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[Razzishi]

Why the hate for the Pearl Diver?

I know it's a somewhat weak card, but it replaces itself in both card and action when played.  The only time that it takes up any room in your deck is when you have a terminal card-drawer that can't skip over it.  This includes Witch, Ghost Ship, Torturer, Wharf, Smithy, potentially Nobles, and probably some others.  It certainly will suck when you draw a Pearl Diver instead of a treasure when you play one of those as your final action, and certainly in such a case I can see ignoring it even if you have $2 to spend as the times it will be useful are relatively minor compared to times it will be dead. 

However, its effect is probably a bit stronger than some people realize.  I'm of the opinion that a single Pearl Diver improves your draws even when you don't move a card with it.  Quantum mechanics-inclined thinkers may look at it as collapsing the probability function of your deck into one that is slightly more advantageous for you.  Alternatively, with a single copy and a random deck it is nearly equivalent to "Look at a the top card of your deck.  You may move it to bottom of your deck."  Once you play it a second time during a shuffle without having moved the bottom card it becomes worse, and with Sea Hag, Ghost Ship, and Courtyard (and I guess Stash in theory) it isn't actually equivalent, but the only reason you'd be loading up on Pearl Divers would be for something like a cheap buy for Goons that helps you find other Goons, helping a Conspirator chain kick off, or loading up your Scrying Pool-based deck with more actions - all of which Pearl Diver fit very nicely in.  It also can do more than improve the quality of your future turns: if you have other card-drawing in hand, it will provide some useful information in planning your turn if you have some choices to make.  At very least, a single Pearl Diver bought with a 2 copper/3 estate hand may end up providing some help and rarely get in the way.  Multiples may provide a lesser effect, but if there's no terminal card drawing there's no drawback at all. 

Ok, the card is not great, I understand that.  Perhaps it's a newbie-bait card that people end up buying too many of when they should be buying other things, or have them stuck in hand after playing a terminal card-drawer.  But those are mistakes that could be made with pretty much any action.  Why is Pearl Diver specifically hated on to the extent that it is?

[tko]

Before I read Beyond Silver, I ignored Pearl Diver:
http://dominionstrategy.com/2011/01/17/beyond-silver/
   "I would probably take even Pearl Diver over a Silver given appropriate circumstances"

Then I realized sometimes a Pearl Diver can be OK.  So I looked through my games, and found "0 Pearl Divers" for most games except Goons where I bought several for VP tokens.  Then I found this one which isn't indicative of much but may support your "1 Pearl Diver" theory as it helped do something with my 2-coin purchase on Turn 4 on Turn 5 to move my Steward to top so I could speed up my trashing.http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110629-095027-232b6bdb.html
[Edit to add italics and remove strikeout after Thisisnotasmile pointed out the turn 5 reshuffle that I didn't notice previously]
--- tko's turn 4 ---
tko plays a Caravan.
... drawing 1 card and getting +1 action.
tko plays a Steward.
... trashing an Estate and a Copper.
tko plays 2 Coppers.
tko buys a Pearl Diver.
(tko reshuffles.)
(tko draws: a Pearl Diver, an Estate, 2 Coppers, and a Caravan.)
    ...
--- tko's turn 5 ---
tko draws 1 card from the Caravan.
tko plays a Pearl Diver.
... drawing 1 card and getting +1 action.
... and moving the bottom card of the deck to the top.
tko plays a Caravan.
... drawing 1 card and getting +1 action.
tko plays 4 Coppers.
tko buys a Caravan.
(tko reshuffles.)
(tko draws: an Estate, 3 Coppers, and a Steward.)
    ...
--- tko's turn 6 ---
tko draws 1 card from the Caravan.
tko plays a Steward.
... trashing 2 Estates.
tko plays 3 Coppers.
tko buys a Silver.
(tko draws: 2 Caravans and 3 Coppers.)

[Thisisnotasmile]

Apart from you didn't move the Steward to the top of your deck, or if you did, you didn't play it (You didn't because you had already played it that shuffle). Whatever you moved to the top of your deck (which was already there because you only had 1 card in your draw pile at the time) was drawn by your Caravan in the same turn. You then reshuffled before drawing the Steward for your next turn, by luck.

[WanderingWinder]

The reason why I talk about Pearl Diver so disparagingly is that it's the one card, I think, more than any other (maybe even curse!), where I'm never like "Man, what I really need here is Pearl Diver." That doesn't mean it's horrible, just that it's nothing special. At all. And yeah, the moving card ability is probably underrated.

