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[Qvist]

Half a year passed, a lot of new knowledge gained and many requests came from all of you, that means it's time for version 2.0 of the Dominion Card List(s).
Here's a link to the last one: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1134.0

What do you have to do?
If you like to contribute, send me a PM for one or the other list (or both) or fill in the respective online form.
Please be sure that you put each card in order and don't miss any.
Cards are only counted if they are kingdom cards, so no Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Potion, Estate, Duchy, Province, Colony, Curse and Prize Cards are allowed.

If you've submitted the last time, I will not take your last submission into account, but of course you can just tell me you want to re-submit your list
And if you didn't save your last submission and you need it, feel free to PM me and I will send it to you.

1.) The best cards of each price level

Best Cards
Just arrange the cards for your ranking with the best card going first and the worst on the last position.
If you want PM me, this list should be subdivided into several lists, containing:
16 $2 cards, 26 $3 cards, 43 $4 cards, 48 $5 cards, 14 >$6 cards, 10 Potion cards = 157

Usual disclaimer: This list should cause discussion not hassle. Of course it's difficult to compare some of the cards because pretty much every card has some situations where it shines and situations where it doesn't. This isn't a scientific list, just a compiled list of the community's opinion of the best cards.

Card List:

Code: [Select]

16 $2 cards
Cellar
Chapel
Moat
Courtyard
Pawn
Secret Chamber
Embargo
Haven
Lighthouse
Native Village
Pearl Diver
Herbalist
Hamlet
Crossroads
Duchess
Fool's Gold

26 $3 cards
Chancellor
Village
Woodcutter
Workshop
Great Hall
Masquerade
Shanty Town
Steward
Swindler
Wishing Well
Ambassador
Fishing Village
Lookout
Smugglers
Warehouse
Loan
Trade Route
Watchtower
Fortune Teller
Menagerie
Develop
Oasis
Oracle
Scheme
Tunnel
Black Market

43 $4 cards
Bureaucrat
Feast
Gardens
Militia
Moneylender
Remodel
Smithy
Spy
Thief
Throne Room
Baron
Bridge
Conspirator
Coppersmith
Ironworks
Mining Village
Scout
Caravan
Cutpurse
Island
Navigator
Pirate Ship
Salvager
Sea Hag
Treasure Map
Bishop
Monument
Quarry
Talisman
Worker's Village
Farming Village
Horse Traders
Remake
Tournament
Young Witch
Jack of all Trades
Noble Brigand
Nomad Camp
Silk Road
Spice Merchant
Trader
Envoy
Walled Village

48 $5 cards
Council Room
Festival
Laboratory
Library
Market
Mine
Witch
Duke
Minion
Saboteur
Torturer
Trading Post
Tribute
Upgrade
Bazaar
Explorer
Ghost Ship
Merchant Ship
Outpost
Tactician
Treasury
Wharf
Apprentice
City
Contraband
Counting House
Mint
Mountebank
Rabble
Royal Seal
Vault
Venture
Harvest
Horn of Plenty
Hunting Party
Jester
Cache
Cartographer
Embassy
Haggler
Highway
Ill-Gotten Gains
Inn
Mandarin
Margrave
Stables
Governor
Stash

14 >$6 cards
Adventurer
Harem
Nobles
Goons
Grand Market
Hoard
Fairgrounds
Border Village
Farmland
Bank
Expand
Forge
King's Court
Peddler

10 Potion cards
Transmute
Vineyard
Apothecary
Scrying Pool
University
Alchemist
Familiar
Philosopher's Stone
Golem
Possession

2.) The favourite cards

Favourite Cards (ordered version)
Favourite Cards (rating version)
You can rank the cards, based on whatever you like: strength/weakness, originality in design, fun and "no-fun" factor, whatever.
As very few voted last time because ordering 157 cards can be very painful, I included a second option to rate the cards. I used the finest rating which was available (0-10) but you can also use 0-5 or 10-5 as long as the highest value means that you like it more. You can also send me a PM with a rating from 0-20 or any scale you like. Or just arrange the cards for your ranking with the favourite card going first and the least favourite on the last position. No matter what version you choose, all 157 cards need to be in the list.


What else?
Submission deadline is the 30th of June 11:59pm UTC.
Each card will get points based on the rank. So your favourite card gets 157 points and your least favourite gets 1 point. This will result in a compiled list of all of your lists.
Then I will post the rankings in 10-15 card blocks from worst to best to raise the tension.
I will also add some statistic data like "Saboteur #11, highest rank #1 (2 times), lowest rank #98, standard deviation: 10.23" and this time also the comparism to the last voting.
And I will also update the comments to each card if necessary.

So I hope we can get even more submissions this time after so many of you contributed in December. I can't wait to get your submissions.

