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	#61 Counting House (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 3.2% ▲0.2pp / Median: 1.7% ▲1.7pp / Standard Deviation: 6.1% ▼0.1pp Highest Value(s): 30.5% (1x), 21.3% (1x), 16.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 0% (23x) Counting House is on the last rank again. It's the card with the third lowest deviation in this list and was voted last 23 times. All $5s are really strong cards, but some shine more often than other ones. Counting House is one that shines very rarely. The best use may be countering Mountebank. With massive Copper in your deck, you have a high probability to get many Coppers in hand even if you're only half through the deck. Then you can easily buy a Province or a Colony with the use of this card only. It also has some really nice synergies with Coppersmith (make all Coppers worth a Silver) and Chancellor (discard all Coppers and put them in hand). But then you need a village to play Counting House and one of these cards in one turn and the probabilities to draw these 3 cards together are low in a deck full of Copper. The better alternative and only real combo is Golem. Buy many Golems and only one Counting House. The Golem will always find the Counting House and discard all other cards. With a Golem in hand, you are now guaranteed to get all Coppers. Instead you can buy many Warehouses, cycle through your deck discarding all cards right before the reshuffle and then play your Counting House. And now there's Beggar which makes it wasy to get a lot of Coppers, but I haven't tried this yet. It has some other nice synergies, but are very difficult to pull off. For a Bank you need additional buys to be worth it. With no real supporters, this card is mostly not worth the effort.
	#60 Saboteur (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 6.8% ▼2.3pp / Median: 6.7% ▲0.3pp / Standard Deviation: 11.6% ▲4.3pp Highest Value(s): 81.4% (1x), 21.3% (1x), 16.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 0% (9x) Saboteur lost clearly points, but is still on the same rank as last time, and now with a much higher consensus. With 9 last places it deserves this low rank even though there is one really big outlier. Saboteur is the worst $5 attack. Why? There are similar reasons like why Thief is bad. It trashes cards from your opponents deck without immediate benefit to you, so it's only destructive. And if you aren't able to play Saboteur in each turn at least one time, your opponent can catch up easily when he just continues and ignores it or re-buys the trashed card if it was essential. Another downside is that the opponent can pick up replacement cards that sometimes aren't that worse or you might even give your opponent the opportunity to pick up Victory cards in the end game. But, on the other side, it can lead to big outbursts if you play 1-2 Saboteurs each turn or if you can even play King's Court with it. In games with no mats and chips you are then able to trash the whole deck and all points from your opponent and can easily finish and win. But these cases are so rare, Saboteur is still a bad card for itself.
	#59 Stash (Promo) Weighted Average: 9.1% ▼0.9pp / Median: 6.5% ▼2.0pp / Standard Deviation: 12.4% ▼2.4pp Highest Value(s): 81.7% (1x), 29.8% (1x), 25.5% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 0% (6x) Stash is clearly a bad card too with 6 votes on last place. It lost a bit in consensus, but some part comes apparently mainly from that big outlier above 80%. You need 4 Stashes to get a Province after the reshuffle for sure and in Colony games it's almost useless. But a sure Province that you can get only after a reshuffle needs you to trigger the reshuffle as often as possible. This means you need supporter cards too. The most obvious ones are Golem (with max. one other action) or a few Chancellors. Now with Scavenger, there exists even a more powerful combo for a guaranteed Province each turn in a deck with 4 Stashes and 2 Scavengers. But still these are rare edge cases that makes Stash not worth $2 more than Silver. Especially at the crucial $5 price point you probably find stronger cards than Stash, although if you have $5 and want a Silver anyway, you can pick up a Stash unhesitatingly probably every time.
	#58 Contraband (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 11.9% ▼0.1pp / Median: 8.3% ▼2.3pp / Standard Deviation: 17.1% ▼6.5pp Highest Value(s): 93.2% (1x), 55.0% (1x), 53.2% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 0% (4x) Contraband has nearly the same amount of points, but dropped one rank. You might notice that really high deviation for a low ranked card which is to myself really not explainable. It has though one really high outlier above 90% and some votes around 50% which led to this deviation. Still it's a bad card which got 4 last ranks. In the unweighted ranking it would be still one rank higher on its old rank. The second treasure card in a row in this list. Contraband can be very trappy. Buying it as an opener on 5/2 can be a nice early Gold and the +Buy is very important for finding a substitution for the prohibited card. If there are many good cheap engine pieces on the board and you want Gold and a card with +Buy anyway this can be very good. But most of the times you embargo yourself. And in the late game this is a dead card because everybody knows you want that Province. If you buy it, buy only one, because two or more can really shut you down. And beware of Venture + Contraband!
