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[LaLight]

The Best Cards (Bottom half)

LaLight provides comments for odd ranks and markus for even ranks.

	#82 =0 Pirate Ship (Seaside) Weighted Average: 3.9% Unweighted Average: 6.1% Median: 2.5% Standard Deviation: 8.4% Pirate Ship is the new worst card of this list due to the removal of first edition cards (Scout, Thief, and Feast if you want to feel nostalgic). And it's a clear last place with not much disagreement. Let's just say that there are very few boards for 2-player games in which you want to get them. Getting Coppers trashed is just too useful for the opponent.
	#81 =0 Bureaucrat (Base) Weighted Average: 7.0% Unweighted Average: 9.8% Median: 3.7% Standard Deviation: 12.5% Bureaucrat stays on the same second-to-last position as the last year which is not a surprise: adding a stop card onto the deck, a very weak attack that mostly does nothing if your opponent has a good deck, no immediate bonus. It was voted last 7 times and once above average.
	#80 =0 Navigator (Seaside) Weighted Average: 7.3% Unweighted Average: 10.5% Median: 7.4% Standard Deviation: 16.0% Sometimes Navigator's effect can be nice (if reordering is useful). But often it won't do enough to be worth getting it with a terminal silver.
	#79 ▼2 Noble Brigand (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 8.8% Unweighted Average: 11.4% Median: 7.4% Standard Deviation: 13.1% Noble Brigand is a new Thief. It fell 2 ranks since the previous year. The more alt treasures there exists the more useless Noble Brigand gets, given that people now hesitate to buy Silver if either Charm or Relic is on table. Noble Brigand was voted last 6 times and once above average.
	#78 =0 Treasure Map (Seaside) Weighted Average: 9.6% Unweighted Average: 10.8% Median: 8.6% Standard Deviation: 10.0% Treasure Map has been consistently near the bottom for some years now. Sometimes Treasure Map can be useful to add Golds to your engine, if there's no virtual coin. But then you really want to draw them in the same turn to prevent a hand that "just" buys 1 Province on the next turn.
	#77 ▼13 Ritual (Empires) Weighted Average: 13.3% Unweighted Average: 17.8% Median: 11.1% Standard Deviation: 20.5% Here’s to the first huge loser in the list: Ritual. As time goes people get more and more disappointed in Ritual that requires adding a Curse to your deck for 10 points maximum (if you trashed the Colony). If you have no way of trashing the Curse, it’s bad. If there are strong cursing attacks on board, it’s bad. All in all, Ritual is a niche card-shaped thing, which is rarely useful. It was voted last once, but there is also one vote putting it into top 10.
	#76 ▼5 Feodum (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 13.8% Unweighted Average: 16.0% Median: 8.6% Standard Deviation: 16.0% Feodum has lost some ranks again. It's mostly only useful when there's some strong silver gainer as a strategy of its own (in particular with Masterpiece). Otherwise the typical deck doesn't have many silvers such that it's often not better than Estate.
	#75 =0 Taxman (Guilds) Weighted Average: 15.1% Unweighted Average: 18.4% Median: 12.4% Standard Deviation: 18.2% The younger brother of Bureaucrat, Taxman. It stays on the same position as in the last year unlike Tax and was voted last once. Taxman is a very mediocre attack, it takes money from you on this turn, adding a stopcard for the second and it’s not guaranteed that your opponent will discard a card. Taxman can be used for attacking opponent by trashing e.g. Gold -> Gold and drawing it back, but it requires a lot for performing this “combo”.
	#74 ▲2 Talisman (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 17.1% Unweighted Average: 17.4% Median: 16.1% Standard Deviation: 11.2% Talisman can shine when there are cards costing up to 4 that you want many of - or if there's cost reduction. On the usual board, you want to get trashers first and get to 5, such that opening Talisman is not very helpful. Later on, you forego a 4-cost by buying Talisman first, such that it's questionable whether getting Talisman pays off.
	#73 ▲6 Rocks (Empires) Weighted Average: 19.0% Unweighted Average: 20.7% Median: 10.0% Standard Deviation: 22.4% Rocks is a winner in the list going up 6 places. If you get to the Rocks, they rock! Catapulting Rocks is effectively +$2, opponent discards to 3 and gains a Curse, which is quite strong for $3 card, but the problem is that it is a card people rarely see in 2-player games because no one really needs 2-3 Catapults in deck, especially when there is another trasher. Rocks was voted 6 times above average.
	#72 =0 Death Cart (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 19.1% Unweighted Average: 25.4% Median: 14.8% Standard Deviation: 19.9% Death Cart is good for spiking coins, if you need that early, but often it can be ignored. It can be useful for cleaning up the deck after getting junked by Cultists.
	#71 ▲2 Nomad Camp (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 19.5% Unweighted Average: 22.1% Median: 19.8% Standard Deviation: 15.2% Nomad Camp went 2 places up compared to the last year. Nomad Camp is a situational card and you are not always happy it goes onto your deck, because it is still a stop card. But it is still a good Woodcutter variant that everyone will buy here or there.
	#70 ▼5 Silk Road (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 20.2% Unweighted Average: 22.8% Median: 18.5% Standard Deviation: 17.4% Silk Road has lost another 5 ranks and has been losing consistently since being in the top third in 2013. There are few boards on which you really want to rush them. Most often it's something you get while greening when you can't afford Duchy.
	#69 ▼1 Trader (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 21.9% Unweighted Average: 25.2% Median: 19.8% Standard Deviation: 18.7% Trader lost one position since the last year. It is still a perfectly average card that can REALLY shine in a tie with Feodum, Cache, Treasure Trove, etc. The problem of Trader is that it still gives you Silver and you are not always happy to have it in your deck. Trader was voted above average 3 times.
	#68 ▲6 Rats (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 22.3% Unweighted Average: 25.0% Median: 19.8% Standard Deviation: 19.7% Rats has gained another 6 ranks, although adding and replacing cards has moved it further down in the list. When there's some trash for benefit, they're often worth getting. Don't buy them, if they're the only trasher. Sometimes it's possible to win a game by eating the rest of your deck and piling out Rats as the third pile.
	#67  Bard (Nocturne) Weighted Average: 24.6% Unweighted Average: 24.1% Median: 18.5% Standard Deviation: 16.5% And here goes the first Nocturne card in the set. Bard is 12 cards in 1 and as it is perfectly fine with almost every Boon it gives, the biggest problem of Bard is the randomness. Bard was voted 3 times above average.
	#66 ▲2 Island (Seaside) Weighted Average: 25.3% Unweighted Average: 29.4% Median: 24.7% Standard Deviation: 19.2% Island stays about where it was. Most of the times there's better ways to get rid of your bad cards, as Island can usually only remove one card from your deck. The VP lead you could get from having Islands is quickly overcome by someone who gets to more Provinces faster.
	#65 ▼3 Gardens (Base) Weighted Average: 27.5% Unweighted Average: 31.2% Median: 22.2% Standard Deviation: 25.7% Gardens fell 3 places since the last year, as I think mostly due to appearance of much more ways to alt-VP and more good quality trashing. Though Gardens still has its niche, and was voted 9 times above average.
	#64 ▲2 Miser (Adventures) Weighted Average: 28.4% Unweighted Average: 33.1% Median: 23.5% Standard Deviation: 23.8% Miser stays about where it was. It is relatively slow and often there's a better trasher. If not, and if there's everything else for an engine it can be worth going for as "trasher" and payload. It also suffers from making it difficult to buy cards early on - therefore it plays quite nicely with Alms.
	#63 ▼3 Baron (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 28.7% Unweighted Average: 32.7% Median: 29.4% Standard Deviation: 19.8% Baron lost 3 positions compared to the last year. Baron is a good payload card, but it requires 1 or more Estates in your deck, and given the overall trend of more good, strong trashing, it is not always justified to leave an Estate. It is still a good opener to early spike an expensive card and was voted 4 times above average.
	#62 ▲7 Messenger (Adventures) Weighted Average: 29.1% Unweighted Average: 29.2% Median: 23.5% Standard Deviation: 16.5% Messenger has gained quite a few ranks relative to the old cards, bringing it close to Scavenger. It's different functions make it often worth to get at least one: the on-buy effect can be useful to distribute a card that you need more or get to play earlier, a card that only you get because there's 1 copy left, or some junk that slows down the game or that you can handle better than your opponent. Often it's a good source of +buy that you need. And the discard effect can be quite useful, if you track your deck, and you need to worry less about triggering bad shuffles.
	#61 ▼15 Salt the Earth (Empires) Weighted Average: 31.2% Unweighted Average: 30.0% Median: 25.0% Standard Deviation: 22.6% One of the hugest losers of the year: Salt the Earth. As it looks quite cool to trash Victory cards from the supply and get VP for it, on practice this Event is almost never game deciding. It’s good when you have some buys and want to suddenly end the game, it comboes with Baths, but other than that it rarely shines. Salt the Earth was voted 5 times above average.
