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[HiveMindEmulator]

In your first two turns of a game of dominion, you’re (usually) going to buy two cards (on a 4/3 split). In general, only one should be a terminal action, since you have a 36% chance of drawing the two together. In this article, I attempt to roughly sort the desirable opening terminals into tiers based on their typical utility. However, just because a card appears higher on the list than another card, does not mean it is always preferable. When you choose an opening, it should depend heavily on the strategy you plan on using in the mid-game. If there is a must-have $5 card, you may want to think about feast; if you’re going smithy big money, you better open smithy (duh); if you’re going to need an early quarry or potion, your terminal can’t cost $4; if you're going to heavily rely on trashing, you should bump the trashers up, etc...

Tier 0: The one and only...

Chapel
Everyone knows about chapel. It kind of transcends all lists of anything. While you generally only want to open with a single terminal action, you make an exception for chapel. So it doesn’t really belong on this list. You’re not going to choose chapel over remake, for example. You can just buy both! In terms of play, if you get a collision, just trash 3 cards and be satisfied that you’re going to get back to your other terminal soon enough with your rapidly slimming deck.

Tier 1: The elite openers
These two cards are far-and-away the strongest opening terminals in the game (yes, stronger than chapel). If either is on the table, you will usually want to buy one.

Ambassador
If you glance through the rest of this list, you’ll see that practically all of the cards either attack or trash. Ambassador does both! You slim down your deck while stuffing junk into your opponent’s deck. Ambassador is so good that if you’re not that concerned with getting to $5 quickly, you should probably just open with 2 of them. The one weakness of ambassador is that trashing 2 cards every turn doesn’t give you a lot of room to buy stuff. The attack can usually force a slow game, but the attack is not that powerful vs a money-based rush strategy where your opponent doesn’t need to draw combos of cards together. That brings us to the other tier 1 opening terminal...

Masquerade
Masquerade offers a slightly different approach to opening than ambassador. While ambassador is for slow games, masquerade is astoundingly fast. Drawing 2 cards and trashing 1 gives a lot of cycling power, and the fact that you get to draw half your deck the first time you play masquerade gives you a really good chance at grabbing an early $5 or $6 card. In a game with no attacks, a single masquerade and no other actions can regularly get you to half the provinces in 14 turns. Masquerade also shrugs off the $4 cursing attacks by allowing you send back and/or trash the curses while letting you play from bigger hand than your opponent, allowing you sufficient purchasing power to keep building your deck even in the presence of the curses.

Tier 2: The cursing attacks
The strongest type of attack in dominion is the cursing attack. If you can start cursing right off the bat, it gives you a huge advantage over anyone who tries to do something else (other than ambassador or maquerade).

Sea Hag
When you first start playing dominion, the cards that excite you are the ones that do cool things for your deck. But then you run into sea hag. Sea hag does absolutely nothing for your deck, yet is still one of the strongest opening terminals in the game. This is because sea hag’s attack is just sick. Not only does it hand out a curse, it puts it on top of your opponent’s deck, so they start feeling it right away. While you only have 4 cards with which to buy stuff on this turn, they will have only at most 4 non-curse cards next turn, plus the curse sticks around if they can’t trash it right away. There are several cards that handle the top-deck curse pretty well, but it still forces a useless card to be draw at least once, and very early in the game, when your opponents would rather be doing other things.

Young Witch
Young witch’s attack is weaker than that of sea hag, because the curse only goes in the discard pile, and because your opponent can block it with a bane card, but assuming the bane card isn’t something extremely useful and massable, it’s still a very strong attack, and doesn’t sacrifice your purchasing power as much as sea hag. If your opponent does not get a bane card, and there is no good trashing, young witch is almost as good as witch, since in curse games, you usually have 2 useless cards you’d be willing to discard anyway. While probably weaker overall, young witch compares favorably to sea hag in a head-to-head match-up since young witch cycles faster and allows you better chances at good buys on the turn you play it, by allowing you to select money out of 6 cards (5 if a sea hag just hit) instead of 4. In the presence of a good bane card your opponent will buy en masse anyway, young witch becomes much less spectacular, but even given a moderately useful bane, it's pretty good. You will still hand out some curses (they can't have the bane in hand every time), and you get the mini-warehouse effect.

Tier 3: The “good” trashers
What's the next best thing to handing out curses? Getting rid of the junk in your own deck. There are 11 sub-$5 terminals that allow you to trash or return other cards to the supply. Three have been mentioned already, three will come later, and two (remodel, trade route) don’t make the grade as consistently good opening terminals. The other three are listed here.

Remake
There are some strategies that involve heavy remaking all game, but even outside of those, remake is a very strong opener. It’s kind of like a trading-post junior, allowing you to dump two useless starting cards, and potentially get a useful $3 card out of it. Like trading post, remake can become dead weight later in the game, when you don’t have 2 cards you want to/are willing to trash, or when you can’t spare the terminal action. However, you may find some cases where you can use a remake to turn a $4 into a late duchy or even a $7 into a province.

Steward
Steward can trash as fast as remake but doesn’t come with the nice gains, making it harder to start building a deck. Turns of “trash 2 cards, buy nothing” are hardly exciting. However, steward does something that chapel and remake don’t: it stays useful into the mid-game. With most of your coppers and estates removed, +2 cards is often pretty good, provided you have a spare action. Steward can really shine when paired with a good non-terminal that lets you get something out of your trashing turn, and its $3 cost allows you to spend more on your non-terminal.

Salvager
Since it only trashes a single card, salvager can’t streamline your deck at the same rate as remake or steward, but it remains a very powerful opening due in large part to its ability to stay powerful even into the late-game. In the late game, you will very often be able to make good use of salvager’s ability to trash your expensive cards for a ton of cash a buy to help get extra victory cards. And since salvager can also provide a strong early game benefit (+$2, trash an estate), you might as well go for it right away. Salvager does carry the risk of being drawn without an estate in the early game, but even this unlucky occurence (which occurs about once every five games) is not the end of the world as you at least get to keep the increasingly useful salvager.

Tier 4: The +$2 attacks
These attacks are a class below the cursing attacks, but attacking is still really good as it slows your opponents down, keeping them from doing what they really want to do with their turns. Technically, this title includes fortune teller, but the fortune teller attack seems much weaker than those of the listed cards. Bureaucrat also offers a strong attack, but the gain a silver on top of your deck is too much weaker than the +$2 of these cards.

Militia
Militia is the standard hand-size reduction attack. Hand-size reduction is a nice kind of attack, because it scales well as the game goes on. As your opponents’ cards get better, they are forced to discard better cards. If your opponent has a deck with massive drawing power, it may hurt less late game, since they may still be able to draw a good portion of their deck starting with three cards chosen from five, but against decks with a heavy reliance on silver, it’s just killer. In any case, it can at least make the early game painful. By slowing down the pace of the early game, it can allow you time to build up slower, more powerful engines.

Cutpurse
While having to discard a copper sounds innocuous, losing $1 of purchasing power in the early game is a really big deal. In 2-player, cutpurse acts a lot like militia in the early game. A typical discard to militia might by a copper and an estate. In the absence of cards that take advantage of having the estate, the attack of cutpurse has basically the same effect. The situations in which the two cards differ are when your opponent has zero or two estates. In bad hands (two estates), cutpurse is stronger than militia, while in good hands (no estates), it is weaker. Since good hands are more important, militia is generally better. Additionally, cutpurse does not scale well into late game where copper is less important, and where hands may even have no copper. Cutpurse does, however, shine in larger games, because unlike the militia attack, the cutpurse attack stacks.

Swindler
Swindler is a kind of swingy card, as its attack can range from actually helping your opponent (discard an estate from the top of their deck) to completely killing them (turn their witch into a duchy). It’s particulaly strong in 2-player where hitting that $5 card just wins the game for you. The typical result of an early game swindle is turning a copper into a curse, which is still pretty good and reasonably competitive with the other attacks in this tier. The advantage swindler has over militia and cutpurse is its $3 price tag, which allows it to be purchased along with good $4 non-terminals like tournament, caravan, potion, quarry, etc...

Tier 5: The VP chip-gainers
While the attack cards can force slower games, in faster games you may be better served by just getting off to a VP lead. If you’re ahead in VPs, your opponents will have to either (a) get a fifth province before you get your fourth, or (b) buy a couple extra duchies, which entails either starting to buy them earlier than you or putting together big province+duchy turns. So if you can grab a few extra VPs without giving up too much of a tempo advantage, you’ll often find yourself in pretty good shape.

Monument
Monument is the only card on this list that neither trashes nor attacks, and it may not come to mind immediately when you think of strong openings, but it’s a pretty good choice for an opening terminal even if you’re not going for a monument-centric strategy. The +$2 gives good purchasing power so you won’t really fall behind in building up (assuming none of the higher-tier cards are available), plus you get the VP chips to give you an early score advantage. Even though you may not feel the benefits right away, you’ll feel them later when your opponent has to scramble to try to get duchies to make up the points.

Bishop
Bishop as an opening terminal is kind of hard to rate. It can net you a much bigger pile of VP chips than monument, but it doesn’t offer much in the way of purchasing power, and it helps your opponents slim their decks. So when is it good? It’s good when its drawbacks are less significant, i.e. when slimming your opponents decks is not horrible, and when you’re not that concerned with hitting $5 early on. In a situation where you are going to have to play some kind of big-money strategy, the boost of the extra points can offset your being slightly slower than them, but if they go for a stronger engine, the free trashing can be too great of a benefit to them that your VP chips can’t overcome it.

Tier 6: The lesser trashers
There isn't always a great source of trashing, but some is often better than none, provided you at least get something else out of it.

Moneylender
Moneylender is a nice trasher because, like masquerade or salvager, it allows you to trash without cannibalizing your turn. However, it’s trashing ability is pretty lackluster. You can’t trash estates and you trash copper only one at a time. Still, it’s better than nothing, and pure copper-trashing can be good for stuff like venture/adventurer, and it can be good to leave estates around to be trashed for greater benefit with upgrade/apprentice.

Island
Before there were VP chips, there was island. You can (kind of) think of an early island as a one-shot bishop that gives one more VP, one less coin and no benefit to your opponent. You get rid of a single copper or estate and get a couple extra VPs to show for it. It allows you to get off to an early score advantage while slimming your deck, rather than bloating it. You may not want to open island if getting to $5 is very important, but otherwise it’s a reasonable opening. While you’ll be behind at massing $4-$5 cards vs someone who favors purchasing-power to deck-trimming, you’ll have a slightly slimmer deck and more points, which means they can’t just run away with a quick win. When they slow down late game to buy islands/duchies to make up the points, your slightly slimmer deck should be able to help you stay ahead.

[chwhite]

Very nice article.  I think Moneylender belongs up with Salvager and Remake in a "trash for benefit" tier, and I might in fact even put one or more of those cards above the curse attacks, but other than that, I agree with all of this.

[guided]

Steward is an elite opening card, I promise you Definitely worthy of mention ahead of Young Witch (which I'd put much further down the list in general) as well as Salvager and Remake.

Minor point, but I'd put Sea Hag in the same league as Masquerade (though Masquerade might be a better choice in the specific case where both cards are available).

[Epoch]

I'm very dubious that Salvager is a great opening.  It's a trash-for-no-benefit for Coppers, and it's a "trash for a one-use Silver" for Estates.  It's a terminal, and it won't get you to $5 unless you draw it with exactly 3 Coppers + 1 Estate, and won't get you to $6 with any combination of starting cards.

Salvager is a good card, don't get me wrong, but its utility doesn't come out until later in the game when you can either draw and play it more consistently, or where it's trashing higher-value cards.

[guided]

Haha, and I missed the most important thing I should have said: Ambassador is a definitely a better 2p opener than Chapel.

[ddubois]

won't get you to $6 with any combination of starting cards

Salvager with 3 coppers and your $3 buy can ramp you to $6.  Obviously I'd rather trash an estate, but in some games that turn 3 Gold can be huge.

[Tydude]

and won't get you to $6 with any combination of starting cards.

Copper-Copper-Silver-Salvager-Estate?

[Anon79]

I'm puzzled why Baron didn't make the list. High variance sure, but high reward too.

[DG]

Remodel and salvager are mostly as useful as each other with different applications. It might be harder to misplay a salvager as you can usually salvage something.

Islands are not really great openers, promising a slow improvement for most decks. It's quite rare that you'd buy them as an opening card and they progress your deck better than any other Dominion card could do. The times when they do excel are probably just as rare as the occasions when a watchtower, workshop, woodcutter, conspirator, coppersmith, treasure map, moat, embargo, bridge, courtyard (and so on) are perfect for a deck.