Edit:  Deadline change and re-submission

Results:
$2 cards
$3 cards (Part 1)
$3 cards (Part 2)
$4 cards (Part 1)
$4 cards (Part 2)
$4 cards (Part 3)
$5 cards (Part 1)
$5 cards (Part 2)
$5 cards (Part 3)
$5 cards (Part 4)
$6+ cards
Potion cost cards
Favourite cards

[rrenaud]

I'd love to get the raw data for these rankings.  Maybe people can opt in to making them public?

[Qvist]

I'd love to get the raw data for these rankings.  Maybe people can opt in to making them public?

I quick edit the online survey to add the option "Do you mind for making it public?"

[rrenaud]

Thanks.  I am also super okay with you doing the analysis first, and then releasing the public ones, so it doesn't ruin your scoop and the suspense it creates.

[Qvist]

Somehow I cannot edit the survey once I've opened it. I promise I will give you the raw data but without user names, ok?

[rrenaud]

Well, the user names are useful for the iso level..

[ftl]

btw I clicked on the 'rating option' for favorite cards and it said the survey was closed.

Also, could you send me my old ranking?

[Qvist]

btw I clicked on the 'rating option' for favorite cards and it said the survey was closed.

Also, could you send me my old ranking?

Sorry, I just tried to quick edit, but it didn't work. And I will send it to you. Give me a sec.

Well, the user names are useful for the iso level..

The iso level would be included, but at the time the data were submitted.

[popsofctown]

this is true.  I want my proper discredit for being of low rank.

Are we supposed to base ranking on fully random boards?  Yknow.  That setting me and another 10% of isotropic play where you click no to veto, and don't jump out of automatch queue when a card you dislike pops up.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I'd love to get the raw data for these rankings.  Maybe people can opt in to making them public?

I quick edit the online survey to add the option "Do you mind for making it public?"

This is a bit of a confusingly worded question. Does "No" mean I don't mind, or that I don't want it made public?

[WanderingWinder]

You should give people less time. No seriously.

The reason I bring this up is, ok, it's July 15th, but then it takes you a while to collate and to write up, and then... we all don't care anymore, because Dark Ages previews are poof and done. Also, I doubt it will take four weeks for anybody who wants to do this to do it. Two weeks should be sufficient? But the big thin is to have it wrapped up before Dark Ages leaks or even comes out and we all feel it's obsolete.

[Qvist]

I'd love to get the raw data for these rankings.  Maybe people can opt in to making them public?

I quick edit the online survey to add the option "Do you mind for making it public?"

This is a bit of a confusingly worded question. Does "No" mean I don't mind, or that I don't want it made public?

I see the problem, but as editing the surveys didn't work, there's no need to chance the wording. But you all can put in the feedback text box "I do/don't mind if my ranking gets published" or something like that.

this is true.  I want my proper discredit for being of low rank.

Are we supposed to base ranking on fully random boards?  Yknow.  That setting me and another 10% of isotropic play where you click no to veto, and don't jump out of automatch queue when a card you dislike pops up.

I honestly don't understand your question here. Try to order the cards from "most to least game changing" or simple from "best to worst" on an average board.

[popsofctown]

The rules for Dominion do not specify any method of kingdom selection as default.  If the kingdom selection is Sea Hag + 9 random cards, trashers will be ranked highly.  More realistically, a large proportion of isotropic is playing veto mode, which is technically speaking just as much pure dominion as full random.  The rules say "players may use any mutually agreed method to pick the kingdom" or some such.

If you have people answering the survey based on playing in different environments, you'll get a mixed bag of results.  In my world, Explorer is a decent card because it counters Possession.  In a veto mode player's world, Explorer isn't often relevant in part because it can't do that.  In my mother's world, Tunnel is a trash 3$ because she doesn't let me put discard attacks on the board anymore..

[Qvist]

The rules for Dominion do not specify any method of kingdom selection as default.  If the kingdom selection is Sea Hag + 9 random cards, trashers will be ranked highly.  More realistically, a large proportion of isotropic is playing veto mode, which is technically speaking just as much pure dominion as full random.  The rules say "players may use any mutually agreed method to pick the kingdom" or some such.

If you have people answering the survey based on playing in different environments, you'll get a mixed bag of results.  In my world, Explorer is a decent card because it counters Possession.  In a veto mode player's world, Explorer isn't often relevant in part because it can't do that.  In my mother's world, Tunnel is a trash 3$ because she doesn't let me put discard attacks on the board anymore..

Getting non-affected rankings isn't possible. Because everybody tends to vote by his play style (engine vs. BM). And the number of players will also influence the ratings. In the last rankings Pirate Ship and Jester ranked maybe a little too low, because many here in the forums play 2-player games. But the more will vote, the more objective it will get. So, just assume a fully random set with even a random number of opponents.

[popsofctown]

definitely already submitted a 2 player list.

Sorry.

