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Author Topic: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards  (Read 108774 times)

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Qvist

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The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« on: July 30, 2012, 03:46:31 pm »
+2

The Best $5 Cards - Part 1/4
Link to the win rates on Councilroom
Link 2 to the win rates on Councilroom

#48 =0 Counting House (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 46.57 ▼0.79 / Median: 48 ▼2 / Mode: 48 ▼2 / Standard Deviation: 2.8 ▼0.3
Highest Rank(s): #33 (1x), #38 (1x), #40 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #48 (34x)

Counting House is the card with the second lowest deviation. With only two times above #40, there's no doubt, this is the worst card of all $5s. More than the half of all players rated it last.

All $5s are really strong cards, but some shine more often than other ones. Counting House is one that shines very rarely. The best use may be countering Mountebank. With massive Copper in your deck, you have a high probability to get many Coppers in hand even if you're only half through the deck. Then you can easily buy a Province or a Colony with the use of this card only. It also has some really nice synergies with Coppersmith (make all Coppers worth a Silver) and Chancellor (discard all Coppers and put them in hand). But then you need a village to play Counting House and one of these cards in one turn and the probabilities to draw these 3 cards together are low in a deck full of Copper. The better alternative and only real combo is Golem. Buy many Golems and only one Counting House. The Golem will always find the Counting House and discard all other cards. With a Golem in hand, you are now guaranteed to get all Coppers. Instead you can buy many Warehouses, cycle through your deck discarding all cards right before the reshuffle and then play your Counting House. It has some other nice synergies, but are very difficult to pull off. For a Bank you need additional buys to be worth it. With no real supporters, this card is mostly not worth the effort.
#47 ▼2 Saboteur (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 43.70 ▼0.61 / Median: 45 ▼1 / Mode: 45 ▲3 / Standard Deviation: 7.5 ▼2.2
Highest Rank(s): #8 (1x), #16 (1x), #23 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #48 (6x)

Saboteur has a 2.9 point lead over Counting House. It didn't lose many points, but nevertheless it loses 2 ranks and is now second last. It was 12 times on #45 and has some really big outliers from newer players, because the unweighted ranking lists it at #45. This may also be the reason for the big drop in the deviation.

Saboteur is the worst $5 attack. Why? There are similar reasons like Thief is bad. It trashes cards from your opponents deck without immediate benefit to you, so it's only destructive. And if you aren't able to play Saboteur in each turn at least one time, your opponent can catch up easily when he just continues and ignores it or re-buys the trashed card if it was essential. But, on the other side, it can lead to big outbursts if you play 1-2 Saboteurs each turn or if you can even play King's Court with it. In games with no mats and chips you are then able to trash the whole deck and all points from your opponent and can easily finish and win. But these cases are so rare, Saboteur is still a bad card for itself.
#46 ▲1 Stash (Promo) Weighted Average: 43.29 ▲0.89 / Median: 44 ▲2 / Mode: 45 ▲1 / Standard Deviation: 4.7 ▼1.0
Highest Rank(s): #24 (1x), #30 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #48 (5x)

Stash is this time nearly one point better, but still in the bottom 3. The deviation is really low as it was above #30 only one time and 5 times last. In the unweighted ranking it is one rank lower.

You need 4 Stashes to get a Province after the reshuffle for sure and in Colony games it's almost useless. But a sure Province that you can get only after a reshuffle needs you to trigger the reshuffle as often as possible. This means you need supporter cards too. The most obvious ones are Golem (with max. one other action) or a few Chancellors, but sifters or other good cyclers can work too. But if the cyclers are good, you probably want more of them and Stashes are losing their value. In all other cases, you probably find stronger cards than Stash, although if you have $5 and want a Silver anyway, you can pick up a Stash unhesitatingly most of the times.
#45 ▲1 Explorer (Seaside) Weighted Average: 42.55 ▲1.23 / Median: 43 ▲2 / Mode: 42 ▲5 / Standard Deviation: 3.8 ▼0.5
Highest Rank(s): #29 (1x), #36 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #48 (5x)

Explorer even went up more than one point. Its deviation is still very low (with only one outlier), although it lost a little bit of consensus. In the unweighted ranking it is one rank lower.

The problem with Explorer is: When you already have 2-3 Provinces and you have $5, you want a Duchy most of the times. When you have one or none, it only nets you a Silver in hand most of the times and then there are still other cards that are better getting you Provinces than just a Silver-generating machine. If you compare it to Jack of All Trades, it's better in the Silver-getting, but just worse on all the other parts. So, it's pretty decent with alternate Victory cards and you want it in thin decks where you can draw it with a Province with high probability. Explorer/Chapel is therefore a #70 ▼5 opening. And I forgot to mention, it's nearly useless in Colony games.
#44 ▼1 Contraband (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 42.34 ▼0.92 / Median: 43 ▼0.5 / Mode: 44 ▲4 / Standard Deviation: 3.9 ▲2.2
Highest Rank(s): #28 (1x), #33 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #47 (8x), #48 (1x)

Contraband dropped nearly one point and one rank, but gained a lot of consensus. It was last only once, but on the other side 8 times on #47.

The next treasure card in this list. Contraband can be very trappy. Buying it can be a nice early Gold and the +Buy is very important for finding a substitution for the prohibited card. If there are many good cards on the board and you want Gold and a card with +Buy anyway this can be very good. But most of the times you embargo yourself. And in the late game this is a dead card because everybody knows you want that Province. If you buy it, buy only one, because two or more can really shut you down. And beware of Venture + Contraband!
#43 ▲1 Cache (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 41.13 ▲1.42 / Median: 42 ▲2 / Mode: 45 =0 / Standard Deviation: 5.0 ▲0.4
Highest Rank(s): #18 (1x), #30 (1x), #33 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #47 (2x), #48 (1x)

With a really big outlier, Cache is still very consistent in the ranks. It has a solid lead of over 1 point over Contraband now.

The third treasure card already in this list. Cache performs differently in different kind of decks. In engine decks with few money (Scrying Pool etc) it's just horrible. In Big Money decks, it's most of the time superior than just a Silver (like Stash, see above). But it only shines in big decks (Gardens) with many green cards (Silk Road), simply said in decks where Copper isn't a so bad card after all. Also nice is Cache in combination with Trader for a Gold and 2 Silvers for only $5. And Cache is like Silver not very good in Colony games.
#42 ▼1 Mine (Base) Weighted Average: 40.66 ▼1.00 / Median: 41 ▼1 / Mode: 42 =0 / Standard Deviation: 6.2 ▲0.1
Highest Rank(s): #11 (1x), #23 (1x), #29 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #47 (6x), #48 (1x)

With exactly one point less than last time, Mine is the next card in this list. This time it has its first last place. It has one really big outlier and would be on #41 in the unweighted ranking.

Mine is one of the first trash-for-benefit card you probably got to know. It has the disadvantage of being limited to treasures, so you cannot trash them later into victory cards. But it has the advantage to get the new card immediately in hand. But Mine is still slow. A Moneylender doesn't get you a card, but is at least worth a Silver in the turn you played it, whereas Mine is only worth a Copper. But in the long term Mine can be better. The more often you play the new treasure card, the more Mine was profitable. So, if you want Mine, you want it early. It gets so much better in Colony games. First, Colony games last longer and you will probably see your treasure card more often and Mine is a Silver if you trash Gold for Platinum. For a 5/2 opening Mine/Fool's Gold is a pretty decent #110 opening. PS: Don't confuse Mine with Mint.
#41 ▲1 Mandarin (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 40.65 ▲0.17 / Median: 40 ▲1 / Mode: 39 ▲6 / Standard Deviation: 5.1 ▲0.6
Highest Rank(s): #18 (1x), #29 (1x), #31 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #47 (3x), #48 (2x)

Mandarin has still 2 last places. And it was one of the closest battles against Mine, only 0.01 points made the difference. It would be behind Mine in the unweighted ranking.

Mandarin is again a cheap Gold, but you need an action to play it. What makes it better than the last cheap Gold-alternatives? The drawback of this card is to put back a card on your deck. But this can be also very nice, because you can prepare your next turn just like Courtyard does it. So, if you have more money than you need or you have colliding terminals, just put back a card. But with colliding terminals, the other card is mostly stronger and you want to play that this turn. The on-buy effect can also be very nice. With a 5/2 opening you can buy the wanted stronger card next turn too and get an additional Mandarin. Mandarin/Hunting Party or Mandarin/Mint are very nice openings and it's not that bad in Double-Tactician games. In the late game where you miss $8 or $11 you can just play one Platinum or two Golds, buy the Mandarin and have a higher chance to reach it in the next turn. That can be very effective. But, still it's a cheap Gold and there are many better alternatives on the board most of the times.
#40 =0 Outpost (Seaside) Weighted Average: 40.25 ▼0.92 / Median: 40 ▼1 / Mode: 40 ▲8 / Standard Deviation: 7.3 ▲1.3
Highest Rank(s): #14 (2x), #21 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #48 (5x)

Outpost was even 5 times last, but has pretty high ranks on the other side. It lost a little bit in deviation, but is still high. It is on #39 in the unweighted ranking.

Outpost seems so nice for getting extra turns. But you only get a 3-card hand. It's like you Militia'd yourself, even worse, you cannot choose the 3 cards you want to keep. If you really need a +Buy Outpost can fulfill this need. But even in those cases it's not better than a Workshop, but it can work in Gardens/Silk Road/Duke games. If you want to use it to attack multiple times per turn, it can work, but still it is another terminal in your deck that can collide. It really can shine, in cases when you can guarantee a good card in your next hand. Treasury, Alchemist and Scheme are probably the best combos. Another case where your 3-card hand isn't that bad, may be with Minion, but this isn't very reliable too, because one of your 3 cards has to be one of your Minions. Another combo is Double Tactician/Outpost where you can get 8 cards. Generally it's pretty good with Duration cards, especially Wharf, Caravan and Haven. In all other cases you better skip Outpost.
#39 =0 Harvest (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 40.22 ▼2.33 / Median: 40 ▼2 / Mode: 39 ▼1 / Standard Deviation: 5.9 ▼1.3
Highest Rank(s): #12 (1x), #28 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #47 (7x), #48 (1x)

Harvest stayed were it was, but is still one of the big losers. It lost over 2 points and it was a close battle with Outpost which Harvest won with 0.03 points. Also the deviation raised significantly. It has a big outlier on #12 and lost the battle against Outpost in the unweighted ranking.

Harvest is very swingy. In games with very few different cards and a coherent strategy, this is mostly a Silver and rarely a Gold and really no good card. And it can discard all your good cards you wanted to play in the next turn and even trigger an unwanted reshuffle. In games with many attacks, especially Cursers, Harvest can be really a better card. You can then make your Curses to money without having them in hand and Harvest can easily be worth $4. Harvest has also a nice synergy with Tunnel.
#38 =0 Tribute (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 37.8 ▼0.11 / Median: 38 ▲0.5 / Mode: 37 ▲3 / Standard Deviation: 6.2 ▼0.9
Highest Rank(s): #15 (1x), #22 (1x), #25 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #46 (5x), #48 (1x)

We're leaving the really bad cards and making a jump of 2.4 points. Tribute is the last card with a last place. The stats are similar to last time, but it lost a little bit of consensus. It is on #37 in the unweighted ranking.

Tribute is another swingy card and even depends on the opponents' deck. You can really bad luck, revealing the same card. Then Tribute is really bad. In action-heavy decks you get +4 actions what you only want if there isn't another village around (but then you probably don't want many action cards). All other combinations can really be nice, e.g. in BM games, giving you $4 most of the times and later in the game +cards). It only really shines in games with dual-type cards. Hitting a Harem and a Nobles and getting +4 Cards, +2 Actions and $2 with only one card is excellent. But the unreliableness still is Tribute's biggest problem. Forming your strategy around it not only depends on you, your opponent has to cooperate.
#37 =0 Royal Seal (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 37.63 ▼2.53 / Median: 38 ▼2.5 / Mode: 44 ▼12 / Standard Deviation: 5.9 ▲0.3
Highest Rank(s): #19 (1x), #23 (1x), #24 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #46 (1x), #47 (2x)

Royal Seal is the next treasure card and another loser. It doesn't lose a rank, but 2.5 points. It was very close between RS and Tribute, in the unweighted ranking RS loses and ranks on #38.

I don't know if there's much to say about Royal Seal. It's another Silver with bonus card. You probably want it early in the game, as it will accelerate your strategy. It's strictly superior to Silver. So if you want a Silver anyway and have $5, you can pick it up unhesitatingly. But still it's very expensive for a $5 card and there are better cards for the same cost around most of the times.
#36 =0 Mint (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 34.72 ▼0.45 / Median: 36 ▼1 / Mode: 36 ▼1 / Standard Deviation: 6.7 ▲1.4
Highest Rank(s): #19 (1x), #20 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #43 (2x), #45 (1x), #46 (1x)

Mint is in "Nowhere Land". It has a huge lead over Royal Seal, but there's another big gap to the following middle ranked cards. It gained a lot of consensus, so it's maybe properly ranked.

Mint can duplicate a treasure card in hand. The problem still is, you need that Gold or Platinum in hand, so you really need to draw most of your deck with a good engine or need a small deck to accomplish this regularly. In the first case you probably don't want Mint because you don't want to many treasure cards. But for the latter case, Mint itself helps. Most of the time you buy Mint just to trash most of your Coppers. It really depends if you want Mint with your opening buy as you are now left with only 2 coppers, having no buying power. The only opening which is really powerful is Mint/Fool's Gold, currently #5 ▼3 of all openings, because you have a small deck and get 2 Fool's Gold per turn most of the times. PS: Beware, don't confuse Mint with Mine.

To the second part
« Last Edit: August 13, 2012, 09:22:50 am by Qvist »
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chwhite

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #1 on: July 30, 2012, 04:13:17 pm »
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Hard to argue much with these: I had the exact same cards at #36 or lower, and none of them more than three spots away from the ranking here.  And both Counting House and Mint were exactly as I ranked them.

I guess I could argue that Mine and Outpost are underrated in this list, while Royal Seal and Tribute are overrated (those are the cards I had three away), but honestly that's all pretty much nitpicking.  Good job folks.

I expect there to be more disagreement in the next installment, of course.
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brokoli

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #2 on: July 30, 2012, 04:25:20 pm »
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I preferred the other list. Saboteur, Outpost and Mine are slightly underrated (especially Outpost), while contraband, Stash and Mandarin are overrated.

However, glad to see Cache above contraband, it was really the huge mistake of the last year.
« Last Edit: July 30, 2012, 04:26:29 pm by brokoli »
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #3 on: July 30, 2012, 04:27:49 pm »
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Yay, more lists! It's always fun to see these. And the 5s are where it gets really tough. Unlike chwhite, I have quite a few major differences with between this list and my own. The good thing is that it's at least mostly the same set of cards, so it probably boils down to what people think makes one bad card worse than another (more of the "how often is it good" vs "how good is it when it's good" debate).

The biggest differences I have:

1. Contraband (38 vs 44) - Not too surprising. This is a pretty easy card to underrate. If you're doing anything other than Big Money, there are usually multiple useful options for what to do with $6 and 2 buys so that the fact that they can just proscribe Gold is not really a big deal.

2. Harvest (48 vs 39) - Maybe I put this a little low, but I'm pretty sure it's one of the bottom 5. This thing is basically a terminal +$3 or +$4, but potentially only +$2 early. Not terrible, but never amazing. Most of the cards around the bottom are not worth getting most of the time. There is very often a stronger option available. So to avoid being at the very bottom, I feel they have to have some situations in which they are really strong. Saboteur and Counting House are often really bad. But sometimes they are dominantly strong. Harvest is at best okay.

3. Tribute (46 vs 38) - So Tribute is okay when your opponent is making a really homogeneous deck, but like Harvest, it's just okay, and it's even okay less often.

4. Royal Seal (44 vs 37) - I don't really know about Royal Seal. Assuming you are buying something good, it compares reasonably to Merchant Ship -- $2 this turn, something good next turn. The "something good next turn" is usually weaker, but it's not an action, so it plays nicer with other actions. The problem is that all benefits go away when you start greening, making it pretty useless for early greening strategies like Big Money. And in non-BM strategies, how often do you want to spend $5 on a treasure?
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Tdog

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #4 on: July 30, 2012, 04:28:34 pm »
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Explorer still seems grossly underrated, it is a great card for alternate VP. Otherwise, pretty good. Outpost is a little overrated, I think.
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ehunt

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #5 on: July 30, 2012, 04:42:39 pm »
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Sab is too low. It sucks, but it can be a game-changer with king's court, scrying pool, or highway.
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ftl

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #6 on: July 30, 2012, 04:56:14 pm »
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Hard to argue with a lot of this list; the main thing is that I think Explorer is too low. Other than that nothing jumps out at me as vastly wrong...
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dondon151

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #7 on: July 30, 2012, 04:59:36 pm »
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hey guys ____ is too low

On topic, I definitely do not think that Cache is, on average, more useful than Contraband.
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O

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #8 on: July 30, 2012, 05:03:31 pm »
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hey guys ____ is too low

On topic, I definitely do not think that Cache is, on average, more useful than Contraband.

Hey guys ______ is too low, what about (lists two or three uses for it).

Every card has uses broskis. The only disagreement I have is with harvest (its crap, really. It's so bad that people think it's underrated when it's not underrated, and thus overrate it) and with CHwhite's opinion of tribute (it's very very often a decent addition to a deck, and a fine gamble for +actions. Perhaps it suffers from the same hatred of randomness that ST does? random =/= bad).
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Jedit

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #9 on: July 30, 2012, 05:09:47 pm »
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Explorer still seems grossly underrated, it is a great card for alternate VP.

I don't see how Explorer works with any alternative VP strategy.  It clashes with all the VP chip cards, does nothing for Silk Road, is almost irrelevant for Fairgrounds, is inferior to Mandarin for Gardens and can be replaced with any better action for Vineyard.  Would you mind explaining your reasoning?
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eHalcyon

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #10 on: July 30, 2012, 05:13:12 pm »
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Explorer still seems grossly underrated, it is a great card for alternate VP.

I don't see how Explorer works with any alternative VP strategy.  It clashes with all the VP chip cards, does nothing for Silk Road, is almost irrelevant for Fairgrounds, is inferior to Mandarin for Gardens and can be replaced with any better action for Vineyard.  Would you mind explaining your reasoning?

Probably not so good for Vineyards, but I'd expect Explorer to be decent with SR and Gardens, maybe Duke too.  In alll those cases, Explorer gets you free Silver (possibly Gold, but less likely if you're going for alt VP).  This can do a lot to help you through your greening.  I think it's better than Mandarin for Gardens because gaining cards will boost Gardens.

There are better ways to get extra Silver though.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #11 on: July 30, 2012, 05:17:04 pm »
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Explorer still seems grossly underrated, it is a great card for alternate VP.

I don't see how Explorer works with any alternative VP strategy.  It clashes with all the VP chip cards, does nothing for Silk Road, is almost irrelevant for Fairgrounds, is inferior to Mandarin for Gardens and can be replaced with any better action for Vineyard.  Would you mind explaining your reasoning?

I think when people say this they mean that Explorer is decent for early greening strategies. The confusion is due the fact that Gardens, Silk Road, and Duke, which tend to be peoples favorite alt VP strategies are both alt VP and early greening. Also, people often use "great" to mean "decent".
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Tdog

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #12 on: July 30, 2012, 05:24:20 pm »
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Explorer still seems grossly underrated, it is a great card for alternate VP.

I don't see how Explorer works with any alternative VP strategy.  It clashes with all the VP chip cards, does nothing for Silk Road, is almost irrelevant for Fairgrounds, is inferior to Mandarin for Gardens and can be replaced with any better action for Vineyard.  Would you mind explaining your reasoning?

I think when people say this they mean that Explorer is decent for early greening strategies. The confusion is due the fact that Gardens, Silk Road, and Duke, which tend to be peoples favorite alt VP strategies are both alt VP and early greening. Also, people often use "great" to mean "decent".

Okay maybe not great. But I think Explorer is useful more often then like Cache and about equal to that of mint and mine.
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chwhite

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #13 on: July 30, 2012, 05:43:23 pm »
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Yay, more lists! It's always fun to see these. And the 5s are where it gets really tough. Unlike chwhite, I have quite a few major differences with between this list and my own. The good thing is that it's at least mostly the same set of cards, so it probably boils down to what people think makes one bad card worse than another (more of the "how often is it good" vs "how good is it when it's good" debate).

For sure.  I try to balance the two but tend to lean more on "how often is it good" when I rank stuff.

The biggest differences I have:

1. Contraband (38 vs 44) - Not too surprising. This is a pretty easy card to underrate. If you're doing anything other than Big Money, there are usually multiple useful options for what to do with $6 and 2 buys so that the fact that they can just proscribe Gold is not really a big deal.

I agree that Contraband is a little low- I had it a couple slots above Cache, which I tend to avoid except in very particular combos where you actively want the Copper (Apothecary, Gardens, CH).  Like you, I agree that Contraband is best on engine boards where you want to be picking up a variety of things that are not just Gold.  I had it somewhat lower on the grounds that even when it's useful, it's rarely a must-buy: sure, I'll pick it up T1 if there's a Menagerie engine to make and I get 5/2, but maybe if I get the 3/4 split I'll just start buying parts directly and not bother with the Contraband.  It's not a card I often go out of my way to get.

3. Tribute (46 vs 38) - So Tribute is okay when your opponent is making a really homogeneous deck, but like Harvest, it's just okay, and it's even okay less often.

4. Royal Seal (44 vs 37) - I don't really know about Royal Seal. Assuming you are buying something good, it compares reasonably to Merchant Ship -- $2 this turn, something good next turn. The "something good next turn" is usually weaker, but it's not an action, so it plays nicer with other actions. The problem is that all benefits go away when you start greening, making it pretty useless for early greening strategies like Big Money. And in non-BM strategies, how often do you want to spend $5 on a treasure?

I agree with your thinking on these cards, too, I just wouldn't go quite so far.  I dislike Tribute's randomness, but sometimes it's non-awful in Big Money. and sometimes you're so desperate to get +Actions to play all your Goons that you need to pick one or two up.  (Of course also sometimes its presence is important as a deterrent against dual-type cards, for what little that's worth).  And like Harvest if you can Throne or King it you'll see enough cards that you're bound to get what you need.  Royal Seal is the definition of mediocre, but it's not quite as mediocre as Stash and at least it doesn't have the potential to actively harm you like Contraband can.

The only disagreement I have is with harvest (its crap, really. It's so bad that people think it's underrated when it's not underrated, and thus overrate it) and with CHwhite's opinion of tribute (it's very very often a decent addition to a deck, and a fine gamble for +actions. Perhaps it suffers from the same hatred of randomness that ST does? random =/= bad).

Not all randomness is bad; I don't downgrade Swindler because it can be random.  But Tribute's particular flavor of randomness is bad, because your opponent usually has more control over its outcomes than you do.  That's a particular situation I just about never want to be in.  I agree that sometimes it's necessary as a gamble for +actions (hello Goons), but pretty much any actual Village is preferable in that situation, because the downside of fizzling is just too great.  And even when it doesn't fizzle, many of the outcomes are pretty meh for a $5 card: +4 Actions, +2 Actions/+$2, these are things you will frequently get when adding Tribute to an engine, and they're not that spectacular.  With Harvest, at least you (usually) have control over the contents of your deck, so you have a better shot at making your own luck.
« Last Edit: July 30, 2012, 07:04:28 pm by chwhite »
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #14 on: July 30, 2012, 05:53:08 pm »
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Explorer still seems grossly underrated, it is a great card for alternate VP.

I don't see how Explorer works with any alternative VP strategy.  It clashes with all the VP chip cards, does nothing for Silk Road, is almost irrelevant for Fairgrounds, is inferior to Mandarin for Gardens and can be replaced with any better action for Vineyard.  Would you mind explaining your reasoning?

I think when people say this they mean that Explorer is decent for early greening strategies. The confusion is due the fact that Gardens, Silk Road, and Duke, which tend to be peoples favorite alt VP strategies are both alt VP and early greening. Also, people often use "great" to mean "decent".

Yah, Explorer is alright for Gardens, Silk Road, and Dukes (which, as it so happens, are not my favorite alt-VP approaches at all).  I ranked Explorer second-to-last and I recognize this.   But I'm just about never going to prefer Explorer to an alt-VP enabler which costs $4 or less, since the $4/$5 gap is even larger than usual in decks where you're rushing green and other low-value cards.  And while it can provide value to Province-game money decks, the percentage of games where it's the best BM enabler and there is neither an engine nor an attack which is more important to grab is vanishingly low.

Explorer would be pretty good for most money decks if you were capable of opening it more than 1/6 of the time, and thus gaining Silver as quickly as JoaT.  Since you can't, it's not.
« Last Edit: July 30, 2012, 06:23:23 pm by chwhite »
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #15 on: July 30, 2012, 05:56:13 pm »
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Counting House gets no love.
Mandarin gets way less than it deserves.
Stash is behind Contraband.
What are you people thinking!??
« Last Edit: July 30, 2012, 05:57:38 pm by Graystripe77 »
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #16 on: July 30, 2012, 05:58:43 pm »
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Two short points:

Using tribute as a village requires a very cantrip-heavy kingdom. I've done it maybe once or twice.

Explorer shouldnt be used to try to line it up with a province. Its good when silver is good. And silver is ever only so good.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #17 on: July 30, 2012, 06:08:49 pm »
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@O i disagree - workshop is good with gardens and silk roads and in very rare other circumstances, but that's enough to keep it from being the worst 3.

same for saboteur. you can lose a lot more games ignoring saboteur than you can ignoring stash, contraband, harvest, explorer...
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #18 on: July 30, 2012, 06:14:42 pm »
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I played a game on funsockets just recently where I opened Explorer/Chapel. It worked quite well for getting Provinces with Explorer, but also for getting some early Silver.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #19 on: July 30, 2012, 06:43:30 pm »
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Like others, I mostly agree.  These are the same 13 cards I have at the bottom.  None of them are good, but some are slightly better/worse than the consensus. 

