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[Qvist]

The Best $3 Cards - Part 1/2

Link to the win rates on Councilroom
Link 2 to the win rates on Councilroom

	#26 ▼1 Chancellor (Base) Weighted Average: 24.07 ▼1.1 / Median: 25 ▼1 / Mode: 26 ▼1 / Standard Deviation: 2.2 ▲0.7 Highest Rank(s): #17 (1x), #18 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #26 (19x) With a very low deviation Chancellor is the worst $3 card this year. It's still a few outliners, but they can't let it get a better rank. Being in the Base Set, most players (like me) didn't got the use of Chancellor at first. Yes, it costs $3 like Silver and gives also 2 coins, but it costs an action for what? To put your deck into your discard pile? Why do I want to do that? You can get your recently buyed great cards faster! Yeah, that sounds great. But those great cards are mostly terminals and then Chancellor becomes a dead card. I think it would be a better card if it wasn't terminal. So it's only good for rare scenarios like Stash or Counting House. And if you want to get your recently buyed cards earlier, use cards that put these cards on top of your deck like Royal Seal or Watchtower.
	#25 ▲1 Develop (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 23.49 ▲0.81 / Median: 25 =0 / Mode: 26 =0 / Standard Deviation: 3.3 ▼0.8 Highest Rank(s): #11 (1x), #14 (1x), #15 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #26 (23x) Develop is not last anymore, but still second last. I expected it higher, but there seem to be many players which even still think it's bad or still don't see the use of it. So it's still the card with the most last places. The significantly higher deviation shows the disagreement between the players. A good trasher mostly has to be a good start buy. Develop can only trash one copper at a time without benefit. You get a Silver for a trashed Estate, which can be put on top of your deck. That's at least really nice. Later in the game you get 2 cards for trashing one. This is something you only want if there are a lot of really good cards in the supply and most important in a specific price range. Because you have to gain a card which cost exactly one more and one less than the trashed card. Those cases are rare. It's good with good $5s and $7s like developing a Gold into a King's Court and a Wharf putting both on top of the deck. In the end of the game you want victory cards. So you can trash a $4 card for a Duchy and a Silver. But you have to put both cards on top of your deck. That is something you don't want if you're going for Provinces or Colonies. Developing a Silver in a Estate and Silk Road can be really nice for example. But you have to put them on your deck, really nasty. So it often fails in being a good trasher, you have to see it as a gainer instead of a trasher. I think that's something many of us didn't see at the beginning and can explain it was rated better now.
	#24 =0 Woodcutter (Base) Weighted Average: 22.01 ▲0.38 / Median: 22 ▲1 / Mode: 24 ▼3 / Standard Deviation: 3.1 ▼0.1 Highest Rank(s): #12 (1x), #13 (1x), #14 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #25 (11x), #26 (2x) Another card from the base set, but it went up a little bit. It got #24 14 times and even last twice. Its deviation is still low and shows the consensus on that card. It mostly worse than Silver as its only use is its +Buy. So, you only buy it if you really need that +Buy for setting up your engine and there's no other card that provides that. You can use it very well for a Gardens or Silk Road rush, but beside of that, there's not really much to say about that simple card.
	#23 =0 Fortune Teller (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 21.03 ▲0.02 / Median: 22 =0 / Mode: 24 =0 / Standard Deviation: 4.0 ▲0.2 Highest Rank(s): #8 (1x), #10 (1x), #12 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #26 (4x) Fortune Teller is one of the worst attacks in the game and the first attack of all lists so far. And as it is an Attack Card, several players gave it a mid-level rank. That may explain its clearly higher deviation compared to the previous cards. Its mode still is bad, 12 times it got #24. In games with trashers you want your Estates in hand and get rid of them, especially with Lookout Fortune Teller is bad. If you've trashed them, Fortune Teller just cycles through your deck, so your opponent mostly profits from your attack. In Tournament and Tunnel (with assistance of Inn, Young Witch or Vault) games you help your opponent even more. And in all other occasions there are mostly cards that soft counter top-decked victory cards or get profit from them by discarding. If those cases all don't exist, Fortune Teller might be a good buy, but those cases are very rare too. It gets better in the end game, but in the end game mostly you don't waste your buy for a Fortune Teller. And in comparism to Rabble which can be very nasty, Fortune Teller doesn't even get more benefit if you play two or more in one turn.
	#22 =0 Workshop (Base) Weighted Average: 20.82 ▼0.24 / Median: 21.5 ▲0.5 / Mode: 23 =0 / Standard Deviation: 3.6 ▲0.1 Highest Rank(s): #9 (1x), #12 (1x), #14 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #26 (4x) And there's already the third card from the base set with only one card left to come. It is just a little bit higher than Fortune Teller, but that may result from a lot of players that seem to love it. It got #23 10 times. You must ask yourself: How many $3 or $4 cards do I want in my deck. With Gardens in the supply, you may answer "as many I can get". Silver, Gardens, Estates and more Workshops are all good cards. But in all other situations you want $5 cards and Gold. And in comparism to Ironworks where you at least get benefit and isn't terminal if you gain action cards, it's a "wasted" action. The only cards that you want as many you can get may be Tournament, Caravan, Conspirator and any Village + card drawer (Envoy/Smithy). But for all you have to spend your action and you have to be sure there isn't another terminal action you want to play too.
	#21 ▼4 Great Hall (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 18.51 ▼1.76 / Median: 17 ▼0.5 / Mode: 17 ▼4 / Standard Deviation: 4.2 ▲0.3 Highest Rank(s): #8 (1x), #9 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #24 (2x), #25 (1x), #26 (1x) Great Hall is the first card with a bigger change. I went down 4 ranks, even though the weighted average only went down less than 2 points and the median even only a half point. This and the big lead over Workshop foreshadow that the next cards are very close together. It was on #17 11 times. There is not much to say to Great Hall beside how difficult it is to rank. It's an Estate that don't hurt your deck, so that's really nice. And you can buy it early if you have an additional buy and $3 left and don't need another Silver. It also supports Silk Road strategies nicely. You can even use Throne Room or King's Court with it for additional benefit if you're really desperate. It can enable Conspirator chains and other rare cases where another cantrip is useful. The best combo might be with Ironworks where you can pick it up and get a cantrip bonus. But it's never a card you use for your strategy, instead you buy it if you have $3 left and don't need more money, then you're glad to pick another VP. And you often buy Estates in the end game, Estates you will may never see in your hand. In those cases it doesn't even matter if you pick up a Great Hall or an Estate.
	#20 =0 Smugglers (Seaside) Weighted Average: 18.03 ▲0.06 / Median: 18 ▼0.5 / Mode: 13 ▲6 / Standard Deviation: 5.6 ▼1.3 Highest Rank(s): #2 (1x), #5 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #26 (7x) Smugglers lost no rank, but agreement. It's the card in this list with the highest deviation and therefore biggest disagreement. It has the third most last places as it got last 7 times. In the last list it was not even voted last a single time. On the other side there big outliers such a second place (!). In this big range it achieved a luckily good mode with 8 times on #13. Why this disagreement? With Smugglers the luck factor is high. If your opponent has bought a card which you don't want, it's a dead card, especially later in the game where he buys only Provinces. And with Smugglers in your deck, you have to commit to the strategy of your opponent and mostly don't get better than him. Smuggle a Gold early or smuggle an additional Duchy (especially with Duke) in the late game is really nice, but with a supply with many terminals, you rather buy the good terminals and money instead of wasting your action for getting another Silver or another terminal you won't be able to play. But if there are many cantrips and you're going to build a neat engine, Smugglers can be a good buy. And if you're not going first you can compensate this disadvantage. King's Courting a Smugglers can also be very strong in a good running engine. We can say, Smugglers is very board-dependant and can be a very good buy on some boards, especially if you're not going first.
	#19 =0 Shanty Town (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 17.63 ▼0.32 / Median: 18 ▼0.5 / Mode: 21 ▼9 / Standard Deviation: 4.1 ▲0.3 Highest Rank(s): #5 (1x), #8 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #24 (3x), #25 (1x) Shanty Town pretty much stayed were it was although its coincidentially high mode now got really low. It's the first card with no last place so far and has (one fifth place) a big outlier as well. It was on #21 9 times. Shanty Town is a very problematic village. If you want villages you have many terminals and want to build an engine. Shanty Town is bad as it only gives you +2 Actions and is actually worse than Native Village for example. If you want the +2 Cards for a Big Money strategy, the +2 Actions are wasted. And if you have multiple Shanty Towns in hand and no terminals, it's even worse. The best use is to minimize bad draw luck, when you have many terminals, but have the bad luck to not draw them with your village. Then you have a second shot to draw them with your +2 Cards. And if you have 2 Shanty Towns and 1 terminal in hand, it's not bad after all. Play your first Shanty Town, then your terminal and then you can play the second one and hopefully draw more terminals. But the raw benefit is in this case the same as you would get out of a "normal" Village. And even if you play basically Big Money, Shanty Town serves like a Laboratory for you.
	#18 ▼5 Loan (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 17.17 ▼2.95 / Median: 17 ▼4 / Mode: 20 ▼8 / Standard Deviation: 4.3 ▲0.9 Highest Rank(s): #8 (1x), #9 (1x), #10 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #26 (3x) Here is your first card from Prosperity. And wow, the biggest loser so far. 5 ranks and nearly 3 points is a big drop and it was even last three times. And the agreement in the rank of this card increased. It was voted on #20 8 times. You can trash without spending an action, that's always great. It also gives at least one coin which is no big deal, but is still better than Trade Route early. And you don't need to trash a card from your hand, so you have still 4 cards in your hand you can play. But this is also a problem: That involves a luck factor as it may find every time your only Silver in your deck which you even can't play in your next turn (and may discard all your good terminals at the same time). Also it's limited to treasure cards and therefore basically to Copper. So it has advantages and disadvantages and some may evaluate the advantages higher while others seem to do it vice versa. That you can't choose the card you want to trash, might be the reason many of you rank it lower than the last time. Sea Hag / Loan is better than Sea Hag / Silver on #92 of the best openings.
	#17 ▼3 Trade Route (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 17.09 ▼1.71 / Median: 17 ▼2 / Mode: 20 ▼3 / Standard Deviation: 4.1 ▲0.2 Highest Rank(s): #5 (1x), #7 (1x), #10 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #24 (4x), #25 (1x) The next card from Prosperity and another loser and it was very close between those two cards. Nevertheless it's the second card with no last place and it's the first card so far which would've been on a different rank if the votes wouldn't have been weighted (#16). That means that experienced players rank it a little bit lower than unexperienced players. It was voted on #20 10 times. It's not a very good trasher as a opening buy as you don't get enough benefit until the end of the game (beside the buy). It's better if there are additional victory cards in the supply, especially action/victory cards like Island or Nobles that get bought earlier, but still, as a trasher it's no good opening buy. Buying green cards earlier just to get more benefit is rarely a good decision as your opponent may buy Trade Routes too and get the same benefit without clogging up his own deck. Mostly you buy it if it's the only source of +Buy and you really need that +Buy and later in the game where you're going green and it's really a neck-and-neck-race, so Trade Routes are now worth $3, $4 or even more. Then they can be really powerful. So, some of you may have ranked it as opener, the other players may have ranked it as strong card in the later game. But quality is more often defined how useful it is in the beginning, so it's no suprise that it lost 3 ranks.
	#16 ▲2 Wishing Well (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 16.75 ▲0.53 / Median: 17 ▲1 / Mode: 16 ▲3 / Standard Deviation: 4.3 ▼0.3 Highest Rank(s): #9 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #25 (3x) With the increase of only half a point Wishing Well benefits from the drop of the two Prosperity cards. As mentioned, it was voted lower from unexperienced players than from better players. 9 players ranked it on #16. Wishing Well is a very interesting card, but of course very luck-dependant. Ok, it can never hurt, but in most of the decks it's just a cantrip and you may have better bought a Silver. Another problem is that you have to guess the second card, so that cards like Spy, Lookout that seem to synergize don't work. But with cards like Apothecary or Cartographer it works really well. Then it can be a guaranteed cheap Laboratory. And in some decks you only buy a few different cards, so you can maximize your probability. And if you're really good with card counting, this is really a good card if there are few cards left in your draw pile. It's also a very good counter against Ghost Ship. Young Witch / Wishing Well is even better than Young Witch / Silver on #120 of the best openings.
	#15 =0 Black Market (Promo) Weighted Average: 15.95 ▼0.34 / Median: 16 ▼1 / Mode: 13 =0 / Standard Deviation: 4.7 ▲0.1 Highest Rank(s): #4 (1x), #6 (1x), #7 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #23 (3x), #25 (1x) Here's your first promo with a very high spread of ranks. Like last time it was the card with the third highest deviation. It got #13 8 times. It's hated by many players as it has a very high luck factor. You may draw in turn 3 the only curse-giving attack in the game, but you may also draw Treasure Map, Fool's Gold and Peddler. Or you draw 3 potion cost cards when you don't have a Potion in play or even in your deck. Playing your treasures in the buy phase can lead to many confusing rules questions, but can also lead to the well-known Tactician + Black Market combo where you can discard your hand in a Tactician turn with another Tactician after you've played all your treasures with Black Market. Many Cornucopia cards also benefit from the diversity you add to your deck by buying many cards from Black Market. The most famous combo may be Fairgrounds + Black Market where Fairgrounds can easily be worth 6VP but even 8VP or more are possible. But also cards like Harvest or Menagerie benefit from such diverse decks you can get from Black Market. So when do you really want to buy a Black Market when there's no Fairgrounds or Tactician in the supply? Either you know there are many good attacks in the Black Market pile and don't want your opponent get them or you don't want to win at all costs and just have fun playing with it and your friends and rely on your luck.
	#14 ▲2 Oasis (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 15.49 ▲0.86 / Median: 15 ▲0.5 / Mode: 15 =0 / Standard Deviation: 4.3 ▼1 Highest Rank(s): #7 (2x), #9 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #24 (1x), #25 (1x), #26 (1x) Oasis is a Hinterlands card and of course it went up like most of the Hinterlands cards so far. It went up nearly one point, but on the other side the disagreement got higher as shown by the significantly higher deviation. It was on #15 14 times and even last once. At first I read it as "+1 Action $1", basically a Copper. But it's much better as you get money out of your victory cards or curses, like Vault or Secret Chamber do. It's limited to one card, but it is a cantrip. It's not a very strong card, but it is a very nice addition to many strategies, especially if there's no heavy trashing possible and is especially good on cursing boards or on boards with early greening. If there are hand-size reducing attacks on the board, Oasis is on the other side rarely a good buy. It synergizes well with "draw up to" cards, so it's no surprise that JaoT/Oasis on #152 is a little bit better as opener than simply JaoT/Silver.
	#13 ▼2 Lookout (Seaside) Weighted Average: 14.76 ▼3.15 / Median: 14 ▼3 / Mode: 13 ▼5 / Standard Deviation: 4.5 =0 Highest Rank(s): #7 (1x), #8 (4x) / Lowest Rank(s): #25 (1x), #26 (2x) We're now in the upper half, but the big gap is between #12 and #13, so here's another card. Lookout went down only 2 ranks, but with a drop of over 3 points, it's one of the biggest losers. It still has a high deviation and is the last card with a last place, no it got even 2 last places. It was 9 times on #13. The positive part is: It's a non-terminal trasher which is of course very powerful. It can trash a card which is even not in your hand. It also counters top-deck-attacks, especially Sea Hag (Sea Hag / Lookout is currently the #56 ▼25 best opening), very well. And with the support of "spying" cards you are guaranteed trashing a bad card. All this is similar to Loan. But Loan can only trash the first card. With Lookout you can even choose between three cards. But: In the late game, it's a dead card in your hand, because it becomes dangerous. Who doesn't fear drawing 3 Provinces or even Colonies and having to trash one? More and more players seem to rank it that low because of that fear. The fear isn't justified mostly, but you have to keep that in mind. Especially if you have only 2 or even 1 card in your drawing deck.