	#60 ▲1 Pilgrimage (Adventures) Weighted Average: 31.5% Unweighted Average: 32.7% Median: 29.6% Standard Deviation: 18.9% Pilgrimage stays close to where it was and it probably could be ranked even lower. In practice, you get it mid-game, if you don't hit 5 but build your deck around cards that cost more than 4. It can shine when you can't buy cards but events and when there are other cards around using the Journey token as you can either activate Pilgrimage every turn or make sure that for example Ranger is activated on your next turn.
	#59 ▼3 Horse Traders (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 31.9% Unweighted Average: 37.0% Median: 34.6% Standard Deviation: 18.1% Horse Traders have lost 3 positions since the last year and landed on 59th. HT is a good card, whose reaction rarely matters and it’s always surprising to remember that it has a reaction at all. Despite having strong interaction with some new Nocturne cards (Faithful Hound, Cursed Village) community still thinks Horse Traders is quite weak.
	#58 ▼3 Scavenger (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 33.4% Unweighted Average: 33.6% Median: 30.9% Standard Deviation: 21.2% Scavenger loses a few ranks. It's mainly useful to cycle through your deck faster in the beginning and to topdeck useful cards, when you don't draw your deck. Sometimes it's useful to topdeck a specific card in the middle of your turn, but overall that doesn't warrant a higher rank for Scavenger.
	#57 ▲1 Cutpurse (Seaside) Weighted Average: 33.9% Unweighted Average: 34.4% Median: 27.9% Standard Deviation: 17.6% Cutpurse became 1 rank better compared to the last year and ended on 57th position. Cutpurse is still quite a good opener for hitting $5 on the second shuffle and deny the same to your opponent. Even the presence of Heirlooms haven’t hurt Cutpurse’ rating mostly because your opponent still would have at least one Copper on their hand. Cutpurse was ranked 10 times above average.
	#56  Secret Passage (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 36.1% Unweighted Average: 38.4% Median: 32.1% Standard Deviation: 21.7% Secret Passage is the second lowest new card this year. There are some uses to it that make you pick it up mid game, if there's nothing better going on. It's useful if you care about the position of a specific card, e.g. for Herald. It provides consistency within your turn because you can get to your villages and draws early on and stash the stop cards further down in your draw pile. And it can be useful to set up your next turn. Therefore, you're usually happy to have some in your deck, but often you feel like there's more important cards to buy.
	#55 ▲9 Armory (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 40.8% Unweighted Average: 39.3% Median: 35.8% Standard Deviation: 19.5% Here’s to another big winner: Armory. Armory gets better every year, but it’s the first time it got this much of a boost. The increase in amount of very good cheap cards played its part in Armory rating. And with Tracker present people realised the power of topdecking. Armory was ranked above average 10 times.
	#54  Necromancer (Nocturne) Weighted Average: 42.3% Unweighted Average: 43.2% Median: 40.7% Standard Deviation: 19.0% Necromancer gets its first rating in the bottom half, but I can see it rising in the next years. First, using Zombie Mason to trash is nice, if there are no strong and cheap trashers around. Zombie Apprentice or any other trash for benefits / trashing attacks are reasons for Action cards ending up in the trash. At that point, you can often build a reliable engine using the trashed cards and both players start getting Necromancers. Tragic Hero is a card that goes particularly well with Necromancer as it easily trashes itself and then provides draw, +buy and can gain (at least) Gold when you play it from the trash.
	#53 ▼3 Duplicate (Adventures) Weighted Average: 42.6% Unweighted Average: 49.6% Median: 43.2% Standard Deviation: 22.0% Duplicate has lost 3 ranks since the last year. Though it looks like Duplicate can be really powerful for unexpected 3-piling and gaining a lot of cool cards in one turn, the problem of playing them all is still a problem.  Other than that Nocturne Cards encourage different cards strategy, so this can be a reason for Duplicate to fall a little. But still Duplicate was ranked above average 15 times and has 5 ranks more in unweighted ranking.
	#52  Skulk (Nocturne) Weighted Average: 42.8% Unweighted Average: 42.4% Median: 39.5% Standard Deviation: 20.5% Skulk is another new card with a rating a bit worse than the median card. In my experience, it is a card that you often get for some purpose but it hardly shines - it can only be crucial if you need it as the only +buy. It can also shine when you can trash Skulk for benefits. And hexing the opponent slows them down a bit and can sometimes be quite gruesome.
	#51  Poacher (Base) Weighted Average: 43.1% Unweighted Average: 42.8% Median: 40.7% Standard Deviation: 16.9% Poacher is a Peddler variant brought to us in the second edition of Base game. It is a simple cards which although has its uses and requires a thorough thinking on how many and when you want and whether underpowering opponent’s Poachers is worth underpowering yours.
	#50 ▼6 Ranger (Adventures) Weighted Average: 44.2% Unweighted Average: 44.2% Median: 44.4% Standard Deviation: 22.3% Ranger has lost quite a few ranks and I could see it a bit higher. It provides draw and + buy for your engine. Although it draws only 2.5 cards on average, this doesn't have to be a disadvantage: the important thing is to have it activated for the first play of your turns. Then, your turns can be quite consistent, whereas having to play 2 Villages and 2 Rangers before kicking off is tough.
	#49 =0 Remodel (Base) Weighted Average: 46.6% Unweighted Average: 50.1% Median: 48.2% Standard Deviation: 21.9% After gaining ranks in the last three years it seems that Remodel has found its spot. Although with the addition of a couple of Gold gainers in Nocturne should get this card higher than it is, so we will see.
	#48 ▼15 Monument (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 47.0% Unweighted Average: 52.0% Median: 48.2% Standard Deviation: 19.2% 5 years ago, Monument was ranked in the top 10, last year it was still in the top third of cards. Adding Empires probably made it less important and contributed to the decline. I can see it rising a bit again next year when people play more with Nocturne. But then the weighted average is significantly lower than the unweighted one, so I might be wrong. Its importantness depends on the availability of Alt-VP. In the absence of those, the points that get accumulated by having 1-2 Monuments can be crucial in the end. Sometimes the whole strategy revolves around playing many Monuments.
	#47 ▼7 Bishop (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 48.5% Unweighted Average: 57.8% Median: 51.9% Standard Deviation: 23.1% Bishop is again big loser of the year, losing 7 ranks. Mostly the presence of a lot more ways to get VP is a reason why Bishop keeps falling lower and lower. Still Bishop has quite a number of combos, not the least of them being Donate.
	#46 ▲7 Walled Village (Promo) Weighted Average: 48.9% Unweighted Average: 43.7% Median: 45.7% Standard Deviation: 18.6% Walled Village gained another 7 ranks, but it is still the worst Village on this list. Early on in the game, its effect can be nice, but most of the times it's "only" a normal Village.
	#45  Conclave (Nocturne) Weighted Average: 49.3% Unweighted Average: 55.5% Median: 53.1% Standard Deviation: 20.4% Another Nocturne card and anti-terminal, Conclave. Conclave is one of the cards presented in Nocturne that requires a lot of thinking about how many and when to buy. It can be an OP Village or a terminal silver depending on situation. And Conclave obviously shines the most in Black Market games. Conclave was rated first once.
	#44 ▲5 Mission (Adventures) Weighted Average: 50.3% Unweighted Average: 42.3% Median: 35.8% Standard Deviation: 28.3% Mission gained a few ranks and it is significantly better ranked among better players. It also has the highest standard deviation of all cards. I think it is indeed hard to judge because it shines on some boards when you can do useful things with your deck on a Mission turn (trashing, attacking, upgrading travellers, setting up durations, buying events,...). But often it's better to just buy some other card instead.
	#43 ▲11 Engineer (Empires) Weighted Average: 51.4% Unweighted Average: 46.8% Median: 43.4% Standard Deviation: 19.3% A big winner of the year, Engineer! Gaining cards up to $4 gets better and better and Engineer is the second card after Armory to prove this. Considering the ability to trash itself, Engineer is a must-have in a lot of decks.
	#42  Cemetery (Nocturne) Weighted Average: 52.4% Unweighted Average: 54.2% Median: 51.9% Standard Deviation: 22.6% Cemetery gets its first ranking as the best card of the bottom half. It's nice that it allows you to effectively trash 3 cards (and thereby to sometimes get a Ghost), but the problem early on is that you need to afford it and still have enough junk in your hand. Therefore, it goes well with workshop variants and larger hand-size. I can see it rising in the next years.