I would take Stash/Explorer about 4-5 slots higher.  They're not good, but more useful than some of the others.  Mine is also too low.  By itself, it's a terrible terminal but it integrates with a fair number of engine-ish decks.   Mandarin, on the other hand, is too high.  It's a terrible terrible card.

Other than that, good job crowd!
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #20 on: July 30, 2012, 06:57:08 pm »
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Like others, I mostly agree.  These are the same 13 cards I have at the bottom.  None of them are good, but some are slightly better/worse than the consensus. 

I would take Stash/Explorer about 4-5 slots higher.  They're not good, but more useful than some of the others.  Mine is also too low.  By itself, it's a terrible terminal but it integrates with a fair number of engine-ish decks.   Mandarin, on the other hand, is too high.  It's a terrible terrible card.

Other than that, good job crowd!

...

Mandarin. Is. An. Awesome. Card.

Seriously, what makes it so terrible?
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #21 on: July 30, 2012, 07:45:21 pm »
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I think [Explorer is] better than Mandarin for Gardens because gaining cards will boost Gardens.

Yes, sorry, I thought Mandarin had +buy for some reason.  Perhaps because that would make it good.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #22 on: July 30, 2012, 07:53:23 pm »
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I agree that Contraband is a little low- I had it a couple slots above Cache, which I tend to avoid except in very particular combos where you actively want the Copper (Apothecary, Gardens, CH).  Like you, I agree that Contraband is best on engine boards where you want to be picking up a variety of things that are not just Gold.  I had it somewhat lower on the grounds that even when it's useful, it's rarely a must-buy: sure, I'll pick it up T1 if there's a Menagerie engine to make and I get 5/2, but maybe if I get the 3/4 split I'll just start buying parts directly and not bother with the Contraband.  It's not a card I often go out of my way to get.
Completely agree. It's not good, just better than a lot of the stuff above it, imo.

Quote
I agree with your thinking on these cards, too, I just wouldn't go quite so far.  I dislike Tribute's randomness, but sometimes it's non-awful in Big Money. and sometimes you're so desperate to get +Actions to play all your Goons that you need to pick one or two up.  (Of course also sometimes its presence is important as a deterrent against dual-type cards, for what little that's worth).  And like Harvest if you can Throne or King it you'll see enough cards that you're bound to get what you need.  Royal Seal is the definition of mediocre, but it's not quite as mediocre as Stash and at least it doesn't have the potential to actively harm you like Contraband can.
I give very little credit for "non-awful". Silver is also non-awful. How much do you really lose by ignoring Tribute all the time? Probably not much. Probably less than ignoring Saboteur or Counting House. It's probably "non-awful" about as often as Counting House and "good" even less often (like only in TR/KC+Nobles games -- I doubt it's actually worth it for Goons unless your opponent is buying a lot of actions. Tribute+Goons should lose to Goons+money, no?).

Royal Seal is more mediocre than Stash because you only use it's ability like 1-2 times in a game. Stash you can use much more than that if you have any cycling whatsoever. And Contraband can only actively harm you if you buy it. If its a situation where it's bad, just don't buy it. Cards can never have negative value, since you always have the option to ignore them.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #23 on: July 30, 2012, 09:24:54 pm »
0

I give very little credit for "non-awful". Silver is also non-awful. How much do you really lose by ignoring Tribute all the time? Probably not much. Probably less than ignoring Saboteur or Counting House. It's probably "non-awful" about as often as Counting House and "good" even less often (like only in TR/KC+Nobles games -- I doubt it's actually worth it for Goons unless your opponent is buying a lot of actions. Tribute+Goons should lose to Goons+money, no?).

Royal Seal is more mediocre than Stash because you only use it's ability like 1-2 times in a game. Stash you can use much more than that if you have any cycling whatsoever. And Contraband can only actively harm you if you buy it. If its a situation where it's bad, just don't buy it. Cards can never have negative value, since you always have the option to ignore them.


Tribute is non-awful significantly more often than Counting House and Saboteur: I've seen it work surprisingly well in BM-esque decks a few times.  I'll grant that Saboteur has a higher ceiling than Tribute, yes, and if I was redoing my list I might actually bump Sab up a spot or two.  As for Goons games, sure I'm only going to actually get that Tribute once I've seen my opponent buying cantrips and stuff, but in my experience that's pretty likely to happen.

Re: Royal Seal and Stash- on average you'll use Stash's ability more often, but it's not really a fair comparison to assume that the Seal is just played twice then green all the way (if you're using Seal to set up an engine, or Colony games, it'll get a couple more top-deckings most likely), whereas Stash gets all the cycling it wants.  But I think the Seal is sufficiently useful (or, rather, Stash is sufficiently mediocre) that it's a bit better than Stash even if you use it less. 
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #24 on: July 30, 2012, 10:43:40 pm »
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The main difference I see from my lists, that I'd actually stick to, is Cache being too low. It's a decent opener, considerably improving your deck for the second shuffle (two coppers which are still actually good AND a(n effective) Gold? Win). It's great with Duke, Silk Road, Gardens, and it's a good $5 to pick up in the shuffle between first hitting Provinces and wanting Duchies with $5. I had it above all of the cards here, and I think I'd stick to that - Cache is a card I'd consider more than probably any card here.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #25 on: July 30, 2012, 11:52:48 pm »
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My thoughts (don't remember how I ranked them exactly, but...) are:

Mandarin = ranked too highly.  From my experience the card is worse than HT for money, as discarding 2 cards is usually more effective than top decking from a non enlarged hand.

Outpost = ranked too highly.  It's just weak unless you have some way of exploiting it (ie. a schemed SP , alchemist , minion , etc.) but even then, Outpost itself isn't strong... it's the rest of the deck that is strong.

Tribute = ranked too highly.  Maybe I'm just slanted by my memories of getting exactly what I didn't want, and having my opponent flip over the same 2 cards... but I really am not a fan.

Counting House = ranked too lowly.  Yes, it's a bad card... but not the worst card.  I find it useful in a lot more situations than most of the cards here.  The combos of Golem / Chancellor / Coppersmith /etc. are nice and all, but I like it any time you end up with more than 7 coppers.  What cards cause this?  Cache, Mountebank, Ambassador (potentially), Gardens, Goons, Apothecary + Discard.

Saboteur = ranked too lowly.  Again, it's a horrible card.  But just the threat of it makes it not the second worst card out of the $5s.  I mean, have you ever adjusted your strategy because your opponent bought, say a Royal Seal?  Obviously not.  But with Saboteur, you really need to have SOME time of a counter (either silver flood, putting cards on mats, etc.) if they can play it a lot.

But I understand the placement of all these cards.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #26 on: July 31, 2012, 12:13:27 am »
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I've said it before and I'll say it again: People who think Outpost is crap don't understand Outpost :P Is either Wharf (with +actions) or Caravan (alone) available? Outpost is probably good. Is it remotely conceivable that an even barely-functional double-Tactician engine could be built? Outpost is probably good. How about Menagerie? Minion? Sure, don't buy it if you have a deck where a 3-card hand isn't likely to go anywhere. But man, believe me, it is just obscenely great in Wharf engines and double-Tactician decks, and it's pretty good in a lot of other circumstances too. Like, would you enjoy having two full turns during the endgame for each turn your opponent gets (assuming they don't follow along)? Outpost may be for you!

I gain Outpost more than a quarter of the time, with a positive "effect with". It's not even in the top 10 most situational cards.

Way back when, I got it into my head that Outpost was a horrible noob-trap that gave you turns you could never do anything with.  By the time guided wrote this, I had realized it was good with mass Minion and double-Tac, and was starting to use it in other sorts of engines.

I buy Outpost regularly now- it's risen from probably something like buy in 12-15% of my games to just over 25% now.  It's really good for a wider variety of engines than you might think, basically if you're in draw your deck mode OR it's the only way to get +Buy.  I ranked it #37, and could very easily have slipped it ahead of Mint.

I mean, it's still quite situational, don't get me wrong.  But not only are its good situations more frequent than the rest of this dreck (save Mint of course), it does more for you when it's good than most of these cards, too.  Outpost is definitely the best of the "bad" cards.

« Last Edit: July 31, 2012, 12:15:06 am by chwhite »
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #27 on: July 31, 2012, 01:45:56 am »
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Outpost = ranked too highly.  It's just weak unless you have some way of exploiting it (ie. a schemed SP , alchemist , minion , etc.) but even then, Outpost itself isn't strong... it's the rest of the deck that is strong.

I have Outpost significantly higher (24).  I gave it some more points to "how strong it is when it's strong?". And @therestofthedeckisstrong: Maybe, but Outpost essentially doubles the power of your already strong deck. And the strong deck does not benefit you anything if the strength of your opponents deck doubles yours.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #28 on: July 31, 2012, 05:48:08 am »
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Talking about Outpost, what about "draw up to..." such as JoaT, library and so on, like minion ? They're at least as important as other duration cards ! Especially if you can save'em with haven !
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #29 on: July 31, 2012, 05:50:37 am »
+1

Explorer is underrated.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #30 on: July 31, 2012, 07:24:15 am »
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Let me echo that this list is basically right on, though Explorer could use a bit of a bump, and Harvest--which is a card I feel is underrated generally--is actually a little overrated here.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #31 on: July 31, 2012, 08:53:36 am »
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Quote from: Qvist
And it can discard all your good cards you wanted to play in the next turn and even trigger an unwanted reshuffle.
And it can discard all your bad cards you don't wanted to play in the next turn and even trigger a wanted reshuffle.

Seriously, Harvest is really underrated. I'm convinced it's better than merchant ship, which is already an underrated card.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #32 on: July 31, 2012, 08:55:46 am »
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When deciding how to rate cards, I think it's important to note in how many games the card could actually be useful.

If you have a card that is absolutely critical in a setup that has to feature X, Y and Z as well, it may be very good in those instances, it's a bad card overall.

Like Outpost: Yes, it's good with Scrying Pool, Alchemists (and/or Treasuries) and maybe some cards like Watchtower or Library, but how often do you actually play an Outpost engine? More often than not the card is just a filler in the supply.

A good card is a card that's often bought and not just a filler. I rarely pass on Goons, I almost often pass on Counting House.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #33 on: July 31, 2012, 09:18:02 am »
+1

When deciding how to rate cards, I think it's important to note in how many games the card could actually be useful.

That's what you say. I think a say Oasis, that you can use in 90% of the games, but which in 85% of the games could as well has been a Silver without you noticing it at all, is a less influential card than a Outpost, that you can use in 25% of the games, but which has to be an Outpost in 25% of the games.

I don't think it's a bad card overall, because you just don't buy it in these 75% of the games, so it can't be bad for you.  Of course, you somehow have to balance. How often is it good, how influential is it in this cases, what are the alternatives?  And everybody has to find their own balance there, and after all, I wouldn't insist that my balance is objectively better than any other. Not that it is even consistent.

And  @Outpost: It might be a no brainer with Alchemists/Treasury, some SP-engines, some Scheme settings, Festival/FishingVillage-Wathctower/Library but that doesn't mean that these no-brainers are the only situations where you can use it.  Cantrip-engines (Lab/HP/Stables, Conspirator) might also benefit from Outpost (maybe not every turn, but 2/3 might be enough), Haven was mentioned, Courtyard/Mandarin/Develop can be enough to guarantee a bootstrap, Tactician, and even the classical Village/Smithy-engine might benefit from the chance on an additional turn. You can also trick with Warehouse/Cellar/Vault/Secret Chamber in the right situations.
In BigMoney, Outpost is not the card for you, but in the end every reliable engine has a reasonable chance to start from 3 cards, even from a completely random hand, and Outpost gives you this chance for an extra turn.  It takes some other cards to make that work, but there always are 9 other on the table.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #34 on: July 31, 2012, 02:19:33 pm »
+3

Seriously, Harvest is really underrated. I'm convinced it's better than merchant ship, which is already an underrated card.

...This is madness, sorry.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #35 on: July 31, 2012, 02:38:04 pm »
0

Oh, and I definitely think Counting House and Saboteur should be switched. And least there's a general recurring situation where Couting House works (ie Mountebank). Saboteur is almost always an act of desperation that doesnt pay off.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #36 on: July 31, 2012, 02:54:43 pm »
+1

Oh, and I definitely think Counting House and Saboteur should be switched. And least there's a general recurring situation where Couting House works (ie Mountebank). Saboteur is almost always an act of desperation that doesnt pay off.

no way! Saboteur counters minion, black market, gardens-rush, and duke strategies, at least as well as counting house counters mountebank.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #37 on: July 31, 2012, 03:53:36 pm »
0

Oh, and I definitely think Counting House and Saboteur should be switched. And least there's a general recurring situation where Couting House works (ie Mountebank). Saboteur is almost always an act of desperation that doesnt pay off.

no way! Saboteur counters minion, black market, gardens-rush, and duke strategies, at least as well as counting house counters mountebank.

I completely disagree. It counters Duke perhaps. It doesn't counter those other things very well at all.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #38 on: July 31, 2012, 03:59:51 pm »
+1

Oh, and I definitely think Counting House and Saboteur should be switched. And least there's a general recurring situation where Couting House works (ie Mountebank). Saboteur is almost always an act of desperation that doesnt pay off.

no way! Saboteur counters minion, black market, gardens-rush, and duke strategies, at least as well as counting house counters mountebank.

I completely disagree. It counters Duke perhaps. It doesn't counter those other things very well at all.

I wouldn't think of Saboteur as something that can effectively blunt Black Market or Gardens decks.  An actual Gardens rush is too fast, and against Black Market it's way too chancy.

However, it is legitimately powerful against (and with!) Minions.  Sab/Minion is more of a thing than Mountebank/Counting House, in my experience.
« Last Edit: July 31, 2012, 06:24:01 pm by chwhite »
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #39 on: July 31, 2012, 06:33:39 pm »
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I wouldn't think of Saboteur as something that can effectively blunt Black Market or Gardens decks.  An actual Gardens rush is too fast, and against Black Market it's way too chancy.

I thought it was established that most Gardens rushes are not fast?
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #40 on: July 31, 2012, 07:11:08 pm »
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I wouldn't think of Saboteur as something that can effectively blunt Black Market or Gardens decks.  An actual Gardens rush is too fast, and against Black Market it's way too chancy.

I thought it was established that most Gardens rushes are not fast?
Most gardens DECKS are not rushes. Most rushes are fast (i.e. workshop gardens or faster, is pretty fast. But there are often engines that are even faster).

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #41 on: July 31, 2012, 08:04:43 pm »
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"Rush" was a wrong thing that I should not have said. Saboteur is a good counter to alternate vp strategies (except vineyard, obviously), especially slower ones. Again, these uses of saboteur aren't that impressive - they're just more impressive than counting house as a counter to mountebank.
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brokoli

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #42 on: August 01, 2012, 05:45:34 am »
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Seriously, Harvest is really underrated. I'm convinced it's better than merchant ship, which is already an underrated card.

...This is madness, sorry.

No.
In a good engine, Harvest give easily 4$ (even more often than 3$, if trashing).
Merchant ship is better in Big money games. Otherwise, the fact that it is a duration card make it much worse than Harvest.
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dondon151

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #43 on: August 01, 2012, 06:08:09 am »
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No.
In a good engine, Harvest give easily 4$ (even more often than 3$, if trashing).
Merchant ship is better in Big money games. Otherwise, the fact that it is a duration card make it much worse than Harvest.

No.
In a good engine, Merchant ship give 4$ over 2 turns.
Harvest is better in Big money games. The fact that Merchant ship is a duration card makes it much better than Harvest.

See what I did there?
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Fabian

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #44 on: August 01, 2012, 06:31:10 am »
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Lol dondon I was like "huh I've never seen dondon post poorly thought out + crap advice what the hell" and then I was like "oic :)"
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hobo386

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #45 on: August 01, 2012, 08:32:03 am »
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I'm just gonna chime in and agree that (with the exception of outpost and maybe Mint), these all deserve to be in the below #36, but I would heavily change the ordering.  I'd probably go (Bad Cards)Harvest->Sab->Counting House->Tribute->Stash->Cache->Explorer->Royal Seal->(Good Cards)Mine->Mandarin->Outpost->Mint from worst to best of these cards.  I'd be a bit tempted to throw in Venture and Horn of Plenty somewhere into the pile around Mandarin as well.  Jester, Treasury, Bazaar, Market, Highway and Inn would probably come right after, though I'm not sure of the ordering. And I might even put Jester below Mint.

(Though the strongest few I think are much harder to decide. Probably #1 Hunting Party, #2 Governor, #3 Wharf? I mean, attack cards are nice and all, but a lighthouse can shut them down.  It's very hard to ignore HP/Gov/Wharf and win.)
« Last Edit: August 01, 2012, 08:34:34 am by hobo386 »
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Robz888

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #46 on: August 01, 2012, 08:44:04 am »
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For the strongest 4, it's fairly decided. Anything other than 1) Witch 2) Mountebank 3) Wharf 4) Hunting party would be a travesty.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #47 on: August 01, 2012, 09:04:31 am »
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For the strongest 4, it's fairly decided. Anything other than 1) Witch 2) Mountebank 3) Wharf 4) Hunting party would be a travesty.

Maybe you can already prepare buying new clothes? ;)

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #48 on: August 01, 2012, 09:22:22 am »
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For the strongest 4, it's fairly decided. Anything other than 1) Witch 2) Mountebank 3) Wharf 4) Hunting party would be a travesty.
Hmmm, that's not my top 4.....

And in no way is harvest better than MS; it is VERY difficult to find a place where you take it over MS at all.

theory

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #49 on: August 01, 2012, 09:57:12 am »
+2

I don't think Harvest is better than Merchant Ship, but it's definitely not a bad card!  Treat it as a terminal Gold; when it's a terminal Silver, it's probably discarding Coppers.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #50 on: August 01, 2012, 10:05:29 am »
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For the strongest 4, it's fairly decided. Anything other than 1) Witch 2) Mountebank 3) Wharf 4) Hunting party would be a travesty.

Mountebank has been dethroned?
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #51 on: August 01, 2012, 10:14:15 am »
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The Best $5 Cards - Part 2/4
#35 ▼6 Council Room (Base) Weighted Average: 31.19 ▼3.60 / Median: 32 ▼4 / Mode: 35 ▼10 / Standard Deviation: 5.8 ▲1.6
Highest Rank(s): #17 (1x), #18 (1x), #22 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #41 (3x)

After a 3.5 point gap, we're now in the lower mediocre range. Council Room is a big loser with 6 ranks and 3.6 points. More players agree with this lower rank.

Council Room is really strong per se, but don't underestimate the extra card for your opponent! If he draws a Gold or the much needed village for his own Council Room, he may even profit more from your play than you do. And more and more players seem to recognize that as you can see in the rankings. It really only shines on boards with discard attacks like Militia or Goons. With such cards you take back the profit from your opponent and have a really big hand and even a +Buy. Its drawing power and +Buy makes it a good Level 4 opener (#115 ▲2) combined with Fool's Gold.
#34 ▲1 Library (Base) Weighted Average: 30.52 ▼0.33 / Median: 31 =0 / Mode: 33 ▼2 / Standard Deviation: 7.4 ▲1.2
Highest Rank(s): #9 (1x), #11 (1x), #16 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #41 (1x), #43 (2x)

Even though Library lost a little bit of points, it profits from Council Room's drop. It has some big outliers with one being even in the Top 10, but still the consensus is higher on this card.

Library's best use may be countering discarding attacks as it may even set other actions aside and therefore increase the probability to draw treasures. But it's also very useful for engines with villages that don't increase your handsize, like Festival or Hamlet. And even in Big Money it is a stronger (but more expensive alternative) than Smithy as you won't draw Libraries/Smithies dead)
#33 ▼5 Treasury (Seaside) Weighted Average: 29.75 ▼2.87 / Median: 30 ▼5 / Mode: 29 ▼5 / Standard Deviation: 6.2 ▲2.9
Highest Rank(s): #14 (1x), #15 (1x), #16 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #41 (1x), #42 (2x)

Treasury lost 5 ranks becaus all the high voters from last time didn't do so again. This shows us the big increase in consensus.

Similar to Market, it's a "Copper that doesn't hurt", without the +Buy but with top-decking ability. As you can only use this ability until you're going green, you want Treasuries very early. Of course Treasury/Chapel is even better than Market/Chapel on #27 ▼9 of the best openings. With 2-3 Treasuries you can keep buying good cards every turn. This comboes well with Outpost. But Treasuries are very slow, too slow on most boards. They're therefore better in Colony games and in all other games that tend to be slow. But beware of discarding attacks if you have more than 3 Treasuries. Treasury is especially good in greenless games like with Bishop/Goons or when you don't buy victory cards and just use Expand. You can then keep top-decking them even until the late game.
#32 ▼1 Market (Base) Weighted Average: 28.44 ▲0.05 / Median: 29 ▼1 / Mode: 31 ▼4 / Standard Deviation: 6.9 ▼0.7
Highest Rank(s): #8 (1x), #14 (1x), #15 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #41 (2x), #42 (1x)

Market's rating rarely changed; your opinion is basically the same. It has a solid lead over Treasury and a big outlier on #8 and so the deviation also increased a little bit, but is still very low.

You probably pick up Market at least once in most of the games, but it is no super strong card. You want it most of the times because of the cantrip +Buy as an addition to your main strategy, because +Buy cantrips are rare and essential for an engine because you may already have stronger terminal cards. And it is also superior to Silver in all but Big Money games as you draw a card and get an additional $1. The non-terminal +Buys is very important in some combos too, like a Highway+Market chain. Market usually is no good opener, but Market/Chapel is very strong and is on #47 ▼6 of the best openings.
#31 ▼7 Cartographer (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 27.76 ▼4.03 / Median: 28 ▼5 / Mode: 28 ▼7 / Standard Deviation: 7.5 ▲1.8
Highest Rank(s): #10 (1x), #11 (1x), #13 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #39 (1x), #40 (1x), #47 (1x)

Cartographer is a Hinterlands card which loses a lot of ranks! It loses 4 points and 7 ranks. It has still a above average deviation, but the consensus increased a lot.

Cartographer is useful in all decks (maybe except Big Money decks). It reminds of Navigator, but hasn't the problems of being terminal and you can choose for each card separately to discard or to put back. It also draws a card, although you often wish to top-deck first and draw afterwards. Basically it is a 4 times more powerful Spy (except the attack). You can also compare it to Warehouse. While Warehouse only makes this turn better, you can use Cartographer to either prepare your next turn (mitigating draw luck) or to prepare the cards you want to draw with either a second Cartographer or any other card that draws cards. So it combos very nice with many cards, especially cards that draw and are non-terminal, like Wishing Well and most importantly Scrying Pool and is also not bad against strong top-decking attacks like Ghost Ship or Rabble (although you draw one card first). With all the good points, Cartographer is still no good card for itself and has a high opportunity cost, it's just an addition to your deck and makes your engine stronger and more stable and is nearly never a dominating card on the board.
#30 ▲3 Inn (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 27.44 ▲1.51 / Median: 27 ▲3.5 / Mode: 34 ▼7 / Standard Deviation: 7.5 ▼0.3
Highest Rank(s): #10 (1x), #12 (1x), #13 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #38 (3x), #39 (1x), #40 (1x)

Inn is the first card which didn't get ranked below #40. It went up 3 ranks, but has still a relatively high deviation. It only has a small lead over Cartographer.

Inn's main effect is pretty simple. It's a Young Witch with no attack effect, but +2 Actions instead. So it's a village that doesn't increase handsize, but has a filter effect. This is nice but not great. More important is its on-buy effect. Shuffling action cards into the draw pile is great when you time it right, especially when there are (nearly) no cards in the draw pile. Decks with high action density love Inn, so you can prepare a Scrying Pool mega-draw or a King's Court-Bridge mega turn for example. If you manage to have enough money and at least an extra-buy with your actions, you can buy a Inn from the extra-buy and won't see your bought victory cards so fast, especially in combination with Chancellor. Even if you don't necessarily have a high action density and miss $8, buy a Inn for getting all your nice actions in the next turn.
#29 ▼2 Trading Post (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 26.84 ▼0.89 / Median: 29 ▼4.5 / Mode: 29 ▲7 / Standard Deviation: 9.0 ▼1.8
Highest Rank(s): #6 (1x), #7 (1x), #9 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #42 (1x), #43 (1x), #46 (1x)

Trading Post has the second highest deviation in this list. It was even three times in the Top 10.

Trading Post is another card in the category "Good opener, but afterwards". No surprise the deviation is that high. Maybe it's so low because it costs $5 and is only a important opener in about 1-(5/6)^2 ~ 30% of all 2-player games. But with 11 ▲1 openings in the Top 100 of all openings (with Trading Post/Haven on #9 ▲2 and Trading Post/Lighthouse on #21 ▼12), that still shows its strength. If you compare its ability with Mine as a opener: It can trash 2 instead of one card and it can trash all card types and isn't limited to treasures. But Trading Post has fiercer competition in the $5 list, so its downside of getting weak soon was taken more into account by all of you.
#28 ▲2 Horn of Plenty (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 25.85 ▲2.00 / Median: 26 ▲4 / Mode: 35 ▼3 / Standard Deviation: 8.2 ▲0.8
Highest Rank(s): #9 (1x), #10 (1x), #12 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #39 (1x), #41 (1x), #42 (1x)

Horn of Plenty is another card with high variance. It went up exactly 2 points and ranks and has a solid lead over Trading Post of around 1 point.

