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Author Topic: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?  (Read 8747 times)

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AJD

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It's often commented that Scout is a weak card, but it's a lot stronger within the context of Intrigue. If the cards you're picking up with Scout are Harems and Nobles, it's—well, it's still not that strong (notwithstanding this surprisingly decent Scout/Harem deck I put together not too long ago), but it's a lot more useful than if you're just picking up, say, Fairgrounds with it.

So this started me wondering: what cards are a lot less effective if you're playing them in a game made up of mostly cards from the same expansion than with an average random set? For instance, consider Philosopher's Stone: Alchemy has a lot of cards which increase handsize and/or encourage long action chains, but doing either of these weakens Philosopher's Stone. So Philosopher's Stone is probably on average more useful with non-Alchemy cards in the kingdom than with other Alchemy cards (though its Herbalist combo is pretty good). Similarly, University is not all that much use in a kingdom full of Potion-costing non-terminal actions.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2013, 04:40:49 pm by AJD »
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Robz888

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #1 on: March 01, 2012, 02:11:19 pm »
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The best example might be Chapel.

Chapel isn't so great for Big Money style decks, and Big Money style decks are consistently dominant in Base dominion. Only with the addition of later sets does the value of Chapel's awesome trashing become typically worthwhile.
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Robz888

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #2 on: March 01, 2012, 02:15:35 pm »
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I would also suggest Hoard.

Hoard is very dominating in a good amount of the of Kingdoms it appears--I think the community ranked it the 4th best $6+ card. But it's much, much weaker in Colony games, which are exactly the games you're most likely to play if you just have Prosperity.
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LastFootnote

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #3 on: March 01, 2012, 02:21:47 pm »
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Counting House belongs in Hinterlands. It's awful in Prosperity where huge engines are the order of the day. It needs a big deck and sifters to move Coppers to the discard pile. Hinterlands has those in spades.
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chwhite

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #4 on: March 01, 2012, 03:46:08 pm »
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I agree with most of the suggestions above, with the caveat that Prosperity is actually the second-best place for Counting House because of Mountebank games.

Other suggestions: I'd say that Village is a serious contender for the card which benefits the least from its own expansion. You need to have a reason to chain actions to want Village, and the base set doesn't really give you one, aside from Lab spam or Festival/Library, neither of which want Village.  Throne Room and Spy are also good candidates from the base set, for the same reasons.

The converse of this is that Seaside does Explorer no favors, it would be much better off in base or Hinterlands where the Silver gain is more welcome.  (Perhaps even Intrigue, for Duke games.)

Also in the base set, Mine would be much better in Prosperity, though base is actually not a horrible set for it to be in just because everything's so meh and it's not damaged by the specter of treasureless decks at least.
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LastFootnote

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #5 on: March 01, 2012, 04:06:23 pm »
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I agree with most of the suggestions above, with the caveat that Prosperity is actually the second-best place for Counting House because of Mountebank games.

In my opinion, one useful card interaction is not enough to redeem its placement. Even in Mountebank games, Counting House is unreliable at best.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #6 on: March 01, 2012, 04:15:22 pm »
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I agree with most of the suggestions above, with the caveat that Prosperity is actually the second-best place for Counting House because of Mountebank games.

In my opinion, one useful card interaction is not enough to redeem its placement. Even in Mountebank games, Counting House is unreliable at best.
It's by far the most useful card interaction it has. Seriously, where does it fit better than prosperity, other than hinterlands?
Seems to me you're blaming it's placement instead of its general suckitude.

LastFootnote

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #7 on: March 01, 2012, 04:20:34 pm »
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It's true that I'm in denial concerning its suckitude. I'd like it to be useful. Maybe I've just had bad luck using it in Mountebank games, but it's never helped me much.

EDIT: To clarify, I'm mostly remembering a time I played a 4-player game with Mountebank and no Copper trashing. That should be where Counting House shines the most, and it still sucked.
« Last Edit: March 01, 2012, 04:23:55 pm by LastFootnote »
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Robz888

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #8 on: March 01, 2012, 04:53:59 pm »
+1

Here's a weird one I thought of: Torturer.

Torturer is most powerful when chained with villages and more Torturers. But the only extra actions in Intrigue come from Nobles, Mining Village, and Shanty Town. While it's certainly possible to set up successful Torturer chains in Intrigue, those are among the worst villages for doing so. Nobles is really expensive. Shanty Town is unreliable. Mining Village is okay, but the benefit that makes it cost $4 instead of $3 isn't one you really want to take advantage of if you're Torturer chaining.