[Eevee]

This time I actually took the time and answered. Man, it was harder than I thought and took more time too. Who knew there were so many cards. It was really fun though, excited to see the lists and compare myself to the population.

edit: submitted a 2 player list too. never played any multiplayer, wouldnt make any sense to do it any other way.

[Qvist]

definitely already submitted a 2 player list.

Sorry.

This time I actually took the time and answered. Man, it was harder than I thought and took more time too. Who knew there were so many cards. It was really fun though, excited to see the lists and compare myself to the population.

edit: submitted a 2 player list too. never played any multiplayer, wouldnt make any sense to do it any other way.

Nevermind, I think most will do. You can only vote what you have experience with...

[Fabian]

Spent a bit more effort on it this time probably, but the bottom half of the 4 and 5 lists are still huge crapshoots. I find it too tough to come up with meaningful and consistent distinctions between many cards. "They're good sometimes", yup sounds about right.

I don't think you should take lists submitted last year into account here. That seems like it's counterproductive, isn't a big point of this to see how people currently value cards and/or how card evaluations have changed?

I don't think you should allow a month for this. Honestly, June 30 is on the late side if you ask me, even. Who here is going to look at this and be like "yeah I'm not doing it this week, but in 25 days I'll feel super up for it"?

I hope the results are published much much quicker this time around. I just feel like the list itself and subsequent discussion is what's interesting about this, not the little 3 sentence explanation "Chapel is good because it helps a lot of strategies; Saboteur is bad becuase it doesn't help a lot of strategies" type things. Isn't that what we have Articles for, after all? The mean/variance type stuff is kinda cool, but I'm guessing that's 5% of the work at most once you've compiled the lists?

Also interested in whatever rrenaud comes up with and would think it was cool if you gave him the names of those ranking too. If we're comfortable sharing it with you I bet we're comfortable sharing it with him.

Those are all the suggestions/feedback I can think of.

[Tables]

Going to submit my rankings and fun ratings soon.

Just played a few games online to get my rank back to about where it should be (as I haven't played in a while so my uncertainty has creeped up a lot). Then proceeded to lose 4/5 games against lower level players on big money boards ¬_¬.

[Robz888]

Done. I don't have a record of my picks last year, but these are probably about 20% different, especially at the mid-to-upper $5s and Potion levels.

Editor's note: added spoiler tags


$2

    Chapel
    Courtyard
    Fool’s Gold
    Hamlet
    Lighthouse
    Crossroads
    Pawn
    Haven
    Native Village
    Duchess
    Embargo
    Moat
    Cellar
    Pearl Diver
    Herbalist
    Secret Chamber



$3

    Ambassador
    Masquerade
    Fishing Village
    Menagerie
    Warehouse
    Swindler
    Steward
    Tunnel
    Watchtower
    Oracle
    Scheme
    Smugglers
    Lookout
    Loan
    Village
    Oasis
    Great Hall
    Wishing Well
    Shanty Town
    Trade Route
    Black Market
    Fortune Teller
    Workshop
    Woodcutter
    Chancellor
    Develop



$4

    Sea Hag
    Jack of All Trades
    Tournament
    Remake
    Monument
    Young Witch
    Salvager
    Bishop
    Militia
    Envoy
    Bridge
    Smithy
    Spice Merchant
    Caravan
    Moneylender
    Horse Traders
    Silk Road
    Worker’s Village
    Baron
    Mining Village
    Quarry
    Ironworks
    Gardens
    Conspirator
    Farming Village
    Island
    Cutpurse
    Throne Room
    Trader
    Nomad Camp
    Remodel
    Navigator
    Noble Brigand
    Bureaucrat
    Treasure Map
    Talisman
    Spy
    Walled Village
    Feast
    Pirate Ship
    Coppersmith
    Thief
    Scout



$5

    Witch
    Mountebank
    Ill-Gotten Gains
    Wharf
    Hunting Party
    Minion
    Governor
    Torturer
    Tactician
    Embassy
    Ghost Ship
    Apprentice
    Haggler
    Margrave
    Vault
    Venture
    Duke
    Jester
    Rabble
    Festival
    Bazaar
    Laboratory
    Merchant Ship
    Stables
    Council Room
    Trading Post
    Highway
    Cartographer
    Upgrade
    Inn
    Market
    City
    Library
    Treasury
    Horn of Plenty
    Mint
    Tribute
    Royal Seal
    Explorer
    Cache
    Contraband
    Harvest
    Mandarin
    Stash
    Mine
    Outpost
    Counting House
    Saboteur


$6+

    King’s Court
    Goons
    Grand Market
    Border Village
    Hoard
    Peddler
    Nobles
    Expand
    Bank
    Fairgrounds
    Forge
    Harem
    Farmland
    Adventurer


$Potion

    Familiar
    Scrying Pool
    Golem
    Apothecary
    Vineyard
    University
    Alchemist
    Possession
    Philosopher’s Stone
    Transmute

[Fabian]

Don't think we should be publishing that just yet Robz, as it will influence people ranking. Feel free to post it in the "results" thread though, imo.