[DG]

I've certainly played some games where I've thought to myself "my opponent probably would have won if he'd just bought some pearl divers!". One case I can remember included some goons and ventures, so the goons could score points buying the cards and the ventures could make use of the card placement.

[Young Nick]

Maybe it is underrated, maybe it isn't. For me the card feels like nothing. The only time I have used it effectively is when there was a game with King's Court, strong trashing and no other source of +Actions. I picked up Pearl Divers solely for the purpose of being able to play more terminal actions. That's about as useful as it gets for me, though.

[^_^_^_^]

Pearl Diver is basically just buying an ability to move a card from the bottom...(this been said enough times in one thread lol) that appears at different times throughout your deck. See I think of it more as an ability, a spell etc. since it replaces the spot in your deck it took with the card that would normally be there anyways. Works well with other +draw cards and when you are drawing your entire deck almost every turn it can help with that by making it so you don't lose cards as soon as you begin getting VPs. Overall, a good card that shouldn't be bought too often for fear of wasting precious $ and should be used wisely. For with great power comes great responsibility. (Now that wasn't said in this thread yet )

[Axe Knight]

The reason why I talk about Pearl Diver so disparagingly is that it's the one card, I think, more than any other (maybe even curse!), where I'm never like "Man, what I really need here is Pearl Diver." That doesn't mean it's horrible, just that it's nothing special. At all. And yeah, the moving card ability is probably underrated.

^^^^THIS, and...

1)Suppose I Throne Room/King's Court the Pearl Diver.  There's a Copper at the bottom of my deck.  Well, that doesn't really work out, does it?  Sure, I get +3 Cards, +3 Actions, but there's probably better sources of this.  What I'm trying to say is, it doesn't really pair well with itself.
2)Even in decks without good trashing, I'm just as likely to find something "bad" at the bottom of my deck, then "good."
3)If there's no other source of better non-terminal actions, it could be used in things like Conspirator chains, and to soak up buys with Goons as some people have mentioned.  But again, there's almost always something better.

Personally, I buy it only if I have an extra buy and there's nothing because, it's like, why not?  Occasionally, with nice trashing, moving a bad card to the top of your deck can benefit you too.  But I don't think you'll ever hear about someone building their deck around a glorious Pearl Diver strategy.

[timchen]

The one thing I know and am sure about it is that this has nothing to do with quantum mechanics.

[^_^_^_^]

The one thing I know and am sure about it is that this has nothing to do with quantum mechanics.

That made me laugh so hard lol.

[Nitsuj]

I would never buy a pearl diver just for the sake of buying a pearl diver.  but if I only have 2 treasure and there are no other good "2" buys early in the game, I'll definitely buy it.  And even if I only end up moving 1 or 2 cards to the top during the entire game, that's ok.  It was technically better than not moving anything at all.

As far as 2 buys go, they cannot all be chapels, pawns, lighthouses, or hamlets.

[ShuffleNCut]

-It's good to have in decks with Throne Room/King's Court when it's an extra buy that can't get you anything better because it helps to reduce the chance of drawing TR/KC with no action (TR>Pearl diver essentially cycles both cards and gives you actions and a minimal effect as a bonus, this can become a mini village on boards with no +action)
-It's ability has a non zero chance of helping you (may not be much but it exists)
-It is rubbish in decks that have terminal draw but not much +action
-It's awesome in decks with Remake/Remodel/Expand because it either cycles as if it were never there to get you closer to your important cards or it can be trashed for something better (better than skipping that 2/3$ buy when you didn't want another silver or would otherwise buy nothing)


The biggest factor I have that makes me slightly dislike Pearl Diver is the Village Idiot/Analysis Paralysis it causes when there are a lot of PDs in people's decks and turns take ages for little to no effect.  Other than that it's an OK card.  Hard to hate a card that replaces itself when you don't want it.

[drg]

It's also a cheap buy for peddler purchases.  I would always rather have a pawn though, in any of those chains.

[ShuffleNCut]

It's also a cheap buy for peddler purchases.  I would always rather have a pawn though, in any of those chains.

Pawn and Hamlet are a Peddlerophile's wet dream.  Pearl Diver simply better than nothing (some of the time).

[minced]

Pearl diver does actually combo with lookout and farming village. For lookout, if you've got lookout and  pearl diver in hand, you can play your lookout if the bottom card sucks (after bring it to the top), and not play the lookout otherwise - this way, you don't play lookout every time you have it, but you won't trash good cards. For farming village, you can bring curses/victory cards to the top of your deck in order to discard them.

