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[popsofctown]

It's cool that the deviation on courtyard decreased.  People have been talking about the card, maybe there was an article?  So I think f.ds has spread the word on the underspend that isn't an underspend.


I think Fool's Gold is hard to rate because it is purchased so much in the games where it is purchased.  Even if the metric is "how many games do you gain one or more of these", the proportion of time I spend buying Fool's Gold skews my memory.  As does having a Base/Hinterlands IRL collection. 

I'm enjoying Chapel growing weaker as the new sets come out.  I love getting a chance to actually think and decide whether I want a chapel.

Duchess is good.  etc.  If you plan for it ahead of time you can make room in your deck for the terminaliciousness and it's a free Silver.  A nice thing about using it in real Dominion is that you can use it to control your opponent's reshuffles, if his deck is empty, which is obvious yet blocked information on Iso, you can trigger a reshuffle so that he can't get another purchase in for his next run through.  Or you can trigger your own reshuffle and buy a victory card.  That is, when Duchess collides with another terminal, that choice is sometimes created.  Which is an edge case with little impact on the power of the card.  BUT, man is it an example of why I think Public Information Dominion needs to become a thing.  Should my opponents hide a curtain over their deck so I don't know if it's empty?  Because I can't "count" the cards in his deck.  Sort of like how I can "remember" how many victory points I have.  And "notice" the edge of a second from top Trader in my opponent's discard pile.

There was some other card I was going to talk about but now I can't remember

[Eevee]

Secret Chamber vs Duchess.. put it this way..

I have never played a game in which Duchess has played a significant role in the outcome. On the other hand, a couple days ago I played a vicious Pirate Ship 3 player game where there was very, very little virtual money available and no trashing available: Secret Chamber was pretty much essential to winning in order that you could protect your money and stop the Pirate Ships from getting too strong (and sacrificing Copper if you knew the other player was likely to be hit this turn anyway because they hadn't revealed a Secret Chamber).

Duchess is occasionally slightly useful, whereas in a few rare scenarios Secret Chamber is good and even rarer almost essential (though yeah, it's a bad card). I count a card that is good 3% of the time as better than a card that is marginally better than meh 15% of the time (making up these stats, but you know what I mean..).

I'm pretty sure I've had more games where Duchess had a significant role in the outcome than where Secret Chamber did.

+1, duchess is good guys. Not surprised chwhite doesnt see it, given his hate for explorer.. (oh and workshop is a fine card too.)

Courtyard is definitely stronger than smithy and I think it would have deserved 2nd.  I think native village is a tad overrated but man, looking at that top 9.. 2 cost cards are good these days!

The descriptions were nice to read, good job on those.

It's not my hate for Explorer... it's my hate for Duchy.  I have something like a -7.00 Effect With/+8.00 Effect Without for that card.  When I buy it, I lose; when I avoid it, I win. 

And I don't hate Duchess actually.  I don't hate any of the $2 or $3 cards (actually I do hate Fool's Gold, but that's a different kind of hate ).  Honestly it's pretty close between those two and Moat (which I only ranked as high as I did because of multiplayer), and any reordering of those three cards is reasonable.

CR stats for duchy are not very reliable though.  I'd say duchess, explorer and duchy are kind of on a same boat anyways.

[chwhite]

It's cool that the deviation on courtyard decreased.  People have been talking about the card, maybe there was an article?  So I think f.ds has spread the word on the underspend that isn't an underspend.


I think Fool's Gold is hard to rate because it is purchased so much in the games where it is purchased.  Even if the metric is "how many games do you gain one or more of these", the proportion of time I spend buying Fool's Gold skews my memory.  As does having a Base/Hinterlands IRL collection. 

I'm enjoying Chapel growing weaker as the new sets come out.  I love getting a chance to actually think and decide whether I want a chapel.

Duchess is good.  etc.  If you plan for it ahead of time you can make room in your deck for the terminaliciousness and it's a free Silver.  A nice thing about using it in real Dominion is that you can use it to control your opponent's reshuffles, if his deck is empty, which is obvious yet blocked information on Iso, you can trigger a reshuffle so that he can't get another purchase in for his next run through.  Or you can trigger your own reshuffle and buy a victory card.  That is, when Duchess collides with another terminal, that choice is sometimes created.  Which is an edge case with little impact on the power of the card.  BUT, man is it an example of why I think Public Information Dominion needs to become a thing.  Should my opponents hide a curtain over their deck so I don't know if it's empty?  Because I can't "count" the cards in his deck.  Sort of like how I can "remember" how many victory points I have.  And "notice" the edge of a second from top Trader in my opponent's discard pile.