[Awaclus]

Miser and Cemetery are super underrated.

[LibraryAdventurer]

The other lists so far were kindof mostly close to the way I ranked them, but a lot of these are way off. Necromancer, Cemetary, Bard, Ranger, Remodel are all significantly underrated, and I don't understand why Monument and Bishop have gone down so much. And why haven't we seen Mill yet? How is Farming Village above Conclave?
etc.

Some highlights from my ranking:
67  Skulk
61  Mill
53  Bard
50  Farming Village
48  Horse Traders
39  Necromancer
38  Ranger
34  Remodel
22  Cemetery
20  Monument
15  Bishop

[Awaclus]

And why haven't we seen Mill yet?

Because it's ridiculously strong.

[faust]

Some highlights from my list:

#81 Rocks: I think this may be distorted by playing mostly two-player? I can seen Rocks be more relevant in multiplayer, but the Curses are usually mostly gone once you get to Rocks, if you ever do.
#64 Skulk: Well it's just not very good outside of TfB.
#63 Poacher: Too many games have one pile run out quickly.
#51 Miser: In games where it is good, it's dominating.

And, of course...

#29 Conclave: anti-terminals are pretty good. This suffers from not drawing, but it provides good ecomony. Speaking of that,...
#20 Walled Village: anti-terminal is the main effect of all Village cards, and that effect is pretty good. They should therefore be ranked closely together, and close to the top.

[markusin]

And why haven't we seen Mill yet?

Because it's ridiculously strong.

Indeed. Mill does that Horse Traders thing of making it really easy to hit $5 early, except it does it non-terminally and doesn't clog your deck up or anything when it's not discarding cards. Thinking it's just Great Hall with a gimmicky bonus tacked on is a huge mistake.

It's really a double Oasis on demand, letting your deck get good stuff way more often than you think it should in the face of junkers.

And being an Action-Victory card, sometimes that matters.

[Jimmmy]

I think nocturne cards could be higher.
-Necromancer just has too many synergies.
-Conclave is a great opener along with a terminal 3 cost. Turn 3/4 you can hit 5$ and already have a village (conclave), for the case your 5cost is also a
terminal.
-Cemetery is super great with gainers, alms, trash for benefits. Other than that its still okay, and people would buy it endgame just for the 2VP for 4$
-Skulk gives economy early, but it might not be better than #52
-Bard: I think its pretty weak

[aku_chi]

I'm calling it now: you guys are underrating Skulk.  Skulk is a Gold plus some other card which is usually better than nothing.  Skulk is great as engine payload once you have your deck under control.  It provides coin, buy, and an attack.  You can even gain it on the cheap with cards like Ironworks and Engineer.  Yeah, it's two cards, so you need decent draw to support Skulk.  Let's do some switcheroo on the cards you get from Skulk.  Imagine they were the following:
    Terminal action, provides , hexes opponent.
    Treasure, provides and +buy.
These transposed cards are Tormentor without the Imp-gaining and Pouch (a Candlestick Maker variant).  If you're drawing and playing both Skulk and Gold, these are the effects you're getting.  Pretty great value for a measly .

Skulk becomes even better with trash-for-benefit: you get $10 worth of card value for $4 (Compare with the other great TFB targets: Border Village provides $11 value for $6 and Peddler provides $8 value for $0-2).

Skulk is also great in non-engine strategies where Gold is a good card (so, ~all of them).  In these games, getting a Gold and attack early is pretty powerful.  If there's good filtering (Dungeon, Scouting Party, etc...), you can load up on Skulks early to get a bunch of Golds into your hands.  Skulk also has a nice in-set synergy with Changeling.

I think Skulk compares favorably with Marauder and pretty clearly belongs in the top half of $4 cards.

Also, Mission and Cemetery seem seriously underranked to me.

[werothegreat]

Skulk is good, Farming Village is bad.