[ShuffleNCut]

Pearl diver does actually combo with lookout and farming village. For lookout, if you've got lookout and  pearl diver in hand, you can play your lookout if the bottom card sucks (after bring it to the top), and not play the lookout otherwise - this way, you don't play lookout every time you have it, but you won't trash good cards. For farming village, you can bring curses/victory cards to the top of your deck in order to discard them.

Pearl Diver can actually Anti-Combo with Farming Village as well though.  You play the FV and it draws you Pearl Diver.  You play the diver and it draws you the Estate FV would have skipped over.  You also see this often in decks with Golem and Hunting Party; that one of PD in your deck blocks you from hitting a good card.

[Zaphod]

Pearl diver does actually combo with lookout and farming village. For lookout, if you've got lookout and  pearl diver in hand, you can play your lookout if the bottom card sucks (after bring it to the top), and not play the lookout otherwise - this way, you don't play lookout every time you have it, but you won't trash good cards. For farming village, you can bring curses/victory cards to the top of your deck in order to discard them.

Also Scrying Pool, Native Village, Scout. Masquerade, Upgrade, etc.  It can be good for getting past, or trashing, cards that you would hate to see in your hand during a different turn.

Buying Pearl Diver every game it's available would be a mistake, but it does have some value in the right situation.

[Razzishi]

The one thing I know and am sure about it is that this has nothing to do with quantum mechanics.

Heh.  I admit it's a bit of a stretch, but it's what sprang to mind as I was considering the benefits of the card. 

One thing from I've learned playing Magic is that people don't really understand that the contents of their deck might be physically fixed after they shuffle, but they are logically a probability distribution until observed.  When an effect looks at or does something to certain cards of your deck that were as far as you knew equally likely to be any card in your deck, one should logically ignore any facts regarding where the cards physically came from.  It doesn't matter in the least that the cards were physically once on top of your deck, because from a logical perspective the top cards of your deck only change in probability distribution due to the names of cards that were once in the deck being observed, not due to there are physically different cards now sitting on top of it.  If you were to remove cards from the top of your deck face down and you receive no information as to what cards they are, the top cards of your deck did not change (in probability).  Looking at the removed cards at any time after they were removed would change the probability distribution of the top cards of your deck (in probability) even though the observation did not change the cards physically.  This causes many players to overvalue cards that put cards from their opponent's deck into their discard pile, and agonize when the effects are used on them and they see the cards go by that they "were going to" draw.  From a physical perspective that may have been true, but from a probabilistic perspective it was uncertain what was going to be drawn.

Thus, for Pearl Diver, one can easily underrate the ability by saying that it didn't do anything when there was a bad card on the bottom of your deck.  But before you played Pearl Diver you didn't know that bad card was there; now you do and can plan around it as appropriate.  And as mentioned, for the first copy in absence of cards like Courtyard, you can pretend you actually were looking at the top card and moving it to the bottom.  And moving a dead/bad card to a hand where it's likely to miss a shuffle is a good thing; if you wanted it in your next hand in order to be more likely to trash it with the Chapel or whatever you know is coming up, you should have moved(/kept) it there!

[Eric Herboso]

One thing from I've learned playing Magic is that people don't really understand that the contents of their deck might be physically fixed after they shuffle, but they are logically a probability distribution until observed.

In the interest of ensuring that people don't get an incorrect idea of what quantum mechanics is, I would like to jump in here and make sure that it is understood that every major interpretation of quantum physics does not say anything like this. To the contrary, unobserved phenomena remain solely a probability distribution until observed, and there is no such thing as facts being physically fixed yet hidden in advance.

I am not saying that anyone has made that mistake here (the above quote does not say directly that the situation is like quantum dynamics, but it is implied), but since Razzishi is comparing quantum effects with hidden deck orders, I just wanted to make sure that idle readers didn't think that hidden information is like an uncollapsed wavefunction. If hidden information were equivalent to an uncollapsed wavefunction, then quantum physics would be unverifiable. Yet quantum physics is most certainly verifiable, and so uncollapsed wavefunctions are most certainly unlike mere hidden information.

(I apologize for going offtopic, but too often do I see incorrect ideas on physics posited on webforums, and I just wanted to clear up a possible misunderstanding before any more false memes get started on the internet.)

[WanderingWinder]

One thing from I've learned playing Magic is that people don't really understand that the contents of their deck might be physically fixed after they shuffle, but they are logically a probability distribution until observed.

