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Author Topic: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 5/5)  (Read 124996 times)

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Powerman

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #200 on: February 17, 2013, 12:46:43 am »
0

Should I be surprised that we haven't seen Caravan yet? I didn't think it would be this high.

Caravan is very very good.  I'm hopeful for a top 5 for it!  Though, I think it will be more like #8.
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Tables

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #201 on: February 17, 2013, 08:33:53 am »
0

The only ranking so far that's seemed way way off is Conspirator. Why is such an unreliable card so highly ranked?

I find it strange you can say this when it fell one rank about Throne Room, a WAY more unreliable card.

And actually, I still feel Throne Room's rank is bonkers. I had it 41st, and I still feel that's about right, maybe a touch higher. In a normal engine you generally need to match you villages with your draw repeatedly. In a TR engine, you still need to match those, but also need to match your TR's with the things you want to TR. It's very good when you can do that, but it's a trap far too often I find.
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...spin-offs are still better for all of the previously cited reasons.
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sparky5856

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #202 on: February 17, 2013, 12:17:49 pm »
0

Should I be surprised that we haven't seen Caravan yet? I didn't think it would be this high.

Caravan is very very good.  I'm hopeful for a top 5 for it!  Though, I think it will be more like #8.

Well the fact that it can never hurt you is a bonus, it irks me though that it never really gives you any immediate benefit. I forgot how high I ranked it though. Maybe it should be like slightly below #10, which is practically where we are anyway. I don't think it's top 5 material though; we're getting into really powerful game-changing cards by that point.
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Awaclus

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #203 on: February 17, 2013, 01:21:18 pm »
0

Well the fact that it can never hurt you is a bonus, it irks me though that it never really gives you any immediate benefit. I forgot how high I ranked it though. Maybe it should be like slightly below #10, which is practically where we are anyway. I don't think it's top 5 material though; we're getting into really powerful game-changing cards by that point.
Caravan is surprisingly game-changing, too. I would personally put it at #9 and I know I'm underrating it.
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thirtyseven

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #204 on: February 17, 2013, 02:42:39 pm »
0

The only ranking so far that's seemed way way off is Conspirator. Why is such an unreliable card so highly ranked?

I find it strange you can say this when it fell one rank about Throne Room, a WAY more unreliable card.

And actually, I still feel Throne Room's rank is bonkers. I had it 41st, and I still feel that's about right, maybe a touch higher. In a normal engine you generally need to match you villages with your draw repeatedly. In a TR engine, you still need to match those, but also need to match your TR's with the things you want to TR. It's very good when you can do that, but it's a trap far too often I find.

Okay yeah, I agree TR is overrated here too. But I'm happy with TR connecting to almost anything, and all you have to do is buy a lot of actions, and trashing helps too. But with Conspirator, you better be able to play some villages or cantrips before any Conspirators or else you're screwed.
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dondon151

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #205 on: February 17, 2013, 04:53:26 pm »
+2

And actually, I still feel Throne Room's rank is bonkers. I had it 41st, and I still feel that's about right, maybe a touch higher. In a normal engine you generally need to match you villages with your draw repeatedly. In a TR engine, you still need to match those, but also need to match your TR's with the things you want to TR. It's very good when you can do that, but it's a trap far too often I find.

The point of an engine with Throne Room is that you can TR anything in the engine. You are getting more out of the TR than you would have with another buy if you use it on any card costing $4 or more. In any case these engines are not nearly as difficult to build as you say they are because with a high enough action density, it's trivial to start a hand with TR + card that gives +card, +action or 2 TRs + terminal draw.

TR is absurdly powerful in the right kingdoms and I think that its rank is appropriate. It is consistently underrated by this community.
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Powerman

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #206 on: February 17, 2013, 06:53:46 pm »
0

The only ranking so far that's seemed way way off is Conspirator. Why is such an unreliable card so highly ranked?

I find it strange you can say this when it fell one rank about Throne Room, a WAY more unreliable card.

And actually, I still feel Throne Room's rank is bonkers. I had it 41st, and I still feel that's about right, maybe a touch higher. In a normal engine you generally need to match you villages with your draw repeatedly. In a TR engine, you still need to match those, but also need to match your TR's with the things you want to TR. It's very good when you can do that, but it's a trap far too often I find.

Okay yeah, I agree TR is overrated here too. But I'm happy with TR connecting to almost anything, and all you have to do is buy a lot of actions, and trashing helps too. But with Conspirator, you better be able to play some villages or cantrips before any Conspirators or else you're screwed.