There was some other card I was going to talk about but now I can't remember

You can see if their deck is empty on iso.  It should show that when you click info.

[brokoli]

I totally agree with TINAS. Chapel is way overrated. I think I put it #3 or #4. I would buy Lighthouse and Hamlet far more often. Even crossroads.
And in most Big money boards, chapel is totally useless.

[HiveMindEmulator]

This Duchess debate is going to be repeated a million times for different cads because people rank with different criteria. Some people argue that Duchess and Pearl Diver shouldn't be so low because you are willing to take them more often, while others argue that while you take them, they are not often really impactful. I'm in the second camp. I basically said the cards that deserve high ranks are the ones that are more likely to catch my eye when I first look at the board and plan a strategy.

So from my perspective, the biggest argument I have is with Embargo. Even when you don't buy Embargo, it can be a big impact card. Its presence shuts down a lot of Potion openings as well as stuff like Fool's Gold or IGG rushes or Duke strategies. You can use it to lengthen games by Embargoing Province/Gold to give yourself time to build an engine. You can strengthen you 5/2 opening by Embargoing the critical 5. And even when it's not a big impact card, it can be useful as a 1-shot terminal Silver if you get stuck with $2. I ranked it #6.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I totally agree with TINAS. Chapel is way overrated. I think I put it #3 or #4. I would buy Lighthouse and Hamlet far more often. Even crossroads.
And in most Big money boards, chapel is totally useless.

In most BM boards, hamlet is useless as well...

[Fabian]

Yeah I mostly agree with Emulator, and I think I mostly rate cards like he does. If a card is worth 0* (cards are never worth negative since in theory you'd never make the mistake of buying a card when you shouldn't) 95% of the time and worth 3* 5% of the time I'm going to prefer it to the card that's worth 0* 90% of the time and 0.2* 10% of the time. Hi Duchess!

I think the same kind of reasoning is why I slightly prefer Fool's Gold over Hamlet and Courtyard. A much less clear cut example, because they're all both "good" and "impactful", but I think it kinda applies.

* On the Fabian Scale of Arbtirariness

[Eevee]

I totally agree with TINAS. Chapel is way overrated. I think I put it #3 or #4. I would buy Lighthouse and Hamlet far more often. Even crossroads.
And in most Big money boards, chapel is totally useless.

In most BM boards, hamlet is useless as well...

.. and on attackless boards, lighthouse is crap (its very good against strong attacks obviously, just pointing out the stupidity of that argument).

edit: that makes pearl diver seem so good. "it goes ok with ANY deck other than bm-terminal draw""

[chwhite]

I totally agree with TINAS. Chapel is way overrated. I think I put it #3 or #4. I would buy Lighthouse and Hamlet far more often. Even crossroads.
And in most Big money boards, chapel is totally useless.

In most BM boards, hamlet is useless as well...

.. and on attackless boards, lighthouse is crap (its very good against strong attacks obviously, just pointing out the stupidity of that argument).

edit: that makes pearl diver seem so good. "it goes ok with ANY deck other than bm-terminal draw""

Not true: Lighthouse is also preferable to Silver in engines built around Watchtower, Library, or (double-)Tac.

[Jfrisch]

maybe it's just my style of play but courtyard seems clearly, clearly, better than hamlet (and chapel obviously does). hamlet's a cheap source of potential +action/buy which works well with draw to x and menagerie. It's good but it feels really overrated to me. I mean, in the majority of games workers village is a lot better (excluding cost). Whereas courtyard is a premier BM enabler which combos decently well with other BM stuff as well, helps with tournaments, can act as a pseudo-haven... Can someone explain hamlet over courtyard, I mean, what metric are you using?

[brokoli]

I totally agree with TINAS. Chapel is way overrated. I think I put it #3 or #4. I would buy Lighthouse and Hamlet far more often. Even crossroads.
And in most Big money boards, chapel is totally useless.

In most BM boards, hamlet is useless as well...