I'd actually suggest that the pirate ship should be included in the strong openings unless multi player games are excluded. Although it seems situational the same can possibly be said of bishops, salvagers, and moneylenders.

[Fangz]

Pirate ship is kinda a strategy unto itself. I guess the point of these is that they are good openers that each open up into a range of strategies.

I personally wouldn't ever open salvager or remodel, unless, in the latter case, there's a strong $2 card (i.e. hamlet) I want to get lots of.

Hmm I'd actually nominate warehouse as an opener. It's a strong support card for whatever awesome $4 card you have, generally assuring that you can play it every turn.

[WanderingWinder]

You're drastically underrating monument, like everybody does.
Young Witch is about impossible to rank without knowing the bane. It's entirely not worth it with a good bane, probably not worth it with even a decent bane.
Ambassador (in 2-player) is generally a bit stronger than chapel. So is masq. Remake is barely, barely below them.
Salvager certainly isn't a tier 3. Actually, it might be the worst opener on the list.
But fairly good overall.
I don't know why you restricted it to terminals, either - you could honestly just say cards overall, and I don't think you've missed any... though I might be forgetting something I guess.

[chwhite]

You're drastically underrating monument, like everybody does.
Young Witch is about impossible to rank without knowing the bane. It's entirely not worth it with a good bane, probably not worth it with even a decent bane.
Ambassador (in 2-player) is generally a bit stronger than chapel. So is masq. Remake is barely, barely below them.
Salvager certainly isn't a tier 3. Actually, it might be the worst opener on the list.
But fairly good overall.
I don't know why you restricted it to terminals, either - you could honestly just say cards overall, and I don't think you've missed any... though I might be forgetting something I guess.

I love me some Monument.  Probably not as much as you do, but I agree it's one of the better openers, certainly better than Bishop (though I also think Bishop is a slightly better card overall). 

Agreed that Amb and Masq are better openers than Chapel: it seemed to me that the OP actually agrees with this and was just putting Chapel in as an "honorary #0".  Also agree that Remake is next, better than the curse-givers.

There are quite a few non-terminals which are as good openers as the lower reaches of this list: Caravan, for one.

[kn1tt3r]

I feel the ranking is a bit misleading because it mixes rank with category, which just has to be flawed by some degree.

[kn1tt3r]

You can get a feel for the opening terminals by looking at the Councilroom stats for a Silver/x opening:
http://councilroom.com/openings?card=Silver

So, your list is not bad. Basically it's (if you want to categorize):

1. Premium trashers
2. Mean attacks
3. Good trashers / VP token gainers
4. Weaker attacks / Carddraws / Weaker trashers
5. The rest (stuff like Bridge, Baron etc.)

[Fangz]

Why /silver though? The stats suggest strongly that opening silver is often not a good strategy.

Which reminds me - another card that's missing that everyone seems to have forgotten about: Lookout.

Lookout is awesome. A trasher, and a deck cycler, and a spy-style next hand arranger, all in one. The only problem with it is the danger in the late game, but it's still very strong, especially coupled with another good action.

[kn1tt3r]

Why /silver though? The stats suggest strongly that opening silver is often not a good strategy.

Which reminds me - another card that's missing that everyone seems to have forgotten about: Lookout.

Lookout is awesome. A trasher, and a deck cycler, and a spy-style next hand arranger, all in one. The only problem with it is the danger in the late game, but it's still very strong, especially coupled with another good action.

Lookout is not a terminal.

And with terminals it's just the easiest way to compare them with a silver opening. Maybe this would change a bit with Tournament or whatever, but it's a good basis I think.

[Fangz]

Oh doh I forgot about the thread topic, heh.

Why, though should we just consider the $4/$3 terminals? There's only really a few non-terminals worth considering as openers anyway. (Off the top of my head, there's Lookout, Mining village, Fishing village and Warehouse... any others?)

[kn1tt3r]

Oh doh I forgot about the thread topic, heh.

Why, though should we just consider the $4/$3 terminals? There's only really a few non-terminals worth considering as openers anyway. (Off the top of my head, there's Lookout, Mining village, Fishing village and Warehouse... any others?)

Maybe you're right about adding them, but you've forgot two of the best: Caravan and Tournament. Even to my surprise, Tournament is an extremely good opening when combined with those premium trashers. I mean, Ambassador/Tournament is ranked even better than Mountebank/Chapel.

The problem is that they are very situational. Fishing Village itself is not a good opening at all, but you might want many of them early if you're going for some draw engine. Mining Village is very good in moneyesque strategies to use it as an one-shot Grand Market for an early Gold. Lookout is great with them cursing attacks, but useless with good other trashers.

So well, they are very hard to rank because they depend very much on the other card you open with (which is rarely Silver). It's a bit easier if you look at terminals which can be compared quite reasonably by normalizing them with a silver opening.

[Geronimoo]

Mining Village is very good in moneyesque strategies to use it as an one-shot Grand Market for an early Gold.

No it's not. It's actually terrible! Yes you get an early Gold, but you've also basically wasted your first buy of the game...

[kn1tt3r]

Mining Village is very good in moneyesque strategies to use it as an one-shot Grand Market for an early Gold.

No it's not. It's actually terrible! Yes you get an early Gold, but you've also basically wasted your first buy of the game...

Hm... I'm quite sure it's not terrible but maybe you're right and it's really not that good.
Then ok, exchange "moneyesque" by "money-less" and "early Gold" by "early whatever (Minion for example)", and it works. *g*

[Davio]

Mining Village is very good in moneyesque strategies to use it as an one-shot Grand Market for an early Gold.

No it's not. It's actually terrible! Yes you get an early Gold, but you've also basically wasted your first buy of the game...

I beg to differ.

If you open Silver/Silver you have $11/12 cards for an average of <$1, while buying and immediately trashing the Mining Village gives you a $11/11 cards for an average of $1. The Mining Village is somewhat of a "ghost card" in this example, since it doesn't count toward the deck total.

But let's expand this example: If in both cases a Gold is purchased on turn 3 (and MV is trashed), it's $1.08 vs $1.17 in favor of the Mining Village.

If I try a simple BMU vs. BMU+MV in Geronimoo's simulator, it trashes MV's to get other MV's which is hardly useful.


The MV strat has a drawbeck with the thinner deck as it chokes earlier when the greening starts.

[Geronimoo]

First, you can't really use math in Dominion arguments unless you're able to model the entire game. Second, if you're using the simulator, make sure your buy rules are correct for what you're trying to prove (buying multiple Mining Villages is of course awful, so adjust the buy rules to only buy 1 so it doesn't get into a Mining Village idiot loop).

I modified a a few Big Money strategies to open Mining Village/Silver instead of Silver/Silver and while those strategies often had Gold/Mountebank/Witch earlier, they tended to lose more often.

So I'm going to make a bold statement here (maybe I should put this in the Puzzles/Challenges to prove me wrong):
If your deck will always improve with a Silver buy, you should never open Mining Village/Silver over Silver/Silver

[DStu]

Also simulated a lot with BigMoney/MV, and I think Geronimoo is right. The problem with it is, that very often you trash the MV in vain. A small statistic of this bot

Code: [Select]

<player name="BM - Big Money Ultimate/MW">
   <buy name="Province">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Gold"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInPlay" attribute="Mining_Village"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Province">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Gold"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Mining_Village"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="5.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Mining_Village">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Mining_Village"/>
         <operator type="equalTo" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="10.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
</player>
Out of 15 tries, the bot trashes 10 times in a turn where he would have afforded the Gold also when opening Silver/Silver. 3 times it pushed a $5 hand (3xCopper+MV+Estate) to $6. And 2 times it buyed Silver when trashing the MV, which I didn't manage to prevent.
But even if we count this as successes, we have 2:1 (in a small statistics of course) where Silver/Silver would have been better than Silver/MV, because you end up with Gold/Silver instead of Gold/nothing.

Btw. Geronimoo, can we have a "produce 1000 sample games-Button" or something like that to produce a statistic like that more easily?

[Thisisnotasmile]

You want to read through 1000 game logs looking for what happens when a Mining Village is trashed? Rather you than me.

[DStu]

You want to read through 1000 game logs looking for what happens when a Mining Village is trashed? Rather you than me.

I wanted to grep through them. But realizing there are not linebreaks in the html, I'm afraid my grepskills are not advanced enough. So I would like linebreaks too...

[rrenaud]

If you know some kind of scripting language, I can give you an account on councilroom to do the mining village analysis.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Wow, lots of replies. Here we go with the responses...

Genearl stuff:

I feel the ranking is a bit misleading because it mixes rank with category, which just has to be flawed by some degree.

Yeah, I know it's flawed, but I really did it for simplicity. They are loose rankings and that's why I didn't put a number before each card. But I think it's useful this way. If you're teaching someone what are the important things to look for in an opening, it's easier to think: amb/masq, curse, good trash, attack, vps, other trash) than to think (amb, masq, sea hag, remake, young witch, swindler, salvager, militia, steward...) or something. I had to make some concessions (as I mentioned with steward) for the sake of the article, but I think it makes for a better article arranged in this way.

I don't know why you restricted it to terminals, either - you could honestly just say cards overall, and I don't think you've missed any... though I might be forgetting something I guess.

I decided to restrict to terminals because you usually only buy one terminal. Non-terminals, like chapel, can be bought along with one of these cards. Comparing swindler to tournament, for example, is not important, since you can just buy both.

More specific:

You can get a feel for the opening terminals by looking at the Councilroom stats for a Silver/x opening:
http://councilroom.com/openings?card=Silver

So, your list is not bad. Basically it's (if you want to categorize):

1. Premium trashers
2. Mean attacks
3. Good trashers / VP token gainers
4. Weaker attacks / Carddraws / Weaker trashers
5. The rest (stuff like Bridge, Baron etc.)

A slightly different picture (not sure if it's better -- it includes the possibility of not pairing with silver, but doesn't account for level) can perhaps be gained from looking at win rate vs turn for turn 1-2. You'd think the rankings would be the same for both, but they're not, and that just goes to show you how noisy any esimation of rankings from this data is. But there you almost do actually see the first 3 tiers with significant gaps in between -- ambassador/masquerade, sea hag/young witch, remake/salvager. Then swindler just ahead of a muddled mess including militia, bishop, cutpurse, monument, envoy, steward and moneylender with differing order depending on if you look at turn 1 or 2. Then island.

More specifics:

I think Moneylender belongs up with Salvager and Remake in a "trash for benefit" tier, and I might in fact even put one or more of those cards above the curse attacks, but other than that, I agree with all of this.

I'm not a big fan of moneylender. I really like the effect of loan, since it's a non-terminal $3 card, but I never really consider getting moneylender ahead of an attack, while that consideration does exist with remake and salvager. That distinction prevents it from joining them.

Steward is an elite opening card, I promise you Definitely worthy of mention ahead of Young Witch (which I'd put much further down the list in general) as well as Salvager and Remake.

As I mentioned, the problem with the structure is that I can't just throw steward in the middle of the attack tier or something. It's either up with remake and salvager or down with moneylender. I went with down with moneylender. I guess you'd say up with remake, and I'm not sure I can argue with that. In fact, I considered it, and added in island to the bottom just so moneylender wouldn't be lonely, but I ultimately decided to just drop steward. Choosing between steward's trashing and an attack depends on the mid-game strategy you're going for as well as the non-terminal you go for, but I think attacking is generally stronger. If you get militia'd on your non-steward turn, you're going to have a hard time buying anything for a while...

Islands are not really great openers, promising a slow improvement for most decks. It's quite rare that you'd buy them as an opening card and they progress your deck better than any other Dominion card could do. The times when they do excel are probably just as rare as the occasions when a watchtower, workshop, woodcutter, conspirator, coppersmith, treasure map, moat, embargo, bridge, courtyard (and so on) are perfect for a deck.

I'd actually suggest that the pirate ship should be included in the strong openings unless multi player games are excluded. Although it seems situational the same can possibly be said of bishops, salvagers, and moneylenders.

Island is not a great opener. It's last on this list. I don't think it ever really "excels", but it's generally better than all the cards you list, which for the most part require specific strategies that involve the particular card. The point of including island is that in the absence of any really good openings, being ahead a couple points is great unless your opponent can find a way to buy an island along with a province. Otherwise, they eventually have to buy an island or duchy to catch up. And since you bought yours earlier and used it for a trash, you're ahead.

Pirate ship is a strategy, not a general opening.