Horn of Plenty is one of the cards that are very hard to master. On average boards it's similar to Ironworks and just too slow. But if you can build a decent engine with several different cards involved (and that is the hardest part), then HoP is very powerful. With one Horn of Plenty and a good engine the game can end in 3 turns. Turn 1: Gain another HoP, Turn 2: Gain another 2 HoPs, Turn 3: Gain 4 Provinces from the HoPs and buy the 5th Province with the rest of your money: Basically "Game Over". The problem is to build such an engine and prepare the Mega Turn before the opponent gets a too big Province lead.
#27 ▼1 City (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 25.65 ▼1.08 / Median: 24 ▼1 / Mode: 24 ▼2 / Standard Deviation: 8.8 ▲0.4
Highest Rank(s): #4 (1x), #6 (1x), #7 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #37 (2x), #41 (2x)

City has the third highest deviation and was voted with a small lead over Horn of Plenty. Newer players ranked it one rank higher.

City is highly dependant from the board. That may explain the high deviation. On many boards you just spend $5 for a mediocre $3 Village. But with Cursers where the Curses are likely going out, this can be very strong. When activated, a Level 2 City is already a combined Laboratory and Village, so basically a ~$6 card. A Level 3 City is a combined Laboratory, Market and Village and would normally cost ~9$. In non-cursing games this is often a trap card. If one player goes for Cities to run this pile out, he's just buying Villages and doesn't build up his economy. Then you do much better not buying any City and try to end the game as fast as you can. In longer lasting games (especially Colony games) Cities are much stronger, but you really have to consider, if you really want so many Villages. In 3+ player games any pile can deplete faster and Cities are therefore much stronger. And if you have won the City Split and have Level 3 Cities, you have to just be sure that you don't lose on a 3-pile ending. But as many of us only play 2 player games, this wasn't taken that much into account.
#26 ▼4 Rabble (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 24.80 ▼2.30 / Median: 26 ▼3.5 / Mode: 22 ▼3 / Standard Deviation: 6.3 ▲2.5
Highest Rank(s): #11 (1x), #12 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #36 (2x), #37 (2x)

Rabble is the second worst $5 attack. It dropped over 2 points and 4 ranks and has a really low deviation for a middle ranked card after it gained so much consensus. It is one rank lower in the unweighted ranking.

One Rabble may even worse than a Fortune Teller, as it can't guarantee to hit. It's not a very good opener, especially with good trashers, but gets stronger and stronger in the late game. Rabble is stronger the more you play in one turn. If you build up a (Village-Smithy-like) engine and need good drawing power, Rabble is the way to go, because if your opponent goes green too early, he gets bad hands pretty soon and you may crush him. Your Rabbles can hit him even stronger than any other discarding attack, because he has at best only 2 good cards in hand. But beware of Farming Village, which is a very effective counter. And if you don't need the drawing power, you can skip over Rabble, because one Rabble isn't that strong per se.
#25 ▼8 Venture (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 24.52 ▼4.44 / Median: 24 ▼5.5 / Mode: 21 ▼3 / Standard Deviation: 7.3 ▲2.2
Highest Rank(s): #12 (2x), #13 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #38 (1x), #39 (1x), #41 (1x)

Venture is one of the cards with the biggest change. 8 ranks and over 4 points is huge. Players ranking it high last time, didn't do it again; so the consensus is much higher.

Venture is very similar to the "+1 Card, +1 Action, +$1, +Bonus" cards like Market, Treasury or Highway. It draws a card, gives $1 and doesn't cost an action. What is the +Bonus of Venture? Being a Treasure Card, it can't be drawn dead. And it has a Filter effect finding another Treasure Card. So you're guaranteed $2 when playing a Venture, making it another "Almost Strictly Superior to Silver $5 Treasure Card". The filter effect allows you to go green earlier, because you can discard the green cards with Ventures. This effect reminds of Adventurer (and the name of course). While an Adventurer in a Copper-free deck gets you to at least $4 and Venture only to $3, Venture is still superior, because it's $1 cheaper and doesn't cost an action and is therefore chainable. Ventures are great if you have multiples and as few other Treasure Cards as possible. If you manage that, they are even superior to Gold. I like to add, that the multiple Ventures stacking effect is no additional bonus, just the result of the two above mentioned bonuses (Multiple Markets in a thin deck would have the same effect). Venture/Chapel is the #65 best opening.

To the third part
« Last Edit: August 04, 2012, 10:26:34 pm by Qvist »
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Robz888

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #52 on: August 01, 2012, 10:20:10 am »
0

This list is also mostly right, but I probably would knock city back a bit still. It's just not a factor in plenty two play province games.

The rest is fine, though I would have been inclined to put trading post better, and I am dismayed to not see Upgrade yet.
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ehunt

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #53 on: August 01, 2012, 10:21:14 am »
0

cartographer underrated

city overrated, it's an ignore-this-pile pile in 50% of games. agreed with robz that upgrade is going to be massively overrated, wherever it is.
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brokoli

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #54 on: August 01, 2012, 11:10:24 am »
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If I were a good english speaker, I would probably make an articla about Harvest which is terribly underrated.
Why harvest is better than merchant ship in engines ? Because the fact you discard card can be positive for you. I mean : play courtyard/mandarin, put an estate on top of your deck, play harvest and discard the estate. Even better : play apothecary, put the victory cards back and discard them with harvest (the best case is when you put tunnel back). There are also oppenent's rabbles, ghost ships, etc… Not incredible, but neat, and you can't do that with MS.
Of course, cards like cartographer and scout are bad for harvest. But Harvest have a potential that Merchant ship don't have.

Why Harvest is bad in BM decks ? Because usually you have a lot of coppers, simply.

About the next part of the list : Library is horribly underrated. Why smithy is ranked so high in the 4$ list if library is ranked so low here ? Library is a good card for big money, but also for a lot of (fun) engines. Fishing village, hamlet, vault, university, shanty town, festival, Inn…

Horn of plenty, also underrated. I love this card and people don't realize how good a Horn of Plenty engine is.
Cartographer and Venture fairly ranked, I think.
City, Upgrade and rabble a little overrated.

For the strongest 4, it's fairly decided. Anything other than 1) Witch 2) Mountebank 3) Wharf 4) Hunting party would be a travesty.

1) Mountebank 2) Witch 3) IGG 4) Hunting party 5) Wharf  ;)
However, I'm not sure about Hunting party & Wharf.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #55 on: August 01, 2012, 11:42:37 am »
+3

For the strongest 4, it's fairly decided. Anything other than 1) Witch 2) Mountebank 3) Wharf 4) Hunting party would be a travesty.
Hunting Party is not even close to my top 4...

Why smithy is ranked so high in the 4$ list if library is ranked so low here ?
Because there are more really powerful 5s than 4s?

Regarding this new list, I think Inn is a little too low and Trading Post a little too high. And HoP, Rabble, and City are way too low. Unlike all the rest of the cards in this list, they are very often dominant cards.

Some comment on the text:

Horn of Plenty doesn't need to Mega-turn to be good. As a workshop that can gain 5s without using an action, it's good for a lot of engines.

I disagree with the statement that "One Rabble may [be] even worse than a Fortune Teller, as it can't guarantee to hit." Likely, you're using a poor definition of "hit". "Hit" should mean do something good, and "miss" do nothing. It's more likely to "hit" that Fortune Teller. Fortune Teller does nothing when the top card is an VP Card/Curse. Rabble only does nothing when all of the top 3 cards are VP/Curse. Sometimes people think of Rabble as only hitting when you physically put a victory card on top. But that's the wrong way to think about it. If you skip 3 action/treasures, it's much more likely that more of the next cards that they'll draw are victory cards, even if you didn't see them.
« Last Edit: August 01, 2012, 11:56:24 am by HiveMindEmulator »
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Robz888

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #56 on: August 01, 2012, 11:57:22 am »
0

For the strongest 4, it's fairly decided. Anything other than 1) Witch 2) Mountebank 3) Wharf 4) Hunting party would be a travesty.

Maybe you can already prepare buying new clothes? ;)

For the record--and I always do this when I contemplate the top $5s--I completely forgot Ill Gotten Gains, which is certainly about the 3rd or 4th best one.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #57 on: August 01, 2012, 12:03:00 pm »
0

For the record--and I always do this when I contemplate the top $5s--I completely forgot Ill Gotten Gains, which is certainly about the 3rd or 4th best one.

Anid now you just have to remember Governour, and we can talk...

PS: I've Ghostship up there also...
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #58 on: August 01, 2012, 12:16:16 pm »
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Only change I'd like to see is a higher rated Trading Post.  I mean, if you get it T1 / T2, it's more of a "gg" than getting a T1 witch IMO. 
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #59 on: August 01, 2012, 01:08:57 pm »
0

Well I am just pleased as punch to see Venture this low.  Maybe it's not overrated at all anymore.  I actually had it one rank higher than this, but kinda wanted to put it lower than I did.

Treasury and City are the other two cards I had higher than this group, at #22 and #21 respectively.  This makes Treasury now almost as underrated as Spice Merchant, which was the most egregiously misranked card in the other lists.  Except Treasury's not nearly that bad, because I definitely overrated it by a few slots.  It's very nice support when building engines, and sometimes you can get your green from VP chips or gainers (HoP, anyone?) and you can leave it on top forever, but it's not quite as nice as I had it.  It's still a little underranked.

City I am much more confident is being underranked here.  Yes, it is a dead pile in Big Money Province games.  But Big Money Province games are probably no more than 20 percent of the games I play, and it is just so so powerful in most other setups.  Curse games, yeah.  Many engines, heck yeah.  It can even work as a counter to alt-VP players, making pile-draining too dangerous.

...

So this means there are three cards which I had in this group which we haven't seen yet.  And they're the cards I ranked #33, #34, and #35!  I'm curious to see who can identify them (one should be pretty easy, if you've read anything by me before), and I'll explain why they're horribly overrated sacks of mediocrity in another post.

...

As for the rest of these, it's hard to quibble too much.  I had Horn of Plenty a little lower, and both Council Room and Inn a little higher.  HoP was where it is on the grounds that gainers have a tendency to be traps, but I do actually like HoP and could easily bump it up a couple.  Inn is a village, so of course I had it higher, and I happen to think it has the niftiest on-gain effect in Hinterlands.  Council Room was higher than Library and a few others on the grounds that its +Buy can be really crucial (and if you'redrawing so many cards, it's more likely than usual to be useful).
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #60 on: August 01, 2012, 01:12:47 pm »
0

For the strongest 4, it's fairly decided. Anything other than 1) Witch 2) Mountebank 3) Wharf 4) Hunting party would be a travesty.

Maybe you can already prepare buying new clothes? ;)

For the record--and I always do this when I contemplate the top $5s--I completely forgot Ill Gotten Gains, which is certainly about the 3rd or 4th best one.

I'll just go ahead and say that my top 5 was 1) Mountebank, 2) Witch, 3) Hunting Party, 4) Wharf, 5) IGG.  HP over Wharf is probably just stubborn obstinancy at this point (I do buy it more often, but a large part of that gap is I used to underrate Wharf).  However, I am rock-solid confident that Mountebank needs to be ahead of Witch, and that IGG needs to be behind both HP and Wharf.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #61 on: August 01, 2012, 01:18:29 pm »
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Why smithy is ranked so high in the 4$ list if library is ranked so low here ? Library is a good card for big money, but also for a lot of (fun) engines. Fishing village, hamlet, vault, university, shanty town, festival, Inn…

As HiveMind said, because the $5s are much better than the $4s.  Also, a) without those specific enablers, Library is merely a Smithy you can't stack, and b) Smithy was badly overrated in the last list to begin with.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #62 on: August 01, 2012, 01:40:31 pm »
+1

Is one of those 3 cards Duke?  8)
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #63 on: August 01, 2012, 01:53:21 pm »
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Oh gosh. I'm looking at my list now and thinking, was I drunk when I decided some of these $5's? (I wasn't, BTW). I had Market, Treasury, Bazzar - all pretty close in usefulness, all around 24-29, which is definitely about 5 places too high. I had City above them, too - although I think City really is that useful in most 3-4p games, which I did bear in mind (plus the fact that if you're using City, there's a pretty good chance it's a Colony game, as you're using Prosperity for a start). So I'd stick to City being higher than it is here, but probably because my criteria were more wide than 2p all cards.

Cartographer is underrated. It's extremely useful in many engines, for digging for those key cards you might need, and in many alt-VP or cursing games it's good for digging for good cards and discarding junk.

I'm a little surprised to have not seen Haggler yet. It's good, but it's pretty meh for a $5. Until late in the game, it's a terminal Silver that usually gets you a $3 or $4, and occasionally a $5. Late game, it becomes a terminal Hoard, whoop de doo.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #64 on: August 01, 2012, 02:53:06 pm »
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But...but Haggler is so good in engines. :(

Not as good in BM games, but free Silver never hurts.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #65 on: August 01, 2012, 02:54:06 pm »
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Why smithy is ranked so high in the 4$ list if library is ranked so low here ? Library is a good card for big money, but also for a lot of (fun) engines. Fishing village, hamlet, vault, university, shanty town, festival, Inn…

As HiveMind said, because the $5s are much better than the $4s.  Also, a) without those specific enablers, Library is merely a Smithy you can't stack, and b) Smithy was badly overrated in the last list to begin with.
I care more about how Library is a superior BM card, especially with attacks around, than it is with engines, specific enablers or not.  Smithy is a weaker basis for BM than Library
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #66 on: August 01, 2012, 02:59:22 pm »
+1

Why smithy is ranked so high in the 4$ list if library is ranked so low here ? Library is a good card for big money, but also for a lot of (fun) engines. Fishing village, hamlet, vault, university, shanty town, festival, Inn…

As HiveMind said, because the $5s are much better than the $4s.  Also, a) without those specific enablers, Library is merely a Smithy you can't stack, and b) Smithy was badly overrated in the last list to begin with.
I care more about how Library is a superior BM card, especially with attacks around, than it is with engines, specific enablers or not.  Smithy is a weaker basis for BM than Library
That's simply false. Library is a better card to have for BM, but a worse card for BM. The extra cost does that. But the big thing is that most 5 cards are way, way better than the 4s.

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #67 on: August 01, 2012, 04:28:09 pm »
+1

Why harvest is better than merchant ship in engines ? Because the fact you discard card can be positive for you.

So it makes a not-so-powerful combo with ~6 cards. OK.

Meanwhile, Merchant Ship yields +$4 spread over 2 turns and the second turn doesn't require an Action to get the benefit. The card doesn't even occupy a slot in your hand! That's kind of important for an engine that wants to do its thing consistently.

Why Harvest is bad in BM decks ? Because usually you have a lot of coppers, simply.

And Silver, and Gold, and Estate, and Duchy, and Province. Yeah, you won't hit $4 very often. But let's say that you do get unfortunate and hit 2 or 3 Copper at once. That means that you get to play your Silver and Gold sooner.

I mean, it's not great in BM decks. But it's certainly generally more useful than in engine decks, where you have to find a way to leave 3-4 different unique cards in your discard pile or on top of your deck in order to play Harvest for a worthwhile amount of coin (and unless you're hitting $4 consistently, Gold is only $1 more expensive). In most engine decks, you're drawing most, if not all, of your deck anyway, and there will be nothing to Harvest.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #68 on: August 01, 2012, 04:34:22 pm »
+3

Why harvest is better than merchant ship in engines ? Because the fact you discard card can be positive for you.

So it makes a not-so-powerful combo with ~6 cards. OK.

Meanwhile, Merchant Ship yields +$4 spread over 2 turns and the second turn doesn't require an Action to get the benefit. The card doesn't even occupy a slot in your hand! That's kind of important for an engine that wants to do its thing consistently.

Why Harvest is bad in BM decks ? Because usually you have a lot of coppers, simply.

And Silver, and Gold, and Estate, and Duchy, and Province. Yeah, you won't hit $4 very often. But let's say that you do get unfortunate and hit 2 or 3 Copper at once. That means that you get to play your Silver and Gold sooner.

I mean, it's not great in BM decks. But it's certainly generally more useful than in engine decks, where you have to find a way to leave 3-4 different unique cards in your discard pile or on top of your deck in order to play Harvest for a worthwhile amount of coin (and unless you're hitting $4 consistently, Gold is only $1 more expensive). In most engine decks, you're drawing most, if not all, of your deck anyway, and there will be nothing to Harvest.

So brokoli thinks it's bad in BM, and you think it's bad in engines? I agree with both of you.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #69 on: August 01, 2012, 04:45:38 pm »
0

Why harvest is better than merchant ship in engines ? Because the fact you discard card can be positive for you.

So it makes a not-so-powerful combo with ~6 cards. OK.

Meanwhile, Merchant Ship yields +$4 spread over 2 turns and the second turn doesn't require an Action to get the benefit. The card doesn't even occupy a slot in your hand! That's kind of important for an engine that wants to do its thing consistently.

Why Harvest is bad in BM decks ? Because usually you have a lot of coppers, simply.

And Silver, and Gold, and Estate, and Duchy, and Province. Yeah, you won't hit $4 very often. But let's say that you do get unfortunate and hit 2 or 3 Copper at once. That means that you get to play your Silver and Gold sooner.

I mean, it's not great in BM decks. But it's certainly generally more useful than in engine decks, where you have to find a way to leave 3-4 different unique cards in your discard pile or on top of your deck in order to play Harvest for a worthwhile amount of coin (and unless you're hitting $4 consistently, Gold is only $1 more expensive). In most engine decks, you're drawing most, if not all, of your deck anyway, and there will be nothing to Harvest.

So brokoli thinks it's bad in BM, and you think it's bad in engines? I agree with both of you.

Library is more of an engine supplement.  Whereas if you're down to your last Action with a Smithy in hand, you're hesitant to use it, because you might draw three more Action cards, I would never hesitate to play Library, because I know I'll get Treasures.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #70 on: August 01, 2012, 04:48:05 pm »
0

Harvest is best in tweener decks which are engine-ish and have trashed out most of their Coppers but can't consistently draw all the way.  If you're getting most of your card draw from, say, Menagerie, Harvest can be a good source of +Coin.

I also like it as a midgame buy in heavy attacking games where the presence of stuff like Curse-givers a) boosts your variety, b) makes it harder to reach $6 for Gold, and c) provides a buffer for terminal collision.  And of course it's an appealing target for Thrones and Kings.  Obviously if you're in one of the rare situations where you can use Harvest's cycling as a defensive boost, that's good too, but it is pretty rare- normally it makes no difference and maybe even hurts you a little while greening.

Really, the biggest problem with Harvest is that terminal treasure for $5, unless it comes with stuff like Attack or +Buy, is generally pretty weak even if it gives you good value (good value being $4) more often than not.  These sorts of things are pretty mediocre at any price level (c.f. Chancellor) but especially at $5 because there are just so many more powerful effects up here.  Just not a very inspiring class of cards.
« Last Edit: August 01, 2012, 04:59:59 pm by chwhite »
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #71 on: August 01, 2012, 04:53:52 pm »
0

Harvest is best in tweener decks which are engine-ish and have trashed out most of their Coppers but can't consistently draw all the way.  If you're getting most of your card draw from, say, Menagerie, Harvest can be a good source of +Coin.

I also like it as a midgame buy in heavy attacking games where the presence of stuff like Curse-givers a) boosts your variety, b) makes it harder to reach $6 for Gold, and c) provides a buffer for terminal collision.  And of course it's an appealing target for Thrones and Kings.  Obviously if you're in one of the rare situations where you can use Harvest's cycling as a defensive boost, that's good too, but it is pretty rare- normally it makes no difference and maybe even hurts you a little while greening.

Really, the biggest problem with Harvest is that terminal treasure for $5, unless it comes with stuff like Attack or +Buy, is generally pretty weak even if it gives you good value (good value being $4) more often than not.  It's pretty mediocre at any price level, but especially at $5 because there are just so many more powerful effects too.  It's just not a very inspiring class of cards.

Just thought of an odd trick: two worker's villages, play a workshop, gain a card, watchtower top deck.  KC-KC-Workshop, gain 3 different cards, watchtower top deck, Harvest, Harvest.  Buy 3 provinces.

Edit: this assumes your deck is empty to begin with.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #72 on: August 01, 2012, 04:57:13 pm »
0

Harvest is best in tweener decks which are engine-ish and have trashed out most of their Coppers but can't consistently draw all the way.  If you're getting most of your card draw from, say, Menagerie, Harvest can be a good source of +Coin.

I also like it as a midgame buy in heavy attacking games where the presence of stuff like Curse-givers a) boosts your variety, b) makes it harder to reach $6 for Gold, and c) provides a buffer for terminal collision.  And of course it's an appealing target for Thrones and Kings.  Obviously if you're in one of the rare situations where you can use Harvest's cycling as a defensive boost, that's good too, but it is pretty rare- normally it makes no difference and maybe even hurts you a little while greening.

Really, the biggest problem with Harvest is that terminal treasure for $5, unless it comes with stuff like Attack or +Buy, is generally pretty weak even if it gives you good value (good value being $4) more often than not.  It's pretty mediocre at any price level, but especially at $5 because there are just so many more powerful effects too.  It's just not a very inspiring class of cards.

Just thought of an odd trick: two worker's villages, play a workshop, gain a card, watchtower top deck.  KC-KC-Workshop, gain 3 different cards, watchtower top deck, Harvest, Harvest.  Buy 3 provinces.

Edit: this assumes your deck is empty to begin with.

Sounds more like a puzzle solution than a game tactic. :) Quick, delete your post and make a puzzle!
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #73 on: August 01, 2012, 05:31:02 pm »
0

So brokoli thinks it's bad in BM, and you think it's bad in engines? I agree with both of you.

Not quite. I think that it's worse in engines than it is in BM (in general), and it's not that good in BM.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #74 on: August 01, 2012, 11:23:58 pm »
+2

So you're guaranteed $2 when playing a Venture, making it another "Strictly Superior to Silver $5 Treasure Card".

Except at this very unfortunate moment for my opponent...

There is 1 province left and score is Arsenic03 28-33 heatthespurs. So whoever grab the last province win.

   --- Arsenic03's turn 20 ---
   Arsenic03 plays an Alchemist.
   ... drawing 2 cards and getting +1 action.
   Arsenic03 plays a Moneylender.
   ... trashing a Copper for +$3.
   Arsenic03 plays a Gold.
   Arsenic03 plays a Venture.
   ... revealing and playing a Potion.
   Arsenic03 buys a Duchy.
   Arsenic03 returns an Alchemist to the top of the deck.
   (Arsenic03 draws: 2 Alchemists, an Estate, a Province, and a Jester.)

--- heatthespurs's turn 21 ---
heatthespurs plays a Menagerie.
... revealing a Copper, a Silver, an Estate, and a Horse Traders.
... drawing 3 cards and getting +1 action.
heatthespurs plays a Horse Traders.
... getting +1 buy and +$3.
... discarding 2 cards.
heatthespurs plays a Gold, a Silver, and 2 Coppers.
heatthespurs buys a Province.
heatthespurs buys an Estate.
(heatthespurs draws: 2 Coppers, 2 Ventures, and a Menagerie.)

All Provinces are gone.
heatthespurs wins!

#1 heatthespurs: 40 points (5 Provinces, 2 Duchies, and 4 Estates); 21 turns
[38 cards] 4 Menageries, 3 Ventures, 2 Villages, 1 Horse Traders, 1 Jester, 1 Moneylender, 1 Oasis, 10 Coppers, 2 Silvers, 2 Golds, 4 Estates, 2 Duchies, 5 Provinces

#2 Arsenic03: 31 points (3 Provinces, 3 Duchies, and 4 Estates); 20 turns
[30 cards] 3 Alchemists, 3 Horse Traders, 3 Jesters, 3 Villages, 1 Moneylender, 1 Scheme, 1 Venture, 2 Coppers, 1 Potion, 2 Golds, 4 Estates, 3 Duchies, 3 Provinces


Due to Venture hitting a potion, he gets a 7 and miss the final province. I am sure it is pretty rare, though it may be nice to issue a warm reminder that this could happen (and may cost you a win)  :)
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #75 on: August 01, 2012, 11:27:20 pm »
0

Good point.  Another one is HoP.  Venturing into Contraband could also be bad news...
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #76 on: August 01, 2012, 11:36:21 pm »
+1

Good point.  Another one is HoP.  Venturing into Contraband could also be bad news...

Contraband exists, therefore Venture is worse.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #77 on: August 02, 2012, 08:29:21 am »
+1

Or when you draw your whole deck. Then every Venture is just 1$.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #78 on: August 02, 2012, 12:06:58 pm »
0

I updated the opening rankings and added "Almost" to "Strictly Superior" in the Venture article.
You can always find scenarios where one card is better than another card. Silver isn't strictly superior to Copper with a hand like KC, Coppersmith, 3x Silver. And you can find scenarios where Stash or Royal Seal is worse than Silver (Forge, Estate, 3x Royal Seal). But I agree with your argument that those two cards at least guarantee $2 when you play them, Venture doesn't.

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #79 on: August 02, 2012, 01:09:08 pm »
0

Contraband exists, therefore Venture is worse.

To be precise: Contraband exists, therefore Venture is worse if you are daft enough to buy Contraband.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #80 on: August 02, 2012, 01:22:42 pm »
0

Contraband exists, therefore Venture is worse.

To be precise: Contraband exists, therefore Venture is worse if you are daft enough to buy Contraband.

But to me, this is a more compelling argument than Cellar being worse because Warehouse exists.  Warehouse may be a better card, but it doesn't interact in ways that make Cellar bad.  Contraband directly makes Venture worse, and vice versa.  Just like Platinum directly makes Adventurer better.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #81 on: August 02, 2012, 01:36:47 pm »
0

Or when you draw your whole deck. Then every Venture is just 1$.

Actually, when you hit a Venture chain, each Venture except the last is only worth $1 as well.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards
« Reply #82 on: August 02, 2012, 02:18:01 pm »
0

   --- Arsenic03's turn 20 ---
   Arsenic03 plays an Alchemist.
   ... drawing 2 cards and getting +1 action.
   Arsenic03 plays a Moneylender.
   ... trashing a Copper for +$3.
   Arsenic03 plays a Gold.
   Arsenic03 plays a Venture.
   ... revealing and playing a Potion.
   Arsenic03 buys a Duchy.
   Arsenic03 returns an Alchemist to the top of the deck.
   (Arsenic03 draws: 2 Alchemists, an Estate, a Province, and a Jester.)

