearl Diver and Haven. Haven might be better, but popping a relatively cheap card to get twice the amount of Boons is awesome. And if not, you go Boon fishing. Pixie is the best way to get buys from Boons since it can cycle through them with relative ease, being a cantrip.
Grade: C+TrackerThis card has been so surprisingly good that it has made me reconsider Royal Seal's strength. Obviously don't open with it, but Pouch makes picking this guy up on a spare buy so easy, and the rewards are immense. Royal Seal is weak because it competes with $5 costs. Obviously Tracker doesn't do that. And the potential Boon bonuses are just icing on the cake. But this is for sure an engine card. It's also weaker than Watchtower, duh do I even need to say that.
Grade: C+ChangelingI love Changeling, and it continues the Nocturne theme of support. The exchange is nice and basically ensures you never have to waste a buy on Changeling. The Night effect is also a delayed Duplicate, but for anything in play instead of a cost limit. So really it's nothing like Duplicate at all.
Grade: BFoolFool is not a bad card. You heard me. It's not bad in the sense that it's the worst card in Dominion. But don't take that as an invitation to call it a good card. It's a fine opening. Fool really shines in Big Money. Lost in the Woods really bolsters hands with dead cards, like for example that single Province you bought in your Smithy/Delve deck. Fool is a mighty fine opener on most all-Nocturne sets. Is it a mighty fine opener on a random board? Well...
Grade: C-Ghost TownYou get this when you want Fishing Village minus opening scenarios. Pretty much the same card.
Grade: ALeprechaunIf you want evidence that Hexes are usually weak, look no further than Leprechaun. You'll occasionally get fucked when playing it for the Hex, but by and far money doesn't mind the Leprechaun opening at all. The Gold gain is nice. And for engines, Leprechaun is awesome. It gains a Gold for TfB
and it also gets Wishes for you! Alas it is terminal, but stronger than I was expecting.
Grade: C+Night WatchmanBold prediction: A lot of people are currently underrating this card for the same reason Cartographer is underrated. Hell, Tracer called it a Scout when he first saw it. It's a consistency machine. You can buy it and gain to hand, playing it instantly. You can trigger bad shuffles. You can save bad shuffle triggers. You can set up your next turn. This will be a high skill card. I'm calling it now.
Grade: B+Secret CaveEh. It's a worse Mill and the money is delayed. You can get lucky and spike Inheritance and piss people off, or you can draw it with your hand full of economy. Either way, it's a nice complement to Magic Lamp, which will be the likely reason you ever pick this card up. That being said, it could be a thing with Double Tactician. All it takes is a bit of draw (a Moat's worth) and three discard attempts make a Province.
Grade: D+BardDon't let
Awaclus's post fool you into thinking that Bard is anything but weak. Sure, it's a fine card to have in the first shuffle, but the lack of consistency with Boons and its terminalness really kill it afterward.
Grade: D-Blessed VillageOne of the best Village variants. It isn't a world beater like Port or Border Village, but the on-gain effect and the choice of activating now or next turn is fantastic! There's not much else to say.
Grade: ACemeteryPeople say this card is awkward to trash with. Is it though? You can gain it with anything, the on-trash activates. Boom. Done. Just because it isn't Chapel doesn't mean it isn't a great Trashing card.
Grade: A-ConclaveOkay. It's not S. That was overblowing it. But man it's A. It's Conspirator on crack. It forces you to play diverse engines which is usually the way to go in 2017 anyways so it makes you a better player just for using it. You can't say that about Pawn.
Grade: A+Devil's WorkshopOkay. It's not an S. That was overblowing it. But man it's A. It's Conspirator on crack. It forces you to play diverse engines which is usually the way to go in... wait, we're not talking about Imp? Eh. If you're getting this you're getting it for Imp. It's an Imp machine. If you're not getting Imps, it's a lot lot weaker.
Grade: AExorcistA nice Remodel variant, if you can squint to see the analogy. Trash an Estate, get a lab in Will-O-Wisp. Pretty sweet deal to me. No more of this "trashing one Estate equals a Lab" nonsense, now you can do both and really complicate the argument entirely. You're welcome. Ghost is worth sacking a $5 for. Please don't hesitate. But be smart about it too. Which means hesitate. So don't hesitate, unless you should hesitate. For example, don't trash your only draw card to get Ghost. And wow it can both get rid of Silver
and give you an Imp? I just found Phillip's favorite card.
Grade: A-NecromancerIf you've been dying to see a great Necromancer game in action,
look no further. By the way, if you're not subscribed to Mic Qsenoch you should be. So Necromancer is the really puzzling card people don't know about so people call it weak. I'm willing to bet that doesn't change too much. If there's a board where there's an engine but terrible draw or you need some cycling, Necromancer has you covered with the Zombie Apprentice. The Zombie Mason is terrible, but not as terrible as the Zombie Spy. You can scout with the Zombie Spy to make sure you trash a good card with Zombie Mason, but man does that feel like a giant waste of potential or what? Anyways I am willing to bet Necromancer is terrible minus some niche boards with things like Knights, Lurkers and Death Carts/Ruins stuff.