[ftl]

sent my own. It'll be terrible, it's so hard to rank so many cards, but oh well. Now time to raise my ranking some so my list gets counted more!

[iangoth]

Thanks for doing these surveys. I've only started posting recently, but I've been lurking for a while, and I always enjoy reading the discussions. Have you considered doing a survey categorizing cards by type, rather than cost? In particular I'd like to see a best alternate vp card list, considering how difficult it is to compare them to actions and treasures.

[werothegreat]

Survey completed!

[brokoli]

Survey completed.
My knowledge has hugely changed since the last time, but I still think victory cards are underrated, and I ranked Island 2nd and Duke 3rd in their respective lists.

[Qvist]

I don't think you should take lists submitted last year into account here. That seems like it's counterproductive, isn't a big point of this to see how people currently value cards and/or how card evaluations have changed?

I know what you mean and I also thought about that. But I thought a problem would be that some of you would just re-submit the last list as they don't want to compile a new one. I just looked up and already received many submissions, so maybe it's just better to not take the last lists into account, but if anybody wants to re-submit, he can just tell me.

I don't think you should allow a month for this. Honestly, June 30 is on the late side if you ask me, even. Who here is going to look at this and be like "yeah I'm not doing it this week, but in 25 days I'll feel super up for it"?

As I wrote, my intention was to shorten the time frame. But then I realised that many of you guys only have time at the weekend, so I wanted to give at least the chance to submit in the following two weekends. You know, time passes quickly for hard working employees. I thought it would better for all. But as many of you complained I will change it back to the originally intended time frame. Sorry for any inconvenience.

I hope the results are published much much quicker this time around. I just feel like the list itself and subsequent discussion is what's interesting about this, not the little 3 sentence explanation "Chapel is good because it helps a lot of strategies; Saboteur is bad becuase it doesn't help a lot of strategies" type things. Isn't that what we have Articles for, after all? The mean/variance type stuff is kinda cool, but I'm guessing that's 5% of the work at most once you've compiled the lists?

The publication will get quicker this time and I'm still sorry for the delay of the Potion cards. And I feel sorry that you don't like my summing-ups. I know I'm no native speaker, so my English isn't that good, but I think there a few reasons to keep these.
1.) These are intended for newer players to get a quick view about the power and the intended use of a specific card without having to read a big article.
2.) There isn't an article for every card yet.
3.) While articles give strategic advices and try to explain how you can really play with that card better, my "short articles" try to explain why I think a card is on the specific rank and compare its power to its contenders and also give a little statistical insight for those who can't understand the statistical data.

I don't think I wrote such meaningless 3-sentence explanations and many - especially newer players - were very thankful for this. So I will keep that, but this time it won't take that long, as I will only update the summing-ups and don't have to write new one from the scratch. No worries here.

Also interested in whatever rrenaud comes up with and would think it was cool if you gave him the names of those ranking too. If we're comfortable sharing it with you I bet we're comfortable sharing it with him.

AFAIK data privacy protection is a little more restrictive in Germany than in the US for example, maybe that's the reason I'm a little hesistant to give out the rankings with names. Not that I'm afraid to get sued, but I already experienced many times anger because of something like that. I will definitely not making the results public for everyone. But I think it's safe to share the lists with rrenaud, if anybody has a problem with that, please tell me.

tl;dr:
I will not take last year's submissions into account. If you want to re-submit, please tell me.
Change of deadline: 30th of June 11:59pm UTC.
If anybody has a problem sharing the lists with rrenaud, please tell me.

[cherdano]

Thanks for (re)doing these Qvist. FWIW I did enjoy your writeups last time around.

[Qvist]

Thanks for doing these surveys. I've only started posting recently, but I've been lurking for a while, and I always enjoy reading the discussions. Have you considered doing a survey categorizing cards by type, rather than cost? In particular I'd like to see a best alternate vp card list, considering how difficult it is to compare them to actions and treasures.

I considered making a list categorizing cards by type, although I then figured out it works out not that well.
I agree that a victory card list would be a nice idea, but it's difficult to categorize and still compare other cards:
For example treasure cards: It would be very difficult to compare Bank, Loan, Horn of Plenty and Philosopher' Stone because of their cost and use.
or duration cards: What is better Caravan or Haven? I think it's difficult to compare.
Then it would be better to categorize by "use" instead of type. Then we could compare all Trashers.
But first it will be discussion what cards would fit that category (or any other category) and then it's still difficult to compare Chapel and Forge IMO, because of the price range. The only lists that come into my mind that would make sense are Victory Cards and Attack Cards.
What do other people think of that idea?