To Part 2

[brokoli]

Interesting… I completely disagree !
For me, the underrated cards are : Great hall, Shanty town, and especially Loan, Fortune teller.
On the other side, workshop seems really overrated. It is useful with Alt VP strategies but otherwise …

Glad to see Oasis higher than the last year.

[Davio]

I'm still not completely over my initial Oasis hatred, but I'm loving it more.

Still, rarely a disappearing Copper wins over Silver for me.

[DStu]

Workshop fifth from below overrated? We of course may discuss FT below it, but Woodcutter and Chancellor? Develop is a difficult card that in most games would be last on this llst and in some would be 3rd, and in very very few would be average.

I had
Loan<Oasis<GH<Chancellor from below, we can discuss the Chancellor, but Loan is so weak without help from other trashers. The Coppers usually are your econmy in the beginning, and when you can't get rid of your Estates but trash your Coppers you often get nowhere.  Not talking about hitting your Silvers...
Oasis is often an average card which is not bad per se, but still slightly worse than Silver. Maybe slightly better than Silver sometimes, but so what, Silver>Oasis is often not a big mistake. If at all. And Silver is always on the board... Excluding Tunnels(!), Lib etc, so some nice tricks, but these nice tricks you have for every card.
Great Hall ist just, hey yeah, nice with IW, Pool, Conspirator, but (except IW) there are tons of cards I would rather have than a GH. And in standard games for a long time this includes Silver.

[Davio]

Question: Is Silver also on this list?

Would be fun to see where it sits.

[Tdog]

Woodcutter third to last? Plus buy is good! How can you argue that's worse then great hall, a do-nothing card? Or fortune teller? Neither of these cards are an important card of a good engine. Woodcutter can be very important if it's the only source of plus buy.

[Davio]

Well, Great Hall works with Hoard, Silk Roads, Ironworks, Crossroads, Tribute and to a lesser extent Scrying Pool, maybe that's enough to get it past Woodcutter?

[Tdog]

 

Well, Great Hall works with Hoard, Silk Roads, Ironworks, Crossroads, Tribute and to a lesser extent Scrying Pool, maybe that's enough to get it past Woodcutter?

But Woodcutter works well with most engines, which is more common then those cases. Tribute, crossroads, and ironworks aren't good strategies in upon themselves. If you're going with those as a part of an engine, woodcutter will most likely be better.

[yudantaiteki]

I think Woodcutter is contingent on +buy being important, which it isn't in every game.  Nevertheless I would still put it better than Workshop or Develop.

I think it's funny that Chancellor is now considered so bad; people used to say it was great because you could cycle your deck, but I guess everyone's decided it's not worth a terminal to do that.  It combos with Stash, I guess...and at least it gives +2 money so it does something, unlike some other bottom-of-the-barrel cards (thief, scout, counting house)

[brokoli]

The 5 worst cards for me : Smugglers, Chancellor, Woodcutter, Workshop and last Develop (even if I LOVE it).

I don't understand how someone ranked Great Hall last. It's like saying duchy is the worst of the $5 cards…

[Tables]

Hm, some interesting disagreements with my list. I had Chancellor a full six places higher - compared to say, Woodcutter and Fortune Teller, Chancellor always seems more useful. Woodcutter's extra buy only tends to matter in the mid-late game, and as an engine source of extra buy it's mediocre at best. Fortune Teller's attack, if it even hits, provides cycling to the opponent but weakens their next hand. It's kinda, almost nothing. Chancellor's discard sometimes doesn't help, but you generally have a reasonable number of cards in deck (e.g. open 3/4, Chancellor has a 7/12 chance of being drawn with nothing on the discard pile), and generally discarding speeds you up nicely. It's not great, but it's better than most of the low cards in my opinion.

I also had Great Hall a lot higher, but looking back, I remember I submitted the $3 list without properly checking it. That's one I'd have likely dropped 3-4 places. Probably to just above Chancellor.

[jsh357]

I think this is a pretty good list so far.  Here are the ones I placed differently:
- Oasis and Wishing Well, which I rank a lot lower, but I'll admit I'm probably bad with the cards.  I can definitely see why WW is ranked as high as it is, but not Oasis really.
- Trade Route, which IMO should definitely be in the top half, though not TOO high up.
- Smugglers, but yeah, its value is pretty up in the air so I understand why it's ranked that low.

[Wingnut]

Oasis seems way overrated here. It feels like I lose pretty much everytime I buy it, even in its supposed good spot with curses or early greening.

Fortune Teller is underrated. I feel like its a decent opener and skipping someones opening buys can be a killer.

[mharris717]

I don't understand the Oasis hate.  Its value is dependent on the board, just like most cards. 

If you want to build an engine where money would clog your deck, Oasis can be a godsend.  It lets you keep your deck cycling a bit while still giving you enough money to buy engine parts. 

If your deck is full of crap, Oasis can be good, but I don't think this is the best scenario.  Yes, you can discard crap, but you may also draw crap. 

If it's more of a BM-leaning game, silver might be preferable. 

[DStu]

I don't understand the Oasis hate.  Its value is dependent on the board, just like most cards. 

It's not hate, I just don't think it's not usefull, or more usefull than Silver

If you want to build an engine where money would clog your deck, Oasis can be a godsend.  It lets you keep your deck cycling a bit while still giving you enough money to buy engine parts.

But it does it on a very small path.  First, you are paying $3 for an addition of $1 to your deck. In a situation where you want to get most of your deck anyway, and prepare for large turns, that's not very good. Than, your handsize after playing Oasis decreased by one. Yes, you got to look 1 card further to find your engine parts, but that's all. Yes, with Libraries that's a completely different story, but still here. It's just $1. For $3 and a buy. Need lot's of them to get large turns with this.

If your deck is full of crap, Oasis can be good, but I don't think this is the best scenario.  Yes, you can discard crap, but you may also draw crap. 

A silver and a crap card gives an average of $1/card. An Oasis that finds a crap card replaces itself and gives $1. The variance speaks for the Silver, the cycling speaks for the Oasis, the probability that you might draw it without crap speaks for the Silver.

If it's more of a BM-leaning game, silver might be preferable.

QFT

[brokoli]

Oasis is a lot of fun to play with menagerie and library.
Interesting with tunnel, too (but it needs some support).

[Teproc]

What's interesting to me is that my bottom 14 are exactly the same, but the only one I have ranked similarly to this list is Lookout.

Most notably, I have Shanty Town and Black Market much lower than that, 5 ranks below for both. Black Market is obviously extremely variable, but Shanty Town... meh, it's just always so underwhelming. I mean, it's fine in a deck full of cantrips, but you rarely want more than one and... yeah, I don't know, I just don't like the card. It doesn't really do anything, which people might say about another card that I had 4 ranks higher than this list : Great Hall. See, I think Great Hall does a bunch of things, with its interactions with Hoard, Ironworks, Silk Road, and I also think that it's an interesting card just because of the "Beyond Silver" thing. Recognizing when you cant Great Hall over Silver is interesting to me, in a way Shanty Town just never is.

[chwhite]

I'll hold off on posting my full rankings until we see the rest of the $3s, but a few comments for now.  Suffice to say I disagree with this list much much more.

Smugglers, Loan, and Black Market are IMO egregiously misranked.  Loan is a lot better: obviously it is not good at all in BM, but non-terminal trashing is really really nice in any engine that can get cash from Actions.  Not just Minion decks: Goons, Conspirator, the whole Peddler family, Tac/Vault, the list goes on.  And even some money decks can benefit from the copper trashing: Tunnels and Venture come to mind here.  It is possible that I overrated it a spot or two at #12, but really I don't think #18 is fair at all.

Black Market and Smugglers, on the other hand, deserve to be far lower.  Everybody remembers the games where Black Market gets you game-breaking cards early on, but nobody remembers all the times you draw nothing special over and over again. Even good players (myself included) fall into the Black Market trap way too often.  I don't think the card is as bad as its CR stats would indicate (said stats think Black Market is Pirate Ship-level awful), and I actually happen to be pretty good at Black Market games, since the card works best as a facilitator of Cornucopia-style unfocused engines, but I do think it's overrated.

Smugglers I had as the worst $3.  My opinion of it has actually gone up since the last list- primarily because I've gained more appreciation of its use in Gardens and Vineyards games- but my opinion of Develop went up more.  I hate the lack of control Smugglers gives you, I'd rather buy good cards on my own terms- and a terminal that can often get you NOTHING (if, say, your opponent did things like trash, buy Potion card, or buy Province) is going to be pretty bad at doing that.

Lesser (but still stark) disagreements: Fortune Teller is not that bad, peoples.  Shanty Town should not be nearly this low, especially as we haven't seen Village yet (which looks to be overrated by just a bit).  I did have it lower than Village, but only by two slots.  A lot of people must be underestimating its pseudo-Lab ability, which is understandable as I used to, too.

More to come, especially after we see the rest of the list.

[brokoli]

+1 Chwhite. He said everything.

[popsofctown]

Chancellor is last?

I think it's an underappreciated card, and disagree with the writeup.  Chancellor doesn't ONLY get you recently bought cards sooner.  When the number of good cards already in your deck exceeds the number of good cards you buy in a round, you start to use Chancellor based on whether you've seen your good cards yet already, and get to replay good cards you already have.

[sparky5856]

I wish I could have saved the results from the survey... as I forgot how I ranked the vast majority of the cards X_X I think I was one of the people who ranked Black Market very high though. Of course it's very situational; I don't always go for it but if there's, say, a good Curser in there, I'll try to rush to it.

Also lol who put Shanty Town at #5 XD

[ChocophileBenj]

I dunno, I don't play enough with Black Market.
And I believe I often win without buying Smugglers, though I unfortunately can't access my stats on CR. It means gaining cards your opponent gained... up to $6, so if he bought Province/low-cost Peddler, bye bye ! And as said for Workshop : how many "pretty good cards up to $6 you can't choose yourself" do you want ?

But about Develop, I wonder why it is so low :
Okay, it's most often no more than an estate->silver converter, but since the silver gets on your deck and it's still a better opening than Woodcutter (I think !) why a so-bad rank ?
The worst is the fact it's poor at gaining victory cards. (and you need $7 cards or platinums to reach province, okay... maybe should this card belong to Prosperity instead of Hinterlands ?)
Okay, it's the worst trasher in the game, after Possession, but... I don't know ! I think this card could at least been ranked over Woodcutter, Workshop and maybe Fortune Teller...

popsofctown : I think Chancellor's luck factor and lack of relevance punished it ! Buy only one ? How would it be place in your deck. Buy several of'em ? Yes, but the benefit is not that great, and... they are terminals.
If you've a good engine, you can wait to discard your deck "naturally", with redrawing...

sparky5859 : Not me !!! (In fact, I dont even know if my vote has been taken into account as I didn't finish rank the cards...)

[Robz888]

Wow. I had Smugglers 8 places better. I had Loan 4 places better. I had Black Market 5 places worse. Some pretty stark differences.

It's possible I underrate Black Market because I hate it so much. But I also hate Smugglers, so I don't think I'm overrating it.

Loan isn't that bad. It's better than Trade Route, Wishing Well, and Black Market, that's for sure.