	#57 Harvest (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 12.4% ▼4.1pp / Median: 10.6% ▼6.4pp / Standard Deviation: 9.8% ▲2.8pp Highest Value(s): 51.7% (1x), 45.0% (1x), 28.3% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 0% (3x) Now we come to bigger changes. Harvest lost 5 ranks and 4pp and got more agreement on the same time. It was voted 3 times last with only one rank close above 50%. It would be even one more rank lower in the unweighted list. Harvest is very swingy. In games with very few different cards and a coherent strategy, this is mostly a Silver and rarely a Gold and really no good card. And it can discard all your good cards you wanted to play in the next turn and even trigger an unwanted reshuffle. In games with many attacks, especially Cursers, Harvest can really be a better card. You can then make your Curses to money without having them in hand and Harvest can easily be worth $4. In a thin deck with a lot of engine pieces where you don't care about actions Harvest can also be a nice source of virtual money. Harvest has also a nice synergy with Tunnel. But other than that you rarely want to spend $5 for Harvest.
	#56 Cache (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 13.8% ▼0.8pp / Median: 11.7% ▼1.1pp / Standard Deviation: 10.1% ▲0.6pp Highest Value(s): 55.0% (1x), 40.0% (1x), 30.0% (2x) / Lowest Value(s): 3.3% (3x), 1.7% (2x) Cache is on the same rank as last time and has only lost a little bit in points. It is the first card with no last rank, but still has 5 votes below 5% and only one vote close above 50%. The third treasure card so close together. Cache performs differently in different kind of decks. In engine decks with few money (Scrying Pool etc) it's just horrible. In Big Money decks, it's most of the time superior than just a Silver (but only a little bit, similarly to Stash). But it only shines in big decks (Gardens) with many green cards (Silk Road), simply said in decks where Copper isn't a so bad card after all. Also nice is Cache in combination with Trader for a Gold and 2 Silvers for only $5. And Cache is like Silver not very good in Colony games.
	#55 Mine (Base) Weighted Average: 14.1% ▼1.5pp / Median: 13.3% ▼1.6pp / Standard Deviation: 8.1% ▲5.1pp Highest Value(s): 44.1% (1x), 29.8% (1x), 27.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 1.7% (2x), 0% (1x) Mine is also on the same rank as before and has a pretty high consensus too, the fifth lowest deviation in this list. It has one last rank and no vote above 50% and only one vote above 40%. It would be one rank higher in the unweighted ranking. Mine is one of the first trash-for-benefit card you probably got to know. It has the disadvantage of being limited to treasures, so you cannot trash them later into victory cards. But it has the advantage to get the new card immediately in hand. But Mine is still slow. A Moneylender doesn't get you a card, but is at least worth a Silver in the turn you played it, whereas Mine is only worth a Copper. But in the long term Mine can be better. The more often you play the new treasure card, the more Mine was profitable. So, if you want Mine, you want it early. It gets so much better in Colony games. First, Colony games last longer and you will probably see your treasure card more often and Mine is a Silver if you trash Gold for Platinum. For a 5/2 opening Mine/Fool's Gold is a pretty decent #108 ▲2 opening. PS: Don't confuse Mine with Mint.
	#54 Outpost (Seaside) Weighted Average: 14.4% ▼2.1pp / Median: 13.3% ▼3.7pp / Standard Deviation: 9.9% ▲5.7pp Highest Value(s): 45.8% (1x), 36.7% (1x), 36.2% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 1.7% (1x), 0% (2x) Outpost is one rank worse than last time with 2pp less than last time. It got a huge boost in consensus on the other side. It has even 2 last ranks. In the unweighted ranking it would be even one more rank worse. Outpost seems so nice for getting extra turns. But you only get a 3-card hand. It's like you Militia'd yourself, even worse, you cannot choose the 3 cards you want to keep. If you really need a +Buy, Outpost can fulfill this need. But even in those cases it's not better than a Workshop. If you want to use it to attack multiple times per turn, it can work, but still it is another terminal in your deck that can collide. It really can shine, in cases when you can guarantee a good card in your next hand. Treasury, Alchemist and Scheme are probably the best combos. Another case where your 3-card hand isn't that bad, may be with Minion, but this isn't very reliable either, because one of your 3 cards has to be one of your Minions. Another combo is Double Tactician/Outpost where you can get 8 cards. Generally it's pretty good with Duration cards, especially Wharf, Caravan and Haven. You can also get Outpost if you have high action density, but in most other cases you better ignore Outpost.