This isn't a complete loss, since at least he got to top-deck his alchemist when otherwise he wouldn't have  :P
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #83 on: August 02, 2012, 02:29:57 pm »
+1

Actually, when you hit a Venture chain, each Venture except the last is only worth $1 as well.

Yes, but you only started off with a limited number of Ventures in hand; thus it is only the cumulative value of the Ventures in hand that we care about (because you wouldn't have played those Ventures in your deck unless you had the ones in you hand).

I'm not entire certain on what the consensus should be on Venture, but I've gotten the impression that Venture spam is a powerful BM strategy, especially when good kingdom Treasures or Platinum are involved. It doesn't synergize at all with engines like Market, Highway, etc. do, but it's far, far more powerful as a standalone card.

I mean, if we were to hold $5 cards to a metric of "how often would you buy this over Gold," I'd get Venture over Gold almost every time if I'm not building a drawing engine.
« Last Edit: August 02, 2012, 02:33:37 pm by dondon151 »
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #84 on: August 02, 2012, 03:50:09 pm »
0

Actually, when you hit a Venture chain, each Venture except the last is only worth $1 as well.

Yes, but you only started off with a limited number of Ventures in hand; thus it is only the cumulative value of the Ventures in hand that we care about (because you wouldn't have played those Ventures in your deck unless you had the ones in you hand).

I'm not entire certain on what the consensus should be on Venture, but I've gotten the impression that Venture spam is a powerful BM strategy, especially when good kingdom Treasures or Platinum are involved. It doesn't synergize at all with engines like Market, Highway, etc. do, but it's far, far more powerful as a standalone card.

I mean, if we were to hold $5 cards to a metric of "how often would you buy this over Gold," I'd get Venture over Gold almost every time if I'm not building a drawing engine.

Really? Venture over gold almost every time in money games? Without copper trashing I would probably NEVER buy it over gold, because well, the times you chain them won't be worth when you draw them as a silver. Even WITH copper trashing I'd try to buy a gold or two before switching to ventures. It just will build your economy faster. MAYBE in colony games I might try to skip gold entirely, but even that's only worth it if there's strong trashing (and no engine).
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #85 on: August 02, 2012, 04:32:14 pm »
+1

In a money strategy, you'd probably want to buy a venture over gold when, on average, it would give you more coins than gold.

It gives you 1+ [the average value of the rest of your treasures]. Roughly, I think this would be greater than 3 when (number silvers + 2*number of golds) > (number of coppers). So if you've trashed no coppers, it'll be after you have 3 or 4 silvers and 2 golds.
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cherdano

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #86 on: August 02, 2012, 04:55:45 pm »
+2

It gives you 1+ [the average value of the rest of your treasures]. Roughly, I think this would be greater than 3 when (number silvers + 2*number of golds) > (number of coppers). So if you've trashed no coppers, it'll be after you have 3 or 4 silvers and 2 golds.

That's not right - you need number of golds > number of coppers. (Easy check: when you find a silver, you break even, so you can ignore them.)
So without copper trashing and without platinums, venture will basically never beat gold.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #87 on: August 02, 2012, 04:58:37 pm »
0

Yeah, ignore my post I was wrong


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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #88 on: August 02, 2012, 05:00:49 pm »
0

It gives you 1+ [the average value of the rest of your treasures]. Roughly, I think this would be greater than 3 when (number silvers + 2*number of golds) > (number of coppers). So if you've trashed no coppers, it'll be after you have 3 or 4 silvers and 2 golds.

That's not right - you need number of golds > number of coppers. (Easy check: when you find a silver, you break even, so you can ignore them.)
So without copper trashing and without platinums, venture will basically never beat gold.

But this doesn't factor in the possibility of Venture hitting Venture.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #89 on: August 02, 2012, 05:34:31 pm »
+1

The venture vs gold argument is more complicated and should probably be taken to another thread if needed. Firstly there needs to be the farming village consideration. If you buy a farming village it gives you no +coins but it improves the average income of the deck. The venture provides a similar improvement. There are also other considerations about deck cycling, discarding actions when played, and forcing reshuffles with lots of treasures on the table.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #90 on: August 02, 2012, 05:37:32 pm »
0

It gives you 1+ [the average value of the rest of your treasures]. Roughly, I think this would be greater than 3 when (number silvers + 2*number of golds) > (number of coppers). So if you've trashed no coppers, it'll be after you have 3 or 4 silvers and 2 golds.

That's not right - you need number of golds > number of coppers. (Easy check: when you find a silver, you break even, so you can ignore them.)
So without copper trashing and without platinums, venture will basically never beat gold.

But this doesn't factor in the possibility of Venture hitting Venture.
If we factor this in, letting b be the number of basic treasures you have, g the number of golds you have, v the number of ventures you have (apart from the one you're playing), and c the number of coppers you have, the condition is g + vb/(b+1) > c.

(This is only looking at the value of Venture, not other benefits. Also, to be correct for a given play, g,v,b,c should be determined by only your draw deck, not your entire deck--I ignored that for simplicity.)

To derive, start with the condition
Code: [Select]
(3g + 2s + c)/b + v/(b+1) > 2
« Last Edit: August 02, 2012, 05:39:56 pm by blueblimp »
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #91 on: August 02, 2012, 07:16:16 pm »
+1

@DG, unless you play venture directly after a top-decking attack (e.g. sea hag/rabble/etc) or it causes a reshuffle venture does not help your deck any more than harvest does. (excluding the coin benefit)
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DG

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #92 on: August 02, 2012, 08:23:44 pm »
0

Quote
@DG, unless you play venture directly after a top-decking attack (e.g. sea hag/rabble/etc) or it causes a reshuffle venture does not help your deck any more than harvest does. (excluding the coin benefit)

This is not exactly true. If it was true then a farming village would never improve a deck, and it patently does. The average value of the remaining cards in the deck after playing a venture is unchanged (for a deck with a treasure in it, etc). However the extra value is already counted in the venture, the subsequent played treasure, and the discarded cards in between. If you're not convinced, compare a venture to a cartographer and to a market.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #93 on: August 02, 2012, 08:43:03 pm »
+1

Quote
@DG, unless you play venture directly after a top-decking attack (e.g. sea hag/rabble/etc) or it causes a reshuffle venture does not help your deck any more than harvest does. (excluding the coin benefit)

This is not exactly true. If it was true then a farming village would never improve a deck, and it patently does. The average value of the remaining cards in the deck after playing a venture is unchanged (for a deck with a treasure in it, etc). However the extra value is already counted in the venture, the subsequent played treasure, and the discarded cards in between. If you're not convinced, compare a venture to a cartographer and to a market.

Actually, we've gone over this in huge detail, and venture doesn't help you more than just giving you the cash, on average, if you if ore that it ups your cycling rate.
Farming village has value because it's a village. The filtering gives it extra value compared to village because you are drawing with village anyway.
Of course, if you know what is on your deck (say a rabble, sea hag, courtyard, etc.), then you can get e trad value.

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #94 on: August 02, 2012, 08:59:13 pm »
0

Hmm, does this make sense?

A Venture that draws a Copper benefits you slightly more than a Silver (ignoring Grand Market issues), since it gives you a total of $2 and skips a Copper that you would have drawn in a later hand. A Venture that draws a Gold benefits you less than would a notional treasure worth $4, since although you get $4 you skip a Gold from a later hand. (The Venture in this hand drawing a Gold is still better than a Gold in this hand, though, assuming you needed the money.)
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #96 on: August 02, 2012, 09:16:18 pm »
+1

That's not right - you need number of golds > number of coppers. (Easy check: when you find a silver, you break even, so you can ignore them.)
So without copper trashing and without platinums, venture will basically never beat gold.

This is a rather disingenuous attempt to characterize the merits of Venture. You are forgetting 2 things:
1. Venture can hit Venture
2. Much of the value inherent in Venture is not just about the $ it provides per play; it also gets your non-Venture Treasures in play a lot more often. Think about them as "disappearing Treasure" that add $1 every time they come up.

So maybe getting 1 Gold is a good idea, because now your Ventures have something good to hit, but you don't need as many Golds as you do Coppers for Venture to be better than Gold - far from it.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #97 on: August 02, 2012, 09:25:24 pm »
0

Looking at that thread, I think in the end DG was in the right.  I think now there's a different confusion:
If you buy a farming village it gives you no +coins but it improves the average income of the deck. The venture provides a similar improvement.
Yes, the farming village does improve the average income of the deck.  In big money, a farming village in hand is a random copper, silver or gold.  But that's the ONLY benefit.  Therefore, it's usually better to buy a silver since the expected value of the randomly drawn treasure is not large.

If you're asking "should I buy a venture or a gold" the fact that venture is guaranteed to not be a victory card is a complete non issue: so is gold!
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #99 on: August 03, 2012, 04:13:00 am »
0

Much of the value inherent in Venture is not just about the $ it provides per play; it also gets your non-Venture Treasures in play a lot more often. Think about them as "disappearing Treasure" that add $1 every time they come up.
This is the key idea with Venture, imo. It makes you draw/play treasure more often than other cards (since non-treasure can be skipped, and thus show up less than once per shuffle). So if your average treasure is better than your average card, it's going to be better than a Peddler. If not, it will be worse (excluding the fact that it can't be drawn dead). Now considering this, Venture gives you the ability to green earlier, since you will draw the Victory cards into your hand less often than you would without Venture.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #100 on: August 03, 2012, 01:59:32 pm »
+5

I've never fully understood the claim that venture lets you green earlier. Most (but not all) of the time venture is worse than gold in terms of average yield, granted, adding green cards doesn't affect that value but neither does it affect the value of, for example, gold/merchant ship/silver/hoard. Now granted greening does adversely affect cards that draw, and many (nearly all) attacks are significantly less damaging to an opponent in a greened deck. But the statement that (non-ridiculously chained ventures) significantly help with greening is no different than the statement that high value treasure helps with greening.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #101 on: August 03, 2012, 02:43:14 pm »
0

But the statement that (non-ridiculously chained ventures) significantly help with greening is no different than the statement that high value treasure helps with greening.
Of course with not many Ventures, the effect is small. I don't think that people claim that adding a single Venture helps you green noticeably earlier. The point is with Venture chains.

It's kind of like Rabble, for example. If you play one Rabble every once in a while, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference. But with a Rabble chain, you start seeing those green cards much more often.
« Last Edit: August 03, 2012, 02:45:29 pm by HiveMindEmulator »
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WanderingWinder

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #102 on: August 03, 2012, 03:24:02 pm »
0

But the statement that (non-ridiculously chained ventures) significantly help with greening is no different than the statement that high value treasure helps with greening.
Of course with not many Ventures, the effect is small. I don't think that people claim that adding a single Venture helps you green noticeably earlier. The point is with Venture chains.

It's kind of like Rabble, for example. If you play one Rabble every once in a while, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference. But with a Rabble chain, you start seeing those green cards much more often.
But it's much easier to do a rabble chain. These kinds of venture chains are rarely possible, and they're almost never viable.

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #103 on: August 03, 2012, 07:47:49 pm »
0

Tip for next time Qvist: Once you post part one, reserve three more post spots so we don't have to go fishing through.
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Dominion Notation: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7265.msg206246#msg206246

HiveMindEmulator

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #104 on: August 03, 2012, 08:52:35 pm »
0

But the statement that (non-ridiculously chained ventures) significantly help with greening is no different than the statement that high value treasure helps with greening.
Of course with not many Ventures, the effect is small. I don't think that people claim that adding a single Venture helps you green noticeably earlier. The point is with Venture chains.

It's kind of like Rabble, for example. If you play one Rabble every once in a while, it doesn't make a whole lot of difference. But with a Rabble chain, you start seeing those green cards much more often.
But it's much easier to do a rabble chain. These kinds of venture chains are rarely possible, and they're almost never viable.
Oh I'm not saying Venture is as good as Rabble. I'm saying that the effect it has on your deck is analogous to the effect Rabble has on your opponent. This is the general effect of cards that skip particular types of cards. They alter the "effective density" of that type of card. In small amounts this is hardly noticeable, but in large amounts it becomes quite pronounced. Whether or not its worth pursuing is another question entirely.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #105 on: August 03, 2012, 09:41:59 pm »
0

Sigh... venture does not alter the effective density of anything, except by accelerating the reshuffle, absolutely different from rabble, as was conclusively shown in the thread I linked.
Or: ok, go on thinking that.

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #106 on: August 03, 2012, 09:48:32 pm »
0

Sigh... venture does not alter the effective density of anything, except by accelerating the reshuffle, absolutely different from rabble, as was conclusively shown in the thread I linked.
Or: ok, go on thinking that.
The proof you cited proves something different than I'm saying. Venture does not alter the density of Treasures in your draw pile. It alters the density of Treasures among cards that you play or see in your hand. These things are different. I don't care if there's a Victory card in my deck if I don't draw it.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #107 on: August 03, 2012, 09:54:25 pm »
0

Okay, I'm not really understanding your claim. Are you saying venture is better for you NOW than some other treasure, like, the turn you play it, or later on, in later turns, or both, or neither?

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #108 on: August 03, 2012, 10:13:48 pm »
0

I might understand what HiveMindEmulator is saying? I think its the other way around; it's a statement about how resilient decks are to greening, specifically?

A deck with some number of ventures in it will play as though it has less green in it than it really does, because some green will get skipped over and will miss chances to be your hand.
Whereas a deck that's playing AGAINST rabble will play as though it has more green than it really does, because some non-green will get skipped over and will miss chances to be in your hand.

To take it to an extreme - if you have a deck of 8 ventures and no other treasures, a hand will play exactly the same up until the point where you have so much green that you don't draw a single venture in hand. So, really resilient to greening.

The opposite happens against rabble - if you Rabble your opponent enough, then they'll play every hand as though they have so much green that 3/5 of their hand is green, even if in reality their deck only has a few green cards.

It's not statements about what Venture/Rabble do for your deck, it's statements about what Green cards do TO a deck that has ventures or is being rabbled.

Does that make sense, or am I missing the point too?
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #109 on: August 03, 2012, 10:14:40 pm »
0

Okay, I'm not really understanding your claim. Are you saying venture is better for you NOW than some other treasure, like, the turn you play it, or later on, in later turns, or both, or neither?

I'm saying that given that you have a lot of Ventures, Victory cards are less harmful to your deck (as compared to if the Ventures were some other Treasure), because you don't have to draw the Victory cards every shuffle (you can skip them instead). Note that if you skip them they go back into your draw deck eventually, but still missed an opportunity to go into your hand, making them effectively less menacing.

ftl has it right.
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blueblimp

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #110 on: August 03, 2012, 10:39:07 pm »
+1

A deck with some number of ventures in it will play as though it has less green in it than it really does, because some green will get skipped over and will miss chances to be your hand.
But--the treasure you hit also misses a chance to be in your hand. Imagine you play Venture and it skips one Estate then hits a Silver. You get $3 total from the Venture (same as a Gold). You won't draw that Estate into hand this shuffle, but you won't draw that Silver into hand this shuffle, either.

That's just one perspective, where the value of the treasure Venture hits is included in its value. The point is that Venture is about as resilient to greening as basic treasures are: Copper/Silver/Gold don't care how much green you have, and neither does Venture. It doesn't get better if you green, but it doesn't get worse either.

If you take a different perspective, you can think of Venture as giving $1 and fishing out a treasure from your deck, i.e. a Peddler variant. Since Venture skips over green and Peddler doesn't, this shows that Venture is more resilient to greening than Peddler is. But usually Venture gets compared to other treasures, not to Peddler.
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cherdano

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #111 on: August 04, 2012, 12:51:26 pm »
+1

I've never fully understood the claim that venture lets you green earlier. Most (but not all) of the time venture is worse than gold in terms of average yield, granted, adding green cards doesn't affect that value but neither does it affect the value of, for example, gold/merchant ship/silver/hoard. Now granted greening does adversely affect cards that draw, and many (nearly all) attacks are significantly less damaging to an opponent in a greened deck. But the statement that (non-ridiculously chained ventures) significantly help with greening is no different than the statement that high value treasure helps with greening.
In fact, it's the other way round. If your average treasure value is $2, then venture behaves exactly like gold. Except that it speeds up reshuffling, which means you will draw the victory cards you buy earlier, and so BM decks with venture are less resilient to greening, not more.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #112 on: August 04, 2012, 12:54:32 pm »
0

But--the treasure you hit also misses a chance to be in your hand. Imagine you play Venture and it skips one Estate then hits a Silver. You get $3 total from the Venture (same as a Gold). You won't draw that Estate into hand this shuffle, but you won't draw that Silver into hand this shuffle, either.
The reason this alters effective density is that it always hits exactly one non-venture treasure but can hit an arbitrary number of non-treasures. So given that you have a lot of ventures, adding green cards a couple shuffles earlier won't matter as much as if you were going for lots of Silver and Gold. So instead of skipping Estate and play a Silver, you can skip an Estate and a Duchy and playing a Silver.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #113 on: August 04, 2012, 12:56:59 pm »
0

In fact, it's the other way round. If your average treasure value is $2, then venture behaves exactly like gold. Except that it speeds up reshuffling, which means you will draw the victory cards you buy earlier, and so BM decks with venture are less resilient to greening, not more.
This is the same fallacy as the theorem. When you reshuffle, you put cards into your draw pile, not into your hand. Without cards that skip other cards, every card in your draw pile eventually ends up in your hand, so these are often the same. But with Venture, this is not the case. Cards in your draw pile have a chance (proportional to the amount of Ventures you have) to never end up in your hand.
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blueblimp

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #114 on: August 04, 2012, 01:26:32 pm »
0

But--the treasure you hit also misses a chance to be in your hand. Imagine you play Venture and it skips one Estate then hits a Silver. You get $3 total from the Venture (same as a Gold). You won't draw that Estate into hand this shuffle, but you won't draw that Silver into hand this shuffle, either.
The reason this alters effective density is that it always hits exactly one non-venture treasure but can hit an arbitrary number of non-treasures. So given that you have a lot of ventures, adding green cards a couple shuffles earlier won't matter as much as if you were going for lots of Silver and Gold. So instead of skipping Estate and play a Silver, you can skip an Estate and a Duchy and playing a Silver.
If you have more green cards, then yes it'll skip more green cards on average, but "how many green cards Venture skips" is not the right number to look at here when comparing to basic treasures. (Edit: The reason is that what's important is the proportion of green-to-treasure that Venture draws compared to the proportion of green-to-treasure in your deck. Skipping more green doesn't help you if you had to junk up your deck to get that effect.)

For the following discussion, assume there are no top-decking cards in play (like Rabble).

There are two kinds of green resilience relevant to us: this-turn value and next-turn sifting. By "this turn value", I mean how much the card gives on the turn you play it. By "next-turn sifting", I mean how much it improves the value of your next turn (and subsequent turns after that).

The this-turn value of Venture and basic treasures is unaffected by greening. For basic treasures, that's obvious, and for Venture it's because it skips over green. The this-turn value of Peddler is affected by greening, because the "+1 Card" effect will (on average) draw worse cards.

The next-turn sifting effect of basic treasures is obviously none, and for Venture it's essentially none except for when playing Venture triggers a reshuffle (which is complicated, but rare enough in BM decks that I think it's safe to ignore when discussing BM). There are two reasons for this: one is that playing Venture does not, on average, change the coin density of your deck (that's what the theorem says), and the other is that playing Venture does not change the probability of drawing any particular next hand (to see this, imagine Venture draws from the bottom of your deck instead of the top). The next-turn sifting effect of Peddler is obviously none, too.

In conclusion, for both types of green resilience, Venture exhibits the same behaviour as basic treasures do.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2012, 01:31:03 pm by blueblimp »
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #115 on: August 04, 2012, 01:32:51 pm »
+1

I mean, clearly 10 ventures and 90 green cards is a better deck than 10 golds and 90 green cards.

Perhaps the only cases where "venture is more flexible in a very green deck" hold true are unrealistic ones like this, but people are acting like that claim is based on a logical fallacy, which it's not.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #116 on: August 04, 2012, 01:44:25 pm »
0

In fact, it's the other way round. If your average treasure value is $2, then venture behaves exactly like gold. Except that it speeds up reshuffling, which means you will draw the victory cards you buy earlier, and so BM decks with venture are less resilient to greening, not more.
This is the same fallacy as the theorem. When you reshuffle, you put cards into your draw pile, not into your hand. Without cards that skip other cards, every card in your draw pile eventually ends up in your hand, so these are often the same. But with Venture, this is not the case. Cards in your draw pile have a chance (proportional to the amount of Ventures you have) to never end up in your hand.
I think you're ignoring the effect of Venture effectively skipping treasures.

The first thing to be clear on here is how we count the value of the treasure Venture draws. One way is to add it to the value of Venture: if Venture draws a Silver, we think of the Venture as having value $3, and the Silver as being skipped. Call this the "variable-value" viewpoint. Another way is to think of Venture as a Peddler variant: if Venture draws a Silver, we think of the Venture as having value $1, and the Silver as being drawn into hand and then played. Call this the "peddler" viewpoint.

Both the variable-value and peddler viewpoints are valid ways to analyze Venture, but in my opinion it's easier to use the variable-value viewpoint when comparing to basic treasures. If we were comparing Venture to Peddler, then it would make sense to use the peddler viewpoint. When I don't specify, I use the variable-value viewpoint.

With the variable-value viewpoint, Venture skips both green and treasures. Sometimes more green, sometimes more treasures. On average, it's a neutral effect on your draw deck quality, except when playing Venture triggers a reshuffle.

With the peddler viewpoint, Venture skips only green and draws treasures. This shows it's more green-resilient than Peddler. But if you're comparing to basic treasures, you're comparing apples to oranges.
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blueblimp

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #117 on: August 04, 2012, 01:49:25 pm »
0

I mean, clearly 10 ventures and 90 green cards is a better deck than 10 golds and 90 green cards.

Perhaps the only cases where "venture is more flexible in a very green deck" hold true are unrealistic ones like this, but people are acting like that claim is based on a logical fallacy, which it's not.
In this case, every play of Venture is triggering a reshuffle, which requires a different analysis. I don't think this is the hang-up, since I mention this assumption (that Venture triggers a reshuffle effectively never) in nearly every post.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2012, 01:51:43 pm by blueblimp »
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #118 on: August 04, 2012, 02:11:13 pm »
0

In fact, it's the other way round. If your average treasure value is $2, then venture behaves exactly like gold. Except that it speeds up reshuffling, which means you will draw the victory cards you buy earlier, and so BM decks with venture are less resilient to greening, not more.
This is the same fallacy as the theorem. When you reshuffle, you put cards into your draw pile, not into your hand. Without cards that skip other cards, every card in your draw pile eventually ends up in your hand, so these are often the same. But with Venture, this is not the case. Cards in your draw pile have a chance (proportional to the amount of Ventures you have) to never end up in your hand.

Doesn't matter. If my average treasure value is $2, then I can compute the expected value of my hand just by
expected number of golds in my hand x 3 +
expected number of treasures in my hand x 3 +
expected number of silvers in my hand x 2 +
expected number of coppers in my hand.

I don't even have to think about skipping cards etc.
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Qvist

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #119 on: August 04, 2012, 02:22:49 pm »
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Tip for next time Qvist: Once you post part one, reserve three more post spots so we don't have to go fishing through.

You don't have to go fishing. There's a link in the end of each post to the next part. Nevertheless, that's a good suggestion. I consider that for the next time.

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #120 on: August 04, 2012, 02:40:16 pm »
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This discussion got me thinking again about whether Venture helps or hurts when it triggers a reshuffle. I think it should be helpful. When it triggers a reshuffle, it causes the green in your draw deck to miss the shuffle, which is good. The cards in your hand also miss the shuffle, but they are average cards, so that shouldn't matter on average. As in the non-reshuffle case, the Venture on average doesn't help or hurt the new draw deck obtained from shuffling your discard pile, and that draw deck is a little better than it would otherwise be, because of green missing the shuffle.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #121 on: August 04, 2012, 02:43:50 pm »
+1

I mean, clearly 10 ventures and 90 green cards is a better deck than 10 golds and 90 green cards.

Perhaps the only cases where "venture is more flexible in a very green deck" hold true are unrealistic ones like this, but people are acting like that claim is based on a logical fallacy, which it's not.
This has nothing to do with greening resiliency, but rather it is true because in such a deck, venture is effectively $10, (or 5 if you get 2, etc.), whereas gold is still worth 3. So duh it's better, it's worth way more. This is true with less green as well.

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #122 on: August 04, 2012, 02:59:40 pm »
0

I mean, clearly 10 ventures and 90 green cards is a better deck than 10 golds and 90 green cards.

Perhaps the only cases where "venture is more flexible in a very green deck" hold true are unrealistic ones like this, but people are acting like that claim is based on a logical fallacy, which it's not.
This has nothing to do with greening resiliency, but rather it is true because in such a deck, venture is effectively $10, (or 5 if you get 2, etc.), whereas gold is still worth 3. So duh it's better, it's worth way more. This is true with less green as well.
Yes, but if multiple Ventures are drawn in hand, then you still only get $10 total, so Gold would be better if the deck is really slim. This is a weird case because, in a small deck, you will have a lot of Venture whiffs (where they flip through your whole deck and find nothing). Venture whiffs are bad, obviously. The card needs a different analysis when it's whiffing often (and whiffing is a special case of triggering a reshuffle, so no surprise there).
« Last Edit: August 04, 2012, 03:01:23 pm by blueblimp »
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #123 on: August 04, 2012, 03:12:07 pm »
+1

I mean, clearly 10 ventures and 90 green cards is a better deck than 10 golds and 90 green cards.

Perhaps the only cases where "venture is more flexible in a very green deck" hold true are unrealistic ones like this, but people are acting like that claim is based on a logical fallacy, which it's not.
This has nothing to do with greening resiliency, but rather it is true because in such a deck, venture is effectively $10, (or 5 if you get 2, etc.), whereas gold is still worth 3. So duh it's better, it's worth way more. This is true with less green as well.