[Qvist]

Update:
Wow, we already have 38 entries, already more than last time. Thanks for all the submissions.
Maybe we can get some more, I'm still awaiting the submissions from many players who submitted the last time.

I didn't force you to enter your user name from this forum or isotropic, because there may be some that want to be anonymous.
But as I weight your ranking with your isotropic user level, maybe those 3 of you who didn't submit a user name may PM me and tell me!?
And one of the 3 didn't enter the full $5 list and commented it was too hard. Yeah, I agree, it is hard. But maybe you just want to try again?

So, 10 days to go...

[pingpongsam]

That was harder than I thought it would be. Lots of reordering and gut feelings. I primarily weighted by my affinity for buying the card and or my impression of its results.

[werothegreat]

I'd say the most statistically relevant would be the cards at the top and bottom - in the middle, with so many cards, at some point you're just shoving them in approximately where you think they should go.

[Ozle]

Yeah, i decided on the top and the bottom first and then arranged the middle with slightly less than thinking.

I tried very hard to only rank them as what I thought were the best, which was based on how often I feel like I would buy them if they were available, and the power if I did buy them. Especially considering I play more RL 3/4 player games than I do Iso games, so my ratings are probably wildly different to the norm.

It was very hard to keep to what I consider the best cards and not let me be swayed by the Community thinking on cards.

[Thisisnotasmile]

I used my old rankings as a starting point, and then made a few adjustments from there. There were a few cards which I had horribly wrong last time (see: Governor, Haggler, Cartographer), but mostly cards only moved by a few spots. The top half of the $4 cards had a pretty big shake up this time though, most notably I no longer have Horse Traders at the top (It's a good card but... what was I thinking?). I am still shocked at how bad the $4s are in general and how good the $3s are.

[werothegreat]

There are a few cards I ranked pretty highly that I'm sure a lot of you will disagree with - Nomad Camp, Pirate Ship, Saboteur (not high, but not at the bottom), Mine, Possession.

[popsofctown]

I would very much like to see a ranking of the "0-2 Province" strategies.  Ways of winning the game without primarily using Provinces.  There's sort of a line you cross when your strategy is enough about alt VP that you avoid depleting the Province stack.  With 3 or 4 Provinces, that doesn't really seem to be the point, alt VP is just "some Duchies" if you have at least that many Provinces. 

So the cantidates I'm envisioning here are, these other cantidates for ways of winning the game, are

Duke
Gardens
Silk Road
6 pt Fairgrounds (4 pt fairgrounds always serve the Duchy function)
Bishop (Golden deck doesn't use the points printed on the Province cards)
Monument catchup engines that will actually win with 0-2 Provinces (a rarity)
Goons
IGG
Saboteur (In extremely rare cases you can play the card so much that your opponents deck is nothing but coppers and estates.  If you avoid depleting the Province stack in order to accomplish this, it would qualify imo)

Anything I forgot?  Any simple 3 pile rushes I'm unaware of, like Ironworks + Tunnel or Island or somesuch?

Whoa.  Posting the word "Island" just reminded me I had a dream last night where I was explaining to someone how Island synergizes with Silk Road because you can buy a bunch of green cards and set them aside.

Whoooooa.

(my subconscious clearly has an ego/obsession with the game I beat Ambassador with no Ambassadors using Island/Silk Road.)
(Not that I'm sure that should usually work I think maybe toggling the number of ambassadors used would ruin it)

[Thisisnotasmile]

Vineyard.

[werothegreat]

Whoa.  Posting the word "Island" just reminded me I had a dream last night where I was explaining to someone how Island synergizes with Silk Road because you can buy a bunch of green cards and set them aside.

Whoooooa.

(my subconscious clearly has an ego/obsession with the game I beat Ambassador with no Ambassadors using Island/Silk Road.)
(Not that I'm sure that should usually work I think maybe toggling the number of ambassadors used would ruin it)

I was sick the other day, and my feverish mind imagined I was a Dominion card.  And then later I had to remind myself that I was not, in fact, a Dominion card.

[Archetype]

This was incredibly difficult, especially  with the $5s. I broke down each cost into sections (best, mediocre, worst) and then ordered them in their sections. I do think some cards are underrated (Harvest, Cutpurse, Island, Harem, etc) and rated them higher than what the majority of people would 

[Tables]

I'm in the middle of my ratings, but I've realised what could be interesting is having a few 'sublist' comparisons. Obviously, the orders won't change, but it could be interesting to see for example how many people said what in similar card comparisons, for example Worker's Village vs. Farming Village vs. Walled Village vs. Mining Village, or Moneylender vs. Spice Merchant, and other such notable similar-card-comparisons.

[cayvie]

I would very much like to see a ranking of the "0-2 Province" strategies.  Ways of winning the game without primarily using Provinces.  There's sort of a line you cross when your strategy is enough about alt VP that you avoid depleting the Province stack.  With 3 or 4 Provinces, that doesn't really seem to be the point, alt VP is just "some Duchies" if you have at least that many Provinces. 