The real question is, will Remake retain its hold on top spot?  Every other list seems to have a pretty solid #1 that can't be shaken - Chapel, Ambassador, Mountebank, King's Court - but the $4's have shuffled around a bit.

[Chris is me]

Skulk is slightly better than it was ranked, as it is a solid opener, the Hex attack is actually disruptive, and the Gold gives you enough economy to skip Silver and use your $3 on something else.

Poacher is also really underrated. The empty piles thing is a bummer but that doesn’t change the strength of the card in the beginning of the game.m, and if piles do empty it’s at worst TFB fuel.

But by far the most underrated card here is Mission, which should be in the top 20.

[Cuzz]

My hot take is that Pirate Ship is better than dead last, even in 2 player. Trashing opponent’s copper is bad, but you can win a game by taking advantage of someone who has already thinned down and is banking on one or two silver or gold to build their engine up. Being able to pick which treasure to trash is huge, and in those rare games when it gets up to a terminal $6 or $7, you’re almost immune to greening.

It’s obviously bad in general but I’d put it above Bureaucrat, Navigator and Noble Brigand for sure.

[werothegreat]

My hot take is that Pirate Ship is better than dead last, even in 2 player. Trashing opponent’s copper is bad, but you can win a game by taking advantage of someone who has already thinned down and is banking on one or two silver or gold to build their engine up. Being able to pick which treasure to trash is huge, and in those rare games when it gets up to a terminal $6 or $7, you’re almost immune to greening.

It’s obviously bad in general but I’d put it above Bureaucrat, Navigator and Noble Brigand for sure.

Agree.  Not sure if I'd slide it above Treasure Map, though - TM has enough gimmicks out there now to give it an edge.

[faust]

Poacher is also really underrated. The empty piles thing is a bummer but that doesn’t change the strength of the card in the beginning of the game.m, and if piles do empty it’s at worst TFB fuel.

You're not very good at worst-case scenarios

But by far the most underrated card here is Mission, which should be in the top 20.

That seems too high for an event that does nothing a decent amount of the time.

[Gazbag]

I had Mission in the top 10. Extra turns are broken, trust me.

Bureaucrat I had as the worst, it's like not even a great money card. Pirate Ship has the potential to be devastating, even though thaat almost never happens in a real game.

I think Talisman is a little underrated, Horse Traders seems too high.

Pretty sure Monument is worse than Navigator. Bard should be higher.

Walled Village is better than Farming Village, it can be nice early in the game and in no-trashing things where you build up but never get under control properly. I ranked all of those weaker villages together and higher up too.

I can't remember ever seeing Rocks in a 2-player game, aside from Black Market.

[markusin]

I had Mission in the top 10. Extra turns are broken, trust me.

Bureaucrat I had as the worst, it's like not even a great money card. Pirate Ship has the potential to be devastating, even though thaat almost never happens in a real game.

I think Talisman is a little underrated, Horse Traders seems too high.

Pretty sure Monument is worse than Navigator. Bard should be higher.

Walled Village is better than Farming Village, it can be nice early in the game and in no-trashing things where you build up but never get under control properly. I ranked all of those weaker villages together and higher up too.

I can't remember ever seeing Rocks in a 2-player game, aside from Black Market.

I also had Mission in the top 10. It's one of those cards you always have to consider, and when it's not worth getting it's usually by a small margin.

I had Bard above Monument. Monument is not the amazing card it used to be, but it's still awesome with Throne Room variants.

The cards with "Village" in their name I ranked together in the top half.

Navigator I have above Ritual, Death Cart, and Taxman.

Scavenger might be a bit low.

I also had Caravan in the bottom half. It's a pretty sad card without gainers. You waste too much time if you have to buy them over cards with more dramatic effects.

[weesh]

Conclave and necromancer will probably rise next year.
Both have POTENTIAL for awkwardness, but they turn out to be not that awkward when you actually build with them. 

I keep having conclave games where I am betrayed...and then realize that it's the first time all game that things didn't work out, and the value I've gotten out of them is absurd.

[trivialknot]

I put Cemetery in the top 10.  Strong trashing tends to get highly ranked, so people seem to be overlooking the fact that Cemetery is a really strong trasher.  It's like Bonfire but you can trash estates and curses.  It can easily be supported by terminal draw OR gaining OR money spiking.

I think all the other Nocturne cards also deserve to go up, particularly Conclave, and maybe Necromancer?  Necromancer is a funny one and mostly I think it deserves to have a higher standard deviation.

As for Mission, I ranked it right about where it is in the community rankings.  It's hard to judge these things that are sometimes amazing, and sometimes ignorable.  I mean, Ritual and Feodum are sometimes amazing too.  Mission is amazing a little more often, so it goes above those cards (except I put Ritual above Mission, surely that was a mistake!).  Well, it's around the 50% mark, and the median Dominion card tends to be pretty good.

[markusin]

I put Cemetery in the top 10.  Strong trashing tends to get highly ranked, so people seem to be overlooking the fact that Cemetery is a really strong trasher.  It's like Bonfire but you can trash estates and curses.  It can easily be supported by terminal draw OR gaining OR money spiking.

I think all the other Nocturne cards also deserve to go up, particularly Conclave, and maybe Necromancer?  Necromancer is a funny one and mostly I think it deserves to have a higher standard deviation.

As for Mission, I ranked it right about where it is in the community rankings.  It's hard to judge these things that are sometimes amazing, and sometimes ignorable.  I mean, Ritual and Feodum are sometimes amazing too.  Mission is amazing a little more often, so it goes above those cards (except I put Ritual above Mission, surely that was a mistake!).  Well, it's around the 50% mark, and the median Dominion card tends to be pretty good.

Cemetery is like Bonfire, except you generally can't use it to good effect before the first reshuffle. And it costs $4. On the plus side, it can trash all sorts of junk, especially if you pair it with big draw. Some junkers like Witch and Cultist draw cards for you even. So, in practice it's very different from Bonfire. Bonfire is bought on weaker hands and spare buys, while Cemetery is bought on particularly strong hands.

[weesh]

I put Cemetery in the top 10.  Strong trashing tends to get highly ranked, so people seem to be overlooking the fact that Cemetery is a really strong trasher.  It's like Bonfire but you can trash estates and curses.  It can easily be supported by terminal draw OR gaining OR money spiking.

It has a lot of variance compared to things like bonfire.  With a gainer, or with changeling, it's amazing.  But without either, you can't profitably use it early game when you most want to trash.

And variance is something that a lot of voters seem to disagree on, preferring cards that are more consistently good.

[benedettosoxfan]

Alright here's where some real debate starts. I expect that there's way more variation with the $4 cards than the less expensive ones. I definitely agree with the bottom tier. I rated pirate ship as not only the worst $4 card, but as the worst card in all of dominion. I feel that no other card gives you a better chance of losing. It's terminal, helps your opponent, way too slow to make a return on investment, and in the rare case where you're able to build an engine that fires off several of them per turn, there's got to be something better you could be doing. Bureaucrat is the clear runner up, but at least it doesn't help your opponent.