No, it's not, since a deck with ten ventures and no green is worth less than a deck with ten gold and no green.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #124 on: August 04, 2012, 03:25:29 pm »
0

I mean, clearly 10 ventures and 90 green cards is a better deck than 10 golds and 90 green cards.

Perhaps the only cases where "venture is more flexible in a very green deck" hold true are unrealistic ones like this, but people are acting like that claim is based on a logical fallacy, which it's not.
This has nothing to do with greening resiliency, but rather it is true because in such a deck, venture is effectively $10, (or 5 if you get 2, etc.), whereas gold is still worth 3. So duh it's better, it's worth way more. This is true with less green as well.

No, it's not, since a deck with ten ventures and no green is worth less than a deck with ten gold and no green.

By what metric?

A deck with only 10 ventures and nothing else guarantees a province every turn up to 5 provinces, at which point there is a small chance of drawing an all-green hand, but you're still probably going to get your Province anyway.

A deck with only 10 golds and nothing else is about the same, but actually less reliable.  It stops guaranteeing a Province every turn after the third Province.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #125 on: August 04, 2012, 03:29:06 pm »
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Sure. You hit the terminal venture problem. In cases where edge effects are important (cycling, venture hits nothing (which is cycling too)) you get a difference. Not otherwise. Note that what's going on there is that the first venture is essentially worth 10, the rest none. I still think cycling means that venture is GENERALLY weaker than equally valued other treasure when it comes to greening (and slightly better otherwise), but the effect is, in realistic game circumstances, really small.

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #126 on: August 04, 2012, 03:34:20 pm »
0

@ww agreed that realistically, the edge cases don't inform much about dominion strategy.

@ehalc, yeah, my numbers are a little silly, but e.g. if you're trying to buy a colony, the gold deck is much better. the point is only that if your deck must be "only the treasure of your choice and exactly y green cards" then for extremely large values of y you'll want the treasure to be venture and for extremely small values you won't.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #127 on: August 04, 2012, 06:09:12 pm »
+2

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #128 on: August 04, 2012, 06:11:42 pm »
+1

Is QVist going to finish putting these up before the Dark Ages previews start?  I mean, because once those start, 1) we'll be less interested in what we collectively thought of cards from all the other sets and 2) the lists will be obsolete...
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #129 on: August 04, 2012, 07:26:40 pm »
0

I mean, clearly 10 ventures and 90 green cards is a better deck than 10 golds and 90 green cards.

Perhaps the only cases where "venture is more flexible in a very green deck" hold true are unrealistic ones like this, but people are acting like that claim is based on a logical fallacy, which it's not.

This is a great example, actually. We're (or at least I am) talking about how resilient Venture decks are to greening relative to other decks. So Say you have 10 Ventures and N green cards. Whether N=0 or N=30, there is basically no difference. Now say instead you have 5 Silvers and 5 Golds and N green cards. Now there is a huge difference between the N=0 and N=30 case. Note that I'm not saying anything about the total value of the treasure, but only about how much difference each incremental green card makes.

This extreme case demonstrates the principle. It may be less obvious if you're comparing 6 Ventures, 3 Silvers, and 1 Gold to 7 Silvers and 3 Golds with a few action cards around as well, and you're comparing N=4 to N=6 or something. But the same thing is going on, just on a smaller scale. There is no fundamental difference. It's just that you might find it easier to ignore, or convince yourself that something different is going on.

Whether or not you think Venture is a strong card or think it's worth taking over Gold, you can't really argue that Venture decks are not more resilient to greening than typical decks (even if by a small amount). Arguments about what value to assign to the Venture really have nothing to do with this.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #130 on: August 04, 2012, 09:14:52 pm »
0

There is no fundamental difference.
The fundamental difference is whether you reshuffle or not when playing Venture (and also whether it whiffs). With 10 Ventures and no other treasure, you reshuffle with every play (and whiff with every play). With 6 Ventures, 3 Silvers, 1 Gold, it'll trigger reshuffles sometimes but not always (and whiff almost never). In a normal deck, it'll almost never trigger reshuffles (and never whiff).

And FWIW, there's a big difference between the statements "Venture is resistant to greening" and "Venture decks are resistant to greening". Full-out Venture decks behave weirdly, sure. A handful of Ventures in a normal deck are not any more resistant to greening than Gold is.

Edit: Like, all I am saying is that if you play Venture and it doesn't trigger a reshuffle, it does not sift. This is not a strawman, because (maybe only in the past?) posters would claim otherwise. The deck you're talking about (mass Ventures together with very few other treasures) is a totally different situation. I think what's going on there is that Venture is really "supposed to" have a high value, because of the chaining effect. But if your deck is small, then you get more whiffs (because you play Venture more than once per hand), which reduces its value. So it's not exactly that it's good in a green-heavy deck, but that it's bad in a trimmed deck.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2012, 09:32:14 pm by blueblimp »
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #131 on: August 04, 2012, 10:22:12 pm »
0

Is QVist going to finish putting these up before the Dark Ages previews start?  I mean, because once those start, 1) we'll be less interested in what we collectively thought of cards from all the other sets and 2) the lists will be obsolete...

The previews only have few cards per day that first have to be tested out. This list isn't immediately obsolete. I'm going to post the third part in a few minutes and try to post the last part soon. Then only the Potion cost cards list - which won't change - and the $6 card list - which probably won't change much - is missing. I think this is acceptable.

I see that the interest is then more in testing out the new cards, but I hope you will still read the 2 missing lists. I didn't manage to finish them faster.

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #132 on: August 04, 2012, 10:24:29 pm »
0

Is QVist going to finish putting these up before the Dark Ages previews start?  I mean, because once those start, 1) we'll be less interested in what we collectively thought of cards from all the other sets and 2) the lists will be obsolete...

The previews only have few cards per day that first have to be tested out. This list isn't immediately obsolete. I'm going to post the third part in a few minutes and try to post the last part soon. Then only the Potion cost cards list - which won't change - and the $6 card list - which probably won't change much - is missing. I think this is acceptable.

I see that the interest is then more in testing out the new cards, but I hope you will still read the 2 missing lists. I didn't manage to finish them faster.

There will be some interest, considering there has been almost 2 pages of venture debate.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #133 on: August 04, 2012, 10:25:46 pm »
+2

The Best $5 Cards - Part 3/4

#24 ▲10 Merchant Ship (Seaside) Weighted Average: 23.73 ▲5.56 / Median: 25 ▲7 / Mode: 26 ▲11 / Standard Deviation: 7.5 ▲1.2
Highest Rank(s): #6 (1x), #8 (1x), #12 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #38 (1x), #39 (1x), #42 (1x)

Merchant Ship is one of the big winners. 10 ranks and about 5.5 points better is a big change. Its unweighted average is on #23, new players seem to rate it a little bit higher.

Merchant Ship is a very simple card. Still it is ranked very differently. While Harvest is a not guaranteed $4, this now is a guaranteed $4, just split over two turns. It's good for Big Money games as it increases the probability to have $8 early as you only need $6 in hand in the following turn. And if you manage to play one each turn, this is basically $4 every turn. The probability of colliding Merchant Ships is also lower because of the Duration effect. In comparism to many other $5s, wher you either don't get guaranteed $4 or guaranteed $3, this card is really strong, many realised it (and may explain the change in rank). But there are still many (especially terminal) $5s that are superior.
#23 ▼5 Upgrade (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 23.70 ▼3.19 / Median: 26 ▼5 / Mode: 26 ▲2 / Standard Deviation: 8.7 ▼0.2
Highest Rank(s): #7 (1x), #9 (1x), #10 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #40 (1x), #41 (2x)

Your opinions really differ about Upgrade. This time it's 5 ranks and over 3 points worse. But the deviation is still very high as it has e.g. 3 votes in the Top 10. It was very close against Merchant Ship. Upgrade was 0.03 points better, but in the unweighted ranking it is on #24.

Non-terminal trashers or trash-for-benefit-cards are really strong. No surprise that Upgrade costs $5 so you can't open with it most of the times. With Upgrade you can trash your Coppers and Curses or turning your Estates into Silver without spending an action and keep playing all your other valuable action cards. This may also its best use. Spamming Upgrades and upgrading all other cards slowly to better cards seems nice, but is very slow. But Upgrading an Upgrade into an early Grand Market can be very strong. I like to add, that Upgrade is indeed a cantrip, that doesn't hurt your deck early on. But like Lookout, if you have a deck with a high quality density later on, this may be a dead card in your hand, when you don't want to trash a card from your hand. It's still no surprise Upgrade has some very high ranked openings, the best being Upgrade/Chapel on #16 ▲2 or Upgrade/Courtyard on #48.
#22 ▼3 Jester (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 23.23 ▼1.63 / Median: 22 ▲0.5 / Mode: 18 ▲8 / Standard Deviation: 8.7 ▼0.4
Highest Rank(s): #7 (1x), #8 (1x), #11 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #41 (1x), #44 (2x)

Jester is the third worst attack of all $5 cards. It has a very high deviation with some really low ranks (it was 5th last twice).

Jester is a very swingy attack. You can deal out Curses, you can spam Coppers. If your opponent and you are going for the same strategy, you can get very good cards from your Jester. If not, you have a really hard decision if you want that action card in your deck or give your opponent another free card. If you have a good running engine with any spying attack (like Scrying Pool), Jester is very good. In 3+ player games Jester is even stronger, because you can gain multiple good cards per turn. The main reason this attack is ranked that low, may be that you all take 2 player games into account where it's very swingy. Jester/Chapel is the #49 best opening.
#21 ▼1 Bazaar (Seaside) Weighted Average: 22.98 ▼1.14 / Median: 23 ▼1.5 / Mode: 20 ▼1 / Standard Deviation: 6.4 ▲1.3
Highest Rank(s): #5 (1x), #12 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #34 (3x), #36 (2x)

Bazaar has a very high rank with being #5 once. But still the consensus is really high for a middle ranked card with no big outliers in the low region.

You buy Bazar if you are building an engine, where you need additional money and +2 Actions. Not much more to say for me here, as it is a fearly simple card. Uncommon for a Village, Bazaar has a very high opening with Bazaar/Chapel on #31 ▼6.
#20 ▲5 Highway (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 22.94 ▲1.40 / Median: 22 ▲1 / Mode: 20 ▲8 / Standard Deviation: 6.5 ▲1.9
Highest Rank(s): #4 (1x), #6 (1x), #12 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #35 (3x)

Highway has two outliers in the upper regions, but none in the lower regions, making it the card with the "best worst rank" so far. It went only up 1.4 points, but still that means a rise of 5 ranks. Also the consensus is much higher on this card. It was very close between Highway and Bazaar, but Highway was by 0.04 points better.

Highway is highly dependant for supporter cards to make it useful. One vanilla Highway is really bad and even worse than Market or Treasury, it's just a Peddler, so basically only worth $4. It seems similar to Bridge, but in fact it isn't. You can use it as a cantrip Bridge, but most of the times this isn't worth it, because you need +Buy and either need a small deck to play multiples or big drawing power what also means you need villages. So that is really slow. The only real combo is Highway/Market in a small deck. But you can do things with Highway what would be very difficult with Bridge. It combos nice with Remodel/Farmland/Expand, so you can replace Coppers with Provinces. It can combo also with other trash-for-benefit cards, but most of the times they "anti-synergize". Its best use may to use it with cards with fixed cost in the card text like Saboteur, Smugglers, Feast, Ironworks, Horn of Plenty, etc to gain (or trash) Provinces with these cards. As Highway is good in small decks, Highway/Chapel is a #38 ▲18 opening.
#19 ▲2 Festival (Base) Weighted Average: 21.95 ▲0.03 / Median: 21 ▼1 / Mode: 21 ▲9 / Standard Deviation: 6.9 ▲0.8
Highest Rank(s): #2 (1x), #7 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #33 (4x), #34 (1x), #35 (1x)

Festival has a one point lead over Highway and is 2 points better even though its rating nearly didn't change. It has a really big outlier on the second rank.

Festival is a simple card and is like a combined Village and (Grand) Market without the draw. The lack of draw is really the only downside of this card. Still it is good in any engine, giving the money and actions you need and if you have "draw up to ..." cards like Watchtower or Library, it's really great. In any Non-Big-Money game Festival is strictly superior to Silver.
#18 ▲14 Duke (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 19.89 ▲9.00 / Median: 21 ▲12 / Mode: 21 ▲17 / Standard Deviation: 9.3 ▲2.1
Highest Rank(s): #3 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #37 (2x), #38 (1x)

Victory cards were underrated in the last ranking. No surprise here that Duke did the highest jump of 14! ranks and was exactly 9 points better. But victory cards are still hard to rank. It has the highest deviation of all $5 cards with 9 times in the Top 10 and many low ranks on the other side, but the consensus is still way higher than last time. It has a big lead over Festival with over 2 points.

Duke is similar to Silk Road and Gardens Rushes as you need to get the Duchies and Dukes as fast as you can. So you need similar good supporter cards which help getting $5 even if you're already greening, like Vault, Hoard, Duchess, Horse Traders to name a few. Duke can be very strong as it can easily be worth 6-8 VP if your opponent doesn't deny your strategy and is better than Province in those cases. 3-piling isn't that hard afterwards as there are 2 piles already gone. The problem is to realize when a board is a good Duke board. With good attacks (Curser and Handsize-Reducer) you probably want those attacks instead and ignore Duchies/Dukes and go directly for Provinces.
#17 ▼1 Stables (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 19.56 ▼1.18 / Median: 19 ▼2.5 / Mode: 19 ▼4 / Standard Deviation: 7.7 ▼0.3
Highest Rank(s): #4 (1x), #9 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #32 (3x), #44 (1x), #46 (1x)

Stables lost one rank and around one point. It has 2 big outliers, it was even voted third last once.

When you try to evaluate Stables, the comparism to Laboratory is very obvious. Both give you an action and a hand with one card more. In games with no trashing a few Stables can even be stronger, because you get an additional Warehouse-like cycling effect. Just discard your Coppers and you'll see you valuable cards more often. If you buy Stables and don't play Big Money, then your action density increases and the chances that you draw no treasure cards with Stables in hand increases too. Then Stables may be a dead card in hand. Especially in cursing games Stables is weaker. And even if your only treasure card is a Gold it highly depends on your deck if you really want to discard the Gold for 3 new cards. But a few Stables, Silvers and a +Buy card like Horse Traders can make pretty good Hunting-Party-like deck. An early Stables is great and superior to Laboratory on a board with no trashing, but with more Action Cards, Victory Cards or Curses, Stables is getting weaker, so just don't buy too many. Just compare a hand of 5 Laboratories and 5 Stables.
#16 ▲7 Haggler (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 18.73 ▲4.03 / Median: 18 ▲4 / Mode: 18 ▲10 / Standard Deviation: 7.5 ▼0.5
Highest Rank(s): #8 (1x), 9 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #35 (1x), #36 (1x), #37 (1x)

Haggler is the next Hinterlands card with a boost. It's 7 ranks higher and more than 4 points better. But the disagreement is a little bit higher than last time.

Haggler is very good for building up engines with multiple components. It adds the Border Village effect to any card you wish and also gives $2, so you can be pretty sure to get two good cards if you play Haggler. And in the middle to end game you can use it as a pseudo Hoard to get a Gold for a Province or even a Platinum on Colony boards. With Haggler you don't necessarily need +Buys early, you even have to beware that you don't use your additional buy for a low-cost card, so you have to get an additional Copper. It is a good starter for any good engine, for example Hunting Party, so you can get one more Hunting Party for every bought Province. Haggler/Chapel is the #84 best opening.
#15 ▼5 Laboratory (Base) Weighted Average: 17.62 ▼4.84 / Median: 16 ▼5 / Mode: 13 ▼5 / Standard Deviation: 6.5 ▼0.4
Highest Rank(s): #2 (1x), #4 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #29 (2x), #30 (1x), #32 (1x)

Laboratory is the first card that was previously in the Top 10. It dropped 5 ranks and also nearly 5 points. It is 8 times in the Top 10.

Unlike Stables, like mentioned above, Laboratory is a good card in nearly every deck. It increases the hand size by one which is a often underrated benefit. And if you have multiple Laboratories in your deck you have a consistent Village+Smithy engine in your deck where it isn't possible to draw dead. So, it's a engine on its own and you best begin early to build it. Therefore it's no surprise Laboratory/Chapel is on #19 ▲15 in the openings list.
#14 ▼2 Vault (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 15.50 ▼1.49 / Median: 14 =0 / Mode: 12 ▲3 / Standard Deviation: 7.9 ▲0.5
Highest Rank(s): #5 (1x), #7 (5x) / Lowest Rank(s): #35 (1x), #38 (1x), #42 (1x)

Vault was 12 times in the Top 10, but that's not enough to reach the Top 10, because it has some very low ranks too. Therefore the deviation is still very high for this card.

The +2 Cards that make the difference between Secret Chamber and Vault are very important to make Vault a good card and Secret Chamber a weak one. With every play of Vault you are guaranteed a Gold or even better a Grand Market. And if you have a Gold in hand or draw one you can buy a Province for sure. This makes Vault a great counter to cursing attacks and is still great after you've gone green. No surprise your opponent has the chance to make his hand better too, because this effect is very strong. This effect makes it also a good card for Duke. Like Secret Chamber it's also good if you can draw your whole deck for example with Scrying Pool, discard all actions for a lot of money, just to draw all actions again with another Scrying Pool. Similar to this, it's great in Double Tactician decks. The downside of this card is that it's very vulnerable to discarding attacks. Although it shines in big decks with a lot of junk the #11 ▲1 opening Vault/Chapel shows its strength if you are able to play it every turn.
#13 ▲1 Embassy (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 14.98 ▲1.93 / Median: 14 ▲2 / Mode: 14 ▼4 / Standard Deviation: 8.7 ▲0.6
Highest Rank(s): #4 (2x), #5 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #36 (1x), #41 (1x), #43 (1x)

Embassy has still a really high deviation. It was 15 times in the Top 10, still not enough for a rank in the Top 10 because of the many low ranks, including 2 big outliers below #40.

Embassy is a great Big Money card. An early Embassy is so good that your opponent gets a Silver for free. The mix of a terminal drawer and a Warehouse-like filter makes it that powerful. Yes, basically it's only +2 cards, but every time you play it, you can choose the best 6 cards out of 9 cards. Similiar to Envoy: If you have 5/2 and have the luck to draw it on turn 3, you may draw it in turn 4 and 5 again and will probably have already a huge lead, due to quick cycling. But it is also good in engines if you can guarantee to draw it with an action card. So just like Wharf it combos well with Fishing Village, it only misses the +Buy.
#12 ▲1 Margrave (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 14.30 ▲0.20 / Median: 13 ▲1.5 / Mode: 15 ▲3 / Standard Deviation: 6.3 ▲3.2
Highest Rank(s): #2 (1x), #5 (1x), #7 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #31 (1x), #34 (1x), #36 (1x)

Margrave was 17 times in the Top 10 and even voted second once. It has a way better consensus this time. It is on #11 in the unweighted ranking.

Terminal drawers with +Buy are very strong as they tend to let you have many money in hand, more you often need for a Province. Council Room has the drawback of give your opponent another card, but Wharf is still to come in this list. Margrave gives you an additional discard attack. The discard attack itself is not as strong as Militia's or Goons' discard attack because your opponent may draw a card first. But the discard attack is still very strong. It's just like you play Council Room+Militia or Governor+Militia. Margrave is another good Big Money card. With $11 you can buy an additional Silver to your Province. And terminal draw and +Buy is all Fool's Gold needs. No surprise Margrave/Fool's Gold is the best opening on #135 ▲63. It's also a good addition to your engine, but you have to be careful to add not too many Margraves to your engine, because every time you play a Margrave your opponent has another chance to draw a hand like 2 Golds and a Silver to buy a Province himself.
#11 =0 Apprentice (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 13.81 ▼0.60 / Median: 14 =0 / Mode: 15 =0 / Standard Deviation: 6.9 ▼0.4
Highest Rank(s): #5 (1x), #6 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #27 (1x), #28 (1x), #45 (1x)

Apprentice is the last card before the Top 10 and before a big gap. It stayed on the same rank, but lost a little bit points. It has a really big outlier on fourth last, but beside of that vote there was none below #30. It is on #12 in the unweighted ranking.

Although you can use an early Apprentice to trash your Coppers, Apprentice epitomizes (just like Salvager) Trash-for-Benefit cards; because the benefit is huge. If you don't hesitate to trash e.g. a Gold to get 6! cards and draw at least a card with +Buy or a Gainer you can really fasten the game. With Apprentice+Hoard or Apprentice+Haggler you can buy a Province nearly every turn. It combos also nice with Border Village. And as being one of the strongest Trash-for-Benefit cards, I especially mention the danger in Possession games. Your opponent won't hesitate to trash a Province or even a Colony for drawing nearly your whole deck.

To the fourth part
« Last Edit: August 06, 2012, 06:47:00 am by Qvist »
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popsofctown

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #134 on: August 04, 2012, 10:46:42 pm »
+1

Ew at upgrade over Merchant Ship

And ew at Lab over Stables.  I think that's a bit of glorifying the best case scenarios instead of weighing average case scenarios.  Sure, the occasional trim can of awesome deck uses Labs instead of Stables because it has no Copper and is playing 10 Bridges or 10 Highways or 10 Barons or 10 Monuments or whatever, but realistically, Stables is usually a more powerful card because It labs, then lets you Cellar a copper.  Any deck without very heavy trashing is going to love that, because if you're a betweenish or Big Money deck you have all the coppers to hit, if you are an engine deck you want the Cellar effect to help you line up engine pieces like Village + Smithy, so much so you'll risk having to Stable a Silver sometimes.  Stables hitting Silver really isn't that bad, it's almost as good as Lab, because you draw two cards and then are forced to exchange a median-value-needed-for-Province for a random card, which if your deck is built right, should be median-value-needed-for-Province.  And if your deck is built wrong (you aren't ready yet), you get 6$ instead of 7$ or 5$ instead of 6$ and it's not so bad.

Of course, Stables can stack poorly and start fizzling more if you get too many.  But if the criticism of the card is, I bought too much of this card because only the first two were powerful, that's not a very good criticism, you might as well rank Chapel last because you can stack Lighthouses but not Chapels.

I think Lab is higher than Stables for the wrong reasons.

End of rant.

Venture doesn't help you green.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #135 on: August 04, 2012, 11:00:55 pm »
0

Wow, someone voted Apprentice fourth last?  Would love to hear that reasoning, haha.  Granted, I probably overrate that card a silly amount (I have it at #8).  Looking at my list, all of my top 10 are the main list's top 10 except I have Apprentice in there instead of Torturer (which I totally stand by). 
« Last Edit: August 04, 2012, 11:03:20 pm by jsh357 »
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #136 on: August 05, 2012, 12:09:50 am »
0

Glad Duke was ranked higher.
Oh, and Haggler.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #137 on: August 05, 2012, 01:29:36 am »
0

There is no fundamental difference.
The fundamental difference is whether you reshuffle or not when playing Venture (and also whether it whiffs). With 10 Ventures and no other treasure, you reshuffle with every play (and whiff with every play). With 6 Ventures, 3 Silvers, 1 Gold, it'll trigger reshuffles sometimes but not always (and whiff almost never). In a normal deck, it'll almost never trigger reshuffles (and never whiff).

And FWIW, there's a big difference between the statements "Venture is resistant to greening" and "Venture decks are resistant to greening". Full-out Venture decks behave weirdly, sure. A handful of Ventures in a normal deck are not any more resistant to greening than Gold is.

Edit: Like, all I am saying is that if you play Venture and it doesn't trigger a reshuffle, it does not sift. This is not a strawman, because (maybe only in the past?) posters would claim otherwise. The deck you're talking about (mass Ventures together with very few other treasures) is a totally different situation. I think what's going on there is that Venture is really "supposed to" have a high value, because of the chaining effect. But if your deck is small, then you get more whiffs (because you play Venture more than once per hand), which reduces its value. So it's not exactly that it's good in a green-heavy deck, but that it's bad in a trimmed deck.

It has nothing to do with the Venture triggering shuffles. The fact is that with Ventures (and no other card-type-specific sifters) in your deck, every time through the deck you see all your treasures, but you don't see all your other cards. This effect is always there with Venture. Clearly, the more you shuffle, the more pronounced it becomes, and it can definitely be argued that it's not worth buying Ventures if you're not going to shuffle a lot. But that doesn't make the effect of Ventures "fundamentally different" in a deck with lower Venture density. It just makes the effect smaller in scale.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #138 on: August 05, 2012, 01:37:04 am »
0

There is no fundamental difference.
The fundamental difference is whether you reshuffle or not when playing Venture (and also whether it whiffs). With 10 Ventures and no other treasure, you reshuffle with every play (and whiff with every play). With 6 Ventures, 3 Silvers, 1 Gold, it'll trigger reshuffles sometimes but not always (and whiff almost never). In a normal deck, it'll almost never trigger reshuffles (and never whiff).

And FWIW, there's a big difference between the statements "Venture is resistant to greening" and "Venture decks are resistant to greening". Full-out Venture decks behave weirdly, sure. A handful of Ventures in a normal deck are not any more resistant to greening than Gold is.

Edit: Like, all I am saying is that if you play Venture and it doesn't trigger a reshuffle, it does not sift. This is not a strawman, because (maybe only in the past?) posters would claim otherwise. The deck you're talking about (mass Ventures together with very few other treasures) is a totally different situation. I think what's going on there is that Venture is really "supposed to" have a high value, because of the chaining effect. But if your deck is small, then you get more whiffs (because you play Venture more than once per hand), which reduces its value. So it's not exactly that it's good in a green-heavy deck, but that it's bad in a trimmed deck.