So the cantidates I'm envisioning here are, these other cantidates for ways of winning the game, are

Duke
Gardens
Silk Road
6 pt Fairgrounds (4 pt fairgrounds always serve the Duchy function)
Bishop (Golden deck doesn't use the points printed on the Province cards)
Monument catchup engines that will actually win with 0-2 Provinces (a rarity)
Goons
IGG
Saboteur (In extremely rare cases you can play the card so much that your opponents deck is nothing but coppers and estates.  If you avoid depleting the Province stack in order to accomplish this, it would qualify imo)

Anything I forgot?  Any simple 3 pile rushes I'm unaware of, like Ironworks + Tunnel or Island or somesuch?

Whoa.  Posting the word "Island" just reminded me I had a dream last night where I was explaining to someone how Island synergizes with Silk Road because you can buy a bunch of green cards and set them aside.

Whoooooa.

(my subconscious clearly has an ego/obsession with the game I beat Ambassador with no Ambassadors using Island/Silk Road.)
(Not that I'm sure that should usually work I think maybe toggling the number of ambassadors used would ruin it)

Vineyards
Slow-building Bridge megaturns that end up buying all the Duchies and Estates and like 2 Provinces.

[iangoth]

I would very much like to see a ranking of the "0-2 Province" strategies.  Ways of winning the game without primarily using Provinces.  There's sort of a line you cross when your strategy is enough about alt VP that you avoid depleting the Province stack.  With 3 or 4 Provinces, that doesn't really seem to be the point, alt VP is just "some Duchies" if you have at least that many Provinces. 

So the cantidates I'm envisioning here are, these other cantidates for ways of winning the game, are

Duke
Gardens
Silk Road
6 pt Fairgrounds (4 pt fairgrounds always serve the Duchy function)
Bishop (Golden deck doesn't use the points printed on the Province cards)
Monument catchup engines that will actually win with 0-2 Provinces (a rarity)
Goons
IGG
Saboteur (In extremely rare cases you can play the card so much that your opponents deck is nothing but coppers and estates.  If you avoid depleting the Province stack in order to accomplish this, it would qualify imo)

Anything I forgot?  Any simple 3 pile rushes I'm unaware of, like Ironworks + Tunnel or Island or somesuch?

Whoa.  Posting the word "Island" just reminded me I had a dream last night where I was explaining to someone how Island synergizes with Silk Road because you can buy a bunch of green cards and set them aside.

Whoooooa.

(my subconscious clearly has an ego/obsession with the game I beat Ambassador with no Ambassadors using Island/Silk Road.)
(Not that I'm sure that should usually work I think maybe toggling the number of ambassadors used would ruin it)

Colonies

[Qvist]

Update and Reminder: 4 days to go

51 entries in the "Best Cards" List and >20 entries in the "Favourite Cards" List so far.
Thanks for all the submissions. I think we'll get a pretty good ranking.

[popsofctown]

I would very much like to see a ranking of the "0-2 Province" strategies.  Ways of winning the game without primarily using Provinces.  There's sort of a line you cross when your strategy is enough about alt VP that you avoid depleting the Province stack.  With 3 or 4 Provinces, that doesn't really seem to be the point, alt VP is just "some Duchies" if you have at least that many Provinces. 

So the cantidates I'm envisioning here are, these other cantidates for ways of winning the game, are

Duke
Gardens
Silk Road
6 pt Fairgrounds (4 pt fairgrounds always serve the Duchy function)
Bishop (Golden deck doesn't use the points printed on the Province cards)
Monument catchup engines that will actually win with 0-2 Provinces (a rarity)
Goons
IGG
Saboteur (In extremely rare cases you can play the card so much that your opponents deck is nothing but coppers and estates.  If you avoid depleting the Province stack in order to accomplish this, it would qualify imo)

Anything I forgot?  Any simple 3 pile rushes I'm unaware of, like Ironworks + Tunnel or Island or somesuch?

Whoa.  Posting the word "Island" just reminded me I had a dream last night where I was explaining to someone how Island synergizes with Silk Road because you can buy a bunch of green cards and set them aside.

Whoooooa.

(my subconscious clearly has an ego/obsession with the game I beat Ambassador with no Ambassadors using Island/Silk Road.)
(Not that I'm sure that should usually work I think maybe toggling the number of ambassadors used would ruin it)

Colonies

Colonies are always good enough to justify 0-2 Provinces and would top the list.

Straight Duchies may be worth it's own spot on such a list because of Bridge/Highway, but I think I'd rank it low because emptying the Duchy stack instead of the Province stack is usually a sign that the Bridge engine is weak and poorly supported (for a Bridge engine.  May be the best thing on the board).