[popsofctown]

Chocophile Benj, I didn't understand you exactly, but, outside of Chancellor Stash you only ever want one.  I think of it as being 3.1$, because if you have no other way to use your terminal action point besides the likes of Fortune Teller or Woodcutter or Navigator, it's ability to improve your draws slightly means more money for your deck.  In a race to a high cost card that's non terminal itself, that's invaluable - say Hunting Party stacking or Grand Market.  If the high cost card is terminal, if it's powerful enough it could possibly still be worth it to use Chancellor to race there - Goons, no-trash cursers, Forge (just reforge your Chancellor).

I definitely think it is more powerful than Fortune Teller.  Woodcutter is kind of apples and oranges to me because it's a Fool's Gold enabler and otherwise a card you pick up late for an engine that only has +buy available from Woodcutter.  But Fortune Teller is a card that cycles your opponent's deck! I can't quite get it. 

[chwhite]

Chocophile Benj, I didn't understand you exactly, but, outside of Chancellor Stash you only ever want one.  I think of it as being 3.1$, because if you have no other way to use your terminal action point besides the likes of Fortune Teller or Woodcutter or Navigator, it's ability to improve your draws slightly means more money for your deck.  In a race to a high cost card that's non terminal itself, that's invaluable - say Hunting Party stacking or Grand Market.  If the high cost card is terminal, if it's powerful enough it could possibly still be worth it to use Chancellor to race there - Goons, no-trash cursers, Forge (just reforge your Chancellor).

I definitely think it is more powerful than Fortune Teller.  Woodcutter is kind of apples and oranges to me because it's a Fool's Gold enabler and otherwise a card you pick up late for an engine that only has +buy available from Woodcutter.  But Fortune Teller is a card that cycles your opponent's deck! I can't quite get it. 

Fortune Teller is a card that Rabbles your opponents' deck.  It's therefore best in the late game, though sometimes an early Fortune Teller can force them to miss their opening buys as well.

[popsofctown]

i may have exaggerated to make my point.

[michaeljb]

It blows my mind that someone rated Smugglers #2. That means someone actually ranked it above Masquerade or Ambassador, not to mention Menagerie, Warehouse, Tunnel, Swindler, Steward...wow 

[HiveMindEmulator]

I have the non-terminal trashers Lookout an Loan 5-6 places higher since having that passive trashing works pretty well in a lot of engines. Black Market I think is much too high, skewed by a lot of really high votes (4,6,7). Sometimes it's really important, but a lot of times it's not. It belongs in the same realm as Workshop and Smugglers, which also gain you cards, but out of the supply (Develop also may belong in that group). Shanty Town should at least be in the neighborhood of Village. And I have Oasis and Wishing Well a lot lower. There are definitely times when they are useful, but never that useful.

Regarding Fortune Teller, I do have it that low, which was the biggest drop on my personal list. I may underrate it, but I personally only buy it in Curse games to make the clogged deck feel even worse. I feel like without Curses, there is too great a chance it just Chancellors them. Unlike Rabble, you're not going to want to mass them, so unless you have a way of playing your 1 copy every turn, it doesn't seem like a good enough late-game attack...

[Schneau]

I wish I could have saved the results from the survey... as I forgot how I ranked the vast majority of the cards X_X

I am hoping that once all of the lists are revealed, Qvist will release the personal lists of everyone who said it would be ok to make their information public. I too forgot what my ordering is, and would love to compare it to these lists!

[Autumn]

I'm pretty much completely in agreement with the order so far. One exception: Black Market. I hate that card, but yeah, I was the person who gave it a #6.. I'll admit that in retrospect I may have overrated it by a couple spots, but it really is just game-breaking far too often. Scoop up a curser when there's no good ones on the board? Scoop up a trasher when there's no good ones on the board? And even if you don't scoop up those cards, you can still often get some neat stuff from it, and it's always a terminal silver at absolute least. And then there's the one bit about it I really like (and wish would be included on a better designed card): how allowing you to play treasure before the buy phase synchronises with cards like Menagerie, Watchtower, Library, Tactician etc.

[PerdHapley]

This list is pretty close to my own (as I recall it) with no crazy outliers yet. Happy to see that Oracle got a bump, I considered it the most inaccurately-ranked card on the last $3 list. It's not top 5 material or anything, but it is much, much better as a $3 attack than Fortune Teller.

I think Black Market is fine where it is. Yeah, sometimes it is utterly awful and a total trap, but obviously other times it is essential. Surprised to see chwhite despise it so much given his love of Cornucopia, since many cards in that set (Fairgrounds, Menagerie, Horn of Plenty) make Black Market much more valuable regardless of its contents. Plus, there is that crazzzzyyy Tactician combo. Putting a card that swingy in roughly the middle of the list feels appropriate to me.

Smugglers' placement seems right to me too. The complaint that it is totally useless late-game when Provinces are being bought seems minor; I mean, look at Sea Hag. I see Smugglers as a good early pick up/defense for player 2 in a lot of games that would typically favor P1, especially games with discard attacks - say, a Militia game where you just can't ever catch up to $6, or a Ghost Ship game where you can sabotage your current under-attack hand without falling too far behind. Lots of other reasons it shouldn't be any lower IMO - Duchy-dancing, Grand Market, Highway/Bridge, etc...

[Ozle]

Wow, i hate Black Market as well, but I thought others would rate it a lot higher! It seems to be a must buy card for all the people I play against!

[heatthespurs]

Qvist, just curious, what is the mean/medium of isotropic ranking out of all the submission? Also, what do you think about making an additional list that only include the submission with rank above the mean/medium? I wonder would there be any significant difference from the current list...

[Rhombus]

Qvist - can you clarify exactly how these are weighted?

[brokoli]

About fortune teller : as long as the opponent have victory cards, I'm sure the "chancellor effect" is minor compared to the attack ...

[O]

Shanty Town and Wishing Well are incredibly underrated, Oasis overrated. Wishing well isn't a power 3 but... its actually close to a power 3 cantrip (read; Caravan for 4$.)

sides that list is pretty good.

[iangoth]

I think Oasis is more or less fine where it is. It does well enough in any engine that isn't super thin and it has some pretty strong combos (scrying pool, double tactician, menagerie, tunnel, minion, to name a few). That said, I agree that wishing well is probably better overall.

Lookout is the most overrated on this list in my opinion. My judgment is probably skewed a bit since I don't like the card, but seriously, it trashes one card at a time, does nothing for your current turn, and you can't use it more than a few times before you risk trashing good cards. It's good against sea hag, true, but I'd take just about any other trasher any other time.

[yudantaiteki]

It blows my mind that someone rated Smugglers #2. That means someone actually ranked it above Masquerade or Ambassador, not to mention Menagerie, Warehouse, Tunnel, Swindler, Steward...wow 

It's a very attractive card for beginners because you can get free cards with it up to golds.

[Qvist]

Question: Is Silver also on this list?

Would be fun to see where it sits.

No, it isn't. Base and Prize cards aren't included. I will consider it for the next time.

I wish I could have saved the results from the survey... as I forgot how I ranked the vast majority of the cards X_X

I am hoping that once all of the lists are revealed, Qvist will release the personal lists of everyone who said it would be ok to make their information public. I too forgot what my ordering is, and would love to compare it to these lists!

I'll send you your lists before the next part. If anybody else didn't save it either and wants it, feel free to PM me.

sparky5859 : Not me !!! (In fact, I dont even know if my vote has been taken into account as I didn't finish rank the cards...)

I didn't find any list from you. Was there any problem?

Qvist, just curious, what is the mean/medium of isotropic ranking out of all the submission? Also, what do you think about making an additional list that only include the submission with rank above the mean/medium? I wonder would there be any significant difference from the current list...

I don't have the rank of all of them, but the median/mode from the rest is at ~30. But as I weight the lists, we can pretty sure that the ranking displays a somewhat objective view.

Qvist - can you clarify exactly how these are weighted?

I think I posted it somewhere. Nevermind, it's a simplge weighted average with the level as weight. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weighted_average
But I made an adjustment as there were several of which I didn't know the rank. So I assumed level 0 and I gave everyone +5 to their weight.
So the weight is now level+5.

[Death to Sea Hags]

Well, looking at this list, I realized I mixed up Oasis and Oracle (again).  So Oasis should fall some - my rank was like 6th from bottom - while I put Oracle in the top half.

[rinkworks]

Well, Great Hall works with Hoard, Silk Roads, Ironworks, Crossroads, Tribute and to a lesser extent Scrying Pool, maybe that's enough to get it past Woodcutter?

But Woodcutter works well with most engines, which is more common then those cases. Tribute, crossroads, and ironworks aren't good strategies in upon themselves. If you're going with those as a part of an engine, woodcutter will most likely be better.

The problem is that Woodcutter is often a pretty terrible way to get +Buy.  Worker's Village, Hamlet, Market, or Pawn maybe.  If you're restricted to terminals, you'd rather have Bridge or Margrave (for example).  Many of those are more expensive, but if there is a limit on how many terminals your deck can take (which is usual), then you skip Woodcutter and wait until you can get the better alternative.

So Woodcutter is good if there's no better way to get +Buy, and then you're still probably not happy about it.  And on some boards, such as when it means choosing between Woodcutter and Mountebank for your terminal(s), you simply go without.

[chwhite]

This list is pretty close to my own (as I recall it) with no crazy outliers yet. Happy to see that Oracle got a bump, I considered it the most inaccurately-ranked card on the last $3 list. It's not top 5 material or anything, but it is much, much better as a $3 attack than Fortune Teller.

I think Black Market is fine where it is. Yeah, sometimes it is utterly awful and a total trap, but obviously other times it is essential. Surprised to see chwhite despise it so much given his love of Cornucopia, since many cards in that set (Fairgrounds, Menagerie, Horn of Plenty) make Black Market much more valuable regardless of its contents. Plus, there is that crazzzzyyy Tactician combo. Putting a card that swingy in roughly the middle of the list feels appropriate to me.

Smugglers' placement seems right to me too. The complaint that it is totally useless late-game when Provinces are being bought seems minor; I mean, look at Sea Hag. I see Smugglers as a good early pick up/defense for player 2 in a lot of games that would typically favor P1, especially games with discard attacks - say, a Militia game where you just can't ever catch up to $6, or a Ghost Ship game where you can sabotage your current under-attack hand without falling too far behind. Lots of other reasons it shouldn't be any lower IMO - Duchy-dancing, Grand Market, Highway/Bridge, etc...

Yeah, I'm surprised myself that I keep ranking Black Market so low.  It definitely feels like a more important card than that.  But I'm also aware that my play style dovetails particularly well with Black Market, so I need to have some other data than my subjective experience here.  So, I look to the CR stats, which seem to think that Black Market is just about the most overrated card in the game.  Which is not exactly true.  But it is true that while I win Black Market games fairly often, I do even better when I ignore it.  So perhaps my low ranking is an overreaction.  I don't know.  I think it's good that there are people like me willing to rank it low, because there are still too many people who think it's an always-get power card, which is just not true at all.

I'm still really unsure how to rank Oracle.  I ranked it higher than the average last time, and lower than the average this time (it was #14 on my list).  It's way better than the initial impressions, but I think people might be overcorrecting a bit.

[Rhombus]

When do we get part 2?!

[Qvist]

You can't await, huh? I planned to do this today.

[Qvist]

I just updated the first post and will update the $2 cards post with the openings as Councilroom is back online.

