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[WanderingWinder]

Merchant Ship: An old card that never changed.

...

Wharf: The original version didn't have the +1 Buy. It got that to compare more favorably to Merchant Ship.

Merchant Ship (I will refer to it, perhaps unfortunately, with the abbreviation MS) is one of my favourite cards. It's a great card. But I think it's often underrated, because it's such a simple card. It's a solid card. Let's break it down.
First of all, it's a duration card, which has a big impact on how you look at it. Beyond this, it's a terminal action. And it provides virtual coins. Now, being a non-drawing terminal duration tells you a good idea of how many of these you can sustain. But how good of a card is it, when do you want it, and apart from how many you CAN have, how many do you want?

Well, the effect of giving $4 split up over two turns is typically stronger than gold, which gives $3 in one turn. Yes, concentration can help things, but that's a whole extra money. The big drawback, and THE reason you want gold over merchant ship sometimes, even with the higher cost, is that MS is terminal. But, being a duration card, and being non-drawing, you can sneak some more of these into your deck than you would with normal terminals.

And just by itself, big-money wise, you can get it to be roughly on par with BM-Smithy, BM-Envoy, BM-Oracle, these kinds of decks. It can form the backbone of an economy. Most BM decks rely mostly on golds to be able to get to that province. Jack decks rely on a billion silvers, but even there, gold is important. In MS decks, Gold is very nice, but the MS are key. 2 MS (you can have 2 in play at once - the benefits of duration terminals!), and 4 copper or more commonly a silver and 2 copper, there's your province. And a 2-coin head start next turn.
Of course, like many duration cards, the MS effect is the same now and later - which makes it better on your next turn than it is now. Now, it's just a terminal silver. Next turn, it's like you've played two treasuries before your turn starts. Which hey, ain't bad.

But the real strength of MS, I think, is in how it plays with other actions. BM-Smithy, it's really hard to add other actions and have them help you out. BM-Merchant Ship, on the other hand, you can add all kinds of other stuff to. Swindler on the board? Slide over to opening that, and ease up on the merchant ships a little bit later. The same is true with lots of other good opening terminals. And merchant ship also plays nicely with cantrips, which a card like smithy won't. So a lot of times, this non-engine deck that still relies on a good number of actions, but plays more like a money deck, is possible. And MS is great here. Especially since those MS you shave off, you can usually do by getting gold over MS on 6 (in BM-Merchant ship, you want to prioritize MS>Gold a good bit).

I would be remiss, of course, if I didn't mention how it plays in engines. It plays fine in engines, but not great. I mean, it's a terminal, and one which doesn't give +buy or +actions or +cards or any kind of attack to slow the opponents down. In short, it doesn't really give you any of the things engines really need to be viable. BUT, if there's an engine already around that you want to play, and you can spare an action here and there, 1-2 MS are a great addition to provide coins, not needing as many actions or taking as much space up as other terminals, while still providing coin at least on par with gold.

Overall, a very nice card, not so often super-stellar, but most often a strong, nice addition to your deck.
And as for that Donald X. quote... no, it's not in the same league as wharf. But switch around which one has the buy...


Works with:
Non-draw terminals
Money decks
Anything that needs consistent coin production
Cantrips
Generally useful cards, so long as they're not terminal draw

Doesn't work with:
Terminal draw

[WanderingWinder]

By the way, it was way too much work getting that quote exactly right. Except that it was also a lot of fun...

[Galzria]

I love Merchant Ship, so versatile.

[Young Nick]

Generally useful cards, so long as they're not

You lost me with this one. This too:

Especially since those MS you shave off, you can usually do by getting gold over MS on 6 (in BM-Merchant ship, you want to prioritize MS>Gold a good bit).

Regardless, this is a very nice article. I think the average rank of f.ds members would be 1-2 lower if not for you and your gazillion articles, WW.

[WanderingWinder]

Generally useful cards, so long as they're not

Should say terminal draw. Fixed now.

You lost me with this one. This too:

Especially since those MS you shave off, you can usually do by getting gold over MS on 6 (in BM-Merchant ship, you want to prioritize MS>Gold a good bit).

Regardless, this is a very nice article. I think the average rank of f.ds members would be 1-2 lower if not for you and your gazillion articles, WW.