I expect a lot of these cards to go up somewhat in the future. Gardens is the only one that really surprised me with how low it is. There are still several viable garden strategies that are pretty darn effective. It's miles better than feodum and silk road. Necromancer is definitely underrated here. Any card that gives you so many options is a friend of mine. Keep in mind that you actually WANT to trash your good action cards. You can trash that $5 card with zombie apprentice, draw 5 cards, and then immediately play it with another necromancer. The mason option is a little weak, but not nearly as dangerous as it seems because there's no harm in trashing a good action card. Worst case scenario, it's a cantrip spy.

Skulk is fine where it is. The early gold is great, and it's far from a dead card. Any source of buy is always welcome, and if you can ever consistently kings court this thing, you have a very good chance of absolutely ruining your opponent's next turn. 1 hex is usually a minor nuisance, but several of them a time cause some serious problems. Still, this seems like the right spot for it. Definitely not a bad card and it has its uses, but the other cards are just simply better.

I hate to say it, but I think monument might keep on falling. It had its day in the sun, but now there are just way too many ways of getting more vp than your opponent. Between events, landmarks, alt vp, etc., that one vp from a terminal silver is hardly significant. The evolution of dominion has probably been more devastating to monument than any other card I can think of. However its friend bishop should still be in the top half. A bishop golden deck is still very strong and picking one up in the late game can give you good options for ending the game. The benefit to your opponent is pretty significant of course.

Finally, mission is definitely a better half card shaped thing. There's a LOT of things you can do in a turn besides "buy" a "card." Gaining, trashing, events, attacking, cycling through your deck, etc. Chances are there's something on the board to make it worthwhile. This should move way up.

[Awaclus]

Alright here's where some real debate starts. I expect that there's way more variation with the $4 cards than the less expensive ones. I definitely agree with the bottom tier. I rated pirate ship as not only the worst $4 card, but as the worst card in all of dominion. I feel that no other card gives you a better chance of losing. It's terminal, helps your opponent, way too slow to make a return on investment, and in the rare case where you're able to build an engine that fires off several of them per turn, there's got to be something better you could be doing. Bureaucrat is the clear runner up, but at least it doesn't help your opponent.

Whether or not it helps your opponent is not very relevant, because you don't buy the card when it does.

[trivialknot]

I put Cemetery in the top 10.  Strong trashing tends to get highly ranked, so people seem to be overlooking the fact that Cemetery is a really strong trasher.  It's like Bonfire but you can trash estates and curses.  It can easily be supported by terminal draw OR gaining OR money spiking.

It has a lot of variance compared to things like bonfire.  With a gainer, or with changeling, it's amazing.  But without either, you can't profitably use it early game when you most want to trash.

And variance is something that a lot of voters seem to disagree on, preferring cards that are more consistently good.

Cemetery has some variance, but is almost always at least decent.  The exceptions are when you don't want trashing at all, there's other strong trashing available, or if hand size is really restricted.  If there isn't support and you can't use Cemetery effectively in the early game, it's worth it to do it later in the game unless you've already trashed down.  Even trashing two estates with Cemetery is good, because that's a lab, and lab is consistently decent.

[GendoIkari]

Let's just say that there are very few boards for 2-player games in which you want to get them.

Fixed that for you. Let's dispel this rumor that Pirate Ship is stronger in multiplayer games. Pirate Ship's weakness doesn't come from the chances that you'll whiff and not get a token when you play it. It comes from the fact that when you do get a token, you've also helped your opponent at least as much as you've helped yourself.

It's true that multiplayer gives the possibility of getting a token while only helping 1 opponent and not helping another... which perhaps is a slight strength increase. But not much.

[Chris is me]

Let's just say that there are very few boards for 2-player games in which you want to get them.

Fixed that for you. Let's dispel this rumor that Pirate Ship is stronger in multiplayer games. Pirate Ship's weakness doesn't come from the chances that you'll whiff and not get a token when you play it. It comes from the fact that when you do get a token, you've also helped your opponent at least as much as you've helped yourself.

It's true that multiplayer gives the possibility of getting a token while only helping 1 opponent and not helping another... which perhaps is a slight strength increase. But not much.

Pirate Ship isn’t stronger in multiplayer games because of the reduced miss chances (though that’s also a plus). It’s stronger because you’re being attacked by other Pirate Ships much more often, and thus you can quickly run low of or out of economy without a good source of virtual coin, of which Pirate Ship is one. This doesn’t mean Pirate Ship is the best or anything, but that’s the mechanic in which it gets stronger with more players.

[GendoIkari]

Let's just say that there are very few boards for 2-player games in which you want to get them.

Fixed that for you. Let's dispel this rumor that Pirate Ship is stronger in multiplayer games. Pirate Ship's weakness doesn't come from the chances that you'll whiff and not get a token when you play it. It comes from the fact that when you do get a token, you've also helped your opponent at least as much as you've helped yourself.

It's true that multiplayer gives the possibility of getting a token while only helping 1 opponent and not helping another... which perhaps is a slight strength increase. But not much.

Pirate Ship isn’t stronger in multiplayer games because of the reduced miss chances (though that’s also a plus). It’s stronger because you’re being attacked by other Pirate Ships much more often, and thus you can quickly run low of or out of economy without a good source of virtual coin, of which Pirate Ship is one. This doesn’t mean Pirate Ship is the best or anything, but that’s the mechanic in which it gets stronger with more players.

Fair point that I missed, but isn't it balanced out by the fact that your Copper would also be getting trashed that much faster? If there's an engine to build without relying on treasure, then I would think you'd prefer to get hit by multiple Pirate Ships faster.

[popsofctown]

Let's just say that there are very few boards for 2-player games in which you want to get them.

Fixed that for you. Let's dispel this rumor that Pirate Ship is stronger in multiplayer games. Pirate Ship's weakness doesn't come from the chances that you'll whiff and not get a token when you play it. It comes from the fact that when you do get a token, you've also helped your opponent at least as much as you've helped yourself.

It's true that multiplayer gives the possibility of getting a token while only helping 1 opponent and not helping another... which perhaps is a slight strength increase. But not much.

Pirate Ship isn’t stronger in multiplayer games because of the reduced miss chances (though that’s also a plus). It’s stronger because you’re being attacked by other Pirate Ships much more often, and thus you can quickly run low of or out of economy without a good source of virtual coin, of which Pirate Ship is one. This doesn’t mean Pirate Ship is the best or anything, but that’s the mechanic in which it gets stronger with more players.

The "game theory" on that fails, though.  If player A buys a Pirate ship, and it comes to me, and I have 4 coins, and I know a Pirate Ship in a world with 1 Pirate Clan is terrible, and a Pirate ship in a world with 2 or 3 is ok, why would I buy one?  If I do buy one, then player C is going to get his coppers trashed hard enough that the property you are describing becomes true, where he needs the Pirate Ship to have access to bursts of virtual coin.
Then, as B, my choice to buy a Pirate Ship will have bought me an entry into a fair 3 player game where everyone has a Pirate Ship.

A superior decision is if, as B, I don't buy the Pirate Ship.  There is enough symmetry that C will also not buy a Pirate Ship.  Now B and C don't have a Pirate Ship, aren't starving for virtual coin, and A has a 4$ opening that's abysmal.  Now as B I only have to win a 2 player game, against C.