The Best $3 Cards - Part 2/2

Link to the win rates on Councilroom
Link 2 to the win rates on Councilroom

	#12 ▲9 Oracle (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 13.3 ▲5.03 / Median: 13.5 ▲6.5 / Mode: 10 ▲10 / Standard Deviation: 5.3 ▼0.5 Highest Rank(s): #6 (2x), #7 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #25 (3x) What a big jump and it's of course a Hinterlands card! It went up 9 ranks with being ranked 5 ranks higher in average. The mode even went up 10 points (it was #10 8 times). It had a high deviation last time already, but after the big change it has an even higher one, the second highest deviation in this list. It was really underestimated and some still do. A 2 card-drawer with a spy-effect seems so innocent. But sometimes you even prefer it to Smithy which itself is a good $4 card. You can use it very well in Big Money games where the additional attack part comes handy. The problem with the attack is - like Spy - you do little damage with messing up the top cards. But discarding 2 cards to draw the next two helps cycling through your deck in the early game. But you draw still only 2 cards what is still not very good if you use it in an engine. And the luck factor is high and you have to make hard decisions. Do you want to make your opponent discard the Silver and Estate? It really depends on the cards he has in hand, but you don't know that. And if you choose to put them back on top, he may even choose the order, another help for him. On the other side, it's great if you can discard two Golds. So, the attack part is weak, mostly you buy it because you need the +2 cards with the minimized draw luck, which is good in Big Money.
	#11 ▲1 Village (Base) Weighted Average: 12.89 ▲1.21 / Median: 13 ▲0.5 / Mode: 13 ▲5 / Standard Deviation: 3.6 ▲1.0 Highest Rank(s): #6 (2x), #7 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #19 (1x), #22 (1x), #23 (1x) That's the best $3 card from the base set. It was #13 10 times. Vanilla village is very hard to rank. How do you rank a card that does nothing beside giving an additional action? It's a card that is important for all engines, but is useless if "Big Money" is the dominant strategy. It's no exciting card for sure, when there are all other engine components there you're glad to have it. The low ranks may come from Big Money players and the high ranks from engine builders. Am I right?
	#10 ▼2 Watchtower (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 11.27 ▼0.95 / Median: 11 ▼1 / Mode: 11 ▼1 / Standard Deviation: 4.0 ▲0.2 Highest Rank(s): #2 (1x), #3 (1x), #5 (4x) / Lowest Rank(s): #19 (3x), #21 (1x) We're in the Top 10 and Watchtower lost 2 ranks. It's in the nowhere with a big lead over Village, but still far behind #9. It's the second card with a second place and it was 11 times on #11. There are two Reaction cards for $3 and this time Watchtower loses. Watchtower is very versatile what makes it a great card. At first it can draw up to 6 cards what makes it a worse Library and is great in Hamlet, Festival or other decks where the non-terminals draw equal or less cards than you discard. Then it is even an Smithy equivalent. Even if two Watchtowers collide you can use the Reaction part from the second Watchtower for the card you buy. You can put your new card on top of your deck and have it in your hand in the next turn. But Watchtower is even a better defense card. The strongest attacks are Cursing and Discarding Attacks. You can trash the gained Curses immediately and can draw to a more than full hand after discarding. And, with one of the discarding attacks it combos too: Goons / Watchtower is great as you can buy additional Coppers or Curses for VPs and can trash them immediately without clogging up.
	#9 =0 Tunnel (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 9.75 ▲0.57 / Median: 9.5 ▼0.5 / Mode: 8 ▲3 / Standard Deviation: 4.5 ▼0.1 Highest Rank(s): #1 (1x), #2 (1x), #3 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #17 (1x), #24 (1x), #25 (1x) Tunnel stays on the same rank, but still won a few points. Its deviation is still very high, because it's the first card with a first place but it has still one vote on second last. Its mode went up a little bit with being on #8 10 times. Tunnels 2VP for only $3 is already very good. You have to pay $2 more for getting one point more. And the Reaction part is really strong. Mostly there is at least one card on the board which can trigger it. It combos great with Vault, Cellar, Inn, Embassy and such. Young Witch / Tunnel is currently the 33rd ▼13 best opening. So Tunnel is one of the rare scenarios when buying a victory card as an opening buy can be really good (beside Island). It's also a great defense card against Discarding Attacks like Militia, Goons or Margrave or even Minion. On boards with many discarding synergies, you mostly can observe a rush for Tunnels. And then not only the Tunnels can deplete, the Gold pile can too. But still it's very situational. If there's no action which can discard, Tunnel is nice in the late game if you miss $5, but no game changer.
	#8 Scheme ▲2 (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 8.91 ▲2.08 / Median: 8 ▲3 / Mode: 8 ▲3 / Standard Deviation: 3.6 ▲1.5 Highest Rank(s): #2 (2x), #3 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #17 (2x), #19 (1x) So basically Scheme and Watchtower switched places. And here's the next Hinterlands card which got a big boost of 2 points. Median and Mode went up 3 points (it was on #8 10 times) too and the agreement on this card is much higher than last time. Scheme is a cantrip and mostly don't hurt in your deck as long as you don't draw it dead. But how big is the benefit? If you're building an engine around a key card (like Hunting Party), Scheme is very handy as you can be sure to have that card in hand nearly every turn. With +Buy you could even buy more Schemes to add to your engine. Even with a simpler strategy, but a strong attack, Scheme is very nice, as is basically replaces the second copy of that strong attack card and you eliminate the possibility of colliding. As Double Ambassador is already a strong opening, on those boards you really want to open Ambassador/Scheme and you can later use the Scheme to top deck another card if you want to, so it's no surprise that Ambassador/Scheme is on #43 of the best openings. Be aware of Minion, as Minion could completely destroy your top-decking. Scrying Pool + Scheme is good, Golem + Scheme + strong attack is strong and King's Court + Scheme is just crazy. On the other hand, in big money games or with very thin decks, Scheme is not worth a buy and you better buy a Silver.
	#7 ▼1 Warehouse (Seaside) Weighted Average: 6.91 ▼0.69 / Median: 7 ▼1  / Mode: 7 ▼3 / Standard Deviation: 2.1 ▲0.5 Highest Rank(s): #2 (2x), #4 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #11 (2x), #12 (1x), #13 (1x) We're entering the Tier 1 cards now after a big gap of 2 points. Warehouse lost one rank, but has very low deviation with #13 as the worst rank. Its rank isn't surprising as it voted on #7 18 times. Warehouse is the better Cellar, it is a very useful deck sifter. You can draw 3 cards and discard the most useless ones. It's also a card that works fine with Tunnel and of course with any Attack (Sea Hag / Warehouse is better than Sea Hag / Silver on #98) as it is non-terminal and can draw your terminals more often. It's also great if you want cards together that gain strength when they collide, like Fool's Gold or Treasure Map. Because you have one card less in hand after you played it, it synergizes with "draw up to" cards (JaoT/Warehouse is better than JaoT/Silver on #126) And you can even play it if your hand is good and discard the useless cards on top of your deck (which are coincidental there or from any Attack like Rabble). It loses power on boards with discard attacks, but with cursing attacks it's great. It's a great addition to any deck which isn't a terminal draw Big Money deck.
	#6 ▲1 Swindler (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 6.51 ▲0.78 / Median: 6 ▲1 / Mode: 6 ▲3 / Standard Deviation: 3.4 ▲1.2 Highest Rank(s): #2 (1x), #3 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #11 (4x), #17 (1x), #25 (1x) As there's now way higher consensus on Swindler, it's now on #6 where it was voted 14 times. It still has two big outliers on #17 and #25. Swindler is the third $3 Attack and this time it is a good one. It's a great opening buy and can turn the Coppers of the opponents into Curses (Tournament + Swindler and Swindler + Chapel are both at around #100). Later in the game it can turn the new good $5 cards into Duchies. With special cards on the board, the punishing can even be worse, like swindling the only Potion into a Treasure Map or Coppersmith or vice versa, turning the Sea Hag into a Potion. Maybe the outliers are punishing it too, for its high luck-dependant attack. Both players may open Swindler and one can turn the other Swindler into a Chancellor. Or you hit 3 Coppers and turn them into Curses and your opponent hit 3 Estates and turn them into ... Estates. Bad luck! Of course you can decrease bad luck by adding a Spy-like attack, but most of the time it's not worth it. Beware with Peddler on board. Trashing a Province and turning into a Peddler, great. Hitting a Peddler when the Peddlers are out, bad! And beware in the end game. Hitting a Curse when the Curses are out is suboptimal, but hitting a Province and giving your opponent the last Province, can win or lose you the game.
	#5 ▼1 Steward (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 6.40 ▼0.84 / Median: 6 =0 / Mode: 6 ▼1 / Standard Deviation: 2.5 ▲0.3 Highest Rank(s): #3 (4x) / Lowest Rank(s): #12 (1x), #14 (1x), #16 (1x) We're in the Top 5 and it was very close, but Steward has beaten Swindler, with the same Median and Mode (it was 12 times on #6). It loses still a rank and nearly one point too. The deviation decreases a little bit too. Steward's strength is its flexibility. It's one of the rare trashers that are good openers and still good later in the game, in this case for $2 or 2 cards. It leads to very difficult decisions (Steward and 4 Coppers: Trashing or Gold?) but either decision is strong. And it is also rare for a non-attack card that is terminal to say about: "It is usually a good buy" (even though it's the opening buy) Tournament / Steward is currently the best Steward opening at #40 ▲9.
	#4 ▲1 Menagerie (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 5.18 ▲0.5 / Median: 5 =0 / Mode: 4 ▲1 / Standard Deviation: 2.8 =0 Highest Rank(s): #1 (1x), #2 (4x) / Lowest Rank(s): #12 (2x), #19 (1x) Menagerie is the second card in this list that got first. It got a little boost compared to last time and even went up 1 rank with a solid lead over #5. It has one big outlier, but the consensus is really high with being on #4 18 times. Menagerie can be very strong, a double-Laboratory, or only a cantrip. Ok, it only hurts when you draw it dead, but it sill needs enablers like cards that can discard (best: non-terminal like Warehouse or Hamlet) or heavy-trashing (to get rid of your Coppers) to use its full strength. Its best use may be to counter Discarding attacks. After a Militia or Goons attacks, just play Menagerie and you have a 5-card-hand again. Of course it's also good if there are many good cards on the board you want to have, or you buy many good cards out of the Black Market deck, so you can maximize the possibilty to have different cards in the deck. In comparism to Warehouse its not always a good addition to your deck, but when it is, it's so good. I think it went up a rank because there are many cards in Hinterlands that let you discard or gain additional (different) cards for enabling your Menagerie. You definitely need luck to enable it, but you get different cards so fast and if you get rid of your Coppers, that's often the case. It isn't that good as opener of course, but still Remake / Menagerie is way better than Remake / Silver and the best Remake + X opening at #142.
	#3 =0 Fishing Village (Seaside) Weighted Average: 3.24 ▼0.25 / Median: 3 =0 / Mode: 3 ▼1 / Standard Deviation: 1.5 =0 Highest Rank(s): #1 (7x) / Lowest Rank(s): #7 (1x), #8 (1x), #10 (1x) We're in the Top 3 and there's no doubt about these cards after a jump of nearly 2 points. All 3 cards have very low deviation, so has Fishing Village. It was voted on #3 32 times and was only voted #5 or lower 6 times. What makes Fishing Village a good village, one of the best in the game? It hasn't 2 of the biggest problems in combination with villages. 1.) A Smithy-Village chain still may lack the money. FV gives money instead of a card. 2.) You draw 2 terminals with no village in hand. FV gives also an additional action in the following turn and therefore a total of 3 actions, minimizing the chances of not being able to play colliding terminals. So, if you're definitely going to build an unstoppable engine, buy as many FVs as you can. FV / Wharf is so much superior than Smithy / Village and FV / Torturer can hurt so much. You only don't want to buy it if you're going BM, because then you have basically a Lighthouse if you don't use the +Actions. Fishing Village / Masquerade is currently the best opening on #55.
	#2 =0 Masquerade (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 2.21 ▲0.22 / Median: 2 =0 / Mode: 2 ▼1 / Standard Deviation: 1.2 ▲0.3 Highest Rank(s): #1 (16x) / Lowest Rank(s): #5 (4x), #7 (1x) Masquerade lost again the battle for #1. It got a little boost, but it wasn't enough. It has the lowest deviation of all cards in this list, so no doubt here as it was only voted 7 times out of the Top 3 and 31 times on #2. At first it seems so harmless (at least to me). Even though it is no attack by definition, most of the times it feels like it is one. I cannot desribe the power of Masquerade better than theory did: "By drawing 2 cards, Masquerade combines solid buying power with its deck-thinning, thus allowing you to improve your deck along two axes at once." It's a hard counter to cursing attacks, so you may even choose not to go for the cursing attack with Masquerade on the board. And if you have a discarding attack and play Masquerade afterwards it's even a harder attack, allowing the (in)famous Masquerade pin. I still have problems to pass the cards in the right order if I play multiple Masquerades per turn but that doesn't decrease its power. It dominates nearly all games; it's great for simple Big Money and it's great in engines too and it's a defense against cursing what do you want more? And Tournament / Masquerade is #8 =0 in the best openings list.
	#1 =0 Ambassador (Seaside) Weighted Average: 1.63 ▲0.57 / Median: 1 ▲1 / Mode: 1 =0 / Standard Deviation: 1.4 ▲0.5 Highest Rank(s): #1 (41x) / Lowest Rank(s): #6 (2x), #7 (1x) Ambassador is the best $3 card and this time it wasn't even close, it was only voted 13 times not first or second and more than the half of all of you placed it first. I think it deserves the #1 spot. Let's start Ambassador war! In some games the ping-pong of Estates of Coppers is so important that you rather risk open Double-Ambassador and colliding two Ambassadors instead of losing the Ambassador war. Some say it's undercosted and the best attack relative to its cost. You can even buy a curse and turn Ambassador into a Curser. If you lose Ambassador war badly, there's no good chance to recover and building a good engine. But beware: Don't forget building up your own economy. Your opponent is flooded with Coppers and Estates. But he can buy good cards too, so don't forget that. But the power is undeniable. Tournament / Ambassador is #3 =0, Caravan / Ambassador is #7 =0 and Spice Merchant / Ambassador #18 in the openings list with many other good Ambassador openings to come (Double-Ambassador is #61 ▼17 and the best double opening).

[Robz888]

Not too much to argue with here. Village and Scheme are ranked a little better than they deserve, I'd say. I would put Tunnel ahead of Scheme at least. Warehouse/Swindler/Steward are tough to put in a correct order. And the best 4, of course, could be no others.

Nice to see Oracle get the bump it deserves. Pretty good list, this one.

[jsh357]

Village is definitely too high and Steward is maybe too high (I'd certainly stick Swindler above it), but otherwise I like the top half here for the most part.

[brokoli]

Village and swindler are really too high (especially swindler which I would rank at least 4 ranks lower). I would put ambassador lower too, because it has so many counters now (silk road, trader and at some point stables, noble brigand, cartographer, jack) .

Otherwise, I'm glad to see menagerie and Oracle higher than last year.

[Powerman]

While win rates are not necessarily a good indicator of a card's strength, it is interesting to see how they compare to our rankings.