You're drastically underrating monument, like everybody does.
Young Witch is about impossible to rank without knowing the bane. It's entirely not worth it with a good bane, probably not worth it with even a decent bane.
Ambassador (in 2-player) is generally a bit stronger than chapel. So is masq. Remake is barely, barely below them.
Salvager certainly isn't a tier 3. Actually, it might be the worst opener on the list.
But fairly good overall.

Where would you put monument?
Young witch's goodness definitely depends on the bane, but it goes with sea hag because of the structure of the article. Without a good bane, it's definitely miles ahead of the other attacks, so I feel it's fair to put it up there.
Salvager has a lot of complaints, so I guess it gets its own section in my responses...

Salvager stuff:

I'm very dubious that Salvager is a great opening.  It's a trash-for-no-benefit for Coppers, and it's a "trash for a one-use Silver" for Estates.  It's a terminal, and it won't get you to $5 unless you draw it with exactly 3 Coppers + 1 Estate, and won't get you to $6 with any combination of starting cards.

Salvager is a good card, don't get me wrong, but its utility doesn't come out until later in the game when you can either draw and play it more consistently, or where it's trashing higher-value cards.

Salvager buys like silver while trashing a copper about 2/3 of the time. This is a really good effect. The other third of the time it does just trash a copper, which is not good, but not the worst thing in the world, and you still keep the salvager, which you're going to want eventually anyway. My feeling is that you might as well buy it up front.

Remodel and salvager are mostly as useful as each other with different applications. It might be harder to misplay a salvager as you can usually salvage something.

I think salavager is *worlds* ahead of remodel. Remodel requires you to have a strategy that relies heavily on $3-$3 cards, since you're often turning an estate into a $4 and buying a $3. Salvager goes well into any strategy, as the money gets added into one big buy.

I should also mention that salvager is not ahead of remake because I think it's better. I swapped the order because I wanted to mention it in the remake blurb. I do, however, think it's on the same rough level. It's a trashing card I'd generally prefer over non-curse attacks. Given both are available, remake is usually going to be the choice, and I guess I should mention that...

I'll update the article with some of these considerations soon.

[guided]

As I mentioned, the problem with the structure is that I can't just throw steward in the middle of the attack tier or something.

Then these aren't "tiers", this list was never a "ranking", and that's that What we have here is an example of form absolutely annihilating function!

[philosophyguy]

I agree with guided's critique of the form/function problems with the article as currently written. Here's what I would suggest:

You've got the cards organized by what they do. Why not modify the article so that it's saying "Here are the things to look for in an opening terminal: trashing, cursing, etc. Among the trashers, here's a rough ranking. Among the cursers…" That way, you can put Steward and Moneylender with trashers, where they belong, while acknowledging their shortcomings in the individual rankings. You could introduce each section with a rough statement of how that category compares to others (e.g., trashing is almost always a top priority, but if your best option is Moneylender and there are attacks, then this is probably too slow).

[HiveMindEmulator]

As I mentioned, the problem with the structure is that I can't just throw steward in the middle of the attack tier or something.

Then these aren't "tiers", this list was never a "ranking", and that's that What we have here is an example of form absolutely annihilating function!

I disagree that form has annihilated function. I don't think hard rankings are particularly "functional" anyway. No one should really look at a ranking and just buy the highest card on the list, or then you're just a simulator bot or something. I think the article in its current form is *more* useful than a ranking because I feel that the form lends itself to easier synthesis for less experienced players. And having one or two cards out of place is not a huge deal, as had I made specific rankings, there would be similar arguments anyway.

[WanderingWinder]

As I mentioned, the problem with the structure is that I can't just throw steward in the middle of the attack tier or something.

Then these aren't "tiers", this list was never a "ranking", and that's that What we have here is an example of form absolutely annihilating function!

I disagree that form has annihilated function. I don't think hard rankings are particularly "functional" anyway. No one should really look at a ranking and just buy the highest card on the list, or then you're just a simulator bot or something. I think the article in its current form is *more* useful than a ranking because I feel that the form lends itself to easier synthesis for less experienced players. And having one or two cards out of place is not a huge deal, as had I made specific rankings, there would be similar arguments anyway.

I heartily disagree. Put chapel at the bottom, and it's only one card out of order, but it's ridiculous. You can't call them tiers or ranks if they aren't that, and based on your last few posts, it's clear that that's not what you think they are.
Salvager being better than remodel (which I definitely agree with) doesn't make it good.
And monument should go over the terminal silver attacks.

[WanderingWinder]

You're drastically underrating monument, like everybody does.
Young Witch is about impossible to rank without knowing the bane. It's entirely not worth it with a good bane, probably not worth it with even a decent bane.
Ambassador (in 2-player) is generally a bit stronger than chapel. So is masq. Remake is barely, barely below them.
Salvager certainly isn't a tier 3. Actually, it might be the worst opener on the list.
But fairly good overall.
I don't know why you restricted it to terminals, either - you could honestly just say cards overall, and I don't think you've missed any... though I might be forgetting something I guess.

There are quite a few non-terminals which are as good openers as the lower reaches of this list: Caravan, for one.

Caravan is the exact card I had in mind. I think you should rarely if ever open Caravan - it's better to open silver/silver in a money deck, and in most combo/engine decks you're probably worried about grabbing other engine cards. Well, maybe there are a lot of engine decks where you do want to open caravan, but I still don't think it's very elite.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I heartily disagree. Put chapel at the bottom, and it's only one card out of order, but it's ridiculous. You can't call them tiers or ranks if they aren't that, and based on your last few posts, it's clear that that's not what you think they are.
Salvager being better than remodel (which I definitely agree with) doesn't make it good.
And monument should go over the terminal silver attacks.

They are roughly tiers, so I'm ok with calling them that. "Rankings" I used for lack of a better word. If you can think of a better one, I'd gladly change it.
Monument is probably sometimes better than attacks. For example, monument big money should be better than militia/cutpurse big money. But is it *usually* better than the attacks? I don't really think so.

Caravan is the exact card I had in mind. I think you should rarely if ever open Caravan - it's better to open silver/silver in a money deck, and in most combo/engine decks you're probably worried about grabbing other engine cards. Well, maybe there are a lot of engine decks where you do want to open caravan, but I still don't think it's very elite.

Caravan/silver may not be very good, but caravan/trasher or caravan/attack is. Caravan/ambassador ranks as the 4th best overall opening. But that's part of why I didn't get into ranking non-terminals. If I had to rank it, it would be pretty low. The really good non-terminals are tournament, lookout, loan, warehouse, and fishing village.

[Epoch]

and won't get you to $6 with any combination of starting cards.

Copper-Copper-Silver-Salvager-Estate?

Silver is not a starting card.

[HiveMindEmulator]

and won't get you to $6 with any combination of starting cards.

Copper-Copper-Silver-Salvager-Estate?

Silver is not a starting card.

But you have to buy something with your $3 before the first reshuffle...

[rrenaud]

I would trust the openings data a lot more than the win rate by turn data for this.  The win rate by turn doesn't account for player skill at all, while the openings analysis models skill.

[Epoch]

But you have to buy something with your $3 before the first reshuffle...

Well, one notes that you don't HAVE to.

But, more to the point, sure, Salvager can get you to $6 if you also assume you have a Silver.  And it could get you to $7 if you had a Gold!  And $8 if you had a Platinum!  And $21 if you draw Venture/Venture/Venture/Salvager/Estate, Salvage the Estate, draw Platinum with the first two Ventures and Bank with the third!

The work is being done by the other card, and it's weird to suggest that Salvager is a good way to get to $5 or $6 when Silver/Silver (or, of course, Silver/a $2-producing action) would get you there much more reliably.

Ultimately:  Salvager is a single-card-trasher-terminal that produces no notable benefit when you trash Coppers (or Curses, the other thing you're likely to want to trash in the early game), and a very mild benefit when trashing Estates.  It's just not a good opener.

[ackack]

The work is being done by the other card, and it's weird to suggest that Salvager is a good way to get to $5 or $6 when Silver/Silver (or, of course, Silver/a $2-producing action) would get you there much more reliably.

Ah, but with Silver/Silver, one of the other Silvers is doing a lot of the work! I think this critique is silly. You can indeed get $6 after the first reshuffle following a Salvager buy, even if it is less often than other possibilities. I think it's a pretty legitimate if not stellar opener, and it's almost always a fantastic card to have in your deck at some point. That's a big argument in favor of it - you'll probably want one at some point, you may not have time to grab it later, and early on it can chew through Estates for some gain.

[guided]

Salvager is a good opener in many situations. It is rarely (if ever) an elite opener worthy of mention alongside, say, Masquerade or even Militia. The point is not to get $6; it is to get rid of an Estate while getting $5. The main thing that keeps it from "really good opener" status is that it has multiple disaster scenarios where you have it in hand at turn 3/4 but either can't get $5 or can't trash a bad card and retain $5. They key when opening Salvager is not to buy it unless you have some better plan than eventually just trashing Coppers with it. And in general, if you have Salvagers in your deck you should be merciless about trashing good cards with it to bootstrap up to bigger buys.

[Epoch]

Ah, but with Silver/Silver, one of the other Silvers is doing a lot of the work!

You can produce $6 with just one Silver (Silver/Copperx4).  It's actually considerably more likely than producing $5 with Salvager and just starting cards (compare:  same odds of drawing Silver/Copperx3 as Salvager/Copperx3, obviously.  So the last card: there are 4 Coppers left, only 3 Estates -- more chance of the Copper than the Estates, ergo $6 more likely with Silver than $5 with Salvager).  Two $5's with Silver/Silver-equivalent is plausible, while it's simply implausible with Silver/Salvager.  It's a bad opening, guys.  Salvager is a fine card in the mid-late game.  It's a bad opener.

I think this critique is silly. You can indeed get $6 after the first reshuffle following a Salvager buy, even if it is less often than other possibilities. I think it's a pretty legitimate if not stellar opener, and it's almost always a fantastic card to have in your deck at some point. That's a big argument in favor of it - you'll probably want one at some point, you may not have time to grab it later, and early on it can chew through Estates for some gain.

That's a bizarre claim.  Why on earth would you "not have time to grab it later"?  It's one of your buys, on turn 1 or turn 8 -- the only question is whether you want it cluttering up your first few reshuffles.

EDIT:  And, to endorse what Guided said, if you were guaranteed $5 and an Estate trash in the early game, it would be... fine.  Not wonderful, but fine, and its late-game utility would probably make it a good buy.  The idea that you should consider Salvager, lacking the guarantee of Estate-trash-plus-$5, above Militia or Steward or Moneylender is crazy.  And really, you should only even consider it if you want to buy a $5 for your strategy: if you're concentrating on Golds or other $6+ cards, you should drop it like it's hot.

[ackack]

That's a bizarre claim.  Why on earth would you "not have time to grab it later"?  It's one of your buys, on turn 1 or turn 8 -- the only question is whether you want it cluttering up your first few reshuffles.

You've never had games where you miss 4 a lot and there are 5s and 6s you want to be buying? I've had numerous games where there was some card I wanted that was almost certainly not the best card to buy given the choices available to me, but that I would have been much happier had I had in my deck.

Salvager is a fine opener. I wouldn't claim it's the best opener, but it's probably just slightly worse than Moneylender and it's a muuuuuch better mid to late game card.

added: And while there are specific things for which Steward is better, I don't think it's a given at all that it is generically better than Salvager as an opener. Trashing and buying at the same time is really quite sweet. Steward generally gives buying or trashing, and as a pure trasher I don't think it's fast enough to make giving up all those buys a lock to be better, especially because (once again) Salvager is a vastly better card to have late.

[HiveMindEmulator]

You can produce $6 with just one Silver (Silver/Copperx4).  It's actually considerably more likely than producing $5 with Salvager and just starting cards (compare:  same odds of drawing Silver/Copperx3 as Salvager/Copperx3, obviously.  So the last card: there are 4 Coppers left, only 3 Estates -- more chance of the Copper than the Estates, ergo $6 more likely with Silver than $5 with Salvager).  Two $5's with Silver/Silver-equivalent is plausible, while it's simply implausible with Silver/Salvager.  It's a bad opening, guys.  Salvager is a fine card in the mid-late game.  It's a bad opener.

So you're arguing silver/nothing is a better opening than salvager/nothing? Who cares? Both are terrible openings. Buying two cards tends to be the better choice with a 4/3...

That's a bizarre claim.  Why on earth would you "not have time to grab it later"?  It's one of your buys, on turn 1 or turn 8 -- the only question is whether you want it cluttering up your first few reshuffles.