[Jedit]

I didn't force you to enter your user name from this forum or isotropic, because there may be some that want to be anonymous.
But as I weight your ranking with your isotropic user level, maybe those 3 of you who didn't submit a user name may PM me and tell me!?

I did put a user name on my votes, not knowing it was optional, but I've never played on Isotropic so it's my user name here.  I use this user name most places I go and have done for many years, but being what it is there are some sites where I've had it "poached" from me.  So if there's an Isotropic user called Jedit, please don't use his ranking for weight on my votes.

[popsofctown]

that's why you use an absurd crappy username no one wants for all your forum accounts.

I used my hacking powers to confirm there are no Jedits on isotropic.
Why don't you play isotropic?  Come play me Jedit.

[Graystripe77]

Survey complete. I think Explorer and Mandarin will be WAY underrated.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Survey complete. I think Explorer and Mandarin will be WAY underrated.

Mandarin will be. Explorer will be precisely where it should be.

[Morgrim7]

Survey complete. I think Explorer and Mandarin will be WAY underrated.

Explorer will be precisely where it should be.

Meaning where? I agree with Graystripe. Explorer will be largely underrated.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Survey complete. I think Explorer and Mandarin will be WAY underrated.

Explorer will be precisely where it should be.

Meaning where? I agree with Graystripe. Explorer will be largely underrated.

Well I put it fourth from bottom, so I guess I mean somewhere around the top of the bottm five.

[Jedit]

Why don't you play isotropic? 

Because they ask for Google ID instead of having their own accounts.  I'm probably just being paranoid, but in accordance with the internet version of Pascal's Wager, I don't take the risk that I'm not.

Explorer will be largely underrated?  You mean there are people who will rate it below Counting House?

[DStu]

Why don't you play isotropic? 

Because they ask for Google ID instead of having their own accounts.  I'm probably just being paranoid, but in accordance with the internet version of Pascal's Wager, I don't take the risk that I'm not.

But you registered on a forum running on a server from someone working at google. So assuming Pascal's infinite risk, that's pretty brave...

[Schneau]

For the Favorite Card List portion of this, it is really hard to order 157 cards by hand without resorting to "aw man, all these middle cards are about the same, just throw them in randomly!" To combat this problem, I wrote a little python program that will sort the cards for you by asking you a series of "Which do you like better, card 1 or card 2" questions where you directly compare 2 cards. This uses the native python sorting algorithm, and should only require around 175 card comparisons. At the end, it prints out a nice list that you can copy and PM to Qvist.

If you want to try it out yourself, just run this program in python: https://gist.github.com/3004244

[Eevee]

Why don't you play isotropic? 

Because they ask for Google ID instead of having their own accounts.  I'm probably just being paranoid, but in accordance with the internet version of Pascal's Wager, I don't take the risk that I'm not.

Explorer will be largely underrated?  You mean there are people who will rate it below Counting House?

Iirc explorer was in the mid tier for me.

[theory]

Why don't you play isotropic? 

Because they ask for Google ID instead of having their own accounts.  I'm probably just being paranoid, but in accordance with the internet version of Pascal's Wager, I don't take the risk that I'm not.

See, I would rather trust Google than a random website.  I would rather have a single point of failure, that is very well-guarded, rather than multiple points of failure, with varying degrees of unknown guardedness.  The authentication process means isotropic doesn't know anything about your Google account.

[WanderingWinder]

Why don't you play isotropic? 

Because they ask for Google ID instead of having their own accounts.  I'm probably just being paranoid, but in accordance with the internet version of Pascal's Wager, I don't take the risk that I'm not.

See, I would rather trust Google than a random website.  I would rather have a single point of failure, that is very well-guarded, rather than multiple points of failure, with varying degrees of unknown guardedness.  The authentication process means isotropic doesn't know anything about your Google account.

See, for me, it's not so much about security, as it is about... they have ALL the information on me. In one place. Hi, Big Brother.

[popsofctown]

Google is primarily an advertising company.  I feel like if Big Brother's payoff is going to end up being creepily personalized ads, worse things could have happened to me.

[Qvist]

For the Favorite Card List portion of this, it is really hard to order 157 cards by hand without resorting to "aw man, all these middle cards are about the same, just throw them in randomly!" To combat this problem, I wrote a little python program that will sort the cards for you by asking you a series of "Which do you like better, card 1 or card 2" questions where you directly compare 2 cards. This uses the native python sorting algorithm, and should only require around 175 card comparisons. At the end, it prints out a nice list that you can copy and PM to Qvist.

If you want to try it out yourself, just run this program in python: https://gist.github.com/3004244

Someone brought up the idea the last time. I do like the idea, but hadn't the time to code a nice interface for this. Haven't thought about a standalone program though. Thanks for sharing this. But I think it requires more than 175 card comparisons. It should be O(n log n) in complexity, so this makes about 350 comparisms. But I agree that it might go quicker than manually order them.