	#53 Explorer (Seaside) Weighted Average: 14.7% ▲3.1pp / Median: 12.8% ▲2.2pp / Standard Deviation: 12.4% ▼4.4pp Highest Value(s): 61.7% (1x), 48.3% (1x), 46.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 1.7% (1x), 0% (2x) Explorer is 5 ranks higher than last time and 3pp better. But it has also a much higher deviation. It still has 2 last ranks on one side and 3 votes above 40% on the other. The problem with Explorer is: When you already have 2-3 Provinces and you have $5, you want a Duchy most of the times. When you have one or none, it only nets you a Silver in hand most of the times and then there are still other cards that are better getting you Provinces than just a Silver-generating machine. If you compare it to Jack of All Trades, it's better in the Silver-getting, but just worse on all the other parts. So, it's pretty decent with alternate Victory cards, especially Duke, and you want it in thin decks where you can draw it with a Province with high probability. Explorer/Chapel is therefore a #68 ▲2 opening. And I forgot to mention, it's nearly useless in Colony games.
	#52 Tribute (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 15.5% ▼6.2pp / Median: 16.7% ▼4.6pp / Standard Deviation: 11.0% ▲2.2pp Highest Value(s): 59.3% (1x), 36.7% (2x) / Lowest Value(s): 0% (3x) Tribute lost only one rank - but what's much worse - it lost over 6pp. This may come from the 3 last votes it got. It would be one rank higher in the unweighted ranking. Tribute is another swingy card and even depends on the opponents' deck. You can really bad luck, revealing the same card. Then Tribute is really bad. In action-heavy decks you get +4 actions what you only want if there isn't another village around (but then you probably don't want many action cards). All other combinations can really be nice, e.g. in BM games, giving you $4 most of the times and later in the game +cards). It only really shines in games with dual-type cards. Hitting a Harem and a Nobles and getting +4 Cards, +2 Actions and $2 with only one card is excellent. But the unreliableness still is Tribute's biggest problem. Forming your strategy around it not only depends on you, your opponent has to cooperate.

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	#51 Mandarin (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 16.0% ▲0.4pp / Median: 13.3% ▼3.7pp / Standard Deviation: 9.3% ▲1.6pp Highest Value(s): 40.0% (1x), 35.0% (1x), 34.0% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 3.3% (2x), 2.1% (1x), 1.7% (1x) Mandarin is 3 ranks higher than last time, but with similar points. It has also pretty low deviation with no vote above 40% and on the other side no vote on the last rank. It would be one rank lower on the unweighted list. Mandarin is another cheap Gold, but you need an action to play it. What makes it better than the last cheap Gold-alternatives? The drawback of this card is to put back a card on your deck. But this can be also very nice, because you can prepare your next turn just like Courtyard does it. So, if you have more money than you need or you have colliding terminals, just put back a card. But with colliding terminals, the other card might be even stronger and you want to play that this turn. The on-buy effect can also be very nice. With a 5/2 opening you can buy the wanted stronger card next turn too and get an additional Mandarin. Mandarin/Hunting Party or Mandarin/Mint are very nice openings and it's not that bad in Double-Tactician games. In the late game where you miss $8 or $11 you can just play one Platinum or two Golds, buy the Mandarin and have a higher chance to reach it in the next turn. That can be very effective. And there is also the hard to setup Golden Deck which you can build with Horn of Plenty. But, still it's a cheap Gold and there are many better alternatives on the board most of the times.
	#50 Royal Seal (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 20.0% ▼2.1pp / Median: 18.3% ▼3.0pp / Standard Deviation: 16.3% ▼3.8pp Highest Value(s): 96.6% (1x), 59.6% (1x), 40.0% (2x) / Lowest Value(s): 3.3% (1x), 1.7% (2x) Now we're making a bigger jump of 4pp and come to the even another treasure card. It's on the same rank as last year, but still lost around 2pp. It has the second highest deviation in this list so far, but that's mainly because one outlier seems to really love this card. I don't know if there's much to say about Royal Seal. It's another Silver with bonus card. You probably want it early in the game, as it will accelerate your strategy. It's strictly superior to Silver. So if you want a Silver anyway and have $5, you can pick it up unhesitatingly. But still it's very expensive for a $5 card and there are better cards for the same cost around most of the times.
	#49 Mystic (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 27.9% / Median: 25.0% / Standard Deviation: 15.4% Highest Value(s): 76.7% (1x), 53.4% (1x), 53.3% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 6.7% (1x), 1.7% (2x) And now we're making an even bigger jump of nearly 8pp out of the bad cards range. And this is the first Dark Ages card. It has no last rank and 5 ranks above average. In the unweighted list it would be one rank higher. Mystic is a Conspirator and Wishing Well mixup. As it's non-terminal, it's really no bad card and hurts rarely in a deck, but unless you haven't any helper cards that let you guess the top card of your deck, it's like a Minion without Attack option. With 2 Mystics in hand you can at least draw one card. Mystic is good with Chapel or in other thin decks where your deck will contain not much other cards than Mystics. It's also good on any board that offers no terminal draw which you want for Big Money or for an engine. So it can be also a great addition in a Scrying Pool engine for example because all you want is the non-terminal money. And finally you can now profit from all the cards that you wished Wishing Well could combo with. You can now profit from opponents' Spies, Scrying Pools, Duchesses or sort of negate Fortune Teller, Ghost Ship, Bureaucrat, Rabble and other top-decking attacks. And of course it combos with Apothecary, Cartographer (and maybe also Wishing Well itself) and other cards which let you arrange the top of the deck. But still with any strong attack or strong terminal draw, Mystic is way to slow and not the way to go.