Card      Win Rate with
1 (2)Masquerade   1.05 ± 0.00   
2 (1)Ambassador   1.04 ± 0.00
3 (4)Menagerie      1.03 ± 0.00   
4 (7)Warehouse      1.02 ± 0.00
5 (18)Loan      1.01 ± 0.00   
6 (3)Fishing Village      1.00 ± 0.00   
7 (8)Scheme      1.00 ± 0.00   
8 (6)Swindler      1.00 ± 0.00
9 (5)Steward      0.99 ± 0.00   
10 (21)Great Hall      0.98 ± 0.00   
11 (19)Shanty Town   0.98 ± 0.00   
12 (17)Trade Route   0.98 ± 0.00   
13 (9)Tunnel      0.98 ± 0.00   
14 (16)Wishing Well   0.98 ± 0.00   
15 (13)Lookout      0.97 ± 0.00   
16 (14)Oasis         0.97 ± 0.00   
17 (11)Village      0.97 ± 0.00   
18 (12)Oracle      0.96 ± 0.01   
19 (23)Fortune Teller   0.95 ± 0.00   
20 (15)Black Market   0.94 ± 0.00   
21 (10)Watchtower      0.94 ± 0.00   
22 (25)Develop      0.91 ± 0.00   
23 (24)Woodcutter      0.91 ± 0.00   
24 (20)Smugglers      0.90 ± 0.00
25 (26)Chancellor      0.87 ± 0.01   
26 (22)Workshop      0.86 ± 0.00   

Looks like the big differences are in Loan, Great Hall and Watchtower.

[olneyce]

All looks pretty reasonable.  I'm not a big fan of Tunnel, but even so that just means I had it a couple slots lower.  I'd certainly put Watchtower higher, and probably Oracle.

I am big on Villages, so I think that's perfectly reasonably placed.

I think Menagerie might be better than Fishing Village, but that's only a minor quibble. 

[HiveMindEmulator]

This is a pretty reasonable list. I have a few gripes, but I think the differences are understandable.

1. Lookout is missing, which I mentioned in the first half.

2. I think Warehouse is a little low. It basically combos with everything. It allows engines to go smoother, pulls combos together even when you can't trash, and cycles to let you play key actions more often. For me it's neck-and-neck with menagerie. It's much better than Steward, which is just a trashing card, and needs an actual engine to be present to be of any use. I guess it's not that far from fifth, so meh.

3. I also think Village is too high, but it's hard to get people to agree on rankings of villages. If there's a way to build an engine, having a village is really important, though often more than one type of village shows up, making each one individually not that important. Plus there are a lot of times you just can't make an engine, in which case Village does nothing.

4. I think Tunnel is overrated. I think it's a major trap card. When it first came out, someone made a list of all the cards that discard something, which is quite a long list, but just having one of those cards doesn't quite make a good combo. In addition to discarding cards, you also need to be able to draw cards, both to have a reasonable shot to be able to discard the Tunnel for benefit, as well as to be able to make up for the fact that your deck has an extra victory card instead of a Silver or other useful $3-$4 card, and that you're delaying your economy a lot (you have to shuffle twice after buying the Tunnel to see any money at all, and probably at least 3 times to get out of the red). But if you buy it early to get it in before a lot of shuffles, you run the large risk of not drawing it with your discarder, gimping your early game even more! I feel like the only really strong 2-card combos are with Warehouse, Young Witch, Vault, and Embassy, since these draw multiple cards before discarding. Other combos are weak and/or need additional support, since you have to get the draw and discard separately, which makes it even slower to set up. On the other hand, Tunnel still gets points for just being an alternative VP card, which makes a difference in late game situations, so there's that...

Overall, the the list came out pretty good, and there's not much to complain about.

[ChocophileBenj]

Let's analyze part 2 of the list :
Oracle : It's a fun and good card, but you can easily find better, so okay for the rank.
Village : "the best $3 card from the base set" : no wonder when you see the 3 other ones ^^. It's nice having it here, as a barrier between middle and good cards.
Watchtower : Powerful in some games, useless in others... but often nice to have, at least for the top-decking power, and it is still a drawer, so why not ?
Tunnel : THIS is the card I would have ranked much higher if I completed my vote. In fact : 2 VPs for $3 seems really, really strong ! And the reaction part ? Okay, in some boards it is pointless, and even a single spy doesn't make it relevant. But when there's only one card that lets you discard at least two cards at once (Secret Chamber/Young witch...), it becomes a tunnel rush, right ? And even without, as a cheap victory card, its pile is easy to empty !
Scheme : Really useful, I think it has its right place
Warehouse : we are going close to the top, so... yeah, there are not many drawers at $3, and this filter is most of the times nice. You know when to buy it... but I don't think it's that strong as sometimes you have not-so-bad cards in hand, and you draw not-so-better. I don't know how I should rank it.
Swindler : of course it is strong ! Of course it is unfair ! And when I play it I often say "sorry" but still buys more ! So no wonder this is here !
Steward : It is strong like chapel is strong, as being a fast trasher, and recyclable. But the two other effects make it worse than many other cards, according to me. So maybe wouldn't it be in my top 5.
Menagerie : This is the card that makes you expect your opponent to play militia/g.ship ... I love it in those games. But only in those, as is it too much luck-dependent otherwise. Plus it is weak with other good drawers, especially wharf that makes you draw two surprise cards. (and I remember having bad surprises from wharves)
Fishing villages : the best $3 for me, as it is a good buy in every game, far better than ambassador.
Masquerade : Very fun to play, but only in 2 players, and there are some games it isn't that interesting if you can trash by yourself. But if you've reducing handsize attacks, if you know before drawing two cards which one you'll pass... what's the matter ? No one ^^ deserves good rank, though !
Ambassador : Sorry to tell it, but I think it leads to boring games : "I return two estates, one gets to you" "thanks, here is another for you" etc... where are trashers, with those estates/coppers not disturbing anymore ? I'd rather buy steward/chapel !!! But it is truly a "strong" card...

I'm finished. I don't know if I will do those personal analyses for every ranking, but I was pretty goodly/badly surprised by some results for this.
See you soon !

[chwhite]

A lot fewer disagreements up here, near the top.  In particular, I am glad to see Menagerie claim its rightful spot ahead of Steward.  I don't think I can quite put Menagerie above Fishing Village- there are too many terminal draw cards for that to be a good idea- but I admit I've been tempted.  A few cards that are a tiiiny bit too high (Village, Oracle, Steward, Scheme) but nothing here that's way out of line in either direction.  Mostly I just think Steward should be at the bottom of the Warehouse-Swindler-Steward scrum, and that there should be a place for Lookout and Loan in the top group- non-terminal trashing is really good!

FWIW, my rankings:

1. Ambassador
2. Masquerade
3. Fishing Village
4. Menagerie
5. Warehouse
6. Swindler
7. Steward
8. Tunnel
9. Watchtower
10. Lookout
11. Scheme
12. Loan
13. Village
14. Oracle
15. Shanty Town
16. Oasis
17. Trade Route
18. Fortune Teller
19. Wishing Well
20. Great Hall
21. Black Market
22. Woodcutter
23. Chancellor
24. Workshop
25. Develop
26. Smugglers

If I re-did this list, I'd consider bumping Black Market up a slot or two, but definitely not above Trade Route.  And everything between Tunnel and Loan is more or less equal in my eyes.  Everything else I stand by.

[olneyce]

Fishing villages : the best $3 for me, as it is a good buy in every game, far better than ambassador.
Masquerade : Very fun to play, but only in 2 players, and there are some games it isn't that interesting if you can trash by yourself. But if you've reducing handsize attacks, if you know before drawing two cards which one you'll pass... what's the matter ? No one ^^ deserves good rank, though !
Ambassador : Sorry to tell it, but I think it leads to boring games : "I return two estates, one gets to you" "thanks, here is another for you" etc... where are trashers, with those estates/coppers not disturbing anymore ? I'd rather buy steward/chapel !!! But it is truly a "strong" card...

It seems like you're putting what you enjoy above what is actually objectively best.

I personally LOVE Ambassador games, because they reward strategy a great deal.  But setting all that aside...

Ambassador is much, much better than Fishing Village.  Ambassador is very often better than Chapel, too.  I've won a few games in the last couple days going for Ambassador against a Chapel-ing opponent.  If there is a reasonably cheap village and/or a potentially useful $2 card on the board, Ambassador is FAR superior to Chapel. 

The net shift in cards with Chapel is one more - if you actually use it to trash all 4 cards.  But with Ambassador you can swing 3 cards AND buy something. Or, with a village, you can swing just as many cards as Chapel by removing two and sending two to your opponent.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Ambassador is much, much better than Fishing Village.  Ambassador is very often better than Chapel, too.  I've won a few games in the last couple days going for Ambassador against a Chapel-ing opponent.  If there is a reasonably cheap village and/or a potentially useful $2 card on the board, Ambassador is FAR superior to Chapel. 

The net shift in cards with Chapel is one more - if you actually use it to trash all 4 cards.  But with Ambassador you can swing 3 cards AND buy something. Or, with a village, you can swing just as many cards as Chapel by removing two and sending two to your opponent.

And more importantly than that, you can keep attacking with Ambassador into the mid- and late-game, when other cards you would get primarily for trashing would typically be dead weight.

[brokoli]

I ranked tunnel very high, and still think it's a powerful card. In fact, I rank all victory cards better than most, because hey, victory cards are necessary to win the vast majority of the time. So, only for the 2VP tunnel deserve at least the 5th spot IMO.
The top 5 cards of my list (If I remember correctly) :

1- Masquerade
2- Menagerie
3- Tunnel
4- Fishing village
5- Ambassador

[Tables]

Hmm, I'm curious about one thing. Qvist, maybe you can confirm, did the user who rated Tunnel first's name start with a J and end in a 2? If so... yeah, that figures, from him ¬_¬.

Digression aside, I was actually expecting to see Ambassador and Masquerade a little lower, despite me still putting Ambassador first. While Ambassador is great for enabling engines, and not joining it is fatal reasonably often, there's a lot of cases where it's just not worth going for; big money, decks with good sifting, many cases of alternate VPs on the board etc.. And Masquerade... eh. I put it at #3 below Fishing Village, which I personally think is accurate: Fishing Village is generally still okay even on boards that don't suit it, and thanks to the massive action count it gives you, it can make you very likely to not draw cards dead, while Masquerade... I dunno, it does three things - one is the crux of the card and often doesn't even help (passing), and the other two it does badly (+2 cards trash a card). Doing two things badly is still very good, but it just doesn't seem better than Fishing Villages. More often ignorable etc. But this is comparing apples with Oranges, ultimately, it's how I evaluated them.

I also had Swindler higher, and think it really deserves higher. When your opponent gets one or two Swindlers, you generally can't run any kind of reliable engine, as you lose components far too quickly.

[Robz888]

I'm surprised to hear people disagree about the top 4, because in my mind they are so firmly and absolutely #1 Ambassador, close #2 Masquerade, little less close #3 Fishing Village, right on its heels #4 Menagerie. The next 3 are Swindler, Steward, and Warehouse, in some order. And then Tunnel.

[chwhite]

I'm surprised to hear people disagree about the top 4, because in my mind they are so firmly and absolutely #1 Ambassador, close #2 Masquerade, little less close #3 Fishing Village, right on its heels #4 Menagerie. The next 3 are Swindler, Steward, and Warehouse, in some order. And then Tunnel.

Agreed, with the caveat that Tunnel is not quite as certain as the top seven (though I still put it at #8).  The best $3 cards are just so, so much easier to rank than any other stretch at any other price point (barring a couple specific outliers like Chapel, Adventurer, and Familiar). 

[HiveMindEmulator]

I'm surprised to hear people disagree about the top 4, because in my mind they are so firmly and absolutely #1 Ambassador, close #2 Masquerade, little less close #3 Fishing Village, right on its heels #4 Menagerie. The next 3 are Swindler, Steward, and Warehouse, in some order. And then Tunnel.

I'm not at all surprised. There's always going to be arguments about that stuff. I don't think there will be a consensus at the top of any of the lists. Ambassador is probably better than Masquerade, because it has the ability to be a dominating card on engine boards, but Masquerade has the property that it's almost never bad. It works in any kind of deck. People always rank differently depending on how they value frequency of use versus power when it's good.

And I think there is a case that Warehouse is better than Menagerie by a similar type of argument. Warehouse is almost always good. Menagerie is only good when there is trashing. But in Menagerie decks it's the star, while Warehouse and Fishing Village are support cards. So you can rank Menagerie as high as 3 and as low as 5, depending on how you feel about that kind of stuff. And heck, Swindler might even get into the conversation just because of the dramatic effect it has on the game.

[O]

I put swindler over menagerie, and stand by that.

[Robz888]

I'm surprised to hear people disagree about the top 4, because in my mind they are so firmly and absolutely #1 Ambassador, close #2 Masquerade, little less close #3 Fishing Village, right on its heels #4 Menagerie. The next 3 are Swindler, Steward, and Warehouse, in some order. And then Tunnel.

Agreed, with the caveat that Tunnel is not quite as certain as the top seven (though I still put it at #8).  The best $3 cards are just so, so much easier to rank than any other stretch at any other price point (barring a couple specific outliers like Chapel, Adventurer, and Familiar).

Absolutely. And that's very interesting that the $3 cards are like that. The $4 cards are far less certain for what's top 5 material: we know Sea Hag and Jack belong up there, but it's much more debatable. (I agreed completely with theory's revised ranking of the $4s, FWIW.) Even the top $2 cards are harder to rank, with Courtyard, Hamlet, Lighthouse, and Fool's Gold all making good claims.

I guess the $5s are fairly clear as well, and I am guessing it will and should be Witch, Mountebank, Ill-Gotten Gains, Wharf, Hunting Party. Of course, after those few it gets much trickier.

Anyway, the $3 cards are certainly the most straightforward price point.

[Eevee]

I put swindler over menagerie, and stand by that.

This is crazy talk from a level 45 but whatever

no but seriously WHY, menagerie is so good.