The question is if you think it's going to do more cluttering or helping in those turns, and I would argue that it's doing more helping. It's true that sometimes it will be sub-par (drawn with no estates), but more often it will be really good.

[Epoch]

You've never had games where you miss 4 a lot and there are 5s and 6s you want to be buying? I've had numerous games where there was some card I wanted that was almost certainly not the best card to buy given the choices available to me, but that I would have been much happier had I had in my deck.

Of course I have.  But so what?  Buy Salvager for $5 or $6, if you think it's good enough.  It's not like the card retains the stigma of your having "wasted" money on it, and that somehow lowers its value in your deck.

If there are $5 or $6 cards that you want in your deck more than Salvager, to the point where you can never justify spending $5 or $6 on Salvager, then that's exactly an argument for not opening Salvager, because the benefit of not opening Salvager is that you're more likely to get early $5's and $6's.

The case for opening Salvager is a more complicated one: it's probably more like "the alternatives to Salvager (notably: Silver) will be big negatives in my deck by the mid-game, so even if I buy Salvager in the mid-game, I'll be stuck with those unwanted alternatives-to-Salvager."  Which is valid in some games, and is probably a good reason to open Salvager, since one of the things it actually IS good for is trashing, say, Silvers or $4 Actions (like Moneylenders or Barons which have outlived their usefulness) to boot-strap to, say, Platinums.  And, hey, you'll probably have 1-2 fewer Estates or Coppers, which is nice and all.

But don't do it to trash Estates for benefit.  The benefit isn't big enough.

[Epoch]

So you're arguing silver/nothing is a better opening than salvager/nothing? Who cares? Both are terrible openings. Buying two cards tends to be the better choice with a 4/3...

You don't always draw your two opening buys together.  Silver/Silver(-equivalent) is miles more likely to produce two high-quality buys in turns 3/4 than is Silver/Salvager, and the hoped-for benefit of one fewer Estate is not worth the risk of being stuck at $4 or lower due to buying Salvager over the Silver equivalent.

And you seem to imagine that the case of "being drawn with no Estates" is the bad situation with Salvager, when in fact the bad situation with Salvager is everything besides "being drawn with exactly 1 Estate."

[guided]

EDIT:  And, to endorse what Guided said, if you were guaranteed $5 and an Estate trash in the early game, it would be... fine.  Not wonderful, but fine, and its late-game utility would probably make it a good buy.  The idea that you should consider Salvager, lacking the guarantee of Estate-trash-plus-$5, above Militia or Steward or Moneylender is crazy.  And really, you should only even consider it if you want to buy a $5 for your strategy: if you're concentrating on Golds or other $6+ cards, you should drop it like it's hot.

If Salvager came with a guarantee that you could trash an Estate at turn 3/4 for a $5+ buy, I think it would be a great opener on a really broad selection of boards where you're targeting a $5 card before the 2nd shuffle (which is a lot of boards of course!) - buuuuuut, that's neither here nor there since there's no such guarantee. As it is, I would definitely prioritize Militia or Steward or Moneylender over Salvager on the vast majority of boards. In particular, the presence of Militia would definitely downgrade Salvager to "terrible opener" status!

[Epoch]

Oh, on a different note: it's weird not to see Smithy, Courtyard, or Envoy on the list of openers.  All are extremely solid stand-alone Actions (ie, single buys in a BMU deck), and are pretty decent openers for plenty of strategies that don't need to worry much about terminal conflicts, and like +Cards.

[HiveMindEmulator]

EDIT:  And, to endorse what Guided said, if you were guaranteed $5 and an Estate trash in the early game, it would be... fine.  Not wonderful, but fine, and its late-game utility would probably make it a good buy.  The idea that you should consider Salvager, lacking the guarantee of Estate-trash-plus-$5, above Militia or Steward or Moneylender is crazy.  And really, you should only even consider it if you want to buy a $5 for your strategy: if you're concentrating on Golds or other $6+ cards, you should drop it like it's hot.

I think you're overrating steward and moneylender. Given the presence of salvager and steward, I'm taking salvager 80+% of the time. Slow trashing against salvager is generally a losing proposition, because salvager forces fast games (with its ability to trash gold/provinces to drain the province pile) where the slow trashing of steward isn't good enough to get an engine going in time.
And sure moneylender has a lower chance of miss, but the amount by which salvager is better when it hits plus the amount it is better late game makes salvager waaay better imo.

Oh, on a different note: it's weird not to see Smithy, Courtyard, or Envoy on the list of openers.  All are extremely solid stand-alone Actions (ie, single buys in a BMU deck), and are pretty decent openers for plenty of strategies that don't need to worry much about terminal conflicts, and like +Cards.

Yeah, I decided that these fall under the category of "buy them if it's your mid-game strategy" as I mentioned with smithy big money at the top. I did consider adding another tier with these 3 cards at the bottom, but I figured the list had gone far enough. Courtyard is probably the best of the three going into a strategy other than pure big-money because its lower cost lets you get it with a nice non-terminal $4 and it avoids some terminal collisions.

[chwhite]

Given a setup with Salvager, Moneylender, and Steward (but no other trashing), chances are I'm opening Moneylender, getting a Salvager sometime in the next few turns, and ignoring Steward entirely.  Obviously it depends on the rest of the setup, this is just my default assumption.

Moneylender is a great target for Salvager in the late game.

[ackack]

Given a setup with Salvager, Moneylender, and Steward (but no other trashing), chances are I'm opening Moneylender, getting a Salvager sometime in the next few turns, and ignoring Steward entirely.  Obviously it depends on the rest of the setup, this is just my default assumption.

Moneylender is a great target for Salvager in the late game.

Yes, this sounds about right to me. Steward has its places, and I like flexibility, but if you're just using it to trash you're basically giving yourself Chapelesque crappy buying power with half the trashing efficiency.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Given a setup with Salvager, Moneylender, and Steward (but no other trashing), chances are I'm opening Moneylender, getting a Salvager sometime in the next few turns, and ignoring Steward entirely.  Obviously it depends on the rest of the setup, this is just my default assumption.

Moneylender is a great target for Salvager in the late game.

Salvager is also a great target for salvager

[guided]

Steward is not slow. The #1 reason why it's not slow is that it remains a useful card in a trimmed deck. Chapel is of course the fastest trasher, but it eventually becomes a painful dead card, and at some point you have to figure out how to bootstrap your trimmed deck up to usefulness. The tempo you lose compensating for Chapel's total lack of usefulness outside of trashing means it's only a slightly better deck-trimming card than Steward as a general rule. I'm something of a Steward specialist (2.20 effect with, used in 82% of games when available), but I don't think I'm possessed of any secret knowledge about the card that would give me a crazy advantage above and beyond its power in the hands of other good players.

If you prioritize Salvager over Steward in the opening 80+% of the time, then I mean, I don't know what to tell you other than you're doing it wrong. I say this as someone who likes opening Salvager in the absence of other compelling cards, and who knows full well how to press an endgame with Salvagers. I used to win a lot of games with few actions in my deck other than Salvagers (but I've gotten better about finding more interesting strong strategies since then).


If there's a strong engine that can be built on any given board, Steward is an elite opener. If there's not a strong engine, sure, open Smithy/Silver or whatever. Like other deck trimmers, Steward is only good if there's some compelling reason to trim your deck.

[ackack]

If there's a strong engine that can be built on any given board, Steward is an elite opener. If there's not a strong engine, sure, open Smithy/Silver or whatever. Like other deck trimmers, Steward is only good if there's some compelling reason to trim your deck.

Right, and those are the situations where Steward is uncontroversially better. Even in the situations where you lack "compelling reason to trim your deck," though, Salvager's cleaning up of Estates for benefit is still worthwhile. And in those sorts of games, Salvager is also fantastic late. This is why in a lot of games - in my opinion the majority, though I wouldn't think 80% - I think it's probably a better opener.

[Epoch]

And sure moneylender has a lower chance of miss, but the amount by which salvager is better when it hits plus the amount it is better late game makes salvager waaay better imo.

Salvager is no better when it hits -- they both return a hand that gives $2 more than it otherwise would.

Moneylender's value is in its longevity: With Salvager, you're likely going to hit 1-2 Estates and then be trashing-for-no-benefit (unless you at that point want to start trashing silvers or other $3-$4 cards, in which case Salvager is fine).  Moneylender has 7 initial targets as opposed to 3.  It's less likely to fail to produce $5 on turns 3 or 4, but it's MUCH less likely to be drawn dead on the next two passes through the deck, and to continue to up the buying power of the deck.  Then, once it's hit, say, 2-4 times, it's likely to be dead, and Salvager jumps way up in comparative value.

[ackack]

Moneylender's value is in its longevity: With Salvager, you're likely going to hit 1-2 Estates and then be trashing-for-no-benefit (unless you at that point want to start trashing silvers or other $3-$4 cards, in which case Salvager is fine).  Moneylender has 7 initial targets as opposed to 3.  It's less likely to fail to produce $5 on turns 3 or 4, but it's MUCH less likely to be drawn dead on the next two passes through the deck, and to continue to up the buying power of the deck.  Then, once it's hit, say, 2-4 times, it's likely to be dead, and Salvager jumps way up in comparative value.

But you're not confined to having to use your Salvager on Estates, and often you'll use it on other things with even better yield. Like HiveMind says, picking up more Salvagers rarely hurts much because Salvaging a Salvager is not a bad outcome. Completely useless Salvagers are somewhat rare - completely useless Moneylenders are pretty common. Thus I don't really think longevity is an argument in favor of the Moneylender. Quite the opposite. I do still think Moneylender is better as an opener than Salvager, but I don't think it's a huge difference.

[Epoch]

But you're not confined to having to use your Salvager on Estates, and often you'll use it on other things with even better yield.

Gosh, you might have thought that I would have said something like, "unless you at that point want to start trashing silvers or other $3-$4 cards, in which case Salvager is fine."

The thing is, trashing a Silver with Salvager gets you $3.  The Silver would have given you $2.  If you had bought a Silver instead of the Salvager, you would've had $4.  That's...  pretty good.  Better if the Silver is a serious liability, worse if you might miss having that Silver in your deck later.  Trashing a $4 action is a lot better-looking...  but what's the $4 action you're trashing?  If you bought Salvager and another $4 action, should you have bought that other $4 action first, and Salvager second?  If the $4 action produces $2, then it likely would have improved your first few hands more than Salvager did.

Trashing a $5+ card in the mid-game is...  probably not super-good.  Unless you did something like buy a Duchy with a Hoard.  Or you had one of the relatively few $5 cards that obsolete themselves.  Mint or Mine, maybe.  Trading Post, definitely.

Like HiveMind says, picking up more Salvagers rarely hurts much because Salvaging a Salvager is not a bad outcome. Completely useless Salvagers are somewhat rare - completely useless Moneylenders are pretty common. Thus I don't really think longevity is an argument in favor of the Moneylender. Quite the opposite. I do still think Moneylender is better as an opener than Salvager, but I don't think it's a huge difference.

Moneylender is better early, better mid, and then quite a lot worse late.

[chwhite]

The reason Moneylender is a better opener than Salvager is because there is almost no chance of Moneylender whiffing on Turn 3/4, whereas a third of the time your Salvager will miss the Estate.  That's a high rate of failure.

Salvager is a great card, but it's not a great opener.  Its power is strongest in the endgame.

[guided]

in my opinion the majority

Not really an opinion, but I'll assume you mean "estimation", and then suggest that your estimation is badly off. Trimming at the tempo that Steward can provide is strong on a substantial majority of boards. And when trimming is not particularly strong, there are many stronger alternatives to Salvager as an opener (as simple as Smithy or Militia).

[ackack]

Gosh, you might have thought that I would have said something like, "unless you at that point want to start trashing silvers or other $3-$4 cards, in which case Salvager is fine."

That you think this is some sort of special oddball Salvager case meriting a parenthetical suggests you probably undervalue Salvager.

[Epoch]

That you think this is some sort of special oddball Salvager case meriting a parenthetical suggests you probably undervalue Salvager.

I don't usually want to trim out Silvers starting in the third reshuffle or so, in the sense of "I am willing to go to an effort to do it."  If it comes up, then... sure.  It's more likely than not a mild advantage trash them for $3.

But...  when do you hate Silvers so much that you are excited about getting rid of them for a mild benefit?  Not in Big Money decks that are aiming at Provinces.  You might in an engine deck that wants a very trimmed deck -- but now we're in fantasy land, because that doesn't happen in games where you open Salvager.  You might in a Big Money/Colony deck -- but if you're going Big Money in a Colony game, you're in pretty dire straights.  A Colony game in general is more likely to dislike Silver.