	#48 Mint (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 28.3% ▲0.1pp / Median: 23.3% ▼2.2pp / Standard Deviation: 15.3% ▼1.0pp Highest Value(s): 70.0% (2x), 66.0% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 10.0% (1x), 5.0% (1x), 3.3% (2x) Close before Mystic is Mint. It's on the same rank as last time with also basically the same points. It has 5 votes above average and no last rank. In the unweighted ranking it would be below Mystic. Mint can duplicate a treasure card in hand. The problem still is, you need that Gold or Platinum in hand, so you really need to draw most of your deck with a good engine or need a small deck to accomplish this regularly. In the first case you probably don't want Mint because you don't want to many treasure cards. But for the latter case, Mint itself helps. Most of the time you buy Mint just to trash most of your Coppers. It really depends if you want Mint with your opening buy as you are now left with only 2 coppers, having no buying power. The only opening which is really powerful is Mint/Fool's Gold, currently #4 ▲1 of all openings, because you have a small deck and get 2 Fool's Gold per turn most of the times. Again: Beware, don't confuse Mint with Mine.
	#47 Graverobber (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 29.0% / Median: 30.0% / Standard Deviation: 19.1% Highest Value(s): 86.7% (1x), 80.0% (1x), 75.0% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 10.0% (3x), 6.7% (2x) Here's the second Dark Ages card. It has the highest deviation in this list so far. This shows the 4 votes above average which were all above 70%. Graverobber can either get a card out of the trash or is an Expand for Action cards. Both options are heavily depending on the board which may result in this higher deviation. An Expand for $5 can be really strong, especially if have loaded up on many (non-terminal) $5s like Treasury, Stables, Laboratory or City to name a few. It works especially well with Upgrade as it gets Action cards in the trash which we can get back with Graverobber and Highway because we could potentially get Provinces out of the trash. If Graverobber is the only trash-for-benefit card on the board the "getting cards out of the trash" option is often really slow, but with others as the before mentioned Upgrade it can be really strong. Another nice combo is Border Village+Graverobber as we can trash Border Village for a Province and can later get even 2 cards with Graverobber where the second card doesn't even need to be in the trash. It can also be used in a draw engine where you use Pillage as strong attack to get the Pillage you just played right back. Graverobber is highly board dependant and therefore hard to rank. We'll see how the rank of this card might change in the future.
	#46 Rogue (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 32.9% / Median: 30.0% / Standard Deviation: 18.3% Highest Value(s): 70.0% (2x), 68.3% (2x) / Lowest Value(s): 6.7% (1x), 5.0% (1x), 3.3% (1x) We're crossing a gap of 4pp and there's the next Dark Ages card. It hasn't such high ranks like Graverobber, but it has 8 above average votes. But still there are 3 votes below 10%. Rogue is a Graverobber and Knights hybrid. Like all trashing attacks, it can be really powerful if you can play them every turn, maybe even multiples. It has the huge advantage over Saboteur that it gives you at least a benefit of +$2. You can even get the cards you trashed back which can be huge especially if you're using Highways to trash your opponents' Provinces. But the more cards you gain the more it slows you down as you probably won't see the Rogue as often what is a similar problem like the one that Thief has. Probably the biggest downside is that you can't choose between gaining and attacking. In a 2-player game it probably won't slow your opponent so down because you need 2 Rogues per turn to attack once. If it's a 2-player mirror match, luck might be a big factor. One opponent may even never be able to attack and is just busy getting his trashed cards back. In a multiplayer game it's probably even worse as you won't be able to attack very often. The getting cards back from the trash may be very useful on the other side when there are trash-for-benefit cards on the board because of reasons said before with Graverobber. So, all-in-all a weak attack with a heavily board-dependant gaining ability.