[O]

I put swindler over menagerie, and stand by that.

This is crazy talk from a level 45 but whatever

no but seriously WHY, menagerie is so good.

Menagerie is fun. Swindler is not fun. You can still ignore menagerie 5x more frequently than you can avoid swindler.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I put swindler over menagerie, and stand by that.

This is crazy talk from a level 45 but whatever

no but seriously WHY, menagerie is so good.

Menagerie is good like Hunting Party is good. It's a great source of +cards and a primary building-block of your engine. Swindler is good like IGG is good. It turns the game on its head.

[Eevee]

I put swindler over menagerie, and stand by that.

This is crazy talk from a level 45 but whatever

no but seriously WHY, menagerie is so good.

Menagerie is fun. Swindler is not fun. You can still ignore menagerie 5x more frequently than you can avoid swindler.

.. and when menagerie is good, its GOOD. Swindler is just okay strong.

.. and is certainly not a game changer in the magnitude IGG is.

But O, I certainly agree swindler is important more often, its just that (imo) menagerie is so so much better when it really shines, its clearly better than swindler. We cant really define better though so this is as far as we are going to get.

[O]

Swindler is not OK strong, its curser-strong. Swindler is the terminal I most often open double of. I don't open ambassador-ambassador, I choose amb/silver. But I open double swindler.

[Eevee]

Swindler is not OK strong, its curser-strong. Swindler is the terminal I most often open double of. I don't open ambassador-ambassador, I choose amb/silver. But I open double swindler.

Swindler being annoying might cloud my judgement some here (and to be fair, I usually veto it unless there is something even more annoying on the board), but black market - black market is my 3rd favourite double terminal open (uhm ignoring workshop rushes) but steward for example is still lot better than bm is obviously. And I'm not saying swindler isnt a power 3, menagerie is just even more so.

[Fabian]

Black Market/Black Market as an opening blows my mind.

I put Menagerie at #5 and Swindler at #6 fwiw. It's pretty possible Steward didn't deserve the #4 spot, but oh well. Close enough.

Swindler, Ambassador and Workshop are probably the only terminals I've ever doubled up on in the opening, fwiw.

[Qvist]

Hmm, I'm curious about one thing. Qvist, maybe you can confirm, did the user who rated Tunnel first's name start with a J and end in a 2? If so... yeah, that figures, from him ¬_¬.

I don't know if this is an insider joke, but no. I think you meant that it starts with an z, right? The user that ranked Tunnel on #1 didn't submit a user name, so the weighting on this vote isn't high either way.

[yudantaiteki]

I was happy to see Oracle's big jump -- I always though it was a fine card and I was surprised to see it so low on the last ranking list.  I thought there must be something I just wasn't seeing about how bad the card really was.

Menagerie is a card I really need to use more.  Somehow I can't get over lumping it in with Harvest as a card I don't want to buy unless I'm specifically trying to buy a variety of different cards.  From reading threads like this I can see that this is flawed thinking, but somehow I just can't "feel" that it's a good card.

[brokoli]

Swindler is good like IGG is good. It turns the game on its head.

  This is not true at all !
I have won so many games ignoring swindler. Sometimes by three points because my opponent's swindler gave me a duchy. Sometimes because he trashed a province and accelerated the game. Sometimes because he trashed a curse and replaced it by a copper (because the curse pile was emptied). Sometimes because he trashed a peddler. Sometimes because he only hits estates and other cards that doesn't matter.
I really think swindler is the most overrated card of the game. And while IGG is the key card of most games, swindler is only a little addition.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Swindler is good like IGG is good. It turns the game on its head.

  This is not true at all !
I have won so many games ignoring swindler. Sometimes by three points because my opponent's swindler gave me a duchy. Sometimes because he trashed a province and accelerated the game. Sometimes because he trashed a curse and replaced it by a copper (because the curse pile was emptied). Sometimes because he trashed a peddler. Sometimes because he only hits estates and other cards that doesn't matter.
I really think swindler is the most overrated card of the game. And while IGG is the key card of most games, swindler is only a little addition.

To be clear, I don't think Swindler is as good as IGG. I mean it's "good" in a different way than Menagerie is good. It makes the game behave very differently. IGG does this by putting Curses in your deck immediately and pushing piles to empty faster while Swindler does it by potentially making your deck look nothing like what you bought. And even when it doesn't do anything insane, it's one of the best openers -- a sub-$4 semi-curser that is as good as Silver for your economy. Is that strong enough to make it a top 5 $3 card? I don't know. I don't have it there, but I can see a reasonable argument for it.

[chwhite]

I guess the $5s are fairly clear as well, and I am guessing it will and should be Witch, Mountebank, Ill-Gotten Gains, Wharf, Hunting Party. Of course, after those few it gets much trickier.

FWIW, I have the same cards in my top 5, but not in the same order.  Most importantly, I'm pretty confident that IGG should not be ahead of Wharf/HP.

Menagerie is fun. Swindler is not fun. You can still ignore menagerie 5x more frequently than you can avoid swindler.

I ignore Swindler twice as often as I ignore Menagerie.  Mind you, I still buy it 80 percent of the time.  It's still a really strong card.  But it's not an automatic purchase in the way Mountebank and Witch are: sometimes there are counters, sometimes there are just flat-out better options.  In particular, the fact that it replaces Copper with Curse rather than increasing your deck size makes it much, MUCH less essential than actual curse-givers when trashing is around, for instance.

[brokoli]

Oh, and I don't find warehouse that strong. It's a sweet card, but I would rarely buy it in Big money games and when there are handsize reducers, and these cases are very common.

[Tables]

Hmm, I'm curious about one thing. Qvist, maybe you can confirm, did the user who rated Tunnel first's name start with a J and end in a 2? If so... yeah, that figures, from him ¬_¬.

I don't know if this is an insider joke, but no. I think you meant that it starts with an z, right? The user that ranked Tunnel on #1 didn't submit a user name, so the weighting on this vote isn't high either way.

Nah, it's my housemate, Joseph2302, who tends to lurk here a little and is pretty active on Iso. He's obsessed with Tunnel; he secretly knows it's not very good but he's the kind of person who'd sumbit 99% serious ratings but put Tunnel first just to troll.

I'd ask him, but he probably doesn't remember where he put it

[Qvist]

Ah, ok. I thought that this is some kind of insider joke and still I have to disagree. He tried to rank it objectively and put it on #7.

[sparky5856]

Oh why on EARTH did I put Scheme at #2 >__< It's one of my favorite cards for sure. But it's not really that useful until past the early game when you have at least SOME engine going. Steward I put at #3; I'll often open double-Steward to act as something like a Chapel. With Steward, though, they are actually quite useful past the mid-game unlike Chapel most of the time.

I put Oracle at #22. LOL I was dead wrong there X_X I'll have to experiment with that card more.

Of course my #1 was Ambassador; no surprises there.

[O]

I guess the $5s are fairly clear as well, and I am guessing it will and should be Witch, Mountebank, Ill-Gotten Gains, Wharf, Hunting Party. Of course, after those few it gets much trickier.

FWIW, I have the same cards in my top 5, but not in the same order.  Most importantly, I'm pretty confident that IGG should not be ahead of Wharf/HP.

Menagerie is fun. Swindler is not fun. You can still ignore menagerie 5x more frequently than you can avoid swindler.

I ignore Swindler twice as often as I ignore Menagerie.  Mind you, I still buy it 80 percent of the time.  It's still a really strong card.  But it's not an automatic purchase in the way Mountebank and Witch are: sometimes there are counters, sometimes there are just flat-out better options.  In particular, the fact that it replaces Copper with Curse rather than increasing your deck size makes it much, MUCH less essential than actual curse-givers when trashing is around, for instance.

If you buy menagerie 90% of the time...

[blueblimp]

Black Market/Black Market as an opening blows my mind.

This seems totally reasonable in the right kingdom when there's a cheap power card in the Black Market deck. In a good kingdom for Amb, pulling Amb from the BM on T3/T4 is nearly a certain win. Even if you don't buy anything from the BM, in the common case where they don't collide, it's no worse than Silver/Silver.

[Eevee]

Black Market/Black Market as an opening blows my mind.

This seems totally reasonable in the right kingdom when there's a cheap power card in the Black Market deck. In a good kingdom for Amb, pulling Amb from the BM on T3/T4 is nearly a certain win. Even if you don't buy anything from the BM, in the common case where they don't collide, it's no worse than Silver/Silver.

If the board is weak, there is a lot of cards I'd rather find from the BM before my opponent does. Its not a very common open, no, but it shouldnt blow Fabians mind.

[O]

Black Market/Black Market as an opening blows my mind.

This seems totally reasonable in the right kingdom when there's a cheap power card in the Black Market deck. In a good kingdom for Amb, pulling Amb from the BM on T3/T4 is nearly a certain win. Even if you don't buy anything from the BM, in the common case where they don't collide, it's no worse than Silver/Silver.

If you open BM/BM and pull Ambassador out of the deck, and fishing village is not on the board.. I really don't see a winning deck here.

[Eevee]

Black Market/Black Market as an opening blows my mind.

This seems totally reasonable in the right kingdom when there's a cheap power card in the Black Market deck. In a good kingdom for Amb, pulling Amb from the BM on T3/T4 is nearly a certain win. Even if you don't buy anything from the BM, in the common case where they don't collide, it's no worse than Silver/Silver.

If you open BM/BM and pull Ambassador out of the deck, and fishing village is not on the board.. I really don't see a winning deck here.

What if you pull out witch or mountebank and your opponent chose the 2nd best alternative which was smithy-big money? Some boards are weak (too many villages and no trashing/power cards), some black market decks are strong.

[O]

Black Market/Black Market as an opening blows my mind.

This seems totally reasonable in the right kingdom when there's a cheap power card in the Black Market deck. In a good kingdom for Amb, pulling Amb from the BM on T3/T4 is nearly a certain win. Even if you don't buy anything from the BM, in the common case where they don't collide, it's no worse than Silver/Silver.

If you open BM/BM and pull Ambassador out of the deck, and fishing village is not on the board.. I really don't see a winning deck here.

What if you pull out witch or mountebank and your opponent chose the 2nd best alternative which was smithy-big money? Some boards are weak (too many villages and no trashing/power cards), some black market decks are strong.

I would expect Black Market + Black market + Witch from BM without support to be crushed by smithy-BM.

[blueblimp]

Black Market/Black Market as an opening blows my mind.

This seems totally reasonable in the right kingdom when there's a cheap power card in the Black Market deck. In a good kingdom for Amb, pulling Amb from the BM on T3/T4 is nearly a certain win. Even if you don't buy anything from the BM, in the common case where they don't collide, it's no worse than Silver/Silver.

If you open BM/BM and pull Ambassador out of the deck, and fishing village is not on the board.. I really don't see a winning deck here.

Isn't nearly any engine going to work, provided there's no decent trashing available (other than the Amb you got)? Then you can just spam ten curses to your opponent. Heck, if they forgo an engine, spam them with Black Markets once the good cards run out.

[ehunt]

I put swindler over menagerie, and stand by that.

samesies. i think.

[Fabian]

Seeing someone defend a BM/BM opening blows my mind even more heh. Nice BM/BM/Ambassador/7Copper/3Estate deck there when all your dreams come true on turn 3 That's a best case scenario made in heaven for sure.

Edit: I've never really understood why people have said they consider Black Market a huge trap card, so I feel I've learned something today.

[Eevee]

Seeing someone defend a BM/BM opening blows my mind even more heh. Nice BM/BM/Ambassador/7Copper/3Estate deck there when all your dreams come true on turn 3 That's a best case scenario made in heaven for sure.

Edit: I've never really understood why people have said they consider Black Market a huge trap card, so I feel I've learned something today.

Board needs villages too ldo.

..you should play marin some and then we talk. 

[ddubois]

Maybe if the BM deck was like 6 villages, spice, KC and attacks, and the main deck was nothing but terminal +cards and terminal silvers.

[blueblimp]

Seeing someone defend a BM/BM opening blows my mind even more heh. Nice BM/BM/Ambassador/7Copper/3Estate deck there when all your dreams come true on turn 3 That's a best case scenario made in heaven for sure.

Edit: I've never really understood why people have said they consider Black Market a huge trap card, so I feel I've learned something today.

Uh, how is BM/BM/Amb/7C/3E a bad deck? Return some coppers/estates, buy some villages, buy draw (either on the board, or there is usually some in the BM deck). Win. It's _at worst_ 2 turns slower than opening Amb if it were in the kingdom!

[Fabian]

Seeing someone defend a BM/BM opening blows my mind even more heh. Nice BM/BM/Ambassador/7Copper/3Estate deck there when all your dreams come true on turn 3 That's a best case scenario made in heaven for sure.

Edit: I've never really understood why people have said they consider Black Market a huge trap card, so I feel I've learned something today.

Uh, how is BM/BM/Amb/7C/3E a bad deck? Return some coppers/estates, buy some villages, buy draw (either on the board, or there is usually some in the BM deck). Win. It's _at worst_ 2 turns slower than opening Amb if it were in the kingdom!

Ok, let's keep going with this magical christmas land best case dream scenario. Let's say you open BM/BM, find an Ambassador on turn 3!! and there's Village available to buy on turn 4!!! Sick magical christmas land dream scenario indeed. What's your winning chance against Big Money Ultimate? What about BM/Smithy? Let's say, since we're in magical christmas land, you're first player.

Edit: Instead of baiting much longer, I'll just point out that, even if you're ahead in this scenario (it's probably pretty easy to check with the simulator what kind of percentages we're talking about), the BM/BM opening is imo supremely super awful and a huge huge trap (a trap I didn't know existed since I assumed it was so super awful no one would ever go for it).