If you play something like Bureaucrat - BM or Merchant ship - BM, you could buy a hamlet, but not a chapel...

[popsofctown]

Bureacrat BM? that's an edge case you can't bring that up.  There are so few power vacuums for that.

[O]

I'm pretty sure I put chapel at #4 (maybe I was a #3, but I think 4), below Courtyard, Hamlet, and Lighthouse. And I stand by that vote.

Fools gold is certainly NOT underrated; it is perfectly rated.

Theory underrated herbalist pretty terribly, it should be above moat definitely.

[Jedit]

Qvist, are you going to update your sig as you go, or do it all at the end?

[Robz888]

maybe it's just my style of play but courtyard seems clearly, clearly, better than hamlet (and chapel obviously does). hamlet's a cheap source of potential +action/buy which works well with draw to x and menagerie. It's good but it feels really overrated to me. I mean, in the majority of games workers village is a lot better (excluding cost). Whereas courtyard is a premier BM enabler which combos decently well with other BM stuff as well, helps with tournaments, can act as a pseudo-haven... Can someone explain hamlet over courtyard, I mean, what metric are you using?

I agree, I have Courtyard over Hamlet. Both are great cards, but Courtyard is very nearly the best at what it does. Considering it's price, Hamlet is also very, very, very good at what it does, but not quite as good as Courtyard.

[chwhite]

Why I have Hamlet over Courtyard:

Courtyard is very strong in BM, better than most things which aren't Masq, Wharf, or cursers, and often worth getting alongside those cards.  But the other 9 cards will, some fairly large fraction of the time, dictate engine, and Courtyard is often not that great in engines.

Hamlet, conversely, is obviously not so hot in BM.  However, since it provides +Action and +Buy for the low low price of $2, it gets you most of the way to engine viability all by itself.  Basically, I think the mere presence of Hamlet does more to skew the game towards the sorts of decks it's best for in a way that I don't think Courtyard quite does.

Again, as with the Duchess-Moat-SC trio, I do think it's pretty close between Hamlet, Lighthouse, and Courtyard, and other orderings of those three are eminently reasonable.

[Robz888]

Hmm, it looks like these lists is going to be AltVeeps and Money peeps vs. Engineers. (Maybe the last set of lists was like that, too, and I just hadn't realized I was such an AltVeepMoneyPeep yet).

[Tables]

There's three things that I noticed that I thought were especially strange here.

1: Lighthouse getting a 1st. It protects from attacks, which is often nice but also often irrelevant, and is otherwise a gimped silver for when you hit $2. When (important) attacks are around, yeah, Lighthouse is pretty great and definitely up there with the other $2's, but when they aren't (which is more often than not), it's very meh... I'd say probably not much better than a (bought) Duchess.

2) Chapel being 4th. Okay, yes, I know trashing isn't as important as it once was, and strong trashers at different price points (notable Remake) make Chapel itself less important, but whenever there's an even somewhat decent engine/combo on the board (which is like 70% of random boards), or a cursing attack (which probably brings that up to 80%+), Chapel is somewhere from good to Amazing. I struggle to see how Courtyard and/or Hamlet can be argued to be that useful, that often. They're great cards, but, well, they just aren't THAT great.

3) Duchess still getting large numbers of last places. In many cases, I'll happily buy one on a 5/2 opening with no other $2's - if I opened with a terminal, it's risking a not-even-that nasty collision, but otherwise +$2 for the 2nd shuffle is very nice. Late game of course, or whenever you're Duchy buying, it's a little extra oil in your rapidly greening deck, which can give you the edge. It's not a great card, but I find it helps a lot more than things like Secret Chamber, which needs specific 2 or 3 card combos to be even vaguely effective.

I think it's clear where I'm going with this. Vote: TINAS

[Thisisnotasmile]

I stand by my list but I respect your right to disagree. OMGYS Vote: Tables

[brokoli]

but when they aren't (which is more often than not), it's very meh... I'd say probably not much better than a (bought) Duchess.

Disagree. Firstly, Lighthouse give the +1 action which is nice and much better than duchess.
Also, lighthouse is very good in engines : double tactician, fishing village - library, menagerie, etc...
When I have $2 to spend, lighthouse is almost always my first choice...

Even without the protection part, lighthouse would be a powerful 2$ card.