	#45 Treasury (Seaside) Weighted Average: 36.3% ▼2.5pp / Median: 35.0% ▼3.3pp / Standard Deviation: 13.6% ▼0.4pp Highest Value(s): 76.7% (1x), 71.7% (1x), 66.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 20.0% (2x), 14.9% (1x), 1.7% (1x) Treasury lost 2 ranks in comparism to last year. It has 7 above average votes and only 2 votes below 20% with one of the being on second last. Treasury is really no bad card. You often gladly pick up a cantrip card that gives you money. Especially the top-decking ability is really nice if you get it early in the game as you guarantees you one coin more per turn for quite a while. Treasury/Chapel is therefore even better than Market/Chapel on #24 ▲3 of the best openings. With 2-3 Treasuries you can keep buying good cards every turn. Treasury also comboes well with Outpost. But still, Treasuries alone are very slow, too slow on most boards. They're therefore better in Colony games and in all other games that tend to be slow. Beware of discarding attacks if you have more than 3 Treasuries. Treasury is especially good in greenless games like with Bishop/Goons or when you don't buy victory cards and and only gain them with let's say Expand. You can then keep top-decking them even until the late game and trash them with Expand too.
	#44 Inn (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 37.5% ▼6.2pp / Median: 38.3% ▼6.4pp / Standard Deviation: 14.9% ▲1.1pp Highest Value(s): 69.0% (1x), 68.3% (1x), 66.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 13.3% (3x) Inn has lost a lot, 4 ranks and over 6pp. It was voted 12 times above average, but only 3 times over 60%. On the other side it has 7 votes under 20%. Inn's main effect is pretty simple. It's a Young Witch with no attack effect, but +2 Actions instead. So it's a village that doesn't increase handsize, but has a filter effect. This is nice but not great. You more often want the money of a Bazaar than the filter effect of Inn, but on boards with no trashing but strong draw you still might prefer an Inn. More important is its on-gain effect. Shuffling action cards into the draw pile is great when you time it right, especially when there are (nearly) no cards in the draw pile. Decks with high action density love Inn, so you can prepare a Scrying Pool mega-draw or a King's Court-Bridge mega turn for example. If you manage to have enough money and at least an extra-buy with your actions, you can buy a Inn from the extra-buy and won't see your bought victory cards so fast, especially in combination with Chancellor. Even if you don't necessarily have a high action density and miss $8, buy a Inn for getting all your nice actions in the next turn.
	#43 Library (Base) Weighted Average: 38.4% ▲1.2pp / Median: 38.3% ▲2.1pp / Standard Deviation: 14.7% ▲1.0pp Highest Value(s): 75.0% (1x), 73.3% (1x), 71.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 15.0% (1x), 11.7% (1x), 10.6% (1x) Library is one rank better than last time. It has 12 above average votes and was voted 4 times above 60% and 4 times below 20%. It's best use may be countering discarding attacks as it may even set other actions aside and therefore increase the probability to draw treasures. But it's also very useful for engines with villages that don't increase your handsize, like Fishing Village, Festival or Hamlet. And even in Big Money it is a stronger (but more expensive alternative) than Smithy as you won't draw Libraries/Smithies dead.
	#42 Council Room (Base) Weighted Average: 40.2% ▲4.4pp / Median: 38.3% ▲4.3pp / Standard Deviation: 17.8% ▼5.5pp Highest Value(s): 91.5% (1x), 86.7% (1x), 83.0% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 15.0% (1x), 13.3% (1x), 11.7% (1x) Council Room is 3 ranks higher than last time with over 4pp better than last time. But on the other side it has much more disagreement. The deviation is 5.5pp higher than last time. It has some really high votes, it was voted 14 times above average, 7 of them even above 60%. On the other side it has still 4 votes below 20%. Council Room is really strong per se, but don't underestimate the extra card for your opponent! If he draws a Gold or the much needed village for his own Council Room, he may even profit more from your play than you do. It really only shines on boards with discard attacks like Militia or Goons. With such cards you take back the profit from your opponent and have a really big hand and even a +Buy. Its drawing power and +Buy makes it a good opener combined with Fool's Gold (#167 ▼52).

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	#41 Pillage (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 44.6% / Median: 41.7% / Standard Deviation: 24.6% Highest Value(s): 93.3% (1x), 91.7% (1x), 86.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 5.0% (1x), 1.7% (2x) Pillage is the next Dark Ages card and has the highest deviation in this list. On one side it has 7 votes above 70% on the other side with 7 votes below 20%. It's over 4pp better than Council Room and would be one rank higher in the unweighted list. Pillage is a very nasty very strong attack. Discarding key cards from opponents' hands is very strong and can be devastating if your opponent draws KC + only one Action card. But it being a one-shot makes it hard to rank. You don't want to buy it too late as you need one shuffle to Attack and another shuffle to use the 2 Spoils which are one-shots themselves. Picking it up in Big Money games in mid-game when you don't necessarily need more Silver, it's often probably better picking up a Pillage to slow your opponent down as you will definitely profit from the 2 Spoils. But it's probably best in engines where you draw most of your deck where you have at least $13 so that you can buy Province and another Pillage. Attacking each turn is really annoying and strong and as the Spoils themselves already give you $6 it's not that hard to accomplish. Especially with University it's good as you can just re-gain it each turn. But I think we need more time to evaluate it correctly.