What I mean here is, you buy other cards, which means you need to buy fewer MS, because you want to avoid terminal collision, right? I think you're following me here. The part that I am probably not phrasing very clearly is the next one. So you want to buy fewer MS. But of course, you don't buy nothing instead of MS. What I'm saying is, the thing that you're buying instead, some kind of reverse opportunity cost, you can often work it out so that that thing you're buying instead of MS, is a gold. Which is a pretty darn good 'downgrade' to have to make.

[Robz888]

Merchant Ship is definitely one of those cards I never would have given the time of the day if not for WW and others arguing that they are good.

[Kahryl]

Poor merchant ship. You deserved the +buys, not Wharf.

[Galzria]

Poor merchant ship. You deserved the +buys, not Wharf.

MS would be WAY to strong with +buy. It allows for a consistency that is only really balanced by it's natural ability to only purchase one thing. Wharf, because it can draw itself and other cards dead, survives on it's + buy (although I would think it more balanced if it dud not provide that benefit as a duration).

[WanderingWinder]

Poor merchant ship. You deserved the +buys, not Wharf.

MS would be WAY to strong with +buy. It allows for a consistency that is only really balanced by it's natural ability to only purchase one thing. Wharf, because it can draw itself and other cards dead, survives on it's + buy (although I would think it more balanced if it dud not provide that benefit as a duration).

Are you really trying to argue that MS with buy would be better than wharf as-is?
Looks like I need to go write the wharf article.

[Galzria]

Poor merchant ship. You deserved the +buys, not Wharf.

MS would be WAY to strong with +buy. It allows for a consistency that is only really balanced by it's natural ability to only purchase one thing. Wharf, because it can draw itself and other cards dead, survives on it's + buy (although I would think it more balanced if it dud not provide that benefit as a duration).

Are you really trying to argue that MS with buy would be better than wharf as-is?
Looks like I need to go write the wharf article.

I think Wharf is too strong as-is. I think MS with +buy would be on par with Wharf.

[Robz888]

I think Wharf is too strong as-is. I think MS with +buy would be on par with Wharf.

If MS stole both of Wharf's buys, they would be much closer. If it stole one of Wharf's buys, Wharf would suffer, but still be a really, really, great card.

But if MS simply also had a buy, and Wharf retained both its buys--they're not even close.

[Robz888]

Are you really trying to argue that MS with buy would be better than wharf as-is?
Looks like I need to go write the wharf article.

You definitely should. I thought Hunting Party was a better card as recently as... 2 weeks ago.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Really good article. I think you nailed the key point in italics, which is always good. Merchant Ship I think of as the standard "good" $5 card. It doesn't really need to be a starring card (e.g. in the Swindler case, you could argue that the Swindler is really the more important card in that deck), but it almost always fits in as a good way to use up your spare terminal action.

One thing I wish you'd say more about is when you prefer it to Gold. You say "In BM-Merchant ship ... a good bit", but can you say anything more about it?

[DG]

To take the article to the next level I think you need to look at some more situations where the merchant ship can be very impressive, perhaps in treasure less decks powered by tacticians or scrying pools where the big income for a single action is hard to match. It also only needs to be drawn into hand on alternate turns and that can be an advantage when drawing through the entire deck, perhaps with alchemists.

Another good use of merchant ship is in curse filled decks where drawing actions will just draw more rubbish. This also shows the value of having a card of cost 5 to enable a purchasing strategy since it can be hard to attain the 6 coins needed for the first gold. On the other hand, in a deck with good treasures any drawing action will typically generate more income than the merchant ship and cycle the deck faster.

The comparison between gold and merchant ship is interesting but again there could be more. In a game with a sharp fast increase in spending the merchant ship can be a bit slow, especially when there can be step increases in the quality of your deck upon shuffling. The merchant ship can miss out on those. There are also some complexities with hand size, deck size, deck quality, and so on that I wouldn't particularly want to quantify. Perhaps an article should though.

[WanderingWinder]

To take the article to the next level I think you need to look at some more situations where the merchant ship can be very impressive, perhaps in treasure less decks powered by tacticians or scrying pools where the big income for a single action is hard to match. It also only needs to be drawn into hand on alternate turns and that can be an advantage when drawing through the entire deck, perhaps with alchemists.

The reason that that's not in the article is that I don't think MS is particularly impressive in those situations, and I actually don't think that it's almost ever the 'wowza' card that you're talking about.