TR is overrated, but not so overrated.  41 is way too low.  I'd be fine with it in the range of 20-35 ish.  Yeah you can have a TR act as the village of your engine, or it can just act as a duplicate of a card.  Kind of like Band of Misfits.  So you have TR-TR-Smithy... or just Village-TR-Smithy.  It is more board dependent than a lot of cards though.
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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #207 on: February 17, 2013, 10:57:54 pm »
+1

TR is no KC.
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heatthespurs

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 1/5)
« Reply #208 on: February 18, 2013, 02:03:34 am »
+1

Worker's Village / Ambassador is the #78 best opening.

Could someone explain how this opening is good? I thought Village opener is generally bad? I can see both WV and Ambassador is great for building engine, but isn't it better to buy WV later?
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eHalcyon

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 1/5)
« Reply #209 on: February 18, 2013, 02:05:36 am »
0

Worker's Village / Ambassador is the #78 best opening.

Could someone explain how this opening is good? I thought Village opener is generally bad? I can see both WV and Ambassador is great for building engine, but isn't it better to buy WV later?

When you open Amb, you are probably building an engine.  WV is good for engines.  It also makes it a bit safer to pick up double amb.
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dondon151

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #210 on: February 18, 2013, 02:21:02 am »
+1

TR is no KC.

Of course not. It costs $3 less than KC.
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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #211 on: February 18, 2013, 01:17:22 pm »
+2

In set 4, most of the cards are within 3-4 spots of my rankings of them, but I have 3 major (10+ ranks) disagreements:

1. Gardens at 21 is crimially low. It's a top 10 card. Its presence totally changes the objective of the game. You now have options to go for a quick rush to piles without any real economy building, getting a bunch of cheap VP, as well as the option to build bigger and use the Gardens as an extra pile of Duchies. Either way, it significantly reduces the value of Provinces, which is a major game-changer. There's a reason it's one of the 4 pillars of the base game.

2. Conspirator at 14 seems even more insane to me. I had it at 37. Sure it provides a lot for a single card play when active, but its role isn't really that important. Most of the time, it's just adding economy to a functional engine. It doesn't add any of the actual functionality. This is something you can get out of things like Treasure Map, which no one thinks of as a good card.

3. Ironmonger at 13 seems way too high. It's at least 10, if not 20 spots too high. Ironmonger can only be reasonbly reliable as a village with strong trashing (or some way of controlling your deck top), otherwise there's too a great a chance that you don't hit an action. It comes with the nice side-effect of being a lab or sifting peddler when you miss, but most of the time you'd rather just have the village. It is also usuable in decks without strong trashing, but not as a village. In this case, it's kind of a single-card-sifting peddler or lab, which sounds good, but a peddler or lab in an untrashed deck really isn't anything to write home about. It's something you'll gladly buy for $4, but not something  that's a huge impact card.
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cluckyb

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #212 on: February 18, 2013, 01:37:56 pm »
+3

3. Ironmonger at 13 seems way too high. It's at least 10, if not 20 spots too high. Ironmonger can only be reasonbly reliable as a village with strong trashing (or some way of controlling your deck top), otherwise there's too a great a chance that you don't hit an action. It comes with the nice side-effect of being a lab or sifting peddler when you miss, but most of the time you'd rather just have the village. It is also usuable in decks without strong trashing, but not as a village. In this case, it's kind of a single-card-sifting peddler or lab, which sounds good, but a peddler or lab in an untrashed deck really isn't anything to write home about. It's something you'll gladly buy for $4, but not something  that's a huge impact card.

Why are you assuming you want your Ironmonger to be a village? While obviously price != value, Peddler with a small drawback is $3, Lab is $5, and Village is $3. So the value of things, at least price wise goes Lab > Peddler > Village. Sure in a kingdom without other villages and strong trashing it can be an invaluable engine component, but it seems to me the weakness of the Ironmonger is that its too often just a 4 cost village with top card filtering (and I mean, if you hit an action you're probably going to keep it), not that it isn't a village enough.
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jaybeez

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #213 on: February 18, 2013, 04:03:46 pm »
+1

I think (and I'm not sure, I haven't played DA a lot yet) that Ironmonger is particularly strong as an opener, probably with Silver.  If you do that, you've opened with what is functionally either a $4 Peddler that filters your Coppers, or a $4 Lab that filters your Estates.  For an opening buy, you could do a hell of a lot worse for $4.  It seems especially good for when there's no trashing, because it gives you really good early cycling.  That's my impression anyway.
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dondon151

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #214 on: February 18, 2013, 04:52:05 pm »
+1

Why are you assuming you want your Ironmonger to be a village? While obviously price != value, Peddler with a small drawback is $3, Lab is $5, and Village is $3.