	#40 Market (Base) Weighted Average: 45.1% ▲3.5pp / Median: 42.6% ▲2.2pp / Standard Deviation: 15.5% ▼0.7pp Highest Value(s): 81.7% (1x), 73.3% (1x), 70.0% (2x) / Lowest Value(s): 21.7% (1x), 19.1% (1x), 15.0% (1x) Market is one rank higher and 3.5pp better than last time. Market has only 2 votes above 70% and only 2 votes below 20%. In the unweighted ranking it would be one rank lower. Market is a nice addition to most of the decks, but it is no super strong card. You want it most of the times because of the cantrip +Buy as an addition to your main strategy, because +Buy cantrips are rare and essential for an engine because you may already have stronger terminal cards. And it is also superior to Silver in all but Big Money games as you draw a card and get an additional $1. The non-terminal +Buys is very important in some combos too, like a Highway+Market chain. Market usually is no good opener, but Market/Chapel is strong and is on #41 ▲6 of the best openings.
	#39 Trading Post (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 45.2% ▲0.2pp / Median: 43.3% ▲2.9pp / Standard Deviation: 19.6% ▼0.4pp Highest Value(s): 86.7% (1x), 86.4% (1x), 83.3% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 18.3% (2x) 16.7% (1x) Trading Post was voted 10 times above 80%, but still only a 0.1pp lead over Market as it still had a lot of low votes. It's one rank lower than last time. Trading Post is another card in the category "Good opener, but bad afterwards" like Chapel. No surprise the deviation is still high; it's really hard to evaluate. It costs $5 and is only an important opener in about 1-(5/6)^2 ~ 30% of all 2-player games. But with 8 openings in the Top 50 of all openings (with Trading Post/Haven on #13 ▼4 and Trading Post/Lighthouse on #23 ▼2), that still shows its strength. If you compare its ability with Mine as a opener: It can trash 2 instead of one card and it can trash all card types and isn't limited to treasures. It's especially strong in Torturer games as you can trash the Curse right away. But Trading Post has fiercer competition in the $5 list, so its downside of getting weak soon was taken more into account by all of you.
	#38 Band of Misfits (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 45.9% / Median: 43.3% / Standard Deviation: 22.0% Highest Value(s): 91.7% (1x), 88.3% (1x), 86.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 21.7% (2x), 10.0% (1x), 6.7% (1x) Band of Misfits is another Dark Ages card and another one with really high deviation. It was vpted 8 times above 70% and would be 3 ranks higher in the unweighted list. Band of Misfits heavily depends from the board, even more than cards like Throne Room. It's probably THE most board dependant and THE average card. On boards with a lot of $5 cards it's basically useless. But it can also be very strong. Especially with cards that are strong, but only a limited period of time or need specific other cards in hand, especially Ambassador or cards like Sea Hag, Throne Room, Moneylender and Conspirator, Band of Misfits is a great card. Its flexibility is great, especially when you can play it as a cantrip or a village in "worst" case, but on boards with power $5s Band of Misfits can be really a trap card. Keep also the downside in mind that you can't copy cards that aren't in the supply anymore what can be problematic with $4 cards like Caravan which piles tend to deplete. Also keep in mind that it only copies the on-play part and can't copy reactions.
	#37 Venture (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 47.4% ▼2.5pp / Median: 48.3% ▼2.8pp / Standard Deviation: 17.2% ▼1.7pp Highest Value(s): 83.3% (1x), 78.3% (1x), 76.6% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 20.0% (2x), 11.9% (1x), 5.0% (1x) Venture keeps falling in this list. Once as honorable mention in theory's Top 5 Non-Attack $5 list, it dropped last time already 8 ranks and this time another 4 ranks. It's this time now below average and would be even one rank worse in the unweighted list. Venture is very similar to the "+1 Card, +1 Action, +$1, +Bonus" cards like Market, Treasury or Highway. It draws a card, gives $1 and doesn't cost an action. What is the +Bonus of Venture? Being a Treasure Card, it can't be drawn dead. And it has a Filter effect finding another Treasure Card. So you're guaranteed $2 when playing a Venture (ignoring edge cases like Potion and Horn of Plenty), making it another "Almost Strictly Superior to Silver $5 Treasure Card". The filter effect allows you to go green earlier, because you can discard the green cards with Ventures. This effect reminds of Adventurer (and the name of course). While an Adventurer in a Copper-free deck gets you to at least $4 and Venture only to $3, Venture is still superior, because it's $1 cheaper and doesn't cost an action and is also chainable. Ventures are great if you have multiples and as few other Treasure Cards as possible. If you manage that, they are even superior to Gold. I like to add, that the multiple Ventures stacking effect is no additional bonus, just the result of the two above mentioned bonuses (Multiple Markets in a thin deck would have the same effect). Venture/Chapel is the #63 ▲2 best opening.
