So say you draw $6 on turn 3 or 4. You can grab a really fast gold, or you can go for a $5 card. For the most part, you’re going to want gold, but of course there are some exceptions. Obviously, if you’re going for a gold-free strategy (minions, tactician+vault, vault+GM, baron+HP, etc.) then you don’t want gold. And of course there are the major attacks you can’t afford to fall behind on: mountebank, witch, and torturer.
Ghost ship is a bit questionable to me because I’m not sure the strength of the attack does enough to offset the fact that you’re getting +2 cards instead of +$3 in the early game. Similarly, minion hurts you as much as them if you’re not going for a minion deck. Jester’s attack seems a bit innocuous for the most part, but if they’re buying cards you want, maybe it’s worth it sometimes?
As far as non-attacks go, I like tactician in strategies where you would have bought one with $5. It will basically always get you a gold + more when you play it, and it helps to cycle, which can help make up for the delay in getting your gold. Probably wharf too if you have another source of money (like fishing village) and are going for a wharf chain.
My big question is what to do with the $5 trashers: upgrade, apprentice, trading post, and mint (I guess mine is on this list too, but I have a hard time believing you’d want to go for that). I figure if your $6 came from 4 coppers and a +$2 action, mint is a good call. I don’t really think I’d really want to go for apprentice, because it’s not really good for trashing coppers, so you might as well take the gold now and just get your apprentice next shuffle. I’d also avoid trading post for the most part since it loses value fast due to being terminal and requiring you to have 2 bad cards in your hand; but it may have a place if you need trashing, it’s the only source, and you can spare the action. Now upgrade is a really interesting question. It’s clearly very good early on, but can it be better than gold, and if so, when?
What do you guys think? What cards do you sometimes prioritize over gold and when?