What's the small drawback? The discard is optional. If anything, Ironmonger is Peddler, Lab, or Village with a small advantage (the card filtering is even better than Lab in the case of a Victory card), and it tends to help the kind of deck that you're building (e.g., if you have a lot of Actions, it'll tend to be a Village more often, and if you have a lot of Treasure / Victory, it'll tend to be Peddler / Lab more often).

EDIT: another way to think of Ironmonger is a Spy without the attack but with a pretty substantial vanilla bonus tacked on. That's pretty strong for a $4 too. Spy's attack is really weak and tends to only be good if you can play it a lot.
« Last Edit: February 18, 2013, 05:47:12 pm by dondon151 »
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Beyond Awesome

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #215 on: February 18, 2013, 05:12:41 pm »
0

When you hit a victory card, Ironmonger is a double lab. Yah, it sometimes hits something you don't want it to hit, but more often than not, if you understand the card well, you can use it for very good benefit. If anything, I feel Ironmonger is underranked her.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #216 on: February 18, 2013, 05:50:29 pm »
0

3. Ironmonger at 13 seems way too high. It's at least 10, if not 20 spots too high. Ironmonger can only be reasonbly reliable as a village with strong trashing (or some way of controlling your deck top), otherwise there's too a great a chance that you don't hit an action. It comes with the nice side-effect of being a lab or sifting peddler when you miss, but most of the time you'd rather just have the village. It is also usuable in decks without strong trashing, but not as a village. In this case, it's kind of a single-card-sifting peddler or lab, which sounds good, but a peddler or lab in an untrashed deck really isn't anything to write home about. It's something you'll gladly buy for $4, but not something  that's a huge impact card.

Why are you assuming you want your Ironmonger to be a village? While obviously price != value, Peddler with a small drawback is $3, Lab is $5, and Village is $3. So the value of things, at least price wise goes Lab > Peddler > Village. Sure in a kingdom without other villages and strong trashing it can be an invaluable engine component, but it seems to me the weakness of the Ironmonger is that its too often just a 4 cost village with top card filtering (and I mean, if you hit an action you're probably going to keep it), not that it isn't a village enough.

I'm not assuming you want it to be a village. I'm saying that the +action part is only useful in a certain type of deck (heavily trashed). Otherwise a random +action is not going to be useful.
I'm also (separately) saying that in untrashed decks, the other options aren't that great either, since then the original +1 card isn't even getting you that much.
I do think it is a card that will basically always be good, but never in a really powerful way, except in kingdoms with dual-types. It just doesn't have the same game-changing ability as attacks, VP cards, strong openers, and things like Tournament and Bridge, which are the kinds of cards that (should, at least in my opinion) populate the top 20 $4 cards. To me that makes it a middle-of-the-pack kind of card.
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dondon151

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #217 on: February 18, 2013, 06:39:49 pm »
0

I do think it is a card that will basically always be good, but never in a really powerful way, except in kingdoms with dual-types. It just doesn't have the same game-changing ability as attacks, VP cards, strong openers, and things like Tournament and Bridge, which are the kinds of cards that (should, at least in my opinion) populate the top 20 $4 cards. To me that makes it a middle-of-the-pack kind of card.

There aren't enough of these "game-changing" $4 cards to populate the top 20 if we use your definition of the word. Plus you've got a couple of really vanilla cards like Monument and Caravan in the top 11.

I mean, let's go down your list here and figure out what we haven't yet seen:
Attacks: Sea Hag, Young Witch, Marauder are all in the top 11.
VP cards: both Bishop and Monument are in the top 11.
Tournament and Bridge are in the top 11.

2 alt VP cards are in the top 20 (well, Gardens is close, but it's more or less there). Most $4s that haven't been listed already aren't particularly strong openers - they're just good; the strongest that I can think of are Jack and Remake, both of which are in the top 11.
« Last Edit: February 18, 2013, 06:46:03 pm by dondon151 »
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cluckyb

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #218 on: February 18, 2013, 07:05:32 pm »
0

Why are you assuming you want your Ironmonger to be a village? While obviously price != value, Peddler with a small drawback is $3, Lab is $5, and Village is $3.

What's the small drawback? The discard is optional. If anything, Ironmonger is Peddler, Lab, or Village with a small advantage (the card filtering is even better than Lab in the case of a Victory card), and it tends to help the kind of deck that you're building (e.g., if you have a lot of Actions, it'll tend to be a Village more often, and if you have a lot of Treasure / Victory, it'll tend to be Peddler / Lab more often).

EDIT: another way to think of Ironmonger is a Spy without the attack but with a pretty substantial vanilla bonus tacked on. That's pretty strong for a $4 too. Spy's attack is really weak and tends to only be good if you can play it a lot.