Another good use of merchant ship is in curse filled decks where drawing actions will just draw more rubbish. This also shows the value of having a card of cost 5 to enable a purchasing strategy since it can be hard to attain the 6 coins needed for the first gold. On the other hand, in a deck with good treasures any drawing action will typically generate more income than the merchant ship and cycle the deck faster.

The comparison between gold and merchant ship is interesting but again there could be more. In a game with a sharp fast increase in spending the merchant ship can be a bit slow, especially when there can be step increases in the quality of your deck upon shuffling. The merchant ship can miss out on those. There are also some complexities with hand size, deck size, deck quality, and so on that I wouldn't particularly want to quantify. Perhaps an article should though.

True, maybe. But I can't possibly hope to cover every little situation. Nor do I want to. I don't want to be too prescriptive in these things - you always have to be on the lookout for creativity yourself, and every little kingdom tends to add a little twist.

[jomini]

One place I think that might be worth mentioning for merchant ships and engines is where you want disappearing cash. MS loves menage/village engines. You can play duplicates and they take up half the space of most other action-cash cards. Likewise, for jack/lib/watchtower, MS takes fewer actions to play and unlike cash doesn't limit your draw. In general, MS is among the better terminal-cash cards for engines - you need half the villages to support it as other action payload and it takes up 50 - 75% of the deck space of actual cash (and is cheaper to boot than those space efficient golds).

[WanderingWinder]

To take the article to the next level I think you need to look at some more situations where the merchant ship can be very impressive, perhaps in treasure less decks powered by tacticians or scrying pools where the big income for a single action is hard to match. It also only needs to be drawn into hand on alternate turns and that can be an advantage when drawing through the entire deck, perhaps with alchemists.

The reason that that's not in the article is that I don't think MS is particularly impressive in those situations, and I actually don't think that it's almost ever the 'wowza' card that you're talking about.

I should probably elaborate. I actually think merchant ship actually anti-synergizes ever-so-slightly with tactician, because if you draw them together, you double miss the benefit of the ship, or you don't play the tactician. And if you play it in a tactician turn... I don't see how this is different from a generic joe schmo card like silver. I mean, I think it works more or less fine in tac decks and double tac decks, but it is not at all a sign for me to go that direction. Tactician decks are all about loading up from having spread out money to getting fewer turns that do you good, and just having them be lots bigger. Merchant ship is about spreading the goods around. So it's not something I see together. Of course, double tac decks give you both size AND consistency, but you need help to pull it off. And again, I'm not seeing a situation where I'm like 'ooh, merchant ship - I should go double tac'. But if I have a double tac deck, I might be like 'oh hey look, merchant ship; that can help.' But it won't be the star.
The scrying pool thing - well, usually I'd rather have different actions there. Because if I am building a scrying pool deck, I will be drawing roughly my whole deck every turn when I get running. And this lessens merchant ship's relative effectiveness. I mean, if I can play an action every turn, I'd rather be a terminal silver with more of an ancillary benefit - like monument or militia - because I'm probably playing it next turn anyway.
Alchemist, yeah, it helps the alchemist deck, you can have one in play every other turn. But for an alchemist deck to be viable at all, you need some more help. Maybe on a colony board. But typically if I'm playing alchemist, I want something that really mashes me benefit for big handsize (not MS) and/or some +buy (again, not MS).

[paulbaxter]

Poor merchant ship. You deserved the +buys, not Wharf.

MS would be WAY to strong with +buy. It allows for a consistency that is only really balanced by it's natural ability to only purchase one thing. Wharf, because it can draw itself and other cards dead, survives on it's + buy (although I would think it more balanced if it dud not provide that benefit as a duration).

Are you really trying to argue that MS with buy would be better than wharf as-is?
Looks like I need to go write the wharf article.

I think Wharf is too strong as-is. I think MS with +buy would be on par with Wharf.

The math on this is pretty simple. If the cards you would have drawn with wharf have a value equal to $2, then they would be the same (aside from any positive or negative value to general deck velocity). If their average value is less than $2, then a MS with +buy would be better; if greater than $2, then wharf would be better.

How often is the average value of two cards in your deck less than $2?

[dondon151]

The reason that that's not in the article is that I don't think MS is particularly impressive in those situations, and I actually don't think that it's almost ever the 'wowza' card that you're talking about.

I disagree. I hear that in decks in which your draw your entire deck consistently, MS may as well have been, say, a Woodcutter. But keep in mind that you require half as many extra actions to play the number of MSs that you need to get the same monetary output as Woodcutter.