It has nothing to do with the Venture triggering shuffles. The fact is that with Ventures (and no other card-type-specific sifters) in your deck, every time through the deck you see all your treasures, but you don't see all your other cards. This effect is always there with Venture. Clearly, the more you shuffle, the more pronounced it becomes, and it can definitely be argued that it's not worth buying Ventures if you're not going to shuffle a lot. But that doesn't make the effect of Ventures "fundamentally different" in a deck with lower Venture density. It just makes the effect smaller in scale.
But here you're comparing it to Peddler. If you count the treasure Venture draws as "seen", then you're valuing the Venture itself at just $1, like Peddler. I agree that Venture is more green-resilient than Peddler.

But usually Venture is viewed as a strictly-better-than-Silver treasure, not as a Peddler variant. That's why it matters how you account for the value of the card that Venture draws, because we're comparing to Silver/Gold, not to Peddler.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #139 on: August 05, 2012, 01:44:27 am »
0

Regarding part 3 of the list, I think Upgrade, Stables, Lab, and Bazaar are all too high. They are all potentially really good support cards, but they don't really have a lot of star power, and I think there enough cards with that star power that these should be lower -- around the top of the previous group. And Duke is much too low. Duke is a really important card that (like the other potentially high-value alt-VP cards) basically changes the object of the game. No matter what you do with your deck, it has to account for Duke. It either has to be able to quickly end the game before too many Dukes are acquired, or be able to handle having a lot of Duchies in the deck. Stuff like Lab and Stables you can just straight-up ignore a lot of the time.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #140 on: August 05, 2012, 01:51:49 am »
0

But here you're comparing it to Peddler. If you count the treasure Venture draws as "seen", then you're valuing the Venture itself at just $1, like Peddler. I agree that Venture is more green-resilient than Peddler.

But usually Venture is viewed as a strictly-better-than-Silver treasure, not as a Peddler variant. That's why it matters how you account for the value of the card that Venture draws, because we're comparing to Silver/Gold, not to Peddler.

I again point you to the extreme case with 10 Ventures vs 10 Silvers (or 10 Golds or 10 Coppers -- your choice since the actual coin value on the card is irrelevant to the nature of the resilience to greening). You can't deny that there is something going on here. You're just confusing yourself trying to view things in different, incomplete ways. If you talk about the Venture taking on the value of the cards it draws and assume you never shuffle, and all kinds of other crazy assumptions, you just obscure what Venture is actually doing. That's why it's useful to think of extreme cases where nothing else is going on.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #141 on: August 05, 2012, 02:18:39 am »
0

The good news is that, just as with the worst $5s, the best $5s are exactly right.  I had the same top 10 as the community list, so yay.  And I had Apprentice and Margrave as 11 and 12, so yay for that too.

Most of the rest of this list is just a little off. Pops is right that Stables ought to be better than Lab; I actually had Lab at #15 but put Stables up at #13 instead.  I had Upgrade a couple slots higher, and Haggler a couple lower: Haggler is a great engine builder and can be a serviceable pseudo-Hoard sometimes but I find that I end up buying it not quite often enough to justify ranking it higher: sometimes there are power $5s you can't afford to ever skip buying, sometimes the Haggler can make you take a Copper, and if there aren't Villages you often want other terminals. As for Upgrade, I'm just going to make the general observation that non-terminal trashing is underappreciated in general around these parts (Loan, Lookout, and Spice Merchant all deserved better than they got here, some of them far better).  Eh, #23 is a few spots lower than I had but still reasonable.

And I had Bazaar higher.  That's another underappreciated card.   All of you grouping it in with Market and Treasury rather than Festival and City are doing it wrong.  It is a Village, and a damn good one at that.

...

But a little bit of this list is WAY off.  I'm not surprised at all to see Duke and Highway be so wildly, massively overrated, but I was a little blindsided about Merchant Ship.  Those were, of course, the three I had at #33 (Duke), #34 (Highway), and #35 (Merchant Ship).  So yeah, I was almost the worst rank for two of these cards. 

For Merchant Ship- my argument against this card was alluded to in the discussion about Harvest: the problem with it is that terminal treasure with no other bonus, as a class of card, is just always underwhelming to me. This is a card I only pick up around 30 percent of the time, a lower percentage than all but one card outside of the bottom group.  I mean, sure, it is definitely the best terminal treasure card- but it's underwhelming in engines (sometimes useful, okay), and pretty darn bad in Terminal Draw BM.  I understand that some folks like it in BM that isn't terminal draw, and I guess it can be alright in that capacity, but when you factor in how often I don't buy it, and the fact that its effect doesn't really ever warp the board, I think it has to be ranked pretty lowly.  (Yes, I am aware that the Duration effect mitigates its terminal-ness, but that should be balanced against the fact that the Duration effect also forces missed reshuffles and makes it give somewhat less than $4 due to the time value of money.)

Highway, eh, maybe it's better that #34.  But it is sure as hell a lot closer to #34 than #20.  Without +Buy or gain, it is just a Peddler.  And a $5 Peddler is a pretty rotten deal!  I buy Highway barely more than half the time, compared to over 80% for the general populace.  Whereas Bridge gives you the +Buy to take advantage of cost shenanigans (and Bridge is an overbought card to begin with), Highway is well and useless without specific triggers (really you need not just a separate +Buy, but sufficient trashing/cycling, and a lack of disruptive attacks).  Highway is #8 on Council Room for "Win Rate Without", the sure sign of an overrated card.  Okay, sure, when the combo comes together, Highway can be amazing, so maybe #34 is not quite fair.  But like my ranking of Black Market, it's so overrated that someone's got to do it.

So we come, now, to Duke.  I put it at #33 because I wanted to recognize that BM players seem to like it, but if it was based only on my experience, Duke would be lower than Highway and Merchant Ship, and rubbing shoulders with Outpost*.  This is a card I buy only 27 percent of the time, less often than Chancellor.  It relies on Duchy, and Duchy is far as I'm concerned "that card you buy when you're losing".   This is a card I win without far, far more often than I win with- most engines want nothing to do with Duke; most other alt-VP strategies are preferable because they don't rely on $5s, Curse games frequently 3-pile on Duchy, Curse and something else before you even have the chance to pick one up, I wouldn't even go Duke in many Big Money games (though it's better there).  So, okay, maybe I'm biased.  Let's look at the general Council Room stats to correct my mistakes.  Except that people in general only buy Duke 28 percent of the time, and lose with it more often than they win (albeit not quite as lopsidedly as I do).  Case closed.

* I buy Outpost almost as often as I buy Duke, and find it to be roughly as disruptive when good- getting twice as many turns as your opponent during the peak of your engine is, I'd say, roughly comparable to an alt-VP which can outscore Province if unchecked.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #142 on: August 05, 2012, 05:00:41 am »
+2

Bazar:Festival ::
Lab:Market

How can Festival be ranked higher than Bazaar?? I don't think the watchtower/library combo is enough to justify that.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #143 on: August 05, 2012, 06:54:07 am »
0

Yeah, I don't particularly like Festival that much. The payoff is larger, but it exchanges quite a bit of consistency in a drawing engine because it lacks the +1 card...
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #144 on: August 05, 2012, 07:38:43 am »
0

Dislike Haggler's rating. I find it's very similar to Develop. It seems awesome, gain loads of cards for free! But it's so board dependant until near endgame (where you can reliably pick up e.g. Gold with a $5 or Province with a Gold, when you'd probably prefer Duchy anyway, and in engines if there's a cheap card you want lots of, you can't easily buy them if you play your Haggler. When it works well, it shines, but well you can say that about most $5's. It doesn't work well very often, I've probably seen it in 30+ games, and it's only been a major player in one or two games. According to my Council Room, I have a much higher win rate given available with it, and a considerably higher win rate when I ignore it compared to buying it. I was the (possibly joint) 4th lowest rating of Haggler at #34, and I don't think it deserves much higher than that.
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...spin-offs are still better for all of the previously cited reasons.
But not strictly better, because the spinoff can have a different cost than the expansion.

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #145 on: August 05, 2012, 09:55:56 am »
+1

Bazar:Festival ::
Lab:Market

How can Festival be ranked higher than Bazaar?? I don't think the watchtower/library combo is enough to justify that.

Scheme:Apprentice ::
Herbalist:Salvager

That one kinda blew my mind when I first realized it.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #146 on: August 05, 2012, 10:12:48 am »
0

Bazar:Festival ::
Lab:Market

How can Festival be ranked higher than Bazaar?? I don't think the watchtower/library combo is enough to justify that.

Festival's +Buy is relatively more valuable than Market's +Buy because engines generally want both +Action and +Buy, so getting both of them together is particularly useful.

That being said, while this effect is enough to bring Festival to near-parity with Bazaar, Bazaar is still a tiny bit better.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #147 on: August 05, 2012, 11:46:08 am »
0

Bazar:Festival ::
Lab:Market

How can Festival be ranked higher than Bazaar?? I don't think the watchtower/library combo is enough to justify that.

Scheme:Apprentice ::
Herbalist:Salvager

That one kinda blew my mind when I first realized it.

Copying this over to the analogies thread...!
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #148 on: August 05, 2012, 11:53:47 am »
0

Bazar:Festival ::
Lab:Market

How can Festival be ranked higher than Bazaar?? I don't think the watchtower/library combo is enough to justify that.

Scheme:Apprentice ::
Herbalist:Salvager

That one kinda blew my mind when I first realized it.

Copying this over to the analogies thread...!

We have one of those?

Also, P.S.

...

...

...

...

...

STOP TALKING ABOUT VENTURE.  MY EYES ARE BLEEDING.

(you thought I was going to say "one more day!", didn't you?)
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 2/4 posted
« Reply #150 on: August 05, 2012, 12:13:05 pm »
0

But here you're comparing it to Peddler. If you count the treasure Venture draws as "seen", then you're valuing the Venture itself at just $1, like Peddler. I agree that Venture is more green-resilient than Peddler.

But usually Venture is viewed as a strictly-better-than-Silver treasure, not as a Peddler variant. That's why it matters how you account for the value of the card that Venture draws, because we're comparing to Silver/Gold, not to Peddler.

I again point you to the extreme case with 10 Ventures vs 10 Silvers (or 10 Golds or 10 Coppers -- your choice since the actual coin value on the card is irrelevant to the nature of the resilience to greening). You can't deny that there is something going on here. You're just confusing yourself trying to view things in different, incomplete ways. If you talk about the Venture taking on the value of the cards it draws and assume you never shuffle, and all kinds of other crazy assumptions, you just obscure what Venture is actually doing. That's why it's useful to think of extreme cases where nothing else is going on.
After thought, I'm convinced now that the important thing about 10 Ventures is whiffing, not shuffling. (Reshuffling matters, but for a different reason, and it's less important.) Instead, compare 10 Ventures + 5 Copper against 15 Golds, so that the Ventures never whiff. In this case, I don't see how one is intuitively any more green-resilient than the other. (In the first case, the average value of Venture is 1 + 9/(5+1) + 1*5/5, or $3.5, a little more than the Golds to help balance the Coppers.)

Given that in a normal deck, Venture should never whiff, I don't see how it's useful to consider cases where Venture whiffs.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2012, 12:14:37 pm by blueblimp »
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Robz888

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #151 on: August 05, 2012, 01:24:31 pm »
0

Part 3 is basically right on the money, although I continue to think Upgrade is fairly overrated. Look, I realize it's not a bad card. It's a helpful card, it's something you pick up when the Curses are flying, definitely, and to build an engine. But two things: 1) You actually need more than 1 Upgrade to make a difference, and 2) there are often better options. Remake is just doing the job much better, and more cheaply. And at the same price point, you have Apprentice, which is a whole lot better than Upgrade.

I am glad to see Merchant Ship, Haggler, and Duke get their dues. Each deserves probably a couple slots better (at the expense of Lab and Stables), but they're about right.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #152 on: August 05, 2012, 03:35:17 pm »
0

I think duke has gone from being slightly underrated to overrated. To get all 8 dukes and duchies that's 16 turns plus maybe 5-8 more of not getting them. That's at least 21 turns. A good engine should be able to get all the provinces in 15ish? Maybe a little more, but at turn 15 the duke player either has all duchies and a few dukes, or like 5 duchies and 4 dukes. That's only 38 points, 10 short of the province player. And then it's very hard to pull off in a colony game. In the absence of cursers or a strong engine duke will do well.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #153 on: August 05, 2012, 03:43:39 pm »
0

You want to get all the provinces bought by turn 15?  You're either starting at turn 8 (and never missing a turn along the way), or you're buying multiple provinces a turn.  And sure, guess what, IF you can do that, Duke's probably a bad buy.

It's far more likely that you have roughly 5-6 provinces by then, and now have a bunch of green stuff in your deck that's making it much harder to get the last 2 provinces without help, while every card the Duke player buys is worth at least as much as those Provinces you're trying to finish off.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #154 on: August 05, 2012, 03:46:47 pm »
+2

I think duke has gone from being slightly underrated to overrated. To get all 8 dukes and duchies that's 16 turns plus maybe 5-8 more of not getting them. That's at least 21 turns. A good engine should be able to get all the provinces in 15ish? Maybe a little more, but at turn 15 the duke player either has all duchies and a few dukes, or like 5 duchies and 4 dukes. That's only 38 points, 10 short of the province player. And then it's very hard to pull off in a colony game. In the absence of cursers or a strong engine duke will do well.

8 Provinces in 15 turns? Yeesh. Only the very top tier of engine boards are gonna get you 8 in that few turns. No, its probably uncommon to get all 8 provinces before maybe turn 19 or 20, unless there's a really strong engine. In which case, yeah you should go for the engine. And the duke player doesnt need all 8 of both dukes and duchies. 7 duchies and 4 dukes is enough to cover 8 provinces. so 11 cards at $5 vs 8 cards at $8. That's why duke is so strong.

Also i disagree with chwhite's assessment of duke, obvs.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #155 on: August 05, 2012, 03:51:21 pm »
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We can assume that the province player would notice the duke player and take a duchie or two away. And duke  is difficult to pull off in colony games.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #156 on: August 05, 2012, 03:52:49 pm »
0

I think duke has gone from being slightly underrated to overrated. To get all 8 dukes and duchies that's 16 turns plus maybe 5-8 more of not getting them. That's at least 21 turns. A good engine should be able to get all the provinces in 15ish? Maybe a little more, but at turn 15 the duke player either has all duchies and a few dukes, or like 5 duchies and 4 dukes. That's only 38 points, 10 short of the province player. And then it's very hard to pull off in a colony game. In the absence of cursers or a strong engine duke will do well.

8 Provinces in 15 turns? Yeesh. Only the very top tier of engine boards are gonna get you 8 in that few turns. No, its probably uncommon to get all 8 provinces before maybe turn 19 or 20, unless there's a really strong engine. In which case, yeah you should go for the engine. And the duke player doesnt need all 8 of both dukes and duchies. 7 duchies and 4 dukes is enough to cover 8 provinces. so 11 cards at $5 vs 8 cards at $8. That's why duke is so strong.

Also i disagree with chwhite's assessment of duke, obvs.

But those extra cards from duke will take a toll on your deck without support.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #157 on: August 05, 2012, 03:53:21 pm »
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Yes, the provinces player can and usually should steal a couple duchies. But those extra duchies slow the game down. If we split the duchies 6/2 I only need 6 dukes now to make up the difference in points. So i need 12 cards costing 5 to match your 8 costing 8 and 2 costing 5.

And yeah, dukes are terrible in colony games. Which happen about 15% of the time (and are soon about to happen far less). But really, most alt vp's are terrible with colonies.
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jonts26

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #158 on: August 05, 2012, 03:54:50 pm »
0

I think duke has gone from being slightly underrated to overrated. To get all 8 dukes and duchies that's 16 turns plus maybe 5-8 more of not getting them. That's at least 21 turns. A good engine should be able to get all the provinces in 15ish? Maybe a little more, but at turn 15 the duke player either has all duchies and a few dukes, or like 5 duchies and 4 dukes. That's only 38 points, 10 short of the province player. And then it's very hard to pull off in a colony game. In the absence of cursers or a strong engine duke will do well.

8 Provinces in 15 turns? Yeesh. Only the very top tier of engine boards are gonna get you 8 in that few turns. No, its probably uncommon to get all 8 provinces before maybe turn 19 or 20, unless there's a really strong engine. In which case, yeah you should go for the engine. And the duke player doesnt need all 8 of both dukes and duchies. 7 duchies and 4 dukes is enough to cover 8 provinces. so 11 cards at $5 vs 8 cards at $8. That's why duke is so strong.

Also i disagree with chwhite's assessment of duke, obvs.

But those extra cards from duke will take a toll on your deck without support.

Yeah, you usually need SOME support. I'm not saying you can blindly go duke every game. But you don't need much support. And yeah you've got a few extra green cards, but hitting $5 is SO SO SO SO SO much easier than hitting $8.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #159 on: August 05, 2012, 04:02:51 pm »
0

When duke shines, it really shines. But it's almost unusable in 15% of games, and can be easily beat in maybe 10% of games with good engines? A card that is beat in a quarter of games is not the number 18 $5 card, which has alot of elite cards.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #160 on: August 05, 2012, 04:08:39 pm »
+1

So a card that's anywhere from useful to game-changingly awesome 75% of the time doesn't belong at #18 on this list?

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

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jonts26

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #161 on: August 05, 2012, 04:16:23 pm »
0

So a card that's anywhere from useful to game-changingly awesome 75% of the time doesn't belong at #18 on this list?

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

I would actually probably say it's dominant a bit less that 75% of the time. Maybe like 60%? So ok, you only buy it 60% of the time, but it's so incredibly powerful when you do want it, that has to count for quite a bit. Duke certainly doesn't belong in the top 5, and probably not the top 10, but I'd bump it up to make about #15.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #162 on: August 05, 2012, 04:19:58 pm »
+1

I think duke has gone from being slightly underrated to overrated. To get all 8 dukes and duchies that's 16 turns plus maybe 5-8 more of not getting them. That's at least 21 turns. A good engine should be able to get all the provinces in 15ish? Maybe a little more, but at turn 15 the duke player either has all duchies and a few dukes, or like 5 duchies and 4 dukes. That's only 38 points, 10 short of the province player. And then it's very hard to pull off in a colony game. In the absence of cursers or a strong engine duke will do well.

8 Provinces in 15 turns? Yeesh. Only the very top tier of engine boards are gonna get you 8 in that few turns. No, its probably uncommon to get all 8 provinces before maybe turn 19 or 20, unless there's a really strong engine. In which case, yeah you should go for the engine. And the duke player doesnt need all 8 of both dukes and duchies. 7 duchies and 4 dukes is enough to cover 8 provinces. so 11 cards at $5 vs 8 cards at $8. That's why duke is so strong.

Also i disagree with chwhite's assessment of duke, obvs.

You're assuming the Province player can't poach a couple Duchies, and either deal with them or trash them for benefit.  An anti-Duke player is usually going to have to engage in a little bit of denial, but engine plus denial can often beat Duke, for sufficiently good values of "engine".

Here's a few examples of anti-Duke play carrying the day:

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120420-112950-6d524d5b.html : Obviously a Minion engine is going to prefer Provinces to Dukes because otherwise it'd choke on green, but does that mean you should just skip the Minions and go Duke?  Not with Swindler around.  I don't even have to buy any Duchies here, I Swindle three of them away and that does the job nicely.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120615-064001-65ef9107.html : Governors make the Province route just plain faster here.  I try to take all your advice and go Duke, it fails spectacularly, back to not doing that.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120605-215708-d3625e79.html : Another time I try to Duke and fail.  My opponent merely needs to poach two Duchies, and can then take his time draining the Province stack.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120612-105400-6ec8040a.html : Also great against Dukes: Saboteur.  I'm certain that I would have won this game had my connection not been dropped.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110718-150855-ff59e5fd.html : Duke can outscore Provinces, but not Colonies.  Not even on hardcore Big Money boards like this one, which featured no trashing, attack, or card draw worth a damn.

...

I would like to hear more from the people who had Highway and Merchant Ship rated highly; I suspect that has more potential to be an enlightening discussion than more Duke chatter now.

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #163 on: August 05, 2012, 04:22:53 pm »
0

So a card that's anywhere from useful to game-changingly awesome 75% of the time doesn't belong at #18 on this list?

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.



Duke is bought in 28% of games, and in those games has a less then 1 win rate with, equal to cards such as feast, fortune teller, and Royal seal. You, Jonts, have a -2 effect with Duke. It is #18 of the 5 cost cards, which is a formidable set of cards. Oh, and I'll PM you the link to my newsletter, it comes out every week. 
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chwhite

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #164 on: August 05, 2012, 04:24:27 pm »
0

Yes, the provinces player can and usually should steal a couple duchies. But those extra duchies slow the game down. If we split the duchies 6/2 I only need 6 dukes now to make up the difference in points. So i need 12 cards costing 5 to match your 8 costing 8 and 2 costing 5.

And yeah, dukes are terrible in colony games. Which happen about 15% of the time (and are soon about to happen far less). But really, most alt vp's are terrible with colonies.

Most alt VPs are WAY less terrible than Duke in Colony games.  Gardens and Silk Roads still have the potential for super-fast 3-pile rushes; Vineyard is often a card you can pick up alongside Colony; Tunnel is obviously worse as a late-game "why the hell not" buy, but its good combos are still worthwhile.

Also, Duke is a game changer way way less than 75% of the time.  If I thought it was good that often, obviously I'd have it higher.  I do think it's less bad than I used to have it, but I'm still certain to go for it less than half of the time.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #165 on: August 05, 2012, 04:25:56 pm »
0

Festival above Bazaar :D
Upgrade, Margrave and Apprentice surprisingely low, Duke and Merchant Ship at least at reasonable places.
No cards overrated, I think.
So the ten remaining are : Mountebank, Ghost Ship, Minion, Witch, Torturer (attacks), IGG, H.Party, Wharf, Governor, Tactician (I found back this last card thanks to this list : http://dominion.xseb74.com/?page=Liste_des_cartes#cartes ). What about betting on the top 10 ? Will we still have Witch and Mountebank on top ? (I think so to Mountebank !!!)
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #166 on: August 05, 2012, 04:26:05 pm »
0

You're assuming the Province player can't poach a couple Duchies, and either deal with them or trash them for benefit.  An anti-Duke player is usually going to have to engage in a little bit of denial, but engine plus denial can often beat Duke, for sufficiently good values of "engine".

I'm not assuming anything of the sort. I'm not some sort of duke apologist, and I know it isn't dominant all the time and there are good ways to deal with it, TFB being one of the best. It's not wort it on a decent percentage of boards, but when it is worth it, it warps the game to such a large extent and I think that justifies it's high position.

I would like to hear more from the people who had Highway and Merchant Ship rated highly; I suspect that has more potential to be an enlightening discussion than more Duke chatter now.

Highway is too high, but I'll defend merchant ship. It's really good in Duke games!
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DWetzel

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #167 on: August 05, 2012, 04:27:36 pm »
0

So a card that's anywhere from useful to game-changingly awesome 75% of the time doesn't belong at #18 on this list?

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

I would actually probably say it's dominant a bit less that 75% of the time. Maybe like 60%? So ok, you only buy it 60% of the time, but it's so incredibly powerful when you do want it, that has to count for quite a bit. Duke certainly doesn't belong in the top 5, and probably not the top 10, but I'd bump it up to make about #15.

Sure, and I'd even put the "dominant" percentage a fair bit lower than you, with a largish gray area where "this might be better but it's close" in there somewhere as well.

Either way, we agree that there's no way on earth that there are 18 cards that are significantly more important than that.
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DWetzel

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #168 on: August 05, 2012, 04:34:35 pm »
+1

When duke shines, it really shines. But it's almost unusable in 15% of games, and can be easily beat in maybe 10% of games with good engines? A card that is beat in a quarter of games is not the number 18 $5 card, which has alot of elite cards.

I guess the bottom line here is, which "elite $5 cards" are getting the short shrift here?  The next 6 cards in line are (from #19 - #24): Festival, Highway, Bazaar, Jester, Upgrade, and Merchant Ship.  It's not like any of those cards aren't completely ignorable/useless on a significant percentage of boards too -- and the boards they ARE useful on, they're basically never ever a MUST buy.

PS: Just LOL at the "Jonts has a big - effect with Duke".  I have a -1.12 Effect With for Chapel, and a +2.84 Effect Without.  Clearly, Chapel is a worthless card when compared to, say, Duchess (+1.01 with, -0.78 without).

PPS: Of course, both of those cards pale in comparison to the mighty power of Copper -- EW= 2.20, EWo = -1.05.  I'm thinking of eschewing other cards and just buying a bunch of Coppers thanks to this revelation.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2012, 04:40:24 pm by DWetzel »
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jonts26

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #169 on: August 05, 2012, 04:36:26 pm »
+1

So a card that's anywhere from useful to game-changingly awesome 75% of the time doesn't belong at #18 on this list?

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.



Duke is bought in 28% of games, and in those games has a less then 1 win rate with, equal to cards such as feast, fortune teller, and Royal seal. You, Jonts, have a -2 effect with Duke. It is #18 of the 5 cost cards, which is a formidable set of cards. Oh, and I'll PM you the link to my newsletter, it comes out every week.

Well we need to take those particular stats with a grain of salt. The overall stats involve the entire community at large, which involves a lot of low level play. As for my personal stats, well how about these: my effect with Mountebank is -0.76, my effect with hunting party is -.47. Clearly those cards suck too!
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chwhite

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #170 on: August 05, 2012, 04:48:30 pm »
0

When duke shines, it really shines. But it's almost unusable in 15% of games, and can be easily beat in maybe 10% of games with good engines? A card that is beat in a quarter of games is not the number 18 $5 card, which has alot of elite cards.

I guess the bottom line here is, which "elite $5 cards" are getting the short shrift here?  The next 6 cards in line are (from #19 - #24): Festival, Highway, Bazaar, Jester, Upgrade, and Merchant Ship.  It's not like any of those cards aren't completely ignorable/useless on a significant percentage of boards too -- and the boards they ARE useful on, they're basically never ever a MUST buy.