In the interest of ensuring that people don't get an incorrect idea of what quantum mechanics is, I would like to jump in here and make sure that it is understood that every major interpretation of quantum physics does not say anything like this. To the contrary, unobserved phenomena remain solely a probability distribution until observed, and there is no such thing as facts being physically fixed yet hidden in advance.

I am not saying that anyone has made that mistake here (the above quote does not say directly that the situation is like quantum dynamics, but it is implied), but since Razzishi is comparing quantum effects with hidden deck orders, I just wanted to make sure that idle readers didn't think that hidden information is like an uncollapsed wavefunction. If hidden information were equivalent to an uncollapsed wavefunction, then quantum physics would be unverifiable. Yet quantum physics is most certainly verifiable, and so uncollapsed wavefunctions are most certainly unlike mere hidden information.

(I apologize for going offtopic, but too often do I see incorrect ideas on physics posited on webforums, and I just wanted to clear up a possible misunderstanding before any more false memes get started on the internet.)

Physics fight?
It's true that every 'major' interpretation of quantum mechanics doesn't say anything like that. That's why they're philosophically absurd. Saying that quantum physics works in a similar to how it is above implied is in fact not a mistake, it just doesn't jive with the popular scientific interpretation. Implying that the leading quantum physicists think this is right would indeed be a mistake.
But mostly I want to pick on this bit: "If hidden information were equivalent to an uncollapsed wavefunction, then quantum physics would be unverifiable. Yet quantum physics is most certainly verifiable, and so uncollapsed wavefunctions are most certainly unlike mere hidden information."
1. When you say that quantum physics is certainly verifiable, you say that like it's as obvious as saying the sun is bright. Not only is it not obviously true, but to the extent that it makes predictions which are probabilities that are neither 0 or 1, it's not even correct!
2. I fail to see how the second part of your first sentence here, "quantum physics would be unverifiable" follows from the first, "If hidden information were equivalent to an uncollapsed wavefunction", at least to any extent that your interpretation of quantum mechanics helps.


I look forward to your response.
~A fellow physicist

Edit: I would like to note that I would never say that Pearl Diver is "like quantum mechanics" at all.

[Silverback]

Defending Pearl Diver:
1. There are cards like Outlook, that benefit from knowledge of the top card of your deck.
2. Moving a good card from the bottom to the top may prevent it from missing a reshuffle.

[guided]

In my experience, Pearl Diver forces an unwanted shuffle just as often as it does anything useful. Worst card in the game.

[DStu]

IANAP, but aren't there experiments that mostly rules out hidden variables in QT?

Anyway, I think as a probabilist, the metaphor (or whatever) of QT is quite good, although it is a little bit ironic to use the theory of which it is claimed that you haven't understood it if you claim you understood it to explain something. But the topic is more about a "philosphical" one about randomness, it's more "what is random" or "how long do things stay random". And I think Razzishi approach is correct here:
As long as no information about an random event has reached you, you can (and should) still consider it as random (with the same distribution as before). Even if some information has reached you, you can consider it as random with a probably different distribution.
If someone throws a dice in a closed room, "my personal probability distribution" still is uniform on 1..6 until someone leaves the room or opens a window or whatever. Even if the people in the room already know what the result is.

The difference to QM then it that in QM the "dice" really is all 1 to 6 with prob. 1/6 until someone looks at it, while in the "real world" it is only useful to think it were.

Edit:

Edit: I would like to note that I would never say that Pearl Diver is "like quantum mechanics" at all.

Nobody said that, it was just said: "If you want to think like in QM, then look at the situation like that: ..."

[HockeyHippo]

It's not a horrible card, I think it's pretty balanced for it's price. There are some situations where it can be used effectively and others where it can't.

What it's good for:
Can be throned/kinged.
Goons buying (cheap card for vp while not hurting your deck)
Conspirator Chains
Peddler Buying

What' it's bad for:
As mentioned above FV, very bad with FV
A set with strong terminal +cards(ghost ship, torturer, witch)

If you're building a + action/card chain and the decision is to either buy it or nothing, I highly suggest buying it. It doesn't take any room in your hand(once you play it) and it gives you an option to improve your next draw.

[guided]

Sometimes I wonder if Pearl Diver's entire raison d'être is to answer the question "Just how weak do we have to make a cantrip to cost it at $2?"

(Yes, I know, Pawn and Hamlet, but if you use them as a cantrips they have no other effect whatsoever.)