I can construct hypothetical scenarios, here.  Lesse: I might be really excited about the Salvager trashing a Silver on turn 8 or so if on turn 3, I trashed 5 Coppers to a Mint, leaving me with a very trimmed deck.  But I didn't know I was going to luck into a 5 Copper hand on turn 3 when I opened Salvager.  Similarly, if I got an early Forge (though how did I get an early Forge with a Salvager opening?), and trashed down a lot, sure.  Again, not something I could've planned for at the point I opened Salvager.  Hmmm, maybe if Fishing Village is on the table: the FVs give me the Actions that mean I don't mind playing Salvager, or even several, and with their money and the Salvager +buy, I can probably do a couple of turns of $6->FVx2 and catch up if I need to.  But then I probably never had a Silver to trash.

Like I said, I'll Salvage a Silver in the mid game if that's where I am, but if you think that that's likely to be a great deal, I think you're just wrong.  It's likely to be a "decent but not exceptional" deal.

[guided]

Salvaging a Silver isn't usually awesome, but it's sometimes the best alternative, and the existence of the option to trash Silver (or some random terminal action, or whatever), instead of wasting time trashing a Copper instead, is part of what makes Salvager a useful card.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I decided to see how well my list matches with the best openings, pairing with a few typical non-terminals. I've sorted base on the order on the council room page and colored base on my rankings, with redder being higher and bluer being lower.


with silver:
masquerade
ambassador
chapel
sea hag
young witch
bishop
swindler
remake
salvager
steward
island
monument
moneylender
militia
smithy
envoy
cutpurse
navigator

This is reasonably close to my rankings, with bishop a bit higher and militia/cutpurse a bit lower.


with fishing village:
masquerade
ambassador
young witch
sea hag
chapel
remake
steward
bishop
salvager
monument
envoy
swindler
militia
moneylender
smithy
cutpurse
island
baron
navigator
remodel

Now steward jumps up, as with fishing village an steward, you already on the fast track to a good-looking engine going. Monument also jumps up due to the nice monument/fishing village combo strat. And bishop stays high.


with lookout:
sea hag
young witch
ambassador
monument
swindler
militia
moneylender
bishop
salvager
masquerade
remake
island
steward
cutpurse
bridge

Now masquerade drops because masq/lookout is worse than masq/silver. Moneylender jumps because while it's weak at trashing alone, combining with lookout makes for good trashing. I'm surprised steward doesn't jump as well. The "estate trashers" also take a hit because lookout already knocks out estates, though I'd still think remake would be good.


with loan:
sea hag
young witch
bishop
masquerade
salvager
ambassador
steward
remake
militia
monument
island
envoy
remodel
cutpurse
chapel

Bishop is again surprisingly high. And moneylender is gone for obvious reasons -- loan does the same thing but better, which would turn moneylender useless too fast. Steward jumps here as I would have expected it too with lookout -- while its a bit slow trashing on its own, it's great when paired with a non-terminal trasher.


with chapel:
monument
sea hag
militia
young witch
bishop
treasure map
bridge
swindler
salvager
cutpurse
conpirator
ambassador
moneylender
smithy
steward
masquerade
baron
remake
horse traders
black market
island
envoy
navigator

The VP chip cards are high here because they combo well with chapel, and the elite openers are lower because they don't. Militia is high because it counters chapel well, plus gets more repeated plays in the slimmer deck. Remake is surprisingly low.


with warehouse:
sea hag
swindler
ambassador
young witch
remake
moneylender
monument
militia
treasure map
cutpurse
baron
chapel
bishop

Swindler is high because you can repeatedly attack. Militia and cutpurse don't share this benefit because warehouse is weak when attacked by hand-size reduction, making attack/silver a better opening. Steward is mysteriously MIA, and salvager is gone because it doesn't play well with the smaller hand given by warehouse.


with tournament:
ambassador
chapel
masquerade
steward
swindler
fortune teller
trade route
chancellor

Here we're limited to $3 cards so there is not much to say. Steward is better because you want to trash into a slim enough deck to increase your chance of drawing province with a tournament.

I'd say that the general picture I get out of this is that I may have the +$2 attacks too high. Based on this data, it may be appropriate (as WW noted) to swap the attack and VP tiers. Other than that (and the note I've made about steward), I'm pretty happy with the list.

[Thisisnotasmile]

I'm just wondering... Why do you keep referring to Chapel as a non-terminal?

[AJD]

That's addressed in the original post:

"While you generally only want to open with a single terminal action to avoid the 36% chance of collision, you make an exception for chapel.... In terms of play, if you get a collision, just trash 3 cards and be satisfied that you’re going to get back to your other terminal soon enough with your rapidly slimming deck."

[Thisisnotasmile]

Sure, it's more okay to open Chapel/terminal than any other terminal/terminal, but that doesn't really explain the following quote:

I decided to restrict to terminals because you usually only buy one terminal. Non-terminals, like chapel, can be bought along with one of these cards. Comparing swindler to tournament, for example, is not important, since you can just buy both.

If you mean "non-terminals AND Chapel", say that. "Non-terminals, like Chapel" is just plain wrong.

Never mind. I just realised that that "like" is an "in a similar way to" like rather than a "for example" like.

[Fangz]

I feel like that list strengthens the case of including the non-terminals in the analysis of the openers. In several cases, the real 'work' of the opening cards is done by the non-terminal. With cards as good as loan and lookout, I'd be totally happy going tournament/loan or whatever, and not pick up a $4 or $3 terminal at all, if there's only a few poor choices on offer.

[Fangz]

But you're not confined to having to use your Salvager on Estates, and often you'll use it on other things with even better yield.

Gosh, you might have thought that I would have said something like, "unless you at that point want to start trashing silvers or other $3-$4 cards, in which case Salvager is fine."

The thing is, trashing a Silver with Salvager gets you $3.  The Silver would have given you $2.  If you had bought a Silver instead of the Salvager, you would've had $4.  That's...  pretty good.  Better if the Silver is a serious liability, worse if you might miss having that Silver in your deck later.  Trashing a $4 action is a lot better-looking...  but what's the $4 action you're trashing?  If you bought Salvager and another $4 action, should you have bought that other $4 action first, and Salvager second?  If the $4 action produces $2, then it likely would have improved your first few hands more than Salvager did.

Trashing a $5+ card in the mid-game is...  probably not super-good.  Unless you did something like buy a Duchy with a Hoard.  Or you had one of the relatively few $5 cards that obsolete themselves.  Mint or Mine, maybe.  Trading Post, definitely.

Like HiveMind says, picking up more Salvagers rarely hurts much because Salvaging a Salvager is not a bad outcome. Completely useless Salvagers are somewhat rare - completely useless Moneylenders are pretty common. Thus I don't really think longevity is an argument in favor of the Moneylender. Quite the opposite. I do still think Moneylender is better as an opener than Salvager, but I don't think it's a huge difference.

Moneylender is better early, better mid, and then quite a lot worse late.

But then explain

http://councilroom.com/win_weighted_accum_turn.html?cards=moneylender%2C%20salvager%2C%20steward%2C%20silver

I think there's some merit to the argument that it can be worth picking up a salvager early if you fear not having the opportunity to get a salvager later on when you need it. The cost of not being able to buy a gold, or even a province later on so that you can get a late salvager, can well overwhelm the relative weakness of the card as a trasher in the early game, especially when salvager can accelerate the endgame enormously. Plus you are neglecting the one other thing salvager adds to the table that many opening cards don't - that +buy. Having a +buy is essential to the acquisition of several powerful but cheap cards. I'd usually prefer two menageries to a gold. (Heck councilroom rates menagerie as uniformly better than a gold, which is interesting...)

[Epoch]

But then explain

http://councilroom.com/win_weighted_accum_turn.html?cards=moneylender%2C%20salvager%2C%20steward%2C%20silver

I explain almost every Council Room stat by noting that my not-very-exalted level 27 status puts me in the upper 10% of all isotropic players on the leaderboard.  I just don't know that you can draw terribly worthwhile conclusions from data that is overwhelmingly from very low-skill players.

[rrenaud]

What happens if you measure by #games played, rather than straight up #players?  Presumably the players who play the most tend to also be the best..

Also, from prior experience, when I get baited into doing skill based analysis for rftg, the numbers basically don't change, but I waste a fair amount of time.

[Fangz]

But then explain

http://councilroom.com/win_weighted_accum_turn.html?cards=moneylender%2C%20salvager%2C%20steward%2C%20silver

I explain almost every Council Room stat by noting that my not-very-exalted level 27 status puts me in the upper 10% of all isotropic players on the leaderboard.  I just don't know that you can draw terribly worthwhile conclusions from data that is overwhelmingly from very low-skill players.

If the stats are flawed, you'd expect them to break the other way though. Since moneylender is a fairly straightforward card requiring no judgement of which card to use it on, while salvager is one you'd expect substantial skill to recognise and use effectively, and susceptible to a lot of misplay from newbies (like trying to use it to trash coppers).

[Epoch]

If the stats are flawed, you'd expect them to break the other way though. Since moneylender is a fairly straightforward card requiring no judgement of which card to use it on, while salvager is one you'd expect substantial skill to recognise and use effectively, and susceptible to a lot of misplay from newbies (like trying to use it to trash coppers).

I don't think anyone misplays Scavenger.  If you could target an Estate or a Copper with it, it's pretty clear that anyone who's played for more than two games understands you target an Estate with it.  I think people may mis-buy Scavenger.

Here's a narrative that explains that chart fine:

1.  Scavenger is a good late-game card.
2.  Low-skill players either buy it early (and get decent value out of it all through the game), which, against other low-skill players, tends to be good for them, or they don't buy it at all, or they buy it in the mid-late game only because they're having lots of trouble generating $5 or $6, and/or because they're getting Cursed a lot -- indicating that their game is already going poorly.  It's not a good enough card to turn that kind of game around, explaining its somewhat lower rank as a later-game buy.

[Fangz]

But to get the best use out of salvager, you want to be salvaging provinces, or high value cards, which requires an understanding of which cards have value and when, and control of game pacing - which are very advanced techniques. I've seen plenty of idiot players buy salvager to salvage curses! My point is that all of these factors ought to drag down salvager, and make it look worse, statistically speaking, than it actually is at the hands of a skilled player. When, after all these influences, it is still *uniformly* better than moneylender no matter which turn it is bought, then that's good evidence it's a strong card throughout, and a decent opener (most likely because of the way it keeps its value).

[rod-]

alternatively, moneylender is a universally-known "better option" for opening, meaning that everyone opens it and the avg. win rate is dragged back down to 1, while salvager is rarely chosen as an opener unless it's by someone who actually knows what they're doing.  You'd have to show that the buy rates were equal to prove otherwise.
Councilroom suggests that the buy rates are similar (62% salvager, 67% moneylender).  If you assume that the .05 difference in purchase rate translates directly to a win/loss(which is of course a huge assumption), you would expect salvager's win rate to be .1 higher than moneylender, and it is in fact more like .06 higher. Is that difference all due to "I win because my opponent was too dumb to open salvager when they should have"?  Probably not, but who can really tease that difference out?

[Fangz]

In terms of buy rates, salvager is actually bought a bit more often than moneylender.

[rod-]

In terms of buy rates, salvager is actually bought a bit more often than moneylender.

The difference in buys/gains is due to multi-salvager decks, which are far more prevalent than multi-moneylender decks.  The %+ is the relevant statistic for this situation.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Councilroom suggests that the buy rates are similar (62% salvager, 67% moneylender).  If you assume that the .05 difference in purchase rate translates directly to a win/loss(which is of course a huge assumption), you would expect salvager's win rate to be .1 higher than moneylender, and it is in fact more like .06 higher.

I don't really follow this. Why would you expect a .1 higher win rate?

In terms of buy rates, salvager is actually bought a bit more often than moneylender.

The difference in buys/gains is due to multi-salvager decks, which are far more prevalent than multi-moneylender decks.  The %+ is the relevant statistic for this situation.

Even that is not particularly relevant as it includes games in which salvager was not used as an opener.