Grade: D+ShepherdThe card nobody knows how to spell. Including me. Man remember the hype around
Shephard Shepherd and how OP it was at $4? Oh wait that was just me saying that. Anyways, despite being Crossroads on crack it's not busted at all. It's a great draw card, a great cycler, and you even don't mind triggering bad shuffles with all those discarded Victory cards if you have enough Shepherds.
Grade: A-SkulkDo you hear that? People are becoming Skulk apologists. They whisper in the streets, saying that you get a free Gold with it, Skulk is also a +buy card and hey it also attacks. People were down on Skulk, now they're up with Skulk which really means they just grasp what the card can do better than they did before. It's still awful.
Grade: D+CobblerLots of varying opinions on this one. Some say it's slow and not good. Others say it's very strong. All of this points to "it depends on the board" talk and varying experiences. I'm willing to bet that gaining a $4 to your hand is pretty nice. I'm also willing to bet that it's incredibly slow, getting effectively .5 gains a Turn. The gaining to hand should win out here.
Grade: B+CryptA spooky mysterious card, and by that I mean it's mysterious to me. People like Dan Brooks swear on getting 4 of them. People like Tracer swear on getting 0 of them. I don't know about you but I'm going to side with the guy who won
the ShuffleIT Championship. But since I don't see it personally, I can't give it a super super high score. How does B- sound?
Grade: B-Cursed VillageI heard rumors that this card was immensely strong. Man how slightly wrong they turned out to be. Which isn't to say Cursed Village is bad. Man it is not. Really it's Library+ because of the taco/anti-terminal/please-call-it-anything-but-village-because-reasons effect, but it draws a bit less and there's none of that cycling action you get with Library. (Aren't stupid comparisons awesome?) Again, getting Hexed means a whole lot of heck of nothing most of the time. Oh man, I have to discard down to three when I played all my Treasures already. Oh man, I have to gain a Copper that I'll just trash next turn to my Spice Merchant. You get the picture.
Grade: A-Den Of SinIt essentially draws +3 cards on the following turn. Or it's pretty much a Wharf. Whatever comparison you like best man, I don't judge. It's a dead card in hand, which makes people question how good that dead card is versus the next turn benefit. Is there a cutoff point? That might hold true with Ghost Town, but probably not with Den Of Sin. I can get 4 of these guys down a turn and I don't miss a beat.
Grade: AIdolThe Cursing is good. Very good. Because it's Cursing. That's still good, even in a world with Donate and mega engines that end on T12. Okay, maybe Idol won't be your ideal Curser on the T12 ending board, but it's a relatively painless cost with Donate. You don't spend an Action. Oh and sometimes you get a nice Boon. How about that. But the main thing is it's a non-terminal Curser.
Grade: B-PookaYou all have probably all been waiting for this. I have called it the worst card in Nocturne. I absolutely
hate Pooka because I want it to be good. It's such a disappointment. It trashes and draws +4 Cards? Man that's good! But what it comes packaged with really is the killer: Cursed Gold. Picking up a Pooka with Cursed Gold is asking for trouble without major support. Having a deck with 1 Curse, 3 Estates, 1 Cursed Gold (which pretty much becomes an Estate since you don't want to play it to get Cursed again) and 5 Copper with your Pooka after one single use. That's 5 junk cards with 5 economy cards. Horrible. And oh, you want to trash those Curses? Well have I got a deal for you, Cursed Gold can let you buy that Sentry already. Who needs ol' Pooka? Nobody, that's who. But who cares about Pooka, because Cursed Gold adds so much to your game plan that you don't even miss having a 9 card Kingdom most of the time.
(Pooka's best friend is Monastery though. Keep that in mind. Cursed Gold lets you trash twice if you have Monastery in hand.)Grade: FSacred GroveGood money card, you'll get this when you need +Buy anyways, so stop pouting and pick it up. Also the Boons suck a lot more now because your opponents can get benefits potentially. Next.
Grade: C+TormentorTormentor is Bard, but with Hexes which are worse than Boons despite the insistence of people with negativity bias. Ew. Oh and it costs more. But wait it gains Imps. So yeah, you'll probably be sacrificing turns to use a glorified Workshop if you happen to land it in hand at the start of your turn. But Imps are worth that for sure, right? I have no idea. But forget about your Wharf engine and this thing.
Grade: FTragic HeroPretty decent card but of course since Nocturne hates Engines they put this guy in there. You're not allowed to build engines in Nocturne. It's official now. Tragic Hero is tragic because you could have built a sweet sweet engine. Nah, I'm just joking, it's not that bad. Just play with Festivals and Fishing Villages and other disappearing Actions.
Grade: BVampirePretty good card. I think most people can agree on that. But man is it slow at trashing. Overall pretty good though.
Grade: A-WerewolfPretty good card. I think most people can agree on that. Hexes get more annoying when you can chain them a ton for sure, so there's no reason to not pick up a trillion Werewolves. It denies them and you still get to use them!
Grade: A-RaiderLastFootnote has told me this guy has untapped potential. We're all using it wrong. So I have some experiments to run in the future. For now though, it will retain it's status as slightly better/worse than Gold based on the situation.
Grade: C+And there you have it.