[WanderingWinder]

The reason that that's not in the article is that I don't think MS is particularly impressive in those situations, and I actually don't think that it's almost ever the 'wowza' card that you're talking about.

I disagree. I hear that in decks in which your draw your entire deck consistently, MS may as well have been, say, a Woodcutter. But keep in mind that you require half as many extra actions to play the number of MSs that you need to get the same monetary output as Woodcutter.

But the thing is, usually if you can draw your whole deck, actions are fairly plentiful. And if you're drawing your whole deck, you already have the money you need - 7 starting coppers and SOMETHING else, or at least the $5 to buy your merchant ship, a single gold gets you up to $8, and that's all you need. But typically, if you have an engine like this, buys are at a premium.
I mean, I don't think that Merchant ship is bad in these situations. It might yet be better than woodcutter, and maybe by a decent amount. But that doesn't mean it's super good. I think it's a solid card there. I don't think it's a great card.

[jomini]

In my experience, about half of all viable engines actually have their starting coppers around by the time you green. About half have been thinned out by trashing stuff one way or another (chapel, mint, remake, upgrade, etc.).

Depending on your engine, you may or may not have spare actions. For instance, a minion engine rarely has much in the way of spare actions; but adding a MS or two in after the minions are divvied up is a strong move. Likewise lab, Xroads (and whatever), cartographer, and other engines are often low on action balance.

The nuts and bolts of it for engine building are that woodcutters provides a payload of 2 coin for the cost of 1 action and 1 card; also gives a +buy. Gold provides 3 coin for 1 card and 0 actions. MS provides 4 coin for 1 card and 1 action. Depending on the engine, any of these may be more efficient for getting to 8, 11, 16, 22 or whatever. For a limited draw engine like library, treasure is harsh because that 1 card cost sticks around for each additional watchtower; actions are dear as piling on another two villages can mean delaying the payout for a turn or two. For a xroads engine (e.g. xroads, GH, IW), actions are limited and gold is great payout.

Not every engine is a draw 15 card engine, slip out 8 coin, and nab a province. Some are, some are ones that aim to hit 16 coin and snag out 4 provinces before the engine clogs to death on green. When MS occupies a nice niche - it is pretty space efficient (though less than plat) and pretty action efficient (though nowhere near as good as festival or gold). It fits well in a lot of engines.

[Markov Chain]

Poor merchant ship. You deserved the +buys, not Wharf.

MS would be WAY to strong with +buy. It allows for a consistency that is only really balanced by it's natural ability to only purchase one thing. Wharf, because it can draw itself and other cards dead, survives on it's + buy (although I would think it more balanced if it dud not provide that benefit as a duration).

Are you really trying to argue that MS with buy would be better than wharf as-is?
Looks like I need to go write the wharf article.

I think Wharf is too strong as-is. I think MS with +buy would be on par with Wharf.

The math on this is pretty simple. If the cards you would have drawn with wharf have a value equal to $2, then they would be the same (aside from any positive or negative value to general deck velocity). If their average value is less than $2, then a MS with +buy would be better; if greater than $2, then wharf would be better.

How often is the average value of two cards in your deck less than $2?

And what makes Wharf so much better (particularly compared to Council Room, which looks similar) is that the second two-card draw is always live; if you draw an action with those two cards (such as another Wharf), you may be able to play it for full benefit. 

[O]

MS with buy is probably better than wharf without buy, but about the same/slightly worse than wharf with buy. Wharf without buy is nowhere near the powerhouse it is currently, though still probably an acceptable 5$.

[dondon151]

MS with buy is probably better than wharf without buy, but about the same/slightly worse than wharf with buy. Wharf without buy is nowhere near the powerhouse it is currently, though still probably an acceptable 5$.

Why would Wharf be that much worse without +buy? As long as there's +buy somewhere else, Wharf still does basically the same thing.

[O]

MS with buy is probably better than wharf without buy, but about the same/slightly worse than wharf with buy. Wharf without buy is nowhere near the powerhouse it is currently, though still probably an acceptable 5$.

Why would Wharf be that much worse without +buy? As long as there's +buy somewhere else, Wharf still does basically the same thing.

1) It's *two* buys, which is a significant boost to any card
2)Large terminal draw is probably the cardtype given the largest boost by +buys.
Because +buy on large draw