And on a non-councilroom note, I think the "miss" chance is a bit overblown. In remake vs moneylender, given that both show up on turn 3-4, the chance of remake missing is 8/11*7/10*6/9*5/8 = 0.21. So 21% of the time you "miss" and end up having in your deck a salvager and a $3 card instead of a moneylender and a $5 card. How much worse is it? It of course depends on the specific cards, and if there is a super-critical $5, salvager may not be the right opening. But the fact that you keep a salvager instead of a moneylender makes up for part of the difference. I don't think it's a catastrophic occurence. And in the more likely scenario (4x more likely) that you don't miss, you have a salvager and a copper instead of a moneylender and an estate, which is of, course, much better. So most of the time, you are in a very positive situation and about 21% of the time, you're behind. I think that in most cases it's worth the minor risk of missing.

[ChaosRed]

I am going to offer a newb's perspective on this. I thought it might be interesting to read how a neophyte digests an article like this (on the other hand it might not be, if you aren't interested in a completely uneducated opinion, skip this post).

The reason I think it might be interesting is you guys are all writing to an audience. That audience, often includes newbs like me, and so it might be worthwhile to read their reaction to it. I am not here to debate, you're all far more educated than me with this game, I am here merely to reflect what the uneducated can mine from an article such as this.

ARTICLE STRUCTURE
There was some commentary about the article's structure, particularly the use of "tiers". As a newb, I like articles like this. Newbies are craving analysis of cards, and not just one card, but an examination of a collection of cards and comparing them and contrasting them is precisely the type of reading we seek. In many ways its the "basics" we seek, the more elite strategies and the discussion of simulators or refining a particular strategy are still largely over our head.

A more general comparison of Ambassador vs. Chapel however is something we understand. We find ourselves in games with a 4/3 split with Ambassador and Chapel on the board and unsure which one is better. I know that answer can often be contextual, but still, a basic read of a group of cards over another is really useful to us.

ChapelEveryone knows about chapel. It kind of transcends all lists of anything.

It's my favorite card of the game. In games where you can "draft" the board, I always pick Chapel first. I love density, I obsess over it too much, because it pleases me to count cards and density enables that.

I have never seen a situation in which more than one Chapel was needed though and I always grab a silver on the second turn when I buy Chapel, and a second silver after the second shuffle (on the hand that does not produce a Chapel of course).

It works for me, I'd say in games against another new players on Isotropic or BoardGameArena, I win most often with Chapel on the board. I think because newer players think trashing is counter-intuitive. In fact, I've learned to hate copper and obsess a lot about trashing it or upgrading it (I love Mine), probably to my detriment.

Ambassador -If you glance through the rest of this list, you’ll see that practically all of the cards either attack or trash. Ambassador does both!

I have now had two games using Ambassador based on this article. I won one, lost the other. The one I lost was because I gravitated to Ambassador INSTEAD of Chapel on turn 1. Chapel was just faster at trashing, slimming and enabling a dense deck with lots of money in it.

In the other game, I did really well. It was one of those games where my use of Ambassador was so effective, the opponent wound up buying the card later on to counter it. By then it was too late. This article got me a win on Isotropic in other words, so I am very grateful for it.

Masquerade Masquerade offers a slightly different approach to opening than ambassador. While ambassador is for slow games, masquerade is astoundingly fast. Drawing 2 cards and trashing 1 gives a lot of cycling power

I've tried Masquerade a few times. Against good players, they seem to see I've picked it early and it never bothers them. It seems to slow (and a little random) to really hurt them. Against weaker opponents, I've had some success with Masquerade, my beef with the card is it is a rather slow trasher, I often wind up with two cards in my hand (after passing one) that I'd like to trash, but can only trash one.

My terribly uninformed opinion, believes this card is ranked too high.

Sea HagWhen you first start playing dominion, the cards that excite you are the ones that do cool things for your deck. But then you run into sea hag. Sea hag does absolutely nothing for your deck, yet is still one of the strongest opening terminals in the game.

I hate this card and veto it when I get the chance. I am not that found of curse attacks, but I of course play them when they are on the board, because I find curse cards are an arms race. Sea Hag infuriates me, because its an arms rate with no other real benefit.

I find games with Sea Hag in them are slooooooooooow and since I love density, I have to abandon my favorite way to play and embrace a "game of junk" that takes over 20 turns to finish. I can see its a great card, but I still hate it. Do other players have emotional reaction to cards like I do? Has it adversely affected their game (as it does with mine)?

Young Witch

Yet to play a game with this card, no comment.

SalvagerSalvager is one of my favorite opening terminals, because it is one of the few that retains its usefulness into late game.

I love this card. I would rank it as one of the best in the game. I never hesitate to buy it as soon as I can. Am I wrong?

Remake - There are some strategies that involve heavy remaking all game, but even outside of those, remake is a very strong opener.

Meh. I like trashers but its the "exactly +1" constraint that puts me off. I like how I just get a trash when there is no "exactly +1, but so often there's some crappy card that is "exactly +1" that stops the trashing in the later game. If its the only trasher in the game, I'll grab it, but otherwise I do not like this card much.

Militia
Militia is the standard hand-size reduction attack. Hand-size reduction is a nice kind of attack, because it scales well as the game goes on.

I don't sweat Militia much. I really don't. I never buy it. It's a good card, but I don't like it at as an opening buy (there's usually something better) and while sometimes Militia slows me down, I rarely find the attack utterly devastating.

Cutpurse

Never played with this card, no comment.

Swindler Swindler is a kind of swingy card, as its attack can range from actually helping your opponent (discard an estate from the top of their deck) to completely killing them (turn their witch into a duchy).

This is a stupid card, that I never buy. The thing is though, its burned me more than a few times. So maybe it isn't that stupid? To me, its just too random to be effective, but when luck strikes I curse this damn card. I swear I'll never buy it though, just out of spite.

BishopBishop is kind of a hard card to rate. It can net you a healthy pile of VP chips, but it doesn’t offer much in the way of purchasing power, and it helps your opponents slim their decks.

I like this card the late middle rounds, when the game is close. I've noticed a lot of games can come down to +/- two victory points and this situation is evident as the rounds progress. In those "tight" games, I might buy it in hopes it can help me get past a tie-break. I often try to focus on getting 7 points ahead, so the opponent must do more than buy the last province to win. Sometimes they can do that of course, but I continually try to get to that position as the mid-game progresses to the end-game and this card might get me there?

How awful is my reaction to this card I wonder? Because I have to confess, its not a good card, it just seems like a compelling way to try and bust out of a very close game.

Monument
Monument is the only card on this list that neither trashes nor attacks, and it may not come to mind immediately when you think of strong openings, but it’s a pretty good choice for an opening terminal even if you’re not going for some sort of mass monument strategy.

Meh. I have no use for this card. What am I missing?

Steward
Actually, this is a bit low for steward -- it probably belongs above bishop and monument, and is potentially competitive with the attacks, depending on how crucial trashing is to your strategy. But thematically it falls down here.

LOVE this card! I use it to trash early and use it to gain an extra card later on, if its really late (and the victory cards are ruining my money density), then I just use the +2 (mid-game though +2 card is almost always worth more than 2 gold).

Great versatile card to my eyes, especially early in the game.

Moneylender
Moneylender is a nice trasher because, like masquerade or salvager, it allows you to trash without cannibalizing your turn. However, it’s trashing ability is pretty lackluster.

Here's what I'll say about Moneylender. In neophyte games, money is most-often your avenue to victory. Newer players tend to focus on +card +action cards, focus on developing an engine. It takes them (usually) at least 7 or 8 turns to really get their engine going and THEN they focus on money.

This card often lets me race ahead with a tighter, denser deck full of cash. I like getting two provinces under my belt...while my opponent is still drawing 5$ a turn. I get into this position a lot and it serves me well. I'll agree there's lots of other cards better than it, but I'll tell you, this card is always appealing to me in turn 1, almost always. If there is no Mine, no Chapel or other good trasher, I'm probably buying it.

Island
Technically it’s not a trasher (hence the quotes in the tier name), but Island does remove a card from your deck. You can (kind of) think of an early island as a one-shot bishop that gives one more VP, one less coin and no benefit to your opponent.

My reaction to Island is "meh".

Sorry my comments are so clearly uninformed...but to the author and others I thought you might get a kick out of how the "rabble" out there react to an article like this.

[rinkworks]

ChaosRed:  Thanks for this post!  It's indeed interesting to see your perspective.  I've attempted to argue for some of the cards you were down on:

Masquerade -

I've tried Masquerade a few times. Against good players, they seem to see I've picked it early and it never bothers them. It seems to slow (and a little random) to really hurt them. Against weaker opponents, I've had some success with Masquerade, my beef with the card is it is a rather slow trasher, I often wind up with two cards in my hand (after passing one) that I'd like to trash, but can only trash one.

This one took me a while to appreciate as well.  It might still be the one I understand the nuances of least.  You're right that it often doesn't hurt opponents (though when it does, it's bad).  You're right that it trashes slowly -- just one card at a time.  It's even poor as a drawer, drawing only 2 cards.  The secret to how good it is is that it does all three of these things at once for only $3.  No other card draws, trashes, AND attacks.

It's a good early buy, even if the attack doesn't ever amount to anything.  Getting to draw and trash is great for the early game, because you can slim down without sacrificing your buying power that turn to do it.   On certain boards, the attack becomes potent later in the game (and particularly in the wake of a hand-reduction attack, and/or in Chapel games where there is less likely to be junk to pass around), which is all gravy, as the card will have already given back the $3 you put into it by that point.

Remake -

Meh. I like trashers but its the "exactly +1" constraint that puts me off. I like how I just get a trash when there is no "exactly +1, but so often there's some crappy card that is "exactly +1" that stops the trashing in the later game. If its the only trasher in the game, I'll grab it, but otherwise I do not like this card much.

Mostly what you want to trash costs $0 (Coppers and Curses) or $2 (meaning that Silver is always a good card to Remake into).  How often do you use Chapel, your favorite card, on anything but those three?  Remake trashes at half the speed (still faster than most other trashers) but gives you free Silvers for the Estates.  Pretty great trade-off, even if you never use Remake again after the initial starting cards are gone.  Which is likely.  But lots of times you never use Chapel after that point either.

Swindler -

This is a stupid card, that I never buy. The thing is though, its burned me more than a few times. So maybe it isn't that stupid? To me, its just too random to be effective, but when luck strikes I curse this damn card. I swear I'll never buy it though, just out of spite.

It takes some forward thinking to use Swindler well -- or, perhaps more accurately, to make a good decision about whether to use it at all or not.  You want to do a quick survey of the board to see what cards at what costs are available.  For example, if Minion and Duke are on the board, and your opponent dives into the Minions, Swindler might very well stop that Minion engine dead.  Alternately, if your opponent goes for Duchy and Duke, and there's a good $5 target for those -- say, Outpost -- once again Swindler becomes strong.

Even lacking golden opportunities like those, it may be worth picking up early and just turning Coppers into Curses with it.  And if you miss a Copper and catch your opponent's opening $5 buy, poof, that Mountebank is now a Duchy, and you're back in the game.  True, often Swindler pretty harmless, but is the average that counts, not any particular play of the card.  If Swindler hits really good just once -- or, alternately, Coppers a few times -- then it's probably earned its keep in your deck.  It only cost you $3, after all.

Another thing is that you can't dismiss the +$2 as just an extra.  Swindler is equal in cost to Silver, which yields the same amount of cash.  Swindler's attack power need only be good enough to offset the need to spend an action to play it.  On some boards, actions are scarce; on others, you wind up with an excess, making Swindler over Silver a no-brainer.

Bishop -

...Because I have to confess, its not a good card, it just seems like a compelling way to try and bust out of a very close game.

Bishop is situational.  It can be bad in situations where your opponent can really benefit from the trashing -- but that's not always the case.  If he opens Chapel or tries rushing Gardens, just to pick two examples, Bishop becomes quite strong.  Even in less obvious situations, it can be pretty potent.  It's definitely more than a simple tiebreaker card.

Some things you can do with Bishop:

- Trash an Estate and GAIN a VP instead of losing one.
- Trash a Duchy for equal VP value, while getting the dead card out of your deck.
- Trash a Province for net -1 VP.  If you do this early enough, the small deck-slimming benefit is plenty good enough to compensate.
- Toward the end of the game, trash your engine cards and golds for obscene amounts of VP.  Trashing a Gold this way is +4 VP, quite substantial.  If you'd trashed two Estates or Coppers earlier in the game, that's already a Province.  Moreover, a Province that doesn't slow down your deck!  Take a couple more $5 and $6 cards out, and that's more than another one.  Two Provinces is quite a bit more than a tiebreaker.
- More specialized situations, but: trashing a Peddler provides way more value in VP than you'll ever get from the card itself.  If Hoard is on the table, you'll probably wind up with more Estates/Duchies than you want and more Golds than you need.  Bishops can crunch this stuff down for obscene amounts of VP.