	#36 Knights (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 47.6% / Median: 46.7% / Standard Deviation: 23.8% Highest Value(s): 93.3% (1x), 89.8% (1x), 85.0% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 15.5% (1x), 8.3% (1x), 5.0% (1x) The next Dark Ages card in this list with a small lead over Venture of 0.2pp. Knights has the second highest deviation in this list with 4 votes above 80% and 3 votes below 20%. Many already said about Rogue applies also to the Knights. This is the highest rated trashing attack, but is still only average. They only hit cards costing between $3 and $6 and your opponent can choose if you hit two possible targets, 2 big downsides, but unlike Rogue at least they can attack every time you play them. Another downside, especially in multiplayer games is that it gets trashed if another Knight is trashed, but this makes it also an interesting pickup purely for defense. The different bonuses are probably responsible for the high deviation and it's what makes this card either ignorable or very strong. We look deeper into the different Knights another time, but if you get Dame Anna early or can get Sir Michael who can double attack, this can make a big difference. But when Sir Martin is the one on top, you don't want to be the one who opens the way to stronger Knights for other players. Like very trashing attack this card is very strong if you can guarantee to play at least one Knight every turn and can be devastating in thin decks as you are basically guaranteed to hit good cards and is ignorable in other cases.
	#35 Merchant Ship (Seaside) Weighted Average: 48.6% ▼3.0pp / Median: 48.3% ▼0.6pp / Standard Deviation: 18.1% ▼2.0pp Highest Value(s): 89.4% (1x), 83.3% (1x), 78.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 21.7% (2x), 19.1% (1x), 5.0% (1x) After a big jump of 10 ranks better, it now falls again 4 ranks: Merchant Ship. It's 3pp worse than last time and was voted 6 times above 70%. It would be even 2 more ranks worse in the unweighted list. Merchant Ship is a very simple card. Still it is ranked very differently. While Harvest is a not guaranteed $4, this now is a guaranteed $4, just split over two turns. It's good for Big Money games as it increases the probability to have $8 early as you only need $6 in hand in the following turn. And if you manage to play one each turn, this is basically $4 every turn. The probability of colliding Merchant Ships is also lower because of the Duration effect. In comparism to many other $5s, where you either don't get guaranteed $4 or guaranteed $3, this card can be really strong. But there are still many (especially terminal) $5s that are superior.
	#34 City (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 48.7% ▲1.1pp / Median: 48.3% ▼2.8pp / Standard Deviation: 16.3% ▲2.3pp Highest Value(s): 89.4% (1x), 83.3% (1x), 78.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 21.7% (2x), 19.1% (1x), 5.0% (1x) City has only a lead of 0.1pp over Merchant Ship and stays on the same rank. But it's about 1pp better and has a pretty low deviation for a middle ranked card. City is also highly dependant from the board. On many boards you just spend $5 for a mediocre $3 Village. But with Cursers where the Curses are likely going out, this can be very strong and especially in multiplayer Cities are very strong. When activated, a Level 2 City is already a combined Laboratory and Village, so basically a ~$6 card. A Level 3 City is a combined Laboratory, Market and Village and would normally cost ~9$. In non-cursing games this is often a trap card. If one player goes for Cities to run this pile out, he's just buying Villages and doesn't build up his economy. Then you do much better not buying any City and try to end the game as fast as you can. In longer lasting games (especially Colony games) Cities are much stronger, but you really have to consider, if you really want so many Villages. Als already said, in 3+ player games any pile can deplete faster and Cities are therefore much stronger. And if you have won the City Split and have Level 3 Cities, you have to just be sure that you don't lose on a 3-pile ending. But as many of us only play 2 player games, this wasn't taken that much into account.
	#33 Counterfeit (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 49.1% / Median: 51.7% / Standard Deviation: 22.0% Highest Value(s): 93.3% (1x), 86.7% (1x), 83.1% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 15.0% (1x), 11.7% (1x), 1.7% (1x) And the next Dark Ages card in this list. And of course it has really high deviation. It was even voted second last, but also on #5 once. In the unweighted list it would be 3 ranks higher. Counterfeit is a Throne Room for Treasures combined with a Trash-for-Benefit card. It's a way better Moneylender as it gives also $3 for trashing Coppers, but gives also a +Buy, doesn't cost an Action and isn't limited to Coppers. It's therefore a very strong opener and strong in the end game when you can trash Golds that you don't need anymore which is still stronger than Salvager which costs an Action an can trash Golds only for $6 while Counterfeit gives $7. The best combo may be Counterfeit+Spoils. This gives you $7 for a card that you had to trash anyway. The biggest problem is that it costs $5 and not $4 what most of those comparable cards cost.