[blueblimp]

It's completely impossible to check this in the simulator, because the simulator is bad at playing Amb (and for that matter bad at engines in general). If you think BMU will beat an Amb-powered engine, even if that Amb is delayed to T3, you are the crazy one, not me.

Edit: I'm actually in shock here at how delusional you are. I wouldn't care except you apparently are determined on trolling me over it.

We're not even talking about the strength of BM/BM opening anymore. We're talking about: can an Amb engine beat BMU if BMU is given a 2 turn head start? And the answer is... duh! It's rated the best $3 card for a reason!

[Powerman]

It's completely impossible to check this in the simulator, because the simulator is bad at playing Amb (and for that matter bad at engines in general). If you think BMU will beat an Amb-powered engine, even if that Amb is delayed to T3, you are the crazy one, not me.

Edit: I'm actually in shock here at how delusional you are. I wouldn't care except you apparently are determined on trolling me over it.

We're not even talking about the strength of BM/BM opening anymore. We're talking about: can an Amb engine beat BMU if BMU is given a 2 turn head start? And the answer is... duh! It's rated the best $3 card for a reason!

Its not just if it has a 2 turn head start.  It's also if it can win with the addition of 2 weak terminals and no engine on the board with pieces only coming from the BM deck...

[blueblimp]

It's completely impossible to check this in the simulator, because the simulator is bad at playing Amb (and for that matter bad at engines in general). If you think BMU will beat an Amb-powered engine, even if that Amb is delayed to T3, you are the crazy one, not me.

Edit: I'm actually in shock here at how delusional you are. I wouldn't care except you apparently are determined on trolling me over it.

We're not even talking about the strength of BM/BM opening anymore. We're talking about: can an Amb engine beat BMU if BMU is given a 2 turn head start? And the answer is... duh! It's rated the best $3 card for a reason!

Its not just if it has a 2 turn head start.  It's also if it can win with the addition of 2 weak terminals and no engine on the board with pieces only coming from the BM deck...

When did we start assuming there was no engine on the board? The whole point is that there is an engine. Even outside the BM, Amb is often not worth it without an engine. Obviously, if you wouldn't buy Amb outside the BM, you should not buy BM in order to try to get it.

[hobo386]

I'm gonna be agreeing with the fabulous Fabian on this one. BM/BM is just plain silly.  I actually like having the card in my deck, as I tend to perform better at building 20 card engines than doing a simple FV/Torturer chain (I mean I can execute it properly, but so can anyone else.  Therefore it's just a question of shuffle luck.)  However, if there is an engine on the board, opening BM/BM hoping for that lucky turn 3/4 ambassador will put you waaay to far behind in building the engine.  By the time you start handing them estates and coppers, they will have that engine up and running.  And that's not the only problem. You got the ambassador? Great.  Now you have no +draw, no +actions, and a card that's going to hurt your economy rather than help it.  Turn 5 you end up drawing BM/BM/Amb/copper/copper.  Well you could give him copper, but at that point your opponent is likely already hitting 5 and 6 for those strong actions the chain relies on.  And if he isn't, that means he already has a trasher that will make ambassador irrelevant.  Well, there's also the option that he's running a strategy where it won't matter (like HT/Gardens).  Oh, and your turns 6 and 7 will suck now.  And in almost any situation you really need something from the BM deck, it's better to grab a support card than another BM.  A young witch that will cycle your deck and add curses slowing your opponent down (which helps if your opponent wants the BM card too).  A wishing well or a courtyard that will get your BM faster as well as the BMed card.  A swindler that turns his BM cards into something useless.  Something like that.  Sure, there may be a board where BM/BM is a good opening.  But certainly not in a situation where ambassador is good.


(Either way I'd much rather take something like masquerade, tournament, tactician, tunnel, vault, watchtower, menagerie, scheme, mountebanke, or goons from the BM deck.  These cards are all something that you can add to the deck midgame and immediately make your deck better.  If you are using BM, you need quick cards to make up for the time you lost.)

[O]

Blueblump sorry but you're just so wrong on this one.

"I'm going to clog my deck with 2x terminals for the reshuffle so that I can buy a third terminal on t3/t4 if I get very lucky. After clogging my deck with 3 terminals that help my economy significantly less than silver, I'll get rid of coppers/estates 2/2. Then I will build an engine that could not have been made by ignoring BM/ambassador"...

I'm thinking smithy BM will crush this without fishing village support or something similar outside of the bm deck, with MORE key cards within the BM deck.

[hobo386]

And O comes in to paraphrase what I said in a more eloquent way. 

[clb]

Simple is elegant! 

[blueblimp]

Blueblump sorry but you're just so wrong on this one.

"I'm going to clog my deck with 2x terminals for the reshuffle so that I can buy a third terminal on t3/t4 if I get very lucky. After clogging my deck with 3 terminals that help my economy significantly less than silver, I'll get rid of coppers/estates 2/2. Then I will build an engine that could not have been made by ignoring BM/ambassador"...

I'm thinking smithy BM will crush this without fishing village support or something similar outside of the bm deck, with MORE key cards within the BM deck.

Just ran a quick solo game with opening BM/BM, buying an Amb T3, then buying no actions except Village/Smithy. This is about as bad an engine as it gets. By the end of turn 13, it has already given the opposing player 3 coppers and 2 estates. Starting turn 14 (when unattacked Smithy BM typically hits 4 provinces), it begins sending over a curse every turn and buying a province every turn. Of course that will break down after a bit of greening, but that's not really the point, since this is a terrible engine anyway. (Log for what it's worth: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/13/game-20120713-221636-d0a2bf4f.html.)

So, even with an awful engine, a T3 Amb after BM/BM can hold its own speed-wise against Smithy+BM. But that's completely ignoring that there will often be something else worthwhile in the BM deck, and also the kingdom engine possibilities will maybe not be so terrible.

You're also enormously overrating the risk of terminal collision on T3/T4. The risk of terminal collision on T3/T4 is only around a third. If you don't collide (two-thirds chance!), then you get to look at 6 cards from the BM deck. There are only 25 cards total in the BM, so that's a significant amount.

If you want to convince me of your position, try making an argument instead of using insults and sarcasm, since frankly that's just trolling.

Edit: Also I only now realize how much you're rigging the kingdom against BM/BM. So... there are no VP options for the engine player apart from Provinces, plus there's a decent BM+X, plus you're omitting the best village from the kingdom, plus it's assumed there's nothing worthwhile in the BM apart from Ambassador? Sure, these things will be true sometimes, but often they won't all be true.

[Eevee]

I am so hoping that one level 50 dude would chime in. 

[O]

....blueblimp, when Bm-bm GETS A T3 AMB it holds its own. What about when, you know, it *doesn't* get a t3 amb?

and smithy-BM isn't strong BM.

[blueblimp]

....blueblimp, when Bm-bm GETS A T3 AMB it holds its own. What about when, you know, it *doesn't* get a t3 amb?

But Fabian was claiming that BM/BM loses when it gets a T3 Amb:

Let's say you open BM/BM, find an Ambassador on turn 3!! and there's Village available to buy on turn 4!!! Sick magical christmas land dream scenario indeed. What's your winning chance against Big Money Ultimate? What about BM/Smithy?

It's definitely reasonable to think BM/BM is weak, but it's absurd to say it loses to BMU after getting a T3 Amb.

and smithy-BM isn't strong BM.

I didn't say "strong", I said "decent". And it is decent: see http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=2532.0, where it's placed about mid-tier among BM+X cards. It goes roughly 44/52 against Masq+BM and about even against Envoy+BM, for example. Certainly, there are plenty of boards where there is no BM+X as good as BM+Smithy.

[Fabian]

Are you quite sure I made that claim? You even quoted the relevant part yourself so it should be very easy to double check.

Anyway I made a post earlier today but I deleted it because I didn't want to pile on. It had a few game logs of BM/BM/Amb/Village/Smithy (alternating Village/Smithy for a while, then buy a Curse etc, basically the deck you were talking about earlier) losing 4-1 to BM+Smithy with 3 games being complete blowouts and 2 games being close. I suggest you try it out yourself.

[blueblimp]

Are you quite sure I made that claim? You even quoted the relevant part yourself so it should be very easy to double check.

I had to guess what you meant since you refuse to say anything meaningful, preferring to just taunt. So, apologies for not reading your mind correctly.

Anyway I made a post earlier today but I deleted it because I didn't want to pile on.

OK, so you taunt repeatedly and then decline to post anything of substance, then claim that you did this to avoid a heated discussion. Heads up: if you troll someone, you want a heated discussion. You got what you wanted, now post something of value.

It had a few game logs of BM/BM/Amb/Village/Smithy (alternating Village/Smithy for a while, then buy a Curse etc, basically the deck you were talking about earlier) losing 4-1 to BM+Smithy with 3 games being complete blowouts and 2 games being close. I suggest you try it out yourself.

Yeah, it seems like the restriction on not buying anything more out of the BM deck hurts this too much. There are lots of turns where I'd normally buy a $3 from the BM and then buy a Village, but here I'm stuck just buying a Village. So the restriction on never again using the BM deck is too harsh. Having something with +buy available would probably do the trick, too.

[clb]

Is there some way a magic moderator or administer can move Qvists second half of the list to be under the first half? Maybe I am just dumb, but I didn't even see the second half until today, as I was just following the discussion on later pages, kind of getting confused why everyone seemed to know something I didn't. If nothing else, it will make it easier to find a few months from now when I want to check back.

[Qvist]

I don't know if this is possible. I know that I forgot to edit the title this time in something like "... Part 2/2 posted" I will do that next time. But at least I added a link below the first post that links to the second part. So you can find it quick.

[clb]

I don't know if this is possible. I know that I forgot to edit the title this time in something like "... Part 2/2 posted" I will do that next time. But at least I added a link below the first post that links to the second part. So you can find it quick.

That'll work. Thanks, Qvist!

[Kahryl]

Man, I should have voted. Develop is not even close to second worst. I almost always buy one, and practically every time I draw it it's useful. There's always SOME card you don't really have a use for in your hand; develop it into two more cards that you can use next time!

[Robz888]

Man, I should have voted. Develop is not even close to second worst. I almost always buy one, and practically every time I draw it it's useful. There's always SOME card you don't really have a use for in your hand; develop it into two more cards that you can use next time!

But what $3 cards are worse than Develop?

[Kahryl]

Man, I should have voted. Develop is not even close to second worst. I almost always buy one, and practically every time I draw it it's useful. There's always SOME card you don't really have a use for in your hand; develop it into two more cards that you can use next time!

But what $3 cards are worse than Develop?

Chancellor, Woodcutter, Workshop, Great Hall (without support), Loan, Trade Route, Wishing Well (without support) all suck and are worse.

Although the $3 doesn't have as many real duds as $4 and $5, it's true.

[chwhite]

Man, I should have voted. Develop is not even close to second worst. I almost always buy one, and practically every time I draw it it's useful. There's always SOME card you don't really have a use for in your hand; develop it into two more cards that you can use next time!

But what $3 cards are worse than Develop?

Smugglers, of course.

[Kahryl]

That's another thing. Why are people hating on Smugglers all the time. I get great stuff from them. Almost always get at least one, even two if the board is full of nice things.

[brokoli]

Man, I should have voted. Develop is not even close to second worst. I almost always buy one, and practically every time I draw it it's useful. There's always SOME card you don't really have a use for in your hand; develop it into two more cards that you can use next time!

But what $3 cards are worse than Develop?

Smugglers, of course.

I think I ranked develop last but I have used it better recently, so maybe now I would rank it behind Workshop at least.
That said, I REALLY disagree about ranking it above loan (which is THE underrated card in this list) and Great Hall (hey, that is a victory point !).

[Robz888]

Man, I should have voted. Develop is not even close to second worst. I almost always buy one, and practically every time I draw it it's useful. There's always SOME card you don't really have a use for in your hand; develop it into two more cards that you can use next time!

But what $3 cards are worse than Develop?

Smugglers, of course.

Oh, no way, man. Though for me Smugglers is truly one of those cards where if I buy it, I lose. If I don't buy it and my opponent does, I lose. If neither of us buy it, I lose. Smugglers and Golem are like that for me.

[chwhite]

Man, I should have voted. Develop is not even close to second worst. I almost always buy one, and practically every time I draw it it's useful. There's always SOME card you don't really have a use for in your hand; develop it into two more cards that you can use next time!

But what $3 cards are worse than Develop?

Smugglers, of course.

Oh, no way, man. Though for me Smugglers is truly one of those cards where if I buy it, I lose. If I don't buy it and my opponent does, I lose. If neither of us buy it, I lose. Smugglers and Golem are like that for me.

That's kinda like how I am with Noble Brigand.

As for Smugglers... it's my absolute highest Win Rate Given Available (and up there for Win Rate Without), so I'm pretty confident I know how to succeed when it's on the board.  And the secret to success with Smugglers is to buy it way, way less often than you would expect.  I get it less than half as often as the general populace, and have won dozens upon dozens of games primarily because of my willingness to ignore it, even in situations where the conventional wisdom might find it useful.

Smugglers is almost without question the most overrated card in all of Dominion. 

[chwhite]

That's another thing. Why are people hating on Smugglers all the time. I get great stuff from them. Almost always get at least one, even two if the board is full of nice things.

Cause it sucks.  I get great wins all the time from my opponents falling into the Smugglers trap.

[Robz888]

That's another thing. Why are people hating on Smugglers all the time. I get great stuff from them. Almost always get at least one, even two if the board is full of nice things.