[Qvist]

i'm not super interested in the card list discussion myself, but i must say i really love the formatting and detail of these posts.

Thanks for the positive feedback.

Qvist, are you going to update your sig as you go, or do it all at the end?

I updated my signature. But I'm a restricted in the length. So now, if a list is splitted up, you won't have a link to get to the specific part. But you can either link to the meta page, where all links are listed. And I will also add links at the end of each part to get to the next part. I hope this will help.

---

Really interesting thoughts on the ranks. My thoughts:
Regarding Secret Chamber vs. Duchess vs. Pearl Diver: I rank #14 Secret Chamber, #15 Duchess, #16 Pearl Diver. I've seen games where Secret Chamber was a game-winning buy. I've seen games where Duchess were very important buys, but I can't remember games where Pearl Diver buys were really game-changing. I try to ask myself before I rank: "How much does the presence of this card change the board?" Have you ever seen a game, where the presence of Pearl Diver was important? But still these 3 cards are clearly the worst 3 IMO.

[popsofctown]

Farming Village + Pearl Diver is hot.  Scrying Pool and Duchess interactions too.

[Schneau]

Am I miscounting things, or are your numbers off? You say there were 62 lists submitted, but as for first place votes there were 2 for FG, 2 for Lighthouse, 1 for Courtyard, 3 for Hamlet, and 57 for Chapel. That adds up to 65, not 62. Or maybe you got some extra ballots that you added in without updating the top number?

Otherwise, I love all the stats here, great job Qvist!

[Qvist]

Am I miscounting things, or are your numbers off? You say there were 62 lists submitted, but as for first place votes there were 2 for FG, 2 for Lighthouse, 1 for Courtyard, 3 for Hamlet, and 57 for Chapel. That adds up to 65, not 62. Or maybe you got some extra ballots that you added in without updating the top number?

Otherwise, I love all the stats here, great job Qvist!

I don't know if it was a typo or a miscalculation, but you're right, I received 65 lists not 62. You're all very watchful.

[Powerman]

Thoughts:

As far as the bottom goes:  Secret Chamber = Terrible.  Duchess = Terrible.  Pearl Diver = Terrible.  Herbalist = Terrible.  Moat (2player) = Terrible.  With that said, they mostly have a use.  Herbalist is good for decks that need a potion, outside of that I don't think I have ever/ will ever buy it.  Moat is good in multiplayer, outside of that it's pretty bad.  Pearl Diver... talk about irrelevancy.  I do like it in SP decks, alright to buy 1 or 2 for HoP, but man... talk about a weak benefit.  Duchess, I guess I like it on the right 5/2 board, but after that I don't ever find a use for it. Although for free I sometimes just take it for fun   And Secret Chamber seems useful at first, but it's just poor.  The reaction part I have never found any use for, and the discard part isn't awful but it's far from good.

Ranking them is tough, but I guess the order seems about correct, although MAYBE duchess eeks out pearl diver just for 5/2 openings.

For the middle: Cellar I've been finding less and less useful as I've stopped playing base and added in all the expansions (Plus it's worse than warehouse...).  Embargo I actually like more and more, if for nothing else the mind games/ strategy changes it causes.  It's so fun to open with it after your opponent gets a potion and crush their spirits, otherwise if you have a deck that doesn't need silver embargoing that can hurt your opponent too.  Pawn is useful in a few situations, but rarely does much more as it's easiest to go card/action   Native Village is another card I'm starting to like more and more, but it also isn't all that good.  The card drawing portion is worse than vanilla village, but if you have the ability to wait until you get at least 4-5 cards (or more!) it can lead to some good hands.  Haven's a cute little card, doesn't seem to do much, but it has it's place in many decks.  I guess the only change I'd make is embargo over pawn just for the game change ability.

At the top:  I really don't have too many comments as all of these cards are useful at times,  and other times they can be poor.  But I will say that I think Hamlet is a bit overrated.  Its great for ending a 3rd pile... but the discard penalty is harsher than it appears.  I realize that in lieu of other +Action/+Buy it can work, but it makes building a engine tough.  Basically the difference between this and WV is huge, and while they are different costs WV kills hamlet.  Courtyard is one of the few BM enablers I'll actually play, and FG with support is almost always the best strategy on the board.

Good list though!