Again, Bishop is not always a good card.  But it's good a lot and great often.

Monument -

Meh. I have no use for this card. What am I missing?

Probably just the right circumstances for it.  You can set up a +actions/+cards engine that will draw it almost every turn and have the spare actions to play it.  That means +1 VP every turn thereafter.  If you can play it with Throne Room or King's Court, even better.  And again, don't dismiss the +$2.

But yeah, usually it's not a critical buy but something you get when you've got your engine set up and want a kicker.  Nothing wrong with that.

Island -

My reaction to Island is "meh".

As with Swindler and Monument, don't overlook the baseline benefit.  Imagine a card that sits between Estate and Duchy.  It costs $4 and is worth 2 VP at the end of the game.  You'd probably wish the cost of $3.5 (mid-way between an Estate and Duchy) was rounded down rather than up, but since in practice the difference between $3 and $4 isn't much, you'd probably have to concede that such a card wouldn't be THAT overpriced and might be very important late in the game when your deck is winding down and you get a $4 turn -- maddeningly short of affording a Duchy.

Suddenly Island looks a lot better, because it does exactly that, except that it can get itself AND another VP card (or Copper, Curse, or other junk card) out of your deck in the process.  Now not only is it just as good as a late $4 hand, but earlier on it's likely preferable to Duchy, since the small deck acceleration it provides can (over)compensate for the 1 less VP it provides.

I'm not saying Island is a great card you want to binge on (though it's one of my personal favorites, just because I think the idea is cool), but one in the early game can produce a subtle but significant benefit, and a couple more in the mid-late game and do that too.  Three total equal a Province.  Your opponent has to match that somehow.

[Epoch]

What happens if you measure by #games played, rather than straight up #players?  Presumably the players who play the most tend to also be the best..

I don't have any access that I'm aware of to summing up number of games played, but just a slide down the leaderboard is instructive.  There are a very significant number of level 0 players who have played hundreds of games.  I noticed a level 7 player with 1300.

It's obviously the case that the number of games trends upwards as you move up the leaderboard, and there are a lot of level 0 folks with just a handful of games.  But I don't think it balances out the gigantic numerical disparity.

[HiveMindEmulator]

ARTICLE STRUCTURE
There was some commentary about the article's structure, particularly the use of "tiers". As a newb, I like articles like this. Newbies are craving analysis of cards, and not just one card, but an examination of a collection of cards and comparing them and contrasting them is precisely the type of reading we seek. In many ways its the "basics" we seek, the more elite strategies and the discussion of simulators or refining a particular strategy are still largely over our head.

This is basically what I was going for. As long as you don't take the the tiers too strictly and refuse to buy something because a card 1 tier higher exists, it should give some useful information. I'm glad you liked it.

Some comments on your post:

I always grab a silver on the second turn when I buy Chapel, and a second silver after the second shuffle (on the hand that does not produce a Chapel of course).

I kind of tried to make this point, but not maybe not clearly enough about chapel: You don't need to go chapel/silver. You can get it *along with* another terminal. Whether you draw chapel with silver or chapel with militia, there is hardly any difference (unless there is some $2 card you want), since either way you trash 3 cards and move on. And you only play chapel 2-3 times, at which point it acts more like an estate than a terminal action. So there are no really meaningful terminal collisions with chapel and another terminal.

I've tried Masquerade a few times. Against good players, they seem to see I've picked it early and it never bothers them. It seems to slow (and a little random) to really hurt them. Against weaker opponents, I've had some success with Masquerade, my beef with the card is it is a rather slow trasher, I often wind up with two cards in my hand (after passing one) that I'd like to trash, but can only trash one.

When you look at the masquerade card, the card passing is the first thing that jumps out, because it's different from other cards, but in most situations, it is the *least* important part. A card giving "+2 cards, you may trash a card from your hand" would be just as good in most situations. It doesn't trash fast, but it lets you buy good stuff (instead of nothing) on your trashing turns. If you compare it to steward's removing 2 bad cards, removing 1 bad and adding 1 (very) good is generally better, enabling faster strategies.

I love this [salvager]. I would rank it as one of the best in the game. I never hesitate to buy it as soon as I can. Am I wrong?

I don't think so, but some people apparently do

Meh. I like trashers but its the "exactly +1" constraint that puts me off. I like how I just get a trash when there is no "exactly +1, but so often there's some crappy card that is "exactly +1" that stops the trashing in the later game. If its the only trasher in the game, I'll grab it, but otherwise I do not like this card much.

There are no cards that cost $1, so you always trash coppers and curses for nothing. And having 3 silvers from your 3 estates is usually not a terrible thing...

[Swindler] is a stupid card, that I never buy. The thing is though, its burned me more than a few times. So maybe it isn't that stupid? To me, its just too random to be effective, but when luck strikes I curse this damn card. I swear I'll never buy it though, just out of spite.

It's definitely a veto-worthy card, because it's quite random, but it is very effective in 2-player as like 7-8% of the time it just wins one player the game when you they hit a $5 before it ever gets used. Avoiding it completely means you have to take these situations as losses but never get to take them as wins.

I like [bishop] the late middle rounds, when the game is close. I've noticed a lot of games can come down to +/- two victory points and this situation is evident as the rounds progress. In those "tight" games, I might buy it in hopes it can help me get past a tie-break. I often try to focus on getting 7 points ahead, so the opponent must do more than buy the last province to win. Sometimes they can do that of course, but I continually try to get to that position as the mid-game progresses to the end-game and this card might get me there?

Midgame bishop can be nice, when much of the trashing has been done, so your opponents don't reap the benefits of your bishop, but as an opening, there is a bit to worry about. Council room stats suggest that bishop is very effective, but this could just be because people tend to just not buy it at the wrong times, not that there are a lot of times in which it is good.

Meh. I have no use for [monument]. What am I missing?

Potentially a lot. As I wrote in the article, if there is nothing spectacular to be going for, the extra VPs are a big difference, as they add up to more than a duchy, which is often more than the margin of victory in a game with similar strategies. If you have a way of playing it more often (trashing, cycling), you can get tons of points.

Here's what I'll say about Moneylender. In neophyte games, money is most-often your avenue to victory. Newer players tend to focus on +card +action cards, focus on developing an engine. It takes them (usually) at least 7 or 8 turns to really get their engine going and THEN they focus on money.

This card often lets me race ahead with a tighter, denser deck full of cash. I like getting two provinces under my belt...while my opponent is still drawing 5$ a turn. I get into this position a lot and it serves me well. I'll agree there's lots of other cards better than it, but I'll tell you, this card is always appealing to me in turn 1, almost always. If there is no Mine, no Chapel or other good trasher, I'm probably buying it.

Moneylender is, I agree, a good trasher when there is nothing else good. But that's why it's near the bottom of the list. It's just good, not great. It is, for example, worse than monument in a big money situation, where +1 VP is better than having one less copper.

My reaction to Island is "meh".

That's a fair reaction. Island isn't exciting, but if there is really nothing good to open, it's nice to remove an estate and be a couple points ahead.

[ehunt]

Masquerade is not overrated. Here's a fun, if sobering, experiment: next time you have a board with masquerade, plan out a really cool strategy. Then don't execute that strategy at all. Instead, play big money masquerade, completely algorithmically:

open masquerade silver (or masquerade nothing with 5/2 - don't buy any 2's.) Buy money with <= 6, buy silver or gold whenever you can afford them, till there's only 5 provinces left, then start preferring duchy to silver. (you can buy royal seal, bank, hoard, or venture, but no talisman, quarry, or horn of plenty; definitely no actions, even if ... well, even if anything). Do not try to tweak big money masquerade. Instead, let big money masquerade tweak you.

I don't know why it works, just that it works. (of course, beware possession)

[HiveMindEmulator]

play big money masquerade, completely algorithmically:

I don't know why it works, just that it works.

If you think about it step-by step in cycles of the deck, it becomes quite clear. The first time through, if the masq doesn't fall to turn 5, you have $9 over 2 turns, which is practically guaranteed 2 silvers and a trashed estate. Then turn 5 you start with a 13 card deck that nearly draws in 2 turns with $13 total (masq, 3x silver, 7x copper, 2x estate). This practically guarantees a silver and a gold. Then starting turn 7, your deck has masq, gold, 4x silver, 6-7x copper 1-2x estate, for $17-18 total in 14 cards, so which draws in 2.5 turns. At this point, you're pretty much going to be able to afford gold or province almost every turn.

[Anon79]

Late to the party, but:

ChaosRed: Monument's Victory tokens are just like the tokens you get from Bishop, minus the density aspect. If you're the kind who likes to put yourself 7VP in the lead with one Province remaining, I'm surprised that this isn't one of your favourite cards!

[Fangz]

Monument really pisses me off. I usually ignore it, then I find myself losing in at the end despite being ahead in provinces, because the opponent has gained some silly amount of VP tokens. It's very annoying.

[Davio]

Monument really pisses me off. I usually ignore it, then I find myself losing in at the end despite being ahead in provinces, because the opponent has gained some silly amount of VP tokens. It's very annoying.

I'm a big fan of Monument, especially when you can play it over and over (Hunting Party, Golem) or KC/TR it.

The kingdom has to be right for it though with not a lot of better terminals.


I always lose to Goons players who start buying Coppers almost immediately.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Monument really pisses me off. I usually ignore it, then I find myself losing in at the end despite being ahead in provinces, because the opponent has gained some silly amount of VP tokens. It's very annoying.

I'm the same but with Bishop. I think "Meh, I'll let him get it and ride the free trashing". And then I do. And then I split the provinces 5-3 only to lose to tokens...

[DStu]

The kingdom has to be right for it though with not a lot of better terminals.

Last time I simulated BM+Monument could compete (about 1:1) with BM-Smithy/Vault/Militia. I actually like it most in BM situations, where you just add 2-3 Monuments, and so it get played often enough also. In the chain, you have +buy anyway so that you can avoid tieing the Victorycards more easily, or go for some pileending when it's in your favour.

But I like the strategic advatage having +6VP by equaling Provinces at the endgame. You can afford to go for Duchies somewhat later, allowing for an additional gold that can get you the last Province, you can go for the 7th Province more easily.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I've updated the article. The most notable changes are:
 - turned the "disclaimer" into an actual intro
 - moved steward up to join the "good" trashers, and appropriately adjusted the little blurbs to reflect this
 - reworked the explanations of the VP-related stuff (tier 5 blurb, monument, and island) to try to make it clearer how the VPs are actually an advantage

Please let me know what you think. Thanks!

[treasuremapisforcretins]

I'm shocked to hear the claim that Salvager is a subpar trasher. Of course, which card is better for your deck almost always depends on the long-term plan you have for your deck rather than the raw power value of a single card, but the truth is that what Salvager offers is very valuable. Giving you a buy is often extremely valuable in both the early and late stages; trashing a province to buy a province is often a game-winning play; trashing a gold or an engine piece on the final turn of the game can often allow you to buy the last province to end the game, or to buy a duchy or estate in addition to the last province to break a tie. On a board with chapel and salvager where the clear best strategy was to buy silvers and golds, I would certainly buy a chapel, but I definitely would want a salvager in my deck as well (although to be honest, I avoid boring games like that whenever possible).

As an aside, articles like this baffle me entirely. Single card evaluations (and assertions like "Steward is a weak card") are almost entirely useless- every card varies in value depending entirely on the other cards present. Not that I'm the first person to claim this, but it sees like a lot of people just don't understand the concept that a card's value is based on what it will do in the game you're playing, not how good it is in a vacuum.

[Epoch]

I'm shocked to hear the claim that Salvager is a subpar trasher.

Salvager's mid-to-late-game utility is undisputed.  I suggest it is a sub-par opener, not a sub-par trasher.

[dondon151]

As an aside, articles like this baffle me entirely. Single card evaluations (and assertions like "Steward is a weak card") are almost entirely useless- every card varies in value depending entirely on the other cards present.

I strongly disagree with this statement. Some openers are better than others almost regardless of the kingdom present. You're never, for example, going to see Moneylender top Sea Hag in terms of the strength of an opening buy. In that respect, I think this sort of generalized evaluation is useful.

[treasuremapisforcretins]

As an aside, articles like this baffle me entirely. Single card evaluations (and assertions like "Steward is a weak card") are almost entirely useless- every card varies in value depending entirely on the other cards present.

I strongly disagree with this statement. Some openers are better than others almost regardless of the kingdom present. You're never, for example, going to see Moneylender top Sea Hag in terms of the strength of an opening buy. In that respect, I think this sort of generalized evaluation is useful.