Torturer's favorite villages are in other sets: Fishing and Native from Seaside, and Farming and Hamlet from Cornucopia.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #9 on: March 01, 2012, 04:57:55 pm »
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Here's a weird one I thought of: Torturer.

Torturer is most powerful when chained with villages and more Torturers. But the only extra actions in Intrigue come from Nobles, Mining Village, and Shanty Town. While it's certainly possible to set up successful Torturer chains in Intrigue, those are among the worst villages for doing so. Nobles is really expensive. Shanty Town is unreliable. Mining Village is okay, but the benefit that makes it cost $4 instead of $3 isn't one you really want to take advantage of if you're Torturer chaining.

Torturer's favorite villages are in other sets: Fishing and Native from Seaside, and Farming and Hamlet from Cornucopia.
Wait. Isn't shanty town pretty good actually for torturer chains? Like ESPECIALLY if you have other villages, too, but good even by itself?

Robz888

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #10 on: March 01, 2012, 05:15:53 pm »
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Here's a weird one I thought of: Torturer.

Torturer is most powerful when chained with villages and more Torturers. But the only extra actions in Intrigue come from Nobles, Mining Village, and Shanty Town. While it's certainly possible to set up successful Torturer chains in Intrigue, those are among the worst villages for doing so. Nobles is really expensive. Shanty Town is unreliable. Mining Village is okay, but the benefit that makes it cost $4 instead of $3 isn't one you really want to take advantage of if you're Torturer chaining.

Torturer's favorite villages are in other sets: Fishing and Native from Seaside, and Farming and Hamlet from Cornucopia.
Wait. Isn't shanty town pretty good actually for torturer chains? Like ESPECIALLY if you have other villages, too, but good even by itself?
Well, any source of actions is good for Torturer chains, but I think I'd prefer a stack of vanilla Villages to Shanty Towns in the case of Torturers. Right? I could be wrong. I was just thinking that the villages I most want to see with Torturer are in other sets, specifically Fishing and Native and Hamlet.
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chwhite

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #11 on: March 01, 2012, 05:33:14 pm »
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I'm pretty sure Shanty Town is, if not the absolute worst Village for a Torturer chain, pretty close to it.  If you have Shanty Town and Torturer in your starting hand, which you probably need to get the chain started, than Shanty Town is just +2 Actions for $3- a pretty rotten deal.  If you just have one Shanty Town in your hand, then okay it's better than Village, but if you're building a Torturer chain than you'll need a bunch and you're more likely to have it with Torturers, or with other Shanty Towns, and a hand with several Shanties is no good either. So, okay, maybe one Shanty Town can work as a soft counter to your opponent's Torturer, but it also makes your multi-Torturer hits much harder to realize.

Shanty Town is so anti-synergistic with Torturer that I will consider building something else if that's the only option for a Torturer engine, something that can be said about no other Village.  Maybe the Natives, that's it.
« Last Edit: March 01, 2012, 05:35:41 pm by chwhite »
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ehunt

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #12 on: March 01, 2012, 05:49:22 pm »
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Tribute is

1. underrated

2. still not good

3. much better in an intrigue-heavy set.
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Taco Lobster

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #13 on: March 01, 2012, 06:09:51 pm »
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Shanty Town is so anti-synergistic with Torturer that I will consider building something else if that's the only option for a Torturer engine, something that can be said about no other Village.  Maybe the Natives, that's it.

I played a lot of games with just the Intrigue cards and agree with the above.  Mining Village is the best enabler for a Torturer chain in that set.  Shanty Town is useful if you're being hit by Torturers, but if you had the Shanty Town and Torturer in hand, you're going to keep them both and not get the draw off Shanty Town.
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Lhurgoyf

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #14 on: March 01, 2012, 07:45:02 pm »
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I do not agree with this:

I'd say that Village is a serious contender for the card which benefits the least from its own expansion. You need to have a reason to chain actions to want Village, and the base set doesn't really give you one, aside from Lab spam or Festival/Library, neither of which want Village.  Throne Room and Spy are also good candidates from the base set, for the same reasons.

Village has all what it needs to have in the basic set:
- Village
- Smithy, that is the cheapest 3-card-drawer at $4
- Workshop to pick up both while keeping your Buys free to get Money or useful $5's
- maybe add a Counting House / Militia combo there (or get Woodcutter for the +buy)

Watchtower is a candidate that fits most into the set it is in, Prosperity:
- defends against Goons and Mountebank
- in the absence of Royal Seal lets you set up your purchased Cards for a good engine play next round
- maybe some combo with +actions and Vault discarding, Watchtower redrawing the hand.
- only combo that it lacks is non-drawing villages like Fishing, Nobles and Festival

Festival+Library on the other hand do fit well together in the base set (I think they once emigrated from Alchemy and stayed together since the beginning)
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chwhite

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #15 on: March 01, 2012, 07:51:44 pm »
+1

I do not agree with this:

I'd say that Village is a serious contender for the card which benefits the least from its own expansion. You need to have a reason to chain actions to want Village, and the base set doesn't really give you one, aside from Lab spam or Festival/Library, neither of which want Village.  Throne Room and Spy are also good candidates from the base set, for the same reasons.