Cause it sucks.  I get great wins all the time from my opponents falling into the Smugglers trap.

Well, I want to believe you, because I hate Smugglers.

[chwhite]

That's another thing. Why are people hating on Smugglers all the time. I get great stuff from them. Almost always get at least one, even two if the board is full of nice things.

Cause it sucks.  I get great wins all the time from my opponents falling into the Smugglers trap.

Well, I want to believe you, because I hate Smugglers.

I'd say that Smugglers is good with Minion, Grand Market, cheap alt-VPs like Gardens, SR, Duke, and Vineyards... and just about nothing else.  This is not a hard and fast rule, but it's pretty close to the truth.

Smugglers is not nearly as bad as the worst $4s, or the worst $5s, or 'Mute/PStone, or Adventurer.  But I do think it's likely the worst $3 (though you could make good arguments for Develop, Workshop, and Chancellor- they're all pretty close).

[theory]

I like it as an extra Buy on a no +Buy board.  And sometimes if you start out hosed, you need to gamble on it to get ahead.

[a exciting bro]

I'd make the case for workshop being the worst of the $3 cards. It's just really awful for everything except picking up cards for alt vp and maybe scooping up an island or two in a drawn out game.

In my experience workshop -> silk road is very beatable. I'd be interested in hearing what the emulators have to say about that.

[Robz888]

I'd make the case for workshop being the worst of the $3 cards. It's just really awful for everything except picking up cards for alt vp and maybe scooping up an island or two in a drawn out game.

In my experience workshop -> silk road is very beatable. I'd be interested in hearing what the emulators have to say about that.

I thin they'd say workshop/silk roads is usually not very beatable on Province boards. There are exceptions, of course.

[popsofctown]

I play Workshop Gardens against Workshop SR once, lost hard.

Workshop has enough buddies to be considered okay.  I just won with Workshop/Vineyards game before last

[HiveMindEmulator]

I'd make the case for workshop being the worst of the $3 cards. It's just really awful for everything except picking up cards for alt vp and maybe scooping up an island or two in a drawn out game.

It's also good for picking up villages or Caravans if you're making an engine that needs a lot of cheap pieces.

[RisingJaguar]

Blueblump sorry but you're just so wrong on this one.

"I'm going to clog my deck with 2x terminals for the reshuffle so that I can buy a third terminal on t3/t4 if I get very lucky. After clogging my deck with 3 terminals that help my economy significantly less than silver, I'll get rid of coppers/estates 2/2. Then I will build an engine that could not have been made by ignoring BM/ambassador"...

I'm thinking smithy BM will crush this without fishing village support or something similar outside of the bm deck, with MORE key cards within the BM deck.

Just ran a quick solo game with opening BM/BM, buying an Amb T3, then buying no actions except Village/Smithy. This is about as bad an engine as it gets. By the end of turn 13, it has already given the opposing player 3 coppers and 2 estates. Starting turn 14 (when unattacked Smithy BM typically hits 4 provinces), it begins sending over a curse every turn and buying a province every turn. Of course that will break down after a bit of greening, but that's not really the point, since this is a terrible engine anyway. (Log for what it's worth: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/13/game-20120713-221636-d0a2bf4f.html.)

So, even with an awful engine, a T3 Amb after BM/BM can hold its own speed-wise against Smithy+BM. But that's completely ignoring that there will often be something else worthwhile in the BM deck, and also the kingdom engine possibilities will maybe not be so terrible.

You're also enormously overrating the risk of terminal collision on T3/T4. The risk of terminal collision on T3/T4 is only around a third. If you don't collide (two-thirds chance!), then you get to look at 6 cards from the BM deck. There are only 25 cards total in the BM, so that's a significant amount.

If you want to convince me of your position, try making an argument instead of using insults and sarcasm, since frankly that's just trolling.

Edit: Also I only now realize how much you're rigging the kingdom against BM/BM. So... there are no VP options for the engine player apart from Provinces, plus there's a decent BM+X, plus you're omitting the best village from the kingdom, plus it's assumed there's nothing worthwhile in the BM apart from Ambassador? Sure, these things will be true sometimes, but often they won't all be true.

The thing is, is it really THAT important to have double BM right away because you're betting on that your terminals don't clash, and that in the 3 cards it pulls out of 20 (i'm guessing, I think its closer to 25), you'll get a card that will make it playable vs. BM-Smithy?  It is just SO much more practical to get your second BM (if it really that necessary) on T3/T4 and open with silver or whatever). 

Also the most ridiculous card to pull out of BM is usually tournament, if opening double BM guaranteed tournament, I would say that could be interesting. 

[hobo386]

That's another thing. Why are people hating on Smugglers all the time. I get great stuff from them. Almost always get at least one, even two if the board is full of nice things.

Cause it sucks.  I get great wins all the time from my opponents falling into the Smugglers trap.

Well, I want to believe you, because I hate Smugglers.

I'd say that Smugglers is good with Minion, Grand Market, cheap alt-VPs like Gardens, SR, Duke, and Vineyards... and just about nothing else.  This is not a hard and fast rule, but it's pretty close to the truth.

Smugglers is not nearly as bad as the worst $4s, or the worst $5s, or 'Mute/PStone, or Adventurer.  But I do think it's likely the worst $3 (though you could make good arguments for Develop, Workshop, and Chancellor- they're all pretty close).

Or cartographer, mining village, nobles, bazaar, etc.  The big thing about smugglers is that it is like mine and remodel.  You need to be able to play it just about every turn.  On a board with spice merchant or warehouse, you call pull smugglers out pretty quick and keep slapping them down.  The only problem is, you need to be sure that there's *something* your opponent is gonna buy that will let you get more money.

(For reference, I'm 0.65 effect with, -0.56 effect without, and I buy the damn thing 79.7% of the time, compared to the average of 55.8%).

[chwhite]

That's another thing. Why are people hating on Smugglers all the time. I get great stuff from them. Almost always get at least one, even two if the board is full of nice things.

Cause it sucks.  I get great wins all the time from my opponents falling into the Smugglers trap.

Well, I want to believe you, because I hate Smugglers.

I'd say that Smugglers is good with Minion, Grand Market, cheap alt-VPs like Gardens, SR, Duke, and Vineyards... and just about nothing else.  This is not a hard and fast rule, but it's pretty close to the truth.

Smugglers is not nearly as bad as the worst $4s, or the worst $5s, or 'Mute/PStone, or Adventurer.  But I do think it's likely the worst $3 (though you could make good arguments for Develop, Workshop, and Chancellor- they're all pretty close).

Or cartographer, mining village, nobles, bazaar, etc.  The big thing about smugglers is that it is like mine and remodel.  You need to be able to play it just about every turn.  On a board with spice merchant or warehouse, you call pull smugglers out pretty quick and keep slapping them down.  The only problem is, you need to be sure that there's *something* your opponent is gonna buy that will let you get more money.

(For reference, I'm 0.65 effect with, -0.56 effect without, and I buy the damn thing 79.7% of the time, compared to the average of 55.8%).

Okay, possibly Nobles.  Not those other things.  The big thing with Smugglers actually is, what are you not able to buy because you bought Smugglers instead of Silver, and end up with hands that are often worth $2 less (or more if it leads to terminal clashes)?

I mean, if there's a mirror match engine (or alt-VP) to be built, then sure I'll consider Smugglers.   More commonly as second player, of course.  However:

* if my opponent is pursuing a different strategy (pretty common)
* or I need to save my terminal slots for attacks that will hopefully hit my opponent and force them to not buy nice things (also pretty common)
* or if I'm going for most BM strategies, especially those like Masq and Jack where the key cards are bought on Turns 1 and 2 (again, pretty common)
* or if the engine is mostly built on Potion and/or Black Market cards (not too uncommon)

...then Smugglers is just not going to do that much for me!

I would say that instead of Mine and Remodel, Smugglers is like Workshop and Tribute.  It's a terminal gainer with uncontrollable benefits that rely on your opponent doing the right thing.  It has better range than Workshop, but at the price of control- and that's a high price to pay.

(FWIW, I'm 0.47 Effect With, 1.42 Effect Without, and buy it a mere 25.7% of the time.)

I like it as an extra Buy on a no +Buy board.  And sometimes if you start out hosed, you need to gamble on it to get ahead.

If it's a no +Buy board, chances are I'm either attacking hard or going BM-esque, and Smugglers is pretty bad in both those cases.

The second case is reasonable.  I can definitely imagine situations where you want a Smugglers even though you're likely to lose with it in your deck, and I can see that depressing its CR stats a smidge.  (Sort of like Saboteur.)

[Jedit]

The big thing about smugglers is that it is like mine and remodel.  You need to be able to play it just about every turn.  On a board with spice merchant or warehouse, you call pull smugglers out pretty quick and keep slapping them down.  The only problem is, you need to be sure that there's *something* your opponent is gonna buy that will let you get more money.

Going first is enough of an advantage in Dominion that if the game ends in a tie on the first player's turn, he loses.  Buying Smugglers is at best choosing to play your opponent's strategy but allowing him to go first. 

[rinkworks]

Going first is enough of an advantage in Dominion that if the game ends in a tie on the first player's turn, he loses.  Buying Smugglers is at best choosing to play your opponent's strategy but allowing him to go first. 

That's a hilarious way to put it.  But fair?  If I play a Smugglers and immediately gain a Gold, Minion, Laboratory, or whatever, that is indeed picking up what your opponent picked up quicker, which is a small disadvantage for you.  But now you've still got four more cards in your hand and can presumably buy something.  A Village to go with that brand new Torturer, say, or a Smithy to draw that brand new Gold.  It's not like Smugglers sacrifices your entire turn to do what your opponent just did.  It gives you a chance to slingshot past him just by virtue of the fact that you can gain with one card what your opponent perhaps needed his entire hand for.

I'm not arguing that Smugglers is a power card or something, but someone recently pointed out how we, as a community, tend to shift our feelings about one card or another as a group.  My sense is that the Smugglers pendulum is a hair on the low side.

[hobo386]

(Or cartographer, mining village, nobles, bazaar, etc.  )

Okay, possibly Nobles.  Not those other things.  The big thing with Smugglers actually is, what are you not able to buy because you bought Smugglers instead of Silver, and end up with hands that are often worth $2 less (or more if it leads to terminal clashes)?

I mean, if there's a mirror match engine (or alt-VP) to be built, then sure I'll consider Smugglers.   More commonly as second player, of course.  However:

* if my opponent is pursuing a different strategy (pretty common)
* or I need to save my terminal slots for attacks that will hopefully hit my opponent and force them to not buy nice things (also pretty common)
* or if I'm going for most BM strategies, especially those like Masq and Jack where the key cards are bought on Turns 1 and 2 (again, pretty common)
* or if the engine is mostly built on Potion and/or Black Market cards (not too uncommon)

...then Smugglers is just not going to do that much for me!

I would say that instead of Mine and Remodel, Smugglers is like Workshop and Tribute.  It's a terminal gainer with uncontrollable benefits that rely on your opponent doing the right thing.  It has better range than Workshop, but at the price of control- and that's a high price to pay.

I think you're arguing completely different angle than I am.  Of course smugglers sucks in Masq/BM.  Of course I'm most often buying it as second player (I play like 3/4 of games as second player these days).  Of course I won't buy it if my opponent is spamming alchemists (Having smugglers collide with an alchemy engine is actually pretty rare).  Of course I won't buy it if I have no spare actions and I really need to play my single swindler or whatever. 

And sure, it may be more like a workshop than a mine (but those follow the same rule of you needing to play it every turn that I was talking about), but in the same way, wouldn't you use a workshop to gain mining villages, or bazaars, cartographers, cities, or even hunting parties or markets?  I know I would do that in most kingdoms.  These all either give you more actions (so you can still use your attacks), give you money (so you can still build your deck if your opponent doesn't buy exactly what you want), or let you cycle through your deck more quickly so you can get at your smugglers again. If there's at least one or two decent cards like this, and you know your opponent is going to buy them, it's worth a shot, as long as you can access smugglers often enough.

And tribute, I'm just gonna laugh at.  Because tribute is probably my least favorite card in the game due to how luck dependent it is (barring severe help).  I swear even if I do it in a BM game, I either hit their two coppers, while they hit my gold/silver every time.  Smugglers, if they don't want to give me the card I want, they can't have it either.

[WanderingWinder]

Workshop lets you pick exactly what you gain. Smugglers leaves you at the whim of your opponent (and if he's really bright, he can often tell when you have it in hand - which is why it is imperative when you have it to NOT play it if it gets you nothing), for being able to get stuff a little more expensive. Of course, you sometimes get nothing at all. Advantage, workshop, by a pretty wide margin. And it's not the paragon of a great card anyway, much as I like it and know how to use it.

[hobo386]

Workshop lets you pick exactly what you gain. Smugglers leaves you at the whim of your opponent (and if he's really bright, he can often tell when you have it in hand - which is why it is imperative when you have it to NOT play it if it gets you nothing), for being able to get stuff a little more expensive. Of course, you sometimes get nothing at all. Advantage, workshop, by a pretty wide margin. And it's not the paragon of a great card anyway, much as I like it and know how to use it.

The problem with workshop is that most decks aren't based around 4$ cards though.  If you play smugglers properly, you will be playing it often enough that if your opponent changes his buy-strategy to avoid giving you good cards, he'll have to seriously hamper himself.  I'm not saying smugglers is always useful, but given the choice between smugglers and workshop, I'll take smugglers 95 times out of a hundred.  I'd say smugglers is probably around the midpoint on my personal $3 cards list.