I was referring to Oasis, the closet thing we'll get to a non price fluctuating Peddler, which has the "small" drawback of discarding a card and costs $3, the same as a Village without any drawbacks. You're right that it is those three with a small advantage of deck filtering.
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HiveMindEmulator

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #219 on: February 18, 2013, 07:06:51 pm »
+1

Okay, so Ironmonger can fit into the top 20, but I think it's borderline at best. Maybe "game-changing" has too strong connotations, but I mean cards that really affect the way the game plays out. Ironmonger is often either just a village in a trashed deck, or something that provides a little money while cycling a money-heavy deck.
Even lesser attacks like Militia and Cutpurse should be higher than it, since the early game attack has a much greater effect on the way the game is going to shape up than a card you mostly amass on spare $4 buys.
Trashers (including Salvager, Spice, and possibly even Moneylender and Trader) should be higher than it since the presence of this trashing is more impactful.
Caravan should be higher than it, because it can be a strategic centerpiece. I don't think Ironmonger can't really do that without dual-types.
And I think Envoy and Smithy and the better villages should be higher than it as well, since they are more likely to be key pieces.
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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #220 on: February 21, 2013, 03:42:41 am »
0

Sorry again for the delay.

I'm really busy currently during the week and the lack of updates has nothing to do with the videos.
I wouldn't have been able to update even without updates. I hope this changes soon.

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #221 on: February 21, 2013, 04:20:31 am »
0

Spy's attack is really weak and tends to only be good if you can play it a lot.

That runs counter to common wisdom that the Spy attack is not spammable. Once you reveal that Estate, you mostly don't want to discard, however many Spies there will be. Of course there are situations where you want to hunt for and deny that one Platinum, but I consider it rare.
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dondon151

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #222 on: February 21, 2013, 08:56:37 am »
+1

That runs counter to common wisdom that the Spy attack is not spammable. Once you reveal that Estate, you mostly don't want to discard, however many Spies there will be. Of course there are situations where you want to hunt for and deny that one Platinum, but I consider it rare.

On the contrary, the Spy attack is very spammable, and only strong when it is used as such. Think for a second about why Scrying Pool is such a good engine indicator. A huge part is definitely because if its primary ability to reliably draw lots of cards. The other reason is that it wrecks competing money strategies because it is a card that you'll tend to play ~5 of per turn and it reliably leaves a bad card on top of the opponent's deck. Sometimes it doesn't matter whether it's a Copper or a Victory card, but it's almost always more desirable to leave a Victory card.

Yes, Spy is useless as an attack once you've found a Victory card. However, the goal of the attack in the first place is to find that Victory card, and on average it will take several plays of Spy to find that card. Giving your opponent a 4-card hand every turn is surprisingly strong.
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Willvon

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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #223 on: February 21, 2013, 09:13:35 am »
+1

Sorry again for the delay.

I'm really busy currently during the week and the lack of updates has nothing to do with the videos.
I wouldn't have been able to update even without updates. I hope this changes soon.

I have to admit that I have been checking regularly to see if you have posted the last part of the list and have been a little disappointed.  However, I think we all realize that you have a life to live beyond Dominion (as hard as that may be for some to believe).  We will survive until you get to it.  And when it is posted, we will enjoy it that much more. 

Thanks for taking time to do this.  It has to be a lot of work to put all of this together.  I know that I wouldn't have the time for it.  I look forward to next posting and the debate that follows.
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Re: The Dominion Cards Lists 2013 Edition: $4 cards (Part 4/5)
« Reply #224 on: February 21, 2013, 09:47:24 am »
0

That runs counter to common wisdom that the Spy attack is not spammable. Once you reveal that Estate, you mostly don't want to discard, however many Spies there will be. Of course there are situations where you want to hunt for and deny that one Platinum, but I consider it rare.

On the contrary, the Spy attack is very spammable, and only strong when it is used as such. Think for a second about why Scrying Pool is such a good engine indicator. A huge part is definitely because if its primary ability to reliably draw lots of cards. The other reason is that it wrecks competing money strategies because it is a card that you'll tend to play ~5 of per turn and it reliably leaves a bad card on top of the opponent's deck. Sometimes it doesn't matter whether it's a Copper or a Victory card, but it's almost always more desirable to leave a Victory card.

Yes, Spy is useless as an attack once you've found a Victory card. However, the goal of the attack in the first place is to find that Victory card, and on average it will take several plays of Spy to find that card. Giving your opponent a 4-card hand every turn is surprisingly strong.

So, if I'm reading you correctly, you are saying that the only way to make Spy worthwhile (or, at least the attack part), is to buy a bunch of them, and essentially make it into Fortune Teller, which is considered the 6th worst $3 card? I'm not saying you're wrong, but that sure does show why Spy is so weak, and that we may be underestimating Fortune Teller.
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