I definitely disagree with this:

* If you have good reason to go engine and Bazaar/Festival is the only Village (or Festival is the only +Buy) then they're must-buys for sure.
* Highway is very often a dead card but sometimes the key to incredibly strong combos, so it can be a must-buy.  It's overrated though.
* Jester is not the best of attacks, but virtually all attacks have situations where you ignore them at your peril.
* Okay, perhaps Upgrade is rarely a must-buy.  But it is so, so frequently useful.
* Yeah, Merchant Ship is useless on a significant % of boards, and even when it's good it doesn't really ever warp the game; I'd put Duke above it.  But that's because Merchant Ship is about ten slots too high to begin with.

If you go lower, I'd say that (even assuming Duke is better than I, perhaps unfairly, think it isn't) City is definitely a card which is buyable more often than Duke, and just as game-changing when it's good.  City was underrated pretty badly here, to be fair.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #171 on: August 05, 2012, 04:56:15 pm »
0

I had duke around 30, which may be a little low. But if your going to take the game changing argument then City, Jester, and Highway can be game changing. As is a turn 1/2 trading post. And festival, bazaar, and rabble all are parts of a good engine. Rabbles attack can particularly hurt dukes.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #172 on: August 05, 2012, 04:58:01 pm »
0

Yeah, how did City get rated so low?  In any engine-favorable board, or any board where at least one pile is sure to empty, you ignore City at your peril.
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chwhite

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #173 on: August 05, 2012, 05:00:18 pm »
0

So a card that's anywhere from useful to game-changingly awesome 75% of the time doesn't belong at #18 on this list?

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.



Duke is bought in 28% of games, and in those games has a less then 1 win rate with, equal to cards such as feast, fortune teller, and Royal seal. You, Jonts, have a -2 effect with Duke. It is #18 of the 5 cost cards, which is a formidable set of cards. Oh, and I'll PM you the link to my newsletter, it comes out every week.

Well we need to take those particular stats with a grain of salt. The overall stats involve the entire community at large, which involves a lot of low level play. As for my personal stats, well how about these: my effect with Mountebank is -0.76, my effect with hunting party is -.47. Clearly those cards suck too!

Well, all of the top players have a negative effect with for Mountebank, I remember looking at this for a Tournament-defending post awhile back.  It is so strong, so obvious in its strength, and so deadly to engines, that it very often erases the skill differential between players. 

You buy Mountebank and Hunting Party about 90 percent of the time and Duke 36 percent of the time; I think the gain %s are probably more robust and relevant than the effects with/without here.  Because, yeah, maybe the low effects with just means that Duke is an anti-skill card rather than a weak card.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #174 on: August 05, 2012, 05:03:10 pm »
0

Highway is too high, but I'll defend merchant ship. It's really good in Duke games!

:P

I do sort of see that, actually.  But it can't be that good with Dukes because it conflicts at the $5 price point, no?
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To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

jonts26

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #175 on: August 05, 2012, 05:07:07 pm »
0

Highway is too high, but I'll defend merchant ship. It's really good in Duke games!

:P

I do sort of see that, actually.  But it can't be that good with Dukes because it conflicts at the $5 price point, no?

No, it's probably mid level duke support. But some of the other really good duke support is also at $5. Haggler and Cache off the top of my head.
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DWetzel

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #176 on: August 05, 2012, 05:24:55 pm »
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I had duke around 30, which may be a little low. But if your going to take the game changing argument then City, Jester, and Highway can be game changing. As is a turn 1/2 trading post. And festival, bazaar, and rabble all are parts of a good engine. Rabbles attack can particularly hurt dukes.

On a higher percentage of boards than Duke doesn't matter, City is simply an overpriced Village.  Highway is great with +Buys or Ironworks or something, but often it's "congratulations, it's basically a Silver" and is completely ignorable.  Jester is a fine enough card, but you don't see entire strategy articles written about "how to build a Jester deck", and nobody ever thinks "uhoh, Jester's on the board, I'd better change my strategy completely to accomodate its existence".
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dondon151

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #177 on: August 05, 2012, 07:00:26 pm »
+1

Jester is really strong when it can be played repeatedly; it's one of the cards that can effectively lock down an opponent in the endgame.

EDIT: I made this post on my phone, so I couldn't elaborate much further. Of course a lot of cards are "really strong when it can be played repeatedly," but Jester is moderately strong throughout the entire game. Early on, if you hit something good, you both get a free copy of it and you deny your opponent a play of that card for the current shuffle; later on (in the absence of other Curse givers) it junks a green deck, and keeps on junking even if it hits Copper.

It's a moderately ranked $5 card, and I think that's a fair assessment.

In other news: I think some users are confusing "game-changing" with actually being good. Duke warps the game a little bit, but I don't think it's as particularly strong as some state (especially without good enablers). We like to make comparisons to standard Province rushes and say that it's so easy to get 11 cards at $5 to outscore Provinces. But, like, that's not actually so easy. Very rarely, if ever, do you build up your deck for 7 turns or so and then hit $5 for 11 straight turns, nor do you even hit $5 for a good majority of those turns (most, yes, but not overwhelmingly so).

The big problem I have with Duke is that there aren't very many ways to play it (good luck building a Duke engine and succeeding) and you can't really ease your way out of it once you commit.
« Last Edit: August 05, 2012, 10:04:31 pm by dondon151 »
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Jfrisch

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #178 on: August 06, 2012, 01:54:11 am »
+1

11 duke/duchies is obviously no easy slog... but neither is 8 provinces. The difference is three cards which, while significant, is counteracted rather heavily by just how much easier it is to get to 5, than to 8. Also, re-denial, if you can deny your opponent a few duchies and still go province, why not just go duke instead? you need at least 2 duchies for it to really be denial, and 2 duchies 8 provinces, is 10 cards vs 6 duchies, 6 dukes, 12 cards. For essentially any BM strategy Duke is better than province (the exception being masquerade/envoy, but hey if you are playing for 8 provinces envoy and masquerade are actually, much, much weaker so it doesn't really matter). As for duke and engines, I just don't understand people's point of view here. Alt-VP is necessary for a whole bunch of engines which otherwise don't have time to kick in, rarely is the relevant alt-vp great halls/nobles. 11 non-estate cards is a heck of a lot of green to have in your deck... but so is 8 provinces
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #179 on: August 06, 2012, 01:57:15 am »
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...compare 10 Ventures + 5 Copper against 15 Golds....

Okay. This is the last thing I'm going to say about Venture on this thread. I promise.

Maybe I'm being unclear in what I'm saying. But this is the last shot. I don't want to compare a deck with Ventures to a deck without and say which one is better. It's either too hard or not meaningful. What I've been saying is this:

Compare a Venture deck with no green cards to one with a lot of green cards. There is a small difference.

Compare another deck with no green cards to one with a lot of green cards. There is usually a big difference.

Hence, Venture decks are more resilient to greening than other decks.
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Robz888

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #180 on: August 06, 2012, 02:16:04 am »
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11 duke/duchies is obviously no easy slog... but neither is 8 provinces. The difference is three cards which, while significant, is counteracted rather heavily by just how much easier it is to get to 5, than to 8. Also, re-denial, if you can deny your opponent a few duchies and still go province, why not just go duke instead? you need at least 2 duchies for it to really be denial, and 2 duchies 8 provinces, is 10 cards vs 6 duchies, 6 dukes, 12 cards. For essentially any BM strategy Duke is better than province (the exception being masquerade/envoy, but hey if you are playing for 8 provinces envoy and masquerade are actually, much, much weaker so it doesn't really matter). As for duke and engines, I just don't understand people's point of view here. Alt-VP is necessary for a whole bunch of engines which otherwise don't have time to kick in, rarely is the relevant alt-vp great halls/nobles. 11 non-estate cards is a heck of a lot of green to have in your deck... but so is 8 provinces

Yeah, I think this whole "Duke is terrible in engines" thing is not entirely true. Sure, the engine that builds to two mega turns where you by all the Provinces at once is ill-suited to Duke. But you know, some engines are good and consistent, but don't end the game after 2 megaturns. In some of these cases I will still go the Duchy/Duke route.

Also, I'm not sure the favorability of Duke in cursing slogs has been adequately discussed. If you have Curses, and you can't get rid of them, Duke beats Province every time.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #181 on: August 06, 2012, 02:22:44 am »
+1

Highway, eh, maybe it's better that #34.  But it is sure as hell a lot closer to #34 than #20.  Without +Buy or gain, it is just a Peddler.  And a $5 Peddler is a pretty rotten deal!  I buy Highway barely more than half the time, compared to over 80% for the general populace.  Whereas Bridge gives you the +Buy to take advantage of cost shenanigans (and Bridge is an overbought card to begin with), Highway is well and useless without specific triggers (really you need not just a separate +Buy, but sufficient trashing/cycling, and a lack of disruptive attacks).  Highway is #8 on Council Room for "Win Rate Without", the sure sign of an overrated card.  Okay, sure, when the combo comes together, Highway can be amazing, so maybe #34 is not quite fair.  But like my ranking of Black Market, it's so overrated that someone's got to do it.
$5 peddler is not that bad of a deal, it's not a horrible downside. You know what else is a $5 peddler a lot of the time? Bazaar. Both are only significantly better than a peddler in an engine. Bazaar finds engines more since it is a village, but Highway gains much more power in an engine than does Bazaar. So I don't see how Highway can be significantly lower than Bazaar.

Quote
So we come, now, to Duke.  I put it at #33 because I wanted to recognize that BM players seem to like it, but if it was based only on my experience, Duke would be lower than Highway and Merchant Ship, and rubbing shoulders with Outpost*.  This is a card I buy only 27 percent of the time, less often than Chancellor.  It relies on Duchy, and Duchy is far as I'm concerned "that card you buy when you're losing".   This is a card I win without far, far more often than I win with- most engines want nothing to do with Duke; most other alt-VP strategies are preferable because they don't rely on $5s, Curse games frequently 3-pile on Duchy, Curse and something else before you even have the chance to pick one up, I wouldn't even go Duke in many Big Money games (though it's better there).  So, okay, maybe I'm biased.  Let's look at the general Council Room stats to correct my mistakes.  Except that people in general only buy Duke 28 percent of the time, and lose with it more often than they win (albeit not quite as lopsidedly as I do).  Case closed.
These stats are super-misleading. I think you know that. Correlation does not imply causation. People don't lose because of Duchies. They buy Duchies when they're losing. Buying Duchies doesn't make you lose, especially when Duke is around. In fact, that's one thing you can say about how strong Duke is. It makes an otherwise bad card in Duchy into a really, really good one -- like one you want to buy ahead of Province a fair amount of the time.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120420-112950-6d524d5b.html : Obviously a Minion engine is going to prefer Provinces to Dukes because otherwise it'd choke on green, but does that mean you should just skip the Minions and go Duke?  Not with Swindler around.  I don't even have to buy any Duchies here, I Swindle three of them away and that does the job nicely.
Quote
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120612-105400-6ec8040a.html : Also great against Dukes: Saboteur.  I'm certain that I would have won this game had my connection not been dropped.
Swindler and Saboteur counter Duke. Okay. A lot of cards have specific cards that counter them. What you don't mention is that a lot of otherwise dangerous attacks are not that dangerous to Duke decks. You can kind of ignore handsize attacks and be pretty resilient to cursing attacks since you're mostly only using 3 cards out of your hand anyway.

Quote
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120605-215708-d3625e79.html : Another time I try to Duke and fail.  My opponent merely needs to poach two Duchies, and can then take his time draining the Province stack.
I have no idea what you're doing with so many trashers in a Duke deck. You don't want to trash anything besides maybe your Estates.

Quote
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20120615-064001-65ef9107.html : Governors make the Province route just plain faster here.  I try to take all your advice and go Duke, it fails spectacularly, back to not doing that.
Quote
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110718-150855-ff59e5fd.html : Duke can outscore Provinces, but not Colonies.  Not even on hardcore Big Money boards like this one, which featured no trashing, attack, or card draw worth a damn.
Yup. Governors are fast. It's also an anti-handsize attack, which is the opposite of what a Duke deck needs. And Colonies are worth too many points.

The thing is, most cards have things that beat them. Name any other card that has shown up so far, and you can find a similar set of games showing that card lose...
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Jfrisch

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #182 on: August 06, 2012, 02:39:55 am »
0

reasons not to go duke:
colonies
rushes
trash for benefit cards
mega-turn engines (though it depends, duke can do really well with bridge mega-turns)
engines which have tremendous 3 pile ending control
Sab/swindler
reasons to go duke:
hand discard attacks
cursers
BM game
engine which is too slow for provinces

I think the latter beats out the former.



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dondon151

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #183 on: August 06, 2012, 02:51:57 am »
0

Yeah, I think this whole "Duke is terrible in engines" thing is not entirely true. Sure, the engine that builds to two mega turns where you by all the Provinces at once is ill-suited to Duke. But you know, some engines are good and consistent, but don't end the game after 2 megaturns. In some of these cases I will still go the Duchy/Duke route.

The reason I say that Duke is ill suited to engine strategies is because I'm pretty sure that most Duke engines will actually straight up lose to a BM Duke. You're building up your engine; your opponent just buys 5 Duchies, and you're pretty much dead in the water. If you deny 3 of the Duchies, might as well build your engine to buy Provinces, because those Dukes aren't cost effective.

The other thing is that most engines don't build linearly. It doesn't take 160% of the time for an engine to consistently buy cards at $8 vs. to consistently buy cards at $5.
« Last Edit: August 06, 2012, 02:58:30 am by dondon151 »
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Robz888

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #184 on: August 06, 2012, 02:56:34 am »
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Yeah, I think this whole "Duke is terrible in engines" thing is not entirely true. Sure, the engine that builds to two mega turns where you by all the Provinces at once is ill-suited to Duke. But you know, some engines are good and consistent, but don't end the game after 2 megaturns. In some of these cases I will still go the Duchy/Duke route.

The reason I say that Duke is ill suited to engine strategies is because I'm pretty sure that most Duke engines will actually straight up lose to a BM Duke. You're building up your engine; your opponent just buys 5 Duchies, and you're pretty much dead in the water. If you deny 3 of the Duchies, might as well build your engine to buy Provinces, because those Dukes aren't cost effective.

Well, that's true. But now and then I find myself in a situation where my opponent and I have both been building great engines, because it's an engine board. One of those, daring each other to make the first move, boards. We have just kept building up the engine. And then I decide to fire, and sometimes I see Duke and I say, hey, I can scoop up 3 Duchies right now, definitely win the split, and coast to a win on Dukes. It doesn't happen all the time, sure, but it happens.
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O

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #185 on: August 06, 2012, 02:57:29 am »
0

Yeah, I think this whole "Duke is terrible in engines" thing is not entirely true. Sure, the engine that builds to two mega turns where you by all the Provinces at once is ill-suited to Duke. But you know, some engines are good and consistent, but don't end the game after 2 megaturns. In some of these cases I will still go the Duchy/Duke route.

The reason I say that Duke is ill suited to engine strategies is because I'm pretty sure that most Duke engines will actually straight up lose to a BM Duke. You're building up your engine; your opponent just buys 5 Duchies, and you're pretty much dead in the water. If you deny 3 of the Duchies, might as well build your engine to buy Provinces, because those Dukes aren't cost effective.

Well, that's true. But now and then I find myself in a situation where my opponent and I have both been building great engines, because it's an engine board. One of those, daring each other to make the first move, boards. We have just kept building up the engine. And then I decide to fire, and sometimes I see Duke and I say, hey, I can scoop up 3 Duchies right now, definitely win the split, and coast to a win on Dukes. It doesn't happen all the time, sure, but it happens.

It happens about as frequently as a Gardens engines does. As in, not very.
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DStu

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #186 on: August 06, 2012, 04:09:32 am »
0

@ Haggler vs. Develop: So untrue.  I mean, I really like Develop for when it is strong, but it bascially needs to important parts of the deck to be $2 appart, and either a very usefull card in the middle, or the possibility to align Devlop and its target.

Haggler works just in BigMoney. I remember BM-Haggler to be not the strongest one, so really playing Haggler-BM might lose to lots of things. But Haggler does in this situation what it should. Free Silver for Gold (or Haggler), free Silver for Duchy, free Gold for Province.  And it gets better quite easily. Any Cantrip at $4 or $5 gives you a free Silver, so in BM you reduce the question if you for $4 or $5 take the Cantrip or the Silver to the question if you take the Cantrip and the Silver. Or the question if you take Cantrip or the Gold to the question of you take the Cantrip and the Gold.

And that's just BigMoney, in engines you just need the components (or support) to not having the same price, compared to Develop, where you need to have them $2 appart.
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dondon151

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #187 on: August 06, 2012, 05:13:31 am »
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I've actually always wondered why Haggler isn't very, very good. I mean, I know it isn't. But most of the time, when you want it, it's kind of like +$6, +1 buy or better.
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O

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #188 on: August 06, 2012, 05:16:55 am »
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Haggler certainly has games where it's excellent. It's a decently strong 5$, the only problem is that 5$ is at the upper end for a terminal silver (no shut up goons doesn't count).
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Qvist

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #189 on: August 06, 2012, 06:45:59 am »
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A few hours until the previews will come out. So there's time to read the last part and discuss a little.

The Best $5 Cards - Part 4/4
#10 ▼2 Tactician (Seaside) Weighted Average: 10.63 ▼0.50 / Median: 10 =0 / Mode: 10 ▲2 / Standard Deviation: 6.1 ▼1.1
Highest Rank(s): #2 (2x), #3 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #26 (1x), #28 (1x), #32 (1x)

Tactician has a huge lead over the last card with over 3 points. The consensus it lost may also be the reason for losing 2 ranks as it had much more lower ranks than last time. It was 8 times in the Top 5.

Tactician makes use of the phrase "One big turn is better than 2 mediocre ones". So in deck in that you can't guarantee a Province each turn, with Tactician it's still very likely to get 2 Provinces each 2 turns. This applies especially to cards that take profit of big hand sizes like Forge, Bank or Tournament+Province. It's also great to get key cards like King's Court early or as a defense against discarding attacks (0/8 is definitely better than 3/3). And in combination with Black Market or Action cards that let you gain virtual money like Vault/Secret Chamber, Baron or a bunch of Festivals/Conspirators/Grand Markets you can even setup a Double Tactician strategy. You can play your second Tactician in your Tactician turn and still have enough money to buy something and get another 10 card hand in the next hand.
#9 ▼3 Torturer (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 10.40 ▼1.84 / Median: 9 ▼2.5 / Mode: 9 ▼3 / Standard Deviation: 5.0 ▲2.8
Highest Rank(s): #4 (4x) / Lowest Rank(s): #23 (1x), #24 (1x), #27 (1x)

Torturer is the 5th best $5 Attack Card. It was 11 times in the Top 5 and it has very few low ranks, therefore the much lower deviation this time. But it lost still 3 ranks with nearly 2 points worse.

A single Torturer is not that great. You can choose to take a Curse in hand or discard. Taking the Curse in hand is not that great as getting it onto your discard pile or even on top. If you have a Forge or a Jack of All Trades in hand, a Curse in hand doesn't hurt you that much. In all other cases it's just a Militia-like discarding attack. But multiple Torturers can really torture you, especially because you have a choice, but still are between the devil and the deep blue sea. So Torturer highly depends from Villages; especially with Border Villages, Fishing Villages or Crossroads a Torturer Chain is definitely the way to go. The first one that gets this set up is likely to win. When the Curses are gone, Torturers are no danger anymore. But the Curse split is likely highly in your favor and you already have a good running engine to maybe pick a few more treasures and then go green. Only with direct Cursers you may still skip them, because until you've set up this chain, there are few Curses left. The drop in rating may also come from the time it takes to setup this chain if there are no strong villages. Torturer/Chapel is a #69 ▼27 opening and Torturer/Crossroads is at #91.
#8 ▼3 Minion (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 9.69 ▼1.46 / Median: 9 ▼3 / Mode: 7 ▼1 / Standard Deviation: 4.5 ▲1.8
Highest Rank(s): #3 (4x) / Lowest Rank(s): #18 (1x), #19 (1x), #26 (1x)

Minion is the 4th best $5 Attack Card. It was only voted in the Top 5 8 times. It has a really low deviation now, but lost 3 ranks like Torturer.

Minion's discard attack can hit even stronger than any other discard attack. You have one card more than with Militia, but against Minion you cannot choose which card to keep. The non-terminal $2 is great in every engine and the discard option helps you to cycle faster. Those two benefits make it a self-working engine. If you win the Minion split, you can play the first Minions in your hand to get $2 and the last one to get the next 4 cards, then just proceed. And every non-terminal card with virtual coins and/or a non-terminal trasher fit very well in a Minion deck. Yes, there has to be some requirements: You are playing a 2-player game and have a thin deck and don't play with Colony, ... to name the major issues. The time it takes to setup this and these restriction may be the reason for the lower rating this time. But then a Minion deck is super strong. Minion/Chapel is the #13 ▲4 best opening.
#7 ▲2 Ghost Ship (Seaside) Weighted Average: 9.29 ▲1.30 / Median: 8 ▲1 / Mode: 7 ▲1 / Standard Deviation: 5.7 ▲2.7
Highest Rank(s): #2 (1x), #3 (1x), #4 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #24 (1x), #28 (1x), #31 (1x)

Ghost Ship is now the third best $5 attack card. It was 11 times in the Top 5 and has much more agreement than last time and went up 2 ranks.

Ghost Ship is very strong because it's a discard attack in which you don't have to discard, you have to top deck. So this messes up this turn and the next turn. You have then to choose to get 2 mediocre turns or a bad turn and hopefully a better next turn if you aren't getting "ghostshipped" again. This results in really slow games in which it takes long until you reshuffle and see the newly bought cards the first time. The difference to all other strong attack cards is you don't want to play as many as you can in one turn, you just want to constantly play it each turn. That's the reason why Ghost Ship with Schemes can be devastating. If there are no good defense cards / counters, you are in a pin you aren't likely to get out soon. So in comparism to Torturer and Minion a single play is stronger and may be the reason it was voted higher than those 2 cards this time. Ghost Ship/Chapel is the #23 best opening.
#6 ▲9 Governor (Promo) Weighted Average: 8.41 ▲9.13 / Median: 7 ▲8.5 / Mode: 7 ▲4 / Standard Deviation: 8.1 ▲1.5
Highest Rank(s): #1 (5x) / Lowest Rank(s): #23 (2x), #39 (1x), #46 (1x)

Governor made a big jump of 9 ranks and is over 9 points better. The deviation is also lower, but still pretty high for a high ranked card. It has two really big outliers, with one being third last! On the other side it's the first card with a first place - 5 times!

The different options make it difficult to play. And depending on what you choose it can a really bad card or a great one. That may also explain the high deviation. Like Council Room, the +1 card may pretty huge for your opponent if you choose +3 cards. And if you even choose that multiple times in a row, you give your opponent a great hand too. So either do that only if you a) play a discard attack afterwards, b) can end that game in a mega turn or c) possess your opponent afterwards. In all these 3 cases Governor is really powerful. The remodel effect is bad in the early game, you're helping your opponent even more for letting him trash his Coppers or get a Silver for an Estate, you can use it in the end game to remodel your treasure card in respective Victory card. The best option without above mentioned supporting cards may be the Gold gaining. The Silver can be really bad for your opponent in a Colony game or if he builds a deck with high action density. And you can pick up Governors over Golds because you can get Golds with Governor later. That leads to a state where Governor can combo with itself. Gain many Governors, choose the gain Gold option every time. With many Governors and Gold in your deck use a few Governors for +3 cards and the rest to remodel your Gold into Provinces in a mega turn. Its power in a thin deck shows the rank #3 ▲3 in the best openings for Governor/Chapel.
#5 ▼1 Hunting Party (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 5.98 ▲0.14 / Median: 5 ▲1.5 / Mode: 5 ▲2 / Standard Deviation: 3.0 ▲1.1
Highest Rank(s): #3 (8x) / Lowest Rank(s): #13 (1x), #14 (1x), #17 (1x)

Another big gap of 2.4 points and we're in the Top 5. It has a really low deviation, because it was never voted first or second, but has no really bad votes. It loses one rank although it is a little better than last time. It would stay on #4 if we take the unweighted ranking into account.

After Stables and Laboratory, Hunting Party is the best non-terminal hand-size increasing $5 card. The advantage is the even better filter effect than Stables to get the cards in hand you really need. It's also an engine on its own, just have one Gold and at least a Silver and a good terminal action which gives you at least $2, like Goons, Monument, Horse Traders, Haggler or Baron. With at least 5-6 Hunting Parties you are almost guaranteed a Province each turn because you only have few different cards in your deck and get those all in hand. Going green doesn't hurt you much (only Duchies) and with Cursers you only need a Hunting Party more to filter Curses. It's not strictly better than Laboratory if there are no different cards left in your deck, but that mostly occurs only if you already have a very strong deck or you have a heavily trimmed deck what you don't need when you go for Hunting Parties. The only thing you have to watch out in such a deck is when to trigger the reshuffle so you get at least a Hunting Party in the next hand again. Hunting Party/Chapel is the #22 ▲2 best opening.
#4 ▲3 Ill-Gotten Gains (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 5.91 ▲3.41 / Median: 5 ▲2 / Mode: 4 =0 / Standard Deviation: 4.3 ▲4.4
Highest Rank(s): #1 (1x), #2 (1x), #3 (6x) / Lowest Rank(s): #15 (1x), #20 (1x), #28 (1x)

Ill-Gotten-Gains is no attack per se, but we could call it the third best $5 attack card instead of Ghost Ship. It went up 3 ranks and over 3 points and its deviation is halved, so the agreement is high. It also has one first rank. It is on #5 in the unweighted ranking. But in this list it was very close too, it has a lead over Hunting Party of only 0.07 points.