Why would I join a 3 player game instead of a 2 player game?

Therefore, A should anticipate this behavior from B and should not buy the Pirate Ship in the first place.

The fact that some of us have been C's and sat down at tables with bad players doesn't make the other two players' Pirate Ship purchases correct, even if it makes our eventual purchase correct.

[markus]

I think that Pirate Ship is not worth discussing, but the game theoretical argument doesn't work for 4p, if you believe that on some boards 2 players with Pirate Ships win against the 2 without.
Let's just say, I remember a game in which I tried to play with Fishing Village and Cutpurse as P4 against 3 Pirate Ship players, who also bought Coppers as they ran out of Treasures - didn't go that well for me. 

[Commodore Chuckles]

Miser is definitely underrated. If you only have one, it's awfully slow, but if it's a board where it's good you'll want 2 or more anyway.

Talisman is underrated. The non-terminality and $ it gives are not to be underestimated. It's better than Armory, I think. Armory's topdecking isn't really exciting and can hurt if you're using it to grab some green. Engineer also deserved the rise.

Silk road is really bad. You need to be absolutely stuffed with green for it to be worth it.

I've barely ever gotten Ritual. It's hard for me to find times when it's actually better to sacrifice a good card for VP than just buy a Province.

I really don't get all the Mission hype. It's $4, so you're sacrificing buying something else for a turn where you can't buy anything at all. I'm not seeing the greatness.

Cemetery is... weird. It's a dead victory card, but you can buy it in the beginning to trash other dead and semi-dead stuff, as long as you have any of that stuff in your hand after plonking down $4 to buy the Cemetery. I've had a hard time grasping it and I'm not really sure how good it is.

[Dingan]

I've barely ever gotten Ritual. It's hard for me to find times when it's actually better to sacrifice a good card for VP than just buy a Province.

I've also barely ever gotten it but it seems deceptively strong. I think it can really shine when: (1) you have Gold-gaining (or Platinum-gaining, etc.), (2) have a way to clean up the Curses, and (3) your opponent will choke on green.

[markusin]

I've barely ever gotten Ritual. It's hard for me to find times when it's actually better to sacrifice a good card for VP than just buy a Province.

I've also barely ever gotten it but it seems deceptively strong. I think it can really shine when: (1) you have Gold-gaining (or Platinum-gaining, etc.), (2) have a way to clean up the Curses, and (3) your opponent will choke on green.

That's a lot of conditions to satisfy. Going from Gold gain to Curse still increases your deck size by one, while having access to efficient Curse trashing suggests an engine that can make use of the Gold gainer to escalate payload is available. You'd have $7 to spend if you don't hold back Gold for Ritual, only one short of simply buying Province for the same amount of VP (more if you never get to trash the curse).

[markus]

Yes, Ritual is just too expensive. The combination of costing 4, a buy, needing Curses in supply, and gaining that Curse means that you usually only go for it when you're desperate and need to catch up.

[NoMoreFun]

I don't think I'll ever fully understand how Bureaucrat made it to the 2nd edition. It was always talked about the same way as the other base set duds, and there it is next to bottom, right above a card based on the premise that trashing Copper is a bad thing.

[Simon Jester]

I don't think I'll ever fully understand how Bureaucrat made it to the 2nd edition. It was always talked about the same way as the other base set duds, and there it is next to bottom, right above a card based on the premise that trashing Copper is a bad thing.

Silver-gainers is fun though, and have it's uses. I can't say I would miss it (more than I miss Scout ...) but I can understand why it didn't get the axe too. Is it worse than Coppersmith? Maybe, but I don't see the point to replace both of them. B-crat is alright.

It is a nice beginner card as well, to teach how hurtful green cards can be and how to counter such attacks, you gotta think of the newbs also and I don't think it is a dud in the same way on the BM+X-level..

[Awaclus]

I don't think I'll ever fully understand how Bureaucrat made it to the 2nd edition. It was always talked about the same way as the other base set duds, and there it is next to bottom, right above a card based on the premise that trashing Copper is a bad thing.

Yeah, but the Bureaucrat is perhaps one of the most powerful cards in Dominion. It would be a shame to remove one of the most powerful cards in Dominion.

[NoMoreFun]

It is a nice beginner card as well, to teach how hurtful green cards can be and how to counter such attacks, you gotta think of the newbs also and I don't think it is a dud in the same way on the BM+X-level..

BM+Bureaucrat is worse than BM+Moat: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2532.msg39671.
I think starting with Estates does enough to teach you that Green cards aren't useful and you'll want to be careful about when you get them.

It's unique, I guess. Still there's probably a Silver gainer that would suit the base set more.

[Gazbag]

I buy Curse more often than I buy Bureaucrat.

[LastFootnote]

I still enjoy Bureaucrat in alt-VP slogs, like Gardens, Feodum, Silk Road, and Duke. Admittedly those are rare nowadays.

[Simon Jester]

I buy Curse more often than I buy Bureaucrat.

Curse is in every game though, comparison invalid.

What an awful kingdom card Curse would have been...

[markusin]

I buy Curse more often than I buy Bureaucrat.

Curse is in every game though, comparison invalid.

What an awful kingdom card Curse would have been...

Where would a 0-cost Confusion kingdom card rank I wonder? Maybe if you toy with the number of Confusions in the supply it can get around being dead last.

[Gazbag]

I buy Curse more often than I buy Bureaucrat.

Curse is in every game though, comparison invalid.

What an awful kingdom card Curse would have been...

Okay I should have been more specific...

I buy Curse more often than Bureaucrat, in games in which both Curse and Bureaucrat are in the supply.

I assumed that was implied but I should have known better I suppose.

[Donald X.]

I don't think I'll ever fully understand how Bureaucrat made it to the 2nd edition. It was always talked about the same way as the other base set duds, and there it is next to bottom, right above a card based on the premise that trashing Copper is a bad thing.

It's as simple as, I only replaced 6 cards. Those cards again: Thief, Spy, Chancellor, Woodcutter, Feast, Adventurer.

Power level was not the be-all end-all. People buy Feast; it just doesn't change the game at all. They buy Woodcutter; having
+Buy will do that, but the whole point to the original card was to be simple, and I thought I had enough vanilla cards without it.

Bureaucrat is better-to-have-exist than the replaced cards. And the incentive was to just make the most important changes.

[ackmondual]

I put Cemetery in the top 10.  Strong trashing tends to get highly ranked, so people seem to be overlooking the fact that Cemetery is a really strong trasher.  It's like Bonfire but you can trash estates and curses.  It can easily be supported by terminal draw OR gaining OR money spiking.

I think all the other Nocturne cards also deserve to go up, particularly Conclave, and maybe Necromancer?  Necromancer is a funny one and mostly I think it deserves to have a higher standard deviation.

As for Mission, I ranked it right about where it is in the community rankings.  It's hard to judge these things that are sometimes amazing, and sometimes ignorable.  I mean, Ritual and Feodum are sometimes amazing too.  Mission is amazing a little more often, so it goes above those cards (except I put Ritual above Mission, surely that was a mistake!).  Well, it's around the 50% mark, and the median Dominion card tends to be pretty good.