Village has all what it needs to have in the basic set:
- Village
- Smithy, that is the cheapest 3-card-drawer at $4
- Workshop to pick up both while keeping your Buys free to get Money or useful $5's
- maybe add a Counting House / Militia combo there (or get Woodcutter for the +buy)

Problem with Village/Smithy is that it's smoked by Smithy/BM.  And Workshop is just going to slow you down horribly.
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DG

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #16 on: March 01, 2012, 08:14:12 pm »
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A lot of attacks seem stronger without the defences included in their expansion. I'd include fortune teller, ghost ship, sea hag, mountebank, margrave, and noble brigand in this group. I also agree about the lack of a reliable village holding back torturers in intrigue.
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dondon151

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #17 on: March 01, 2012, 08:17:43 pm »
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Mining Village?

Even though Shanty Town is thoroughly mediocre, I recall that when we first got Intrigue and played games using it only, ST - Torturer would still be dominant in most kingdoms in which they were present. The only difference was the complaining that ensued because one player would manage to always draw a single ST when he needed it and the others would not get so lucky.
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eHalcyon

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #18 on: March 02, 2012, 12:26:30 am »
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Village has all what it needs to have in the basic set:
- Village
- Smithy, that is the cheapest 3-card-drawer at $4
- Workshop to pick up both while keeping your Buys free to get Money or useful $5's
- maybe add a Counting House / Militia combo there (or get Woodcutter for the +buy)

You're talking about the base set though, right?  Counting House is from Prosperity.
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petrie911

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #19 on: March 02, 2012, 12:35:53 am »
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I think he means Moneylender.
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blueblimp

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #20 on: March 02, 2012, 01:13:52 am »
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Village has all what it needs to have in the basic set:
- Village
- Smithy, that is the cheapest 3-card-drawer at $4
- Workshop to pick up both while keeping your Buys free to get Money or useful $5's
- maybe add a Counting House / Militia combo there (or get Woodcutter for the +buy)

You're talking about the base set though, right?  Counting House is from Prosperity.

Sometimes I forget Counting House is from Prosperity and think it's from Base. It's so weak that it fits in much better with generally-weak base cards rather than generally-strong prosperity cards.
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def

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #21 on: March 02, 2012, 06:50:16 am »
+2

He is talking about something with +buy that sort of combos with Militia and sounds like Counting House - that's Council Room.
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WanderingWinder

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #22 on: March 02, 2012, 08:43:50 am »
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I'm pretty sure Shanty Town is, if not the absolute worst Village for a Torturer chain, pretty close to it.  If you have Shanty Town and Torturer in your starting hand, which you probably need to get the chain started, than Shanty Town is just +2 Actions for $3- a pretty rotten deal.  If you just have one Shanty Town in your hand, then okay it's better than Village, but if you're building a Torturer chain than you'll need a bunch and you're more likely to have it with Torturers, or with other Shanty Towns, and a hand with several Shanties is no good either. So, okay, maybe one Shanty Town can work as a soft counter to your opponent's Torturer, but it also makes your multi-Torturer hits much harder to realize.

Shanty Town is so anti-synergistic with Torturer that I will consider building something else if that's the only option for a Torturer engine, something that can be said about no other Village.  Maybe the Natives, that's it.

Okay, but the thing is, it's still good enough to build the engine off of, right? And with other villages around, I have to imagine you want some shanty towns, for sure. And if there are no other villages... well, it's the best you've got, and good enough.

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #23 on: March 02, 2012, 10:08:22 am »
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I think a scrape an automated scrape of http://councilroom.com/supply_win could answer this.

Code: [Select]
For each card:
  stat = Request supply_win/target=card
     &interaction=(Expansion=ExpansionOf(card))
     &nested=true

sort stats by average change in quality.
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philosophyguy

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Re: What cards benefit the most/least from the sets they appear in?
« Reply #24 on: March 02, 2012, 01:51:14 pm »
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I have to say that Vineyard benefits most from being in its set. University for gaining actions, Scrying Pool for drawing action-thick decks, and almost all cards in the set give +action. Plus, Herbalist gives +Buy for getting multiple Vineyards a turn, AND lets you put the Potion back to do it again next time.
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