I remember reading Ill-Gotten-Gains the first time and it seemed not that strong. You have only a one-shot curser to get a better Copper? The previously high deviation showed that many players thought about it that way. But that's not like it is. A Ill-Gotten-Gains Rush is really strong. Just buy Ill-Gotten-Gains every time you get to $5. The optional extra Copper make that possible. With a 5/2 opening it's even possible to deal out a Curse before the opponent's first reshuffle, especially for the first player. When the IGGs are gone, the Curses are gone too, so you just have to empty the Duchy pile to win the game and IGGs give enough money to accomplish this. Often you are even able to pick up a Province in between. But you have to be sure to hit your opponent. While these Curses are nearly unstoppable, not even with Moat or Lighthouse (making IGG even stronger), with Trader or Ambassador on the board the Curse pile won't be empty if you empty the IGG pile and your opponent may have enough time to pick up enough Provinces before you empty 2 piles. The same applies with other Cursers on the board. But in all other cases when IGG is on the board, a IGG rush is probably the dominant strategy. It has currently the highest per gain win rate of all kingdom cards (1.21 ▲0.01), even higher than Grand Market or any alternative victory card.
#3 =0 Wharf (Seaside) Weighted Average: 3.52 ▲1.37 / Median: 3 ▲2 / Mode: 3 ▲2 / Standard Deviation: 2.0 ▲0.5
Highest Rank(s): #1 (8x) / Lowest Rank(s): #8 (2x), #14 (1x)

Wharf is the best non-attack $5 card. There is no doubt, it has only one rank below #10, it was 8 times first and it has the lowest deviation of all $5 cards too. It was 27 times on #3. It has a lead over Ill-Gotten-Gains of 2.4 points.

+2 Cards are mostly weak. The benefit you get in this turn is pretty weak too. But the duration effect of +2 Cards without playing an action is like 2 Caravans or if you played 2 Laboratories at the start of your next turn. And Laboratory is already a #15 Card of the same cost. If you have 2 Wharves and you play them alternating each turn, you start each turn with 7 cards and basically each Wharf is a Council Room without the drawback of giving your opponent an additional card. And as already mentioned the +Buy for a terminal draw is really nice too, you need it with so many cards in hand. You can use Wharf for Big Money with less probability of colliding (because of the duration effect) or you can build an engine. In combination with Fishing Village you are almost guaranteed big hands (like you're playing Double Tactician) and even have enough Actions left for Attacks. No matter if you're going Big Money or build a engine with it, Wharf is so strong that those games are over very quick. Wharf's draw and +Buy is also good for Fool's Gold, making Wharf/Fool's Gold the #12 ▲32 best opening. Wharf/Chapel is "only" on #46 ▼19.
#2 =0 Witch (Base) Weighted Average: 2.55 ▲1.20 / Median: 2 =0 / Mode: 2 =0 / Standard Deviation: 4.4 ▼0.1
Highest Rank(s): #1 (20x) / Lowest Rank(s): #10 (1x), #23 (1x), #26 (1x)

It was very close, even closer than last year, but Witch is only #2. With 20 first and 27 second places there is no doubt about such a high rank. It has two strange outliers and was only voted 7 times outside the Top 5.

Cursers are the strongest cards in the game, I think everyone agrees. There are only 5 guaranteed Cursers, one gives you no benefit and only costs $4, another one is a one-shot and ranked #4 on this list, the third one has Potion in its cost and the fourth is a Prize Card. So Witch is a guaranteed Curser with no drawback and definitely one of the strongest cards in the game. Not only you can curse your opponent, you get 2 additional cards. Have you ever played your King's Court with Witch? This is basically "Game Over" for your opponent. The defense with Witch on the board is mostly to get it for yourself, faster than your opponent and play it more often. Witch/Chapel is the #4 ▲1 best opening, but it is good with every 5/2 split. It is in the Top 100 14 times, even Witch/nothing is on #93 ▼40.
#1 =0 Mountebank (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 2.41 ▲1.12 / Median: 2 ▼1 / Mode: 1 =0 / Standard Deviation: 4.2 ▲1.0
Highest Rank(s): #1 (29x) / Lowest Rank(s): #16 (2x), #18 (1x), #22 (1x)

As already said, the decision was close, only 0.14 points between those two cards. But it has 9 more first places and was only voted 6 times outside the Top 5 even though its outliers are even less explainable.

Witch already is very strong, but Mountebank managed to beat it again. Yes, it cannot deal out curses guaranteed, but dealing out 2 junk cards per play is really strong and if the opponent has a Curse in hand, he is mostly behind in the Curse split anyway. So, it's stronger in the beginning where junk hurts you more. Your deck can get clogged up so fast. Then it may not hit every time in the middle game, but when the Curse pile is empty, you can still deal out Coppers, that's another advantage. While $2 is mostly weaker than +2 cards (especially in Colony games), there's no big difference in Cursing games as your deck has more junk and it's more difficult to get a money average of $1 per card at the start anyway. So, it really depends on the board which card is stronger, but mostly it is Mountebank because it hurts more. Just beware with Trader on the board or you may be giving your opponent 2 Silvers. Another reason for Mountebank being first is the opening list. Mountebank/Chapel is the overall best opening =0. Mountebank is 13 ▼1 times in the Top 100, with Mountebank/nothing even on #64 ▼35.

To the $6+ cards
« Last Edit: August 10, 2012, 07:42:28 am by Qvist »
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werothegreat

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #190 on: August 06, 2012, 07:49:39 am »
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I have never heard the idiom "between the devil and the deep blue sea" before.  I was under the impression Anglophones were supposed to say "between a rock and a hard place."
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #191 on: August 06, 2012, 07:56:51 am »
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I have never heard the idiom "between the devil and the deep blue sea" before.  I was under the impression Anglophones were supposed to say "between a rock and a hard place."

I searched for an equivalent for that german proverb and found that. As nobody complained the last time, I leaved it in this time.

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #192 on: August 06, 2012, 08:01:20 am »
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I have never heard the idiom "between the devil and the deep blue sea" before.  I was under the impression Anglophones were supposed to say "between a rock and a hard place."

I searched for an equivalent for that german proverb and found that. As nobody complained the last time, I leaved it in this time.

I'm not complaining.  It adds color!
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #193 on: August 06, 2012, 08:03:43 am »
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I have never heard the idiom "between the devil and the deep blue sea" before.  I was under the impression Anglophones were supposed to say "between a rock and a hard place."

I searched for an equivalent for that german proverb and found that. As nobody complained the last time, I leaved it in this time.

I'm not complaining.  It adds color!

Ah, ok ;) Even better.

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #194 on: August 06, 2012, 08:16:31 am »
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I have never heard the idiom "between the devil and the deep blue sea" before.  I was under the impression Anglophones were supposed to say "between a rock and a hard place."
They're both reasonably common English phrases.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #195 on: August 06, 2012, 08:26:03 am »
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Hunting Party> IGG
Witch> Mountebank
Otherwise, this list looks good. I'm glad to see Governor get his respect.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #196 on: August 06, 2012, 08:58:51 am »
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I searched for an equivalent for that german proverb and found that. As nobody complained the last time, I leaved it in this time.
The direct translation also sounds good to me.
dict.cc is pretty good at finding translations for entire proverbs instead of word by word if you want to do it that way.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #197 on: August 06, 2012, 09:17:17 am »
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Not a whole lot to complain about in the top 10.  The biggest problem is that Ghost Ship is a few spots overrated: it can be incredibly demoralizing when it works, but it can't hold a candle to actual cursing, and it has a whole host of counters that make it skippable.  (And most of these counters are cards you'll often want to pick up anyway, like say Menagerie or Tactician).  The other cards in the 6 through 9 range (I had Ghost Ship at 10) are pretty much interchangeable, I think.

Also Hunting Party should definitely be better than IGG.  IGG is probably a little more game-warping when the rush is viable, but HP is plenty game-warping too, and the rush is beatable more often than you think.  Whereas Hunting Party is skippable almost never, in my experience.

I'm glad to see Mountebank is still over Witch.  Even if Witch is a little bit better in the head-to-head or in hardcore Big Money games, Mountebank is more powerful becuase it kills engines more dead: you can sometimes power through Witch-given curses with strong trashing and a top-tier engine, such a thing is VERY rare against Mountebank.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #198 on: August 06, 2012, 10:53:53 am »
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11 duke/duchies is obviously no easy slog... but neither is 8 provinces. The difference is three cards which, while significant, is counteracted rather heavily by just how much easier it is to get to 5, than to 8. Also, re-denial, if you can deny your opponent a few duchies and still go province, why not just go duke instead? you need at least 2 duchies for it to really be denial, and 2 duchies 8 provinces, is 10 cards vs 6 duchies, 6 dukes, 12 cards. For essentially any BM strategy Duke is better than province (the exception being masquerade/envoy, but hey if you are playing for 8 provinces envoy and masquerade are actually, much, much weaker so it doesn't really matter). As for duke and engines, I just don't understand people's point of view here. Alt-VP is necessary for a whole bunch of engines which otherwise don't have time to kick in, rarely is the relevant alt-vp great halls/nobles. 11 non-estate cards is a heck of a lot of green to have in your deck... but so is 8 provinces

Yeah, I think this whole "Duke is terrible in engines" thing is not entirely true. Sure, the engine that builds to two mega turns where you by all the Provinces at once is ill-suited to Duke. But you know, some engines are good and consistent, but don't end the game after 2 megaturns. In some of these cases I will still go the Duchy/Duke route.

Also, I'm not sure the favorability of Duke in cursing slogs has been adequately discussed. If you have Curses, and you can't get rid of them, Duke beats Province every time.

Cursing slogs do improve Duchy- but they do not necessarily improve Duke, because of the likelihood of a Duchy/Curse/X three-pile ending before the Dukes become relevant.  Buying Duke in a Curse game is a lot like chasing after the Grand Markets in BM-Province: great in theory, very often not worth it in practice.  Example: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20110912-100740-5dfd902f.html . Yeah, of course winning the Duchy split is key here.  But Duke is more or less irrelevant.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #199 on: August 06, 2012, 12:10:13 pm »
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The final part of the list is really the best. I am glad the consensus here is basically correct. I don't know about having Ghost Ship over Minion and Torturer, but they're all close there.

Actually, I'd say the biggest mistake--and I know chwhite disagrees--is Mountebank over Witch. Lately, I have really come to appreciate how often Mountebank's attack is blocked because your opponent reveals a Curse. Check out this miserable game where I give my opponent the first curse (I have first turn advantage) and then he reveals that curse 4 of the next 5 times I play it. We split the freaking curses 8-2 against me: http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/17/game-20120717-173310-a89458a8.html

Sure, Mountebank shuts down engines harder, but Witch actually makes your hands have less money on average (because Mountebank's Copper counterbalances the Curse in terms of raw $$). They are the two most powerful cards in the game, but the fact that Witch's attack is unblockable except for Reactions is a definitive point in its favor.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #200 on: August 06, 2012, 12:13:34 pm »
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Not a whole lot to complain about with the top 10. My list is probably worse than this one, since I probably underrated Governor a lot.

Witch vs Mountebank I could go either way on, but I still think Witch should be #1. While it's not as good as Mountebank at eliminating the possibility of an engine, it's still good enough most of the time, so there's not a huge difference there. And in terms of giving Curses, it's clearly better since, well, it actually always gives Curses. I'm more likely to skip Mountebank (at least in favor of other cursers), and almost never want to buy a second one.

And Hunting Party I put below all the attacks right below it (which I order, incidentally, in the exact opposite order they appear on this list). All 4 of these cards are pretty close, I guess, but I just tend to favor attacks. Hunting Party just doesn't really blow me away. Hunting Party decks are simple, so they seem stronger at first, but they're not resilient to attacks, and they don't play nice with a lot of support cards, so mass HP ends up not being that great a lot of the time. Now you still might want to add them into your engine, but then it's in much more of a supporting role and might as well just be any other Lab.
« Last Edit: August 06, 2012, 12:15:06 pm by HiveMindEmulator »
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chwhite

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #201 on: August 06, 2012, 12:24:19 pm »
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They are the two most powerful cards in the game

Goons, Ambassador (2p), King's Court, and Chapel say hi.

I'd call Mountebank #5 and Witch #6.

Sure, Mountebank shuts down engines harder, but Witch actually makes your hands have less money on average (because Mountebank's Copper counterbalances the Curse in terms of raw $$).

If the average value of the cards in your deck is $1 or higher, this is not necessarily true.  In Witch games you usually can get to the point where Copper is below average, though admittedly the Curses will be mostly gone by then.

Hunting Party decks are simple, so they seem stronger at first, but they're not resilient to attacks, and they don't play nice with a lot of support cards, so mass HP ends up not being that great a lot of the time.

Depends on the attack- Hunting Party is badly hurt by hand reduction, but it can shrug off curses pretty well.  And I of course disagree that it doesn't "play nice with support cards"- the stack is not the only way to play, Hunting Party can often be an important part of more complex engines.

I definitely skip Witch way more often than Mountebank.  Part of this is an artifact from an earlier time when I was underrating Witch, but even now I think Witch is definitely ignorable a higher percentage of the time.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #202 on: August 06, 2012, 12:28:46 pm »
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They are the two most powerful cards in the game

I meant at their price point! I'm not that stupid  8)

Where's a board where you would skip Witch but not Mountebank? I can't think of one. Maybe you can give an example. It seems to me the obvious counters counter them both pretty evenly--Lighthouse, Moat, Watchtower. Then you have Masquerade and Ambassador, which does counter Witch harder, but still counters Mountebank adequately. And then Trader counters Mountebank harder than Witch. And of course Counting House counters Mountebank sort of, and doesn't counter Witch at all.
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chwhite

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #203 on: August 06, 2012, 12:37:31 pm »
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Also, because I've done it for all the other cost levels.  I'm pretty sure that my $5 list is probably the one with the most mistakes, or at least it has the most egregious mistake (Treasury).

1. Mountebank
2. Witch
3. Hunting Party
4. Wharf
5. Ill-Gotten Gains
6. Minion
7. Tactician
8. Governor
9. Torturer
10. Ghost Ship
11. Apprentice
12. Margrave
13. Stables
14. Embassy
15. Laboratory
16. Vault
17. Bazaar
18. Festival
19. Upgrade
20. Haggler
21. City
22. Treasury
23. Jester
24. Venture
25. Rabble
26. Inn
27. Trading Post
28. Cartographer
29. Council Room
30. Market
31. Horn of Plenty
32. Library
33. Duke
34. Highway
35. Merchant Ship
36. Mint
37. Outpost
38. Harvest
39. Mine
40. Royal Seal
41. Tribute
42. Contraband
43. Mandarin
44. Stash
45. Cache
46. Saboteur
47. Explorer
48. Counting House


Biggest problem here is Treasury, which I inexplicably ranked at least six or seven spots too high.  Conversely, Highway is too low for sure, since I was overreacting to its general over-ratedness.  Both of them should be around #30, with Market.

A lot of the other cards could easily go up or down a couple slots, with so many cards it's hard to get things exactly right.  In particular, I'd probably bump Saboteur and Horn of Plenty up a little, and Venture/Upgrade/Harvest down a little.  Eh, maybe someday I'll admit Wharf is better than Hunting Party, I still think it's not so clear-cut.

I will defend my placement of Bazaar and Merchant Ship against all comers.  I'll admit I'm irrationally biased against Duke, but even keeping that in mind I'm not willing to move it up much more.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 3/4 posted
« Reply #204 on: August 06, 2012, 02:09:44 pm »
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...compare 10 Ventures + 5 Copper against 15 Golds....

Okay. This is the last thing I'm going to say about Venture on this thread. I promise.

Maybe I'm being unclear in what I'm saying. But this is the last shot. I don't want to compare a deck with Ventures to a deck without and say which one is better. It's either too hard or not meaningful. What I've been saying is this:

Compare a Venture deck with no green cards to one with a lot of green cards. There is a small difference.

Compare another deck with no green cards to one with a lot of green cards. There is usually a big difference.

Hence, Venture decks are more resilient to greening than other decks.
(FWIW, I don't object to continuing discussing Venture. It's an interesting card.)

I think I understand what you're saying, which is: 10V and 10V40E decks have the same buying power most turns ($10), whereas 10G and 10G40E have drastically different buying power per turn ($15 for the former, an average of $3 for the latter). I agree. Then you're saying that it must be the green-resilience of Venture that is causing this effect. I disagree--I think the effect is not from green-resilience. Then you're saying that if it is the green-resilience causing this effect, then because there is a large effect here, then there should be a small (but non-zero) effect in normal cases. I would agree with that, if I thought it was the green-resilience causing the effect in the extreme case.

What I think is actually going on with 10V vs 10V40E is that Venture is whiffing when you play it. By "whiff", I mean the Venture chain from a single play terminates without finding a non-Venture treasure. Whiffing is bad: you miss out of the value of the final treasure you draw, plus you use up the Ventures in your deck, so that they don't contribute value to your next plays. I argue that the reason 10V40E is so good is that 10 Ventures in a deck should be $10 per play, but with a 10V deck only, you whiff too much, so you don't get the full value you would otherwise expect.

Whiffing doesn't happen in normal decks (unless you've drawn your whole deck, in which case Venture is bad). Even Venture-heavy decks are typically built to not whiff much, because whiffing is bad, unless you can get enough Ventures to buy a Province without other treasure. So, I don't think considering a whiff-every-time deck is helpful for understanding how Venture acts in a normal deck, where Venture never ever whiffs.

There IS an effect that might cause Venture to be green-resilient in normal decks, which is when you play Venture and it triggers a reshuffle, but doesn't whiff. I don't know much about this effect, but I believe it's very small in normal decks, and I'm not yet convinced that it's always a helpful effect.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #205 on: August 06, 2012, 04:30:35 pm »
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I lean towards Mountebank.  The best way to deal with curses is trashing.  Mountebank punishes trashing with the defensive mechanic it has.  Most boards have trashing, more now with Dark Ages

Is Witch really better than Mountebank head to head?  I usually go Mountebank, I don't remember being taught a lesson for it yet.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #206 on: August 06, 2012, 04:32:52 pm »
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I lean towards Mountebank.  The best way to deal with curses is trashing.  Mountebank punishes trashing with the defensive mechanic it has.  Most boards have trashing, more now with Dark Ages

Is Witch really better than Mountebank head to head?  I usually go Mountebank, I don't remember being taught a lesson for it yet.

Generally, witch is better against money decks, MB is better against engines.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #207 on: August 06, 2012, 04:37:06 pm »
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Witch is probably also better if you're going more money based yourself.

With a money based approach, you won't have as much terminal collision (or draw other dead action cards) and you can cycle a bit more often with Witch.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #208 on: August 06, 2012, 05:46:53 pm »
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@chwhite, how in the world do you justify Hunting-party over wharf? That one just confuses the heck out of me?
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #209 on: August 06, 2012, 05:54:22 pm »
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I lean towards Mountebank.  The best way to deal with curses is trashing.  Mountebank punishes trashing with the defensive mechanic it has.  Most boards have trashing, more now with Dark Ages

Is Witch really better than Mountebank head to head?  I usually go Mountebank, I don't remember being taught a lesson for it yet.

Generally, witch is better against money decks, MB is better against engines.

And since the presence of Mountebank is often enough to discourage going engine, Witch is usually better in the head-to-head.
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Tables

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #210 on: August 06, 2012, 08:07:38 pm »
+1

Definitely surprised to see Mountebank over Witch, again. Last time I thought Mountebank>Witch, but I've played enough MB to see that it gets blocked surprisingly often, and Witch junks your opponent up pretty much at least 75% as fast. Doesn't sound like much, but Witch is dealing out nothing but curses, which are pure pain, while Mountebank gives 50% Coppers, which are not quite so terrible. So while Mountebank is definitely a bit better against big engines, both shut down Engines on at least 2/3rds of boards they're on (and that's only boards that would otherwise HAVE an engine, if there wasn't one, Witch was better in the first place as it's BM esque), and then Witch is the better card. And Witch of course wins the head to head, which is common enough to be a big point in it's favour (if Witch is on the board, there's about a 7% chance Mountebank is on the board IIRC and vice versa). I really don't see how Mountebank being better in those rare Engines-that-tolerate-mass-cursing can make up for the sheer frequency Witch is better, which is perhaps about 75% of the time.
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...spin-offs are still better for all of the previously cited reasons.
But not strictly better, because the spinoff can have a different cost than the expansion.

chwhite

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #211 on: August 06, 2012, 08:24:15 pm »
0

I think the "Witch is better than Mountebank in money games and head-to-head" sentiment, while possibly true in a vacuum (aka simulation), is definitely not true by very much and is being overstated pretty badly here.  Also, even in curse games you are often going to want to add other things to your deck even when you can't go full engine.  And the more things you add, the better Mountebank looks.

Where's a board where you would skip Witch but not Mountebank? I can't think of one. Maybe you can give an example.

There's a game I played not that long ago where IIRC I was able to chapel (or maybe remake or something?) into a pretty nice engine against my opponent's Witch, but it might not have worked against Mountebank.  Really, good trashing and engine potential is the thing you want to look for as an example more than the counters you listed, which I agree don't really favor Mountebank all that much.

CR appears to be down right now, I'll have some links for y'all when it's back up.

@chwhite, how in the world do you justify Hunting-party over wharf? That one just confuses the heck out of me?


The gist of it is that I've bought Hunting Party significantly more often (something like 95% rather than 80%), and while I definitely have underbought Wharf somewhat in the past (80% is much less than Wharf deserves), the games where my HP purchase was a mistake have been so, so rare that even with optimal play I'd have picked it up more often.

Also I do think the head-to-head is not a slam dunk for Wharf; there are definitely boards where the Hunting Party stack can beat a Wharf strategy, especially those with a powerful linchpin and no villages. 

But it's certainly possible I'm wrong on this one, I think it's pretty close to a coinflip and just mainly can't get behind this assumption that Wharf is definitely better, no explanation necessary, when my own experience doesn't necessarily bear that out.
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Kirian

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #212 on: August 06, 2012, 09:03:56 pm »
0

I have never heard the idiom "between the devil and the deep blue sea" before.  I was under the impression Anglophones were supposed to say "between a rock and a hard place."

I searched for an equivalent for that german proverb and found that. As nobody complained the last time, I leaved it in this time.

What's the equivalent German idiom?
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werothegreat

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #213 on: August 06, 2012, 10:15:16 pm »
0

If only the previews were being released to public iso - we might be able to fit Graverobber somewhere on here...
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #214 on: August 06, 2012, 10:24:23 pm »
0

I don't know, Chwhite, I really think Witch is better than Mountebank. I get that Mountebank hurts engines more, and there are cases where that matters... but the fact that Mountebank has a built-in way to block its Attack more than makes up for that, I think.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #215 on: August 06, 2012, 10:44:55 pm »
0

What's the equivalent German idiom?
zwischen Hammer und Amboss="between hammer and anvil"
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werothegreat

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #216 on: August 06, 2012, 10:47:07 pm »
0

What's the equivalent German idiom?
zwischen Hammer und Amboss="between hammer and anvil"

That makes so much more sense than rock/hard place.
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #217 on: August 06, 2012, 11:34:22 pm »
0

Between witch and mountebank, I think they're generally incomparable but mountebank deserves the #1.

Witch and mountebank HAVE to be pretty incomparable.  They are the two $5 cursing attacks, and they're pretty similar.  It has to be an interesting decision whether to buy witch or mountebank when both are on the board.  So they're designed to make it an introducing decision.

Mountebank deserves #1 because it has more of an effect on the game.  Trashing a lot is no longer as viable (because of two bad cards per play) or useful (because you don't get to discard), and as a result slick engines are less possible.
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Qvist

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #218 on: August 07, 2012, 03:36:41 am »
0

I have never heard the idiom "between the devil and the deep blue sea" before.  I was under the impression Anglophones were supposed to say "between a rock and a hard place."

I searched for an equivalent for that german proverb and found that. As nobody complained the last time, I leaved it in this time.

What's the equivalent German idiom?

What's the equivalent German idiom?
zwischen Hammer und Amboss="between hammer and anvil"

I don't know this idiom shraeye.  :P  I was thinking of "the choice between pest and cholera".

cayvie

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #219 on: August 07, 2012, 03:44:55 am »
0

I have never heard the idiom "between the devil and the deep blue sea" before.  I was under the impression Anglophones were supposed to say "between a rock and a hard place."

I searched for an equivalent for that german proverb and found that. As nobody complained the last time, I leaved it in this time.

What's the equivalent German idiom?

What's the equivalent German idiom?
zwischen Hammer und Amboss="between hammer and anvil"

I don't know this idiom shraeye.  :P  I was thinking of "the choice between pest and cholera".

is... is that a real idiom?
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18:28 MEASURE YOUR LIFE IN LOVE: you shouldve done the decent thing and resign rather than go on being that lucky all the time

she/her

Qvist

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #220 on: August 07, 2012, 03:46:34 am »
0

I have never heard the idiom "between the devil and the deep blue sea" before.  I was under the impression Anglophones were supposed to say "between a rock and a hard place."

I searched for an equivalent for that german proverb and found that. As nobody complained the last time, I leaved it in this time.

What's the equivalent German idiom?

What's the equivalent German idiom?
zwischen Hammer und Amboss="between hammer and anvil"

I don't know this idiom shraeye.  :P  I was thinking of "the choice between pest and cholera".

is... is that a real idiom?

Yes, it is. http://dict.leo.org/ende?lp=ende&lang=de&searchLoc=0&cmpType=relaxed&sectHdr=on&spellToler=&search=pest+cholera

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #221 on: August 07, 2012, 04:01:46 am »
0

oh, "Pest" is "plague"

that makes sense

if still morbid
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18:28 MEASURE YOUR LIFE IN LOVE: you shouldve done the decent thing and resign rather than go on being that lucky all the time

she/her

werothegreat

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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #222 on: August 07, 2012, 07:49:08 am »
0

Here, let me try: "I'm stuck between vomit and diarrhea."
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Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $5 cards Part 4/4 posted
« Reply #223 on: August 07, 2012, 09:45:34 am »
0

Well that's a lot of idioms walking around trying to mean the same thing.
I don't know this idiom shraeye.  :P  I was thinking of "the choice between pest and cholera".
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