Cemetery is like Bonfire, except you generally can't use it to good effect before the first reshuffle. And it costs $4. On the plus side, it can trash all sorts of junk, especially if you pair it with big draw. Some junkers like Witch and Cultist draw cards for you even. So, in practice it's very different from Bonfire. Bonfire is bought on weaker hands and spare buys, while Cemetery is bought on particularly strong hands.

If nothing else, Cemetery is the card that you can "Alms", so even if you can't hit $4, you're still set.

[ackmondual]

Silk road is really bad. You need to be absolutely stuffed with green for it to be worth it.

Think of it as a version of Gardens, but for Victory cards instead.  IIRC, you'd be hard pressed to fight a proper Colony deck, but it's got a decent shot if it's just going against Provinces.

I've barely ever gotten Ritual. It's hard for me to find times when it's actually better to sacrifice a good card for VP than just buy a Province.

When the game's winding down and you can't afford a Province, I wouldn't mind sacrificing a $5 card to get a net of 4pts.  Bonus pts if Tomb is in play, or the "negative Landmarks", and you trim the appropriate cards (Silver and Gold for Bandit Fort, Wall in most situations that take your deck past 15 cards, and Wolf Den to deal with singletons)

I really don't get all the Mission hype. It's $4, so you're sacrificing buying something else for a turn where you can't buy anything at all. I'm not seeing the greatness.

I try to count on buying Events.  It's also a way to cycle through your deck faster.  Otherwise, I usually don't bother with it.

[Jacob marley]

I think Conclave will go up next year, the lack of +1 card hurts it compared to other villages, but +2 coin is strong in the opening.  As long as there is a good variety of cards you want in your deck, and some draw, Conclave is strong.

[NoMoreFun]

I don't think I'll ever fully understand how Bureaucrat made it to the 2nd edition. It was always talked about the same way as the other base set duds, and there it is next to bottom, right above a card based on the premise that trashing Copper is a bad thing.

It's as simple as, I only replaced 6 cards. Those cards again: Thief, Spy, Chancellor, Woodcutter, Feast, Adventurer.

Power level was not the be-all end-all. People buy Feast; it just doesn't change the game at all. They buy Woodcutter; having
+Buy will do that, but the whole point to the original card was to be simple, and I thought I had enough vanilla cards without it.

Bureaucrat is better-to-have-exist than the replaced cards. And the incentive was to just make the most important changes.

It's not just that it's weak. It manages to be both boring yet more complex than a typical base set card. There's also the possibility of pinning (although difficult) as another reason.

It would have been sensible to replace it, and replace Harem in Intrigue (weak card, bad art/concept, nothing going for it beyond its type). 7 each

[Aleimon Thimble]

I don't think I'll ever fully understand how Bureaucrat made it to the 2nd edition. It was always talked about the same way as the other base set duds, and there it is next to bottom, right above a card based on the premise that trashing Copper is a bad thing.

It's as simple as, I only replaced 6 cards. Those cards again: Thief, Spy, Chancellor, Woodcutter, Feast, Adventurer.

Power level was not the be-all end-all. People buy Feast; it just doesn't change the game at all. They buy Woodcutter; having
+Buy will do that, but the whole point to the original card was to be simple, and I thought I had enough vanilla cards without it.

Bureaucrat is better-to-have-exist than the replaced cards. And the incentive was to just make the most important changes.

Even just regarding power level, I'd say Bureaucrat is stronger than any of those six cards.

[aku_chi]

I don't think I'll ever fully understand how Bureaucrat made it to the 2nd edition. It was always talked about the same way as the other base set duds, and there it is next to bottom, right above a card based on the premise that trashing Copper is a bad thing.

It's as simple as, I only replaced 6 cards. Those cards again: Thief, Spy, Chancellor, Woodcutter, Feast, Adventurer.

Power level was not the be-all end-all. People buy Feast; it just doesn't change the game at all. They buy Woodcutter; having
+Buy will do that, but the whole point to the original card was to be simple, and I thought I had enough vanilla cards without it.

Bureaucrat is better-to-have-exist than the replaced cards. And the incentive was to just make the most important changes.

Even just regarding power level, I'd say Bureaucrat is stronger than any of those six cards.

No way.  Spy is actually a decent card power-level wise (I understand the motivation to remove it); stronger than Pearl Diver and Sage.  Chancellor and Woodcutter are also, IMO, stronger than their $4 counterparts (Navigator and Nomad Camp), which have been consistently rated higher than Bureaucrat.

[Aleimon Thimble]

I don't think I'll ever fully understand how Bureaucrat made it to the 2nd edition. It was always talked about the same way as the other base set duds, and there it is next to bottom, right above a card based on the premise that trashing Copper is a bad thing.

It's as simple as, I only replaced 6 cards. Those cards again: Thief, Spy, Chancellor, Woodcutter, Feast, Adventurer.

Power level was not the be-all end-all. People buy Feast; it just doesn't change the game at all. They buy Woodcutter; having
+Buy will do that, but the whole point to the original card was to be simple, and I thought I had enough vanilla cards without it.

Bureaucrat is better-to-have-exist than the replaced cards. And the incentive was to just make the most important changes.

Even just regarding power level, I'd say Bureaucrat is stronger than any of those six cards.

No way.  Spy is actually a decent card power-level wise (I understand the motivation to remove it); stronger than Pearl Diver and Sage.  Chancellor and Woodcutter are also, IMO, stronger than their $4 counterparts (Navigator and Nomad Camp), which have been consistently rated higher than Bureaucrat.

Spy sucks unless you can pull of some kind of synergy with a card that cares about the order of your deck (or, I guess, your opponent's). For $4 you're often much better off buying a village or draw card (if engine) or Silver (if BM/slog). $4 is not a price point at which you can justify being slightly better than a vanilla cantrip. As weak as Pearl Diver is, at least it has its low price tag going for it.

I think you mean Scavenger instead of Navigator, in which case its extra ability really does make quite a bit of difference. Maybe you're right about Woodcutter (you rarely want to topdeck it anyway), but that's mostly because +Buy is so good. Even then, Bureaucrat isn't that bad. It's one of the weaker $4 cards but it has its uses.

[markusin]

I don't think I'll ever fully understand how Bureaucrat made it to the 2nd edition. It was always talked about the same way as the other base set duds, and there it is next to bottom, right above a card based on the premise that trashing Copper is a bad thing.

It's as simple as, I only replaced 6 cards. Those cards again: Thief, Spy, Chancellor, Woodcutter, Feast, Adventurer.

Power level was not the be-all end-all. People buy Feast; it just doesn't change the game at all. They buy Woodcutter; having
+Buy will do that, but the whole point to the original card was to be simple, and I thought I had enough vanilla cards without it.

Bureaucrat is better-to-have-exist than the replaced cards. And the incentive was to just make the most important changes.

Even just regarding power level, I'd say Bureaucrat is stronger than any of those six cards.