To address your example specifically, games where moneylender is a better card than sea hag not only exist, but are common. Sea hag is an awful card if there are good defensive cards available. The presence of a card like lighthouse (or especially a card like lighthouse in addition to efficient trashing) make sea hag almost a stone blank. Of course, how well the reaction cards in question interact with the other cards available is also important; evaluating a ten card board can be very complex, which is why single card evaluations are ridiculous.

[dondon151]

To address your example specifically, games where moneylender is a better card than sea hag not only exist, but are common. Sea hag is an awful card if there are good defensive cards available. The presence of a card like lighthouse (or especially a card like lighthouse in addition to efficient trashing) make sea hag almost a stone blank. Of course, how well the reaction cards in question interact with the other cards available is also important; evaluating a ten card board can be very complex, which is why single card evaluations are ridiculous.

Perhaps my wording was a little strong, but I challenge you to deny that in a vast majority of kingdoms, Sea Hag is a better opening buy than Moneylender. I believe that is the general purpose of ranking these cards.

In the same vein, it's also completely ridiculous to assert that single card evaluations are worthless simply because there is some variation in their power in certain kingdoms. Some cards are simply better than others in a larger set of circumstances. I know you're not trying to say that all openers are equivalent, but it's a lot more helpful to a neophyte player to tell him which properties to look for in a good opening buy than to tell him to carefully consider all possible synergies in the kingdom.

[treasuremapisforcretins]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most people who are bothering to read a dominion strategy forum on the internet have played enough to understand basic concepts like the power of putting curses in to their opponents decks; the rote beginner is probably not ever going to read any of these articles. I'm guessing that people who are reading like articles like are reasonable dominion players and want to get better, in which case they should, in fact, be carefully considering all the possible synergies when they draw their opening hand.

Edit: As for the sea hag vs moneylender debate, there really are enough cards that are very good against sea hag that I would definitely not be comfortable calling it better than moneylender a "vast majority" of the time, whatever that means, especially considering that moneylender is a card that I want to have in my deck in most circumstances.

[Epoch]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most people who are bothering to read a dominion strategy forum on the internet have played enough to understand basic concepts like the power of putting curses in to their opponents decks; the rote beginner is probably not ever going to read any of these articles. I'm guessing that people who are reading like articles like are reasonable dominion players and want to get better, in which case they should, in fact, be carefully considering all the possible synergies when they draw their opening hand.

Meh.  Or they, like me a few months ago, typed "dominion strategy" into Google because they were excited about the game and wanted to learn to play it better.

We get new players here from time to time -- even ones who post, not just lurk.

[treasuremapisforcretins]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most people who are bothering to read a dominion strategy forum on the internet have played enough to understand basic concepts like the power of putting curses in to their opponents decks; the rote beginner is probably not ever going to read any of these articles. I'm guessing that people who are reading like articles like are reasonable dominion players and want to get better, in which case they should, in fact, be carefully considering all the possible synergies when they draw their opening hand.

Meh.  Or they, like me a few months ago, typed "dominion strategy" into Google because they were excited about the game and wanted to learn to play it better.

We get new players here from time to time -- even ones who post, not just lurk.

You're level 28 on isotropic, so I don't think you're a very good example there.

[timchen]

Salvager is not a bad opening. It is better than a silver when it finds at least an estate, and worse when it doesn't. When trimming is good, it is definitely better than silver+silver. If not, then you should not try to get it until mid-late game.

[dondon151]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most people who are bothering to read a dominion strategy forum on the internet have played enough to understand basic concepts like the power of putting curses in to their opponents decks; the rote beginner is probably not ever going to read any of these articles. I'm guessing that people who are reading like articles like are reasonable dominion players and want to get better, in which case they should, in fact, be carefully considering all the possible synergies when they draw their opening hand.

Back maybe a month ago I was surely not at a level where I could understand all of the dynamics of the game, and the friends that I play with still occasionally make clearly suboptimal opening decisions (e.g. opening Remodel in a kingdom with no good targets, ignoring Sea Hag on boards where it would be very strong, etc.). I think it's erroneous to assume that all individuals who read a Dominion strategy forum are extremely adept at the game, or to assume that experienced players are the target audience; if that were the case, there would be nothing to talk about.

ChaosRed's post is also a good counterexample.

Edit: As for the sea hag vs moneylender debate, there really are enough cards that are very good against sea hag that I would definitely not be comfortable calling it better than moneylender a "vast majority" of the time, whatever that means, especially considering that moneylender is a card that I want to have in my deck in most circumstances.

I can only think of maybe 5 cards off the top of my head that would counter Sea Hag to an appreciable extent, and even with those cards in the kingdom I would still open with Sea Hag just to slow down the opponent. Masquerade and Trader are probably the 2 cards against which I definitely don't want to open Sea Hag. Whereas Moneylender... is just such a weak option now. It's only marginally useful in building an actions engine and it's not a very strong complement to BM.

[rinkworks]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most people who are bothering to read a dominion strategy forum on the internet have played enough to understand basic concepts like the power of putting curses in to their opponents decks; the rote beginner is probably not ever going to read any of these articles. I'm guessing that people who are reading like articles like are reasonable dominion players and want to get better, in which case they should, in fact, be carefully considering all the possible synergies when they draw their opening hand.

Definitely disagree here.  I started reading Dominion Strategy before I understood very many of the core principles of the game.  The fact that there was good basic information here (this was before the forum came about) is what taught me those principles and kept me interested in the game.

Regardless, though, even if it were true that all the readers of this site are experienced players, is it really that bad that someone write an opening guide directed at beginners?  I mean, surely it is useful if *someone* write some material for beginners.  Posting it here may mean that it finds its way into their hands anyhow, perhaps passed on by some of us more experienced players looking for material to teach their friends with.  I just don't see the controversy.

Edit: As for the sea hag vs moneylender debate, there really are enough cards that are very good against sea hag that I would definitely not be comfortable calling it better than moneylender a "vast majority" of the time, whatever that means, especially considering that moneylender is a card that I want to have in my deck in most circumstances.

Here again is an argument that I could concede without conceding the overall point.  If you think Sea Hag vs. Moneylender is a bad example, how about either of those vs. Scout?  Surely you're not going to tell me that, since there might well be some situation where Scout is preferable, it cannot be said to be generally an inferior opening purchase?

Frankly, the looseness with which the original article defines its rankings -- grouping them as much by category as by general opening strength -- itself defies any such criticism, even if it were valid.  Because that looseness implicitly acknowledges that you can't rank single cards in a vacuum with mathematical precision.  But you CAN convey a general sense of things by reading the list and (importantly) the associated comments for each item in it.

[AJD]

I can only think of maybe 5 cards off the top of my head that would counter Sea Hag to an appreciable extent, and even with those cards in the kingdom I would still open with Sea Hag just to slow down the opponent. Masquerade and Trader are probably the 2 cards against which I definitely don't want to open Sea Hag.

Hmm, this could be an interesting discussion in its own right: under what circumstances is it correct to ignore Sea Hag? Other than Masquerade and Trader, I think I might prefer to open Ambassador/Ambassador when Sea Hag is on the table (at least, if my opponent buys a Sea Hag). And I won a game recently by ignoring Sea Hag and opening Fishing Village / Jack of All Trades.

[AJD]

And I won a game recently by ignoring Sea Hag and opening Fishing Village / Jack of All Trades.

(Although my opponent's Sea Hag didn't come up until turn 5, and I did buy a Mountebank, so it's not like ignoring Sea Hag meant I was the recipient of all the cursing, so that might have been a fluke.)

[greatexpectations]

Hmm, this could be an interesting discussion in its own right: under what circumstances is it correct to ignore Sea Hag? Other than Masquerade and Trader, I think I might prefer to open Ambassador/Ambassador when Sea Hag is on the table (at least, if my opponent buys a Sea Hag). And I won a game recently by ignoring Sea Hag and opening Fishing Village / Jack of All Trades.

ambassador was my first thought, but id probably pass on it for young witch most boards as well. if i opened 5/2 id consider upgrade as well.

im not sure if this is optimal or not, but i will usually ignore it and open silver/silver if witch or mountebank are around. i would prefer the early buying power and later usefulness of +2$ or +2 cards even if it means a 6/4 split against me.

[dondon151]

Hmm, this could be an interesting discussion in its own right: under what circumstances is it correct to ignore Sea Hag? Other than Masquerade and Trader, I think I might prefer to open Ambassador/Ambassador when Sea Hag is on the table (at least, if my opponent buys a Sea Hag). And I won a game recently by ignoring Sea Hag and opening Fishing Village / Jack of All Trades.

I had completely forgotten about Ambassador but quickly ran a rough simulation (1 Ambassador vs. 2 Sea Hags) and 1 Ambassador would take just over half of the games. I'm not sure how Amb/Hag matches up to Amb/Amb and Amb/Silver, though. And I had also completely forgotten about JoAT, but that's another card that Sea Hag is rather ineffective against.

But, back to the original point, against Masquerade, Ambassador, and JoAT, Moneylender loses as well, so I still can't think of very many cases at all where Moneylender would be a preferable opening buy to Sea Hag.

[DStu]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most people who are bothering to read a dominion strategy forum on the internet have played enough to understand basic concepts like the power of putting curses in to their opponents decks; the rote beginner is probably not ever going to read any of these articles.

And I would even go so far that people who are bothering to read a dominion strategy forum on the internet have played enough to understand basic concepts like changing power of cards induced by the kingdom.

Strongest openings then helps in giving hints on which cards you should look in the beginning and show if the kingdom supports or counters them.  Of course you could check all 720 3-card interactions on the board and rate their strength, but I think most people would prefer a heuristic which card are important to check them first.

[Elyv]

I can only think of maybe 5 cards off the top of my head that would counter Sea Hag to an appreciable extent, and even with those cards in the kingdom I would still open with Sea Hag just to slow down the opponent. Masquerade and Trader are probably the 2 cards against which I definitely don't want to open Sea Hag.

I think I might prefer to open Ambassador/Ambassador when Sea Hag is on the table (at least, if my opponent buys a Sea Hag).

Ambassador is basically just a better card than hag, since the cards you're putting into your opponents deck still suck, but you're also getting those bad cards out of your deck. Cursers are fairly mediocre in an ambassador game, unless you've already won the ambassador war. I've actually ignored mountebank with ambassador on the table before, because I was in a position where I could fairly consistently ambassador all the curses/copper being sent my way.

[chwhite]

Mountebank is the one card that comes to mind as a possible reason to go Moneylender instead of Hag.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Cards I generally skip sea hag for: masquerade, ambassador, young witch, jack.

I don't think skipping sea hag to go for moneylender into mountebank is good. Sea hag's attack is better, and hits sooner (they are drawing curses before they even buy a mountebank). And if there's no way to trash curses, you probably don't want to trash your coppers in a curse game, so moneylender loses a lot of appeal.

--------

On another topic, I guess I should update this to include hinterlands cards. Here are my initial thoughts:

 - Jack is obviously quite good. Maybe it belongs with Masquerade and Ambassador, but probably at least with salvager.

 - Trader might fit in with the last tier since trashing estates into multiple silvers can be nice, but then it falls into the remodel problem, where you can't really buy anything on the trader turn, so you're slow to get to the big stuff, and you're expanding rather than trimming your deck, so you're not even going to get your late good cards more often (the way you would with chapel/remake/steward). I think it's probably more situational and depends on if you think you can get something good out of the reaction portion of the card.

 - At first blush, both Oracle's effects seem slightly weak, so it doesn't seem like a generally good opening, but I don't know. Since you spy before drawing, you're pretty likely to be able to fetch $2 out of it (the usual bonus for a sub-$5 terminal attack) plus you get the cycling benefit. And the attack can really mess your opponent up if you skip one of their opening buys (30% chance), and at the least, it's about like fortune teller. So it's at least not a *bad* opening, but is it good enough to be on this list? I'm not sure. Early returns don't have it doing well on CR.com, and I haven't used it enough to make a strong opinion.

 - Develop seems too situational, more like remodel than salvager. I'm pretty sure it won't be on the list.

 - Nomad camp is situational because it depends on how useful that +buy is going to be early on and/or how much risk you're willing to take to go for $5 on turn 2 (given that you draw $4 on turn 1). It's cute, but not generally strong, I think. It also won't likely make the list.

 - There may be something cute with Noble Brigand's ability to cause a shuffle before your opponent's second buy, but it seems unlikely that it's a generally good opening.

 - And finally, Duchess is obviously not worth opening.