I didn't force you to enter your user name from this forum or isotropic, because there may be some that want to be anonymous.
But as I weight your ranking with your isotropic user level, maybe those 3 of you who didn't submit a user name may PM me and tell me!?

I did put a user name on my votes, not knowing it was optional, but I've never played on Isotropic so it's my user name here.  I use this user name most places I go and have done for many years, but being what it is there are some sites where I've had it "poached" from me.  So if there's an Isotropic user called Jedit, please don't use his ranking for weight on my votes.

Noted.
But I really don't want to initiate a Google Pro&Contra discussion here in this thread...
These discussions tend to go back and forth without a real result. Similar to Apple vs. Microsoft. Please open a new thread if you really want to discuss this.

[WanderingWinder]

Google is primarily an advertising company.  I feel like if Big Brother's payoff is going to end up being creepily personalized ads, worse things could have happened to me.

Their being an advertising company is precisely why I don't like it.
I don't like my information getting sold.

[Schneau]

For the Favorite Card List portion of this, it is really hard to order 157 cards by hand without resorting to "aw man, all these middle cards are about the same, just throw them in randomly!" To combat this problem, I wrote a little python program that will sort the cards for you by asking you a series of "Which do you like better, card 1 or card 2" questions where you directly compare 2 cards. This uses the native python sorting algorithm, and should only require around 175 card comparisons. At the end, it prints out a nice list that you can copy and PM to Qvist.

If you want to try it out yourself, just run this program in python: https://gist.github.com/3004244

Someone brought up the idea the last time. I do like the idea, but hadn't the time to code a nice interface for this. Haven't thought about a standalone program though. Thanks for sharing this. But I think it requires more than 175 card comparisons. It should be O(n log n) in complexity, so this makes about 350 comparisms. But I agree that it might go quicker than manually order them.

You're right, I definitely made an error there. I had done some test runs with random comparisons, each of which returned a total of 156 comparisons, at which point I should have realized there was a bug, but did not. Luckily, the bug was just in the randomization, not in the posted code, which I used and worked great for me. But yes, this will be more in the 350 comparisons range, not 175.

[Death to Sea Hags]

But yes, this will be more in the 350 comparisons range, not 175.

What if my own evaluation preferences are circular?

[rrenaud]

http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/ads/

"Of course, we will not sell or share with third parties your personally identifying information from ad serving cookies without your consent."

[thirtyseven]

It should be O(n log n) in complexity

^{+1 for using big O notation} 

If this hasn't been mentioned yet, could you also list the change in rank of each card since last ranking?

[DStu]

It should be O(n log n) in complexity

^{+1 for using big O notation} 

Actually, your want /Omega or /Theta, not O, as O is an upper bound, and we are discussing a lower bound...

[ftl]

Yeah, but in CS lingo everyone just uses O to mean that.

[Qvist]

Update: I have 59 "Best cards" lists so far, wow! 2 days remaining!

If this hasn't been mentioned yet, could you also list the change in rank of each card since last ranking?

I don't know if I have mentioned that, but yes I will do that.

[Qvist]

Last update and reminder: 2 hours left

[Rhombus]

Qvist, just making sure you received mine (sent earlier today).

[Qvist]

Qvist, just making sure you received mine (sent earlier today).

I did, thanks for that.

[Qvist]

Normally I wanted to post the $2 cards list today, but I'm a little bit ill now. So I'm sorry to say that you will have to wait until I'm fine again. Good start
And rrenaud, then I will also send you the info you wanted.

[Qvist]

So, Edition 2 has come to an end. Here is the expansion rating. I will post the Favourite Card List soon.

#1 =0 Cornucopia 65% ▲1%
#2 =0 Prosperity 56% ▼5%
#3 =0 Seaside 55% ▼1%
#4 ▲1 Hinterlands 51% ▲7%
#5 ▼1 Intrigue 47% ▼1%
#6 =0 Base 38% ▼3%

[ftl]

Hinterlands went up, that's not surprising. Prosperity went down! That's cool.

[Tables]

Cornucopia is still #1 by a large margin, eh? It's such a boring expansion. Overpowered card, overpowered card, overpowered and boring card, Fortune Teller. Like, Hunting Party alone should be shoving it down a few places.

[brokoli]

Cornucopia is still #1 by a large margin, eh? It's such a boring expansion. Overpowered card, overpowered card, overpowered and boring card, Fortune Teller. Like, Hunting Party alone should be shoving it down a few places.

On the contrary, cornucopia has a lot of powerful cards but not "overpowered" (aside tournament).
Hunting party is so funny ! and not "overpowered" like Mountebank and Witch.
Moreover, the cornucopia attacks are fairly balanced and not too wicked. Young witch has a bane, Jester is often peaceful...

And the variety theme prevent the repetitive effect in Dominion. IMO Really, the only downside of cornucopia is that there are only 13 cards.