No way.  Spy is actually a decent card power-level wise (I understand the motivation to remove it); stronger than Pearl Diver and Sage.  Chancellor and Woodcutter are also, IMO, stronger than their $4 counterparts (Navigator and Nomad Camp), which have been consistently rated higher than Bureaucrat.

Spy sucks unless you can pull of some kind of synergy with a card that cares about the order of your deck (or, I guess, your opponent's). For $4 you're often much better off buying a village or draw card (if engine) or Silver (if BM/slog). $4 is not a price point at which you can justify being slightly better than a vanilla cantrip. As weak as Pearl Diver is, at least it has its low price tag going for it.

I think you mean Scavenger instead of Navigator, in which case its extra ability really does make quite a bit of difference. Maybe you're right about Woodcutter (you rarely want to topdeck it anyway), but that's mostly because +Buy is so good. Even then, Bureaucrat isn't that bad. It's one of the weaker $4 cards but it has its uses.

The issue I see is that the cases where Bureaucrat is good have taken a hit in power level. All those slog cards like Gardens, Silk Road, and Duke which can benefit from Bureaucrat (but not totally enabled by Bureaucrat mind you) feel weaker now. This is even reflected by the rankings. These slog cards tend to need stronger synergies than Bureaucrat can provide these days.

[aku_chi]

Spy sucks unless you can pull of some kind of synergy with a card that cares about the order of your deck (or, I guess, your opponent's). For $4 you're often much better off buying a village or draw card (if engine) or Silver (if BM/slog). $4 is not a price point at which you can justify being slightly better than a vanilla cantrip. As weak as Pearl Diver is, at least it has its low price tag going for it.

I think you mean Scavenger instead of Navigator, in which case its extra ability really does make quite a bit of difference. Maybe you're right about Woodcutter (you rarely want to topdeck it anyway), but that's mostly because +Buy is so good. Even then, Bureaucrat isn't that bad. It's one of the weaker $4 cards but it has its uses.

I meant exactly what I said: Chancellor is stronger than Navigator.  You're right that you're usually better off buying another card over Spy, but sometimes Spy is the only innocuous card you can add to your engine at that price point, and it's better than nothing (and decent with Throne Room).  I remember buying Spy all the time.  It was never amazing, but it got bought (which is one of the reasons why it was rightly removed).  I haven't been motivated to buy a Bureaucrat in over a year, maybe longer.

[markusin]

Spy sucks unless you can pull of some kind of synergy with a card that cares about the order of your deck (or, I guess, your opponent's). For $4 you're often much better off buying a village or draw card (if engine) or Silver (if BM/slog). $4 is not a price point at which you can justify being slightly better than a vanilla cantrip. As weak as Pearl Diver is, at least it has its low price tag going for it.

I think you mean Scavenger instead of Navigator, in which case its extra ability really does make quite a bit of difference. Maybe you're right about Woodcutter (you rarely want to topdeck it anyway), but that's mostly because +Buy is so good. Even then, Bureaucrat isn't that bad. It's one of the weaker $4 cards but it has its uses.

I meant exactly what I said: Chancellor is stronger than Navigator.  You're right that you're usually better off buying another card over Spy, but sometimes Spy is the only innocuous card you can add to your engine at that price point, and it's better than nothing (and decent with Throne Room).  I remember buying Spy all the time.  It was never amazing, but it got bought (which is one of the reasons why it was rightly removed).  I haven't been motivated to buy a Bureaucrat in over a year, maybe longer.

Removing Woodcutter and giving the +buy to Chancellor could have worked I think.

As is, I would open Chancellor on occasion, because the best case scenario where you draw Chancellor on Turn 3 tended to be really good. Now, Messenger lets me live the dream. It's quite convenient how Messenger makes it so you never have to worry about bad reshuffles when played at the end of the action phase.

[Awaclus]

Even just regarding power level, I'd say Bureaucrat is stronger than any of those six cards.

It's certainly a lot weaker than Feast, Woodcutter and Spy, which are all cards that you actually buy a considerable amount of the time. It's basically very comparable to Scout in that you almost never buy it at all, and when you do buy it, it's just a tiny little bit better than nothing or Silver. I would even say that it's weaker than Adventurer, Thief and Chancellor because the edge cases where you buy those cards are probably more common and the cards are stronger in those cases.

[Donald X.]

It would have been sensible to replace it, and replace Harem in Intrigue (weak card, bad art/concept, nothing going for it beyond its type). 7 each

I wasn't allowed to replace Harem (it depicts a real person). I could have found something else to replace in Intrigue; 6 was a good limit for how many cards to replace. Remember we then sold them separately so that people didn't need to re-buy the set to get them.

[Commodore Chuckles]

Thief is the only cut card that's possibly worse than Bureaucrat, because it helps your opponent most of the time. It's REALLY hard to think of uses for Bureaucrat; even with Gardens or Feodum it's not great because of how slow it is.

[Awaclus]

Thief is the only cut card that's possibly worse than Bureaucrat, because it helps your opponent most of the time.

Bureaucrat also helps your opponent by virtue of being worse than the card you should have bought instead of Bureaucrat. It doesn't really make much difference how much the card sucks in the situation where you don't buy it anyway.

[Limetime]

Bureacrat's attack is actually really good at shutting down money. Stick a few in a deck and you can get - 1 or -2 card tokens.

[Awaclus]

Bureacrat's attack is actually really good at shutting down money. Stick a few in a deck and you can get - 1 or -2 card tokens.

Its non-attack part is also really good at shutting down yourself, unless you're also playing money.

[markusin]

Bureacrat's attack is actually really good at shutting down money. Stick a few in a deck and you can get - 1 or -2 card tokens.

Its non-attack part is also really good at shutting down yourself, unless you're also playing money.

A part of me thinks Bureaucrat would be more usable if it didn't topdeck the Silver. Like, take away everything that makes Bandit Camp good and you have Bureaucrat.

[Cuzz]

Like, take away everything that makes Bandit Camp good and you have Bureaucrat.

Take away everything that makes Wharf good and you have Moat.

Take away everything that makes Chapel good and you have Trade Route.

Take away everything that makes Mountebank good and you have Sea Hag.

Take away everything that makes King’s Court good and you have Vassal.

Take away everything that makes Village good and you have Ruined Village.

[GendoIkari]

Take away everything that makes Mountebank good and you have Sea Hag.

I think you have Duchess, actually. The + isn't what makes Mountebank good; the junking is.

[Awaclus]

Take away everything that makes Chapel good and you have Trade Route Estate.

FTFY. Trade Route is still good.

[Cuzz]

Yes, we should be sure to fix all of the comparisons above, lest anyone believe that they were intentionally made to be inapt in jest.

[Commodore Chuckles]

Take away everything that makes Scout good and you have Scout.

[LibraryAdventurer]

Take away everything that makes Chapel good and you have Trade Route Estate Bomb.

[Cuzz]

Take away everything that makes Chapel good and you have Trade Route Estate Bomb.

Disagree because the best thing about Chapel is that it strongly affects gameplay (particularly in a destructive way).

[luser]

just imagine that somebody has in cv member of dominion's harem.

Also cemetery is underrated, It is one of fastest trashers as it happens on buy. With draw I sometimes skipped chapel because cemetery is faster.