	#32 Junk Dealer (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 49.5% / Median: 53.3% / Standard Deviation: 18.7% Highest Value(s): 93.3% (1x), 81.7% (1x), 76.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 16.7% (1x), 10.0% (1x), 8.3% (1x) A little bit higher rank is another Dark Ages card. Junk Dealer has much more agreement though. The obvious comparism to Junk Dealer is Upgrade. Both are cantrip trashers. While Upgrade gets you a potential extra card, Junk Dealer gives you $1. What's better really depends on the board. Unless you want those free Poor Houses, Junk Dealer is way better than Upgrade in trashing Coppers because the $1 extra helps you a lot in not losing the tempo. Trashing Shelters depends on if there are spammable $2 cards like Hamlet that you need and with Estates it's similar although Silvers are rarely a bad choice. Later in the game Junk Dealers are probably a dead card while Upgrade could still trash $4s into Duchies or themselves into Gold. You rated Upgrade higher, we'll see if this stays like that.

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	#31 Cartographer (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 50.2% ▲7.1pp / Median: 50.0% ▲7.4pp / Standard Deviation: 18.3% ▼2.3pp Highest Value(s): 88.3% (1x), 83.3% (1x), 80.0% (2x) / Lowest Value(s): 23.4% (1x), 18.3% (1x), 8.5% (1x) We're now crossing the 50% line. Cartographer lost 7 ranks last time. This time it goes up 5 ranks with more than 7pp better. It was voted 9 times above 70%. Cartographer is useful in all decks (maybe except Big Money decks). It reminds of Navigator, but hasn't the problems of being terminal and you can choose for each card separately to discard or to put back. It also draws a card, although you often wish to top-deck first and draw afterwards. Basically it is a 4 times more powerful Spy (except the attack). You can also compare it to Warehouse. While Warehouse only makes this turn better, you can use Cartographer to either prepare your next turn (mitigating draw luck) or to prepare the cards you want to draw with either a second Cartographer or any other card that draws cards. So it combos very nice with many cards, especially cards that draw and are non-terminal, like Wishing Well and most importantly Scrying Pool and is also not bad against strong top-decking attacks like Ghost Ship or Rabble (although you draw one card first). It's also decent in slogs where you can cycle through your deck faster and can connect your good cards much more easily. With all the good points, Cartographer is still no good card for itself and has a high opportunity cost, it's just an addition to your deck and makes your deck stronger and more stable and is nearly never a dominating card on the board.
	#30 Horn of Plenty (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 50.5% ▲3.4pp / Median: 46.7% ▼0.1pp / Standard Deviation: 19.6% ▼2.2pp Highest Value(s): 91.7% (1x), 81.7% (1x), 80.9% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 19.1% (1x), 17.0% (1x), 6.7% (1x) Horn of Plenty is a little bit better than Cartographer and 3 ranks higher as last time with over 3pp better. It was voted 12 times above 70%. It would be 3 ranks lower in the unweighted ranking, so newer players definitely undervalue it. Horn of Plenty is one of the cards that are very hard to master. On average boards it's similar to Ironworks and often too slow. But if you can build a decent engine with several different cards involved (and that is the hardest part), then HoP is very powerful. With one Horn of Plenty and a good engine the game can end in 3 turns. Turn 1: Gain another HoP, Turn 2: Gain another 2 HoPs, Turn 3: Gain 4 Provinces from the HoPs and buy at least the 5th Province with the rest of your money: Basically "Game Over". The problem is to build such an engine and prepare the Mega Turn before the opponent gets a too big Province lead. But even without a megaturn, Horn of Plenty is very useful, something that's often ignored. It has a high opportunity cost, but a non-terminal gainer, that can't even be drawn dead can make a difference in an engine game where engine pieces are not that expensive.
	#29 Jester (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 51.6% ▼1.1pp / Median: 48.3% ▼7.0pp / Standard Deviation: 18.5% ▲0.1pp Highest Value(s): 100% (1x), 88.3% (1x), 78.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 23.4% (1x), 18.3% (1x), 10.0% (1x) Jester is 2 ranks worse than last time. It's the first card in this list which was voted on the first rank, but was also voted on 10% on the other side. It was voted 9 times above 70%. Jester is a very swingy attack. You can deal out Curses, you can spam Coppers. But mainly it's a card which gains you good card, especially if your opponent and you are going for the same strategy. If not, you have a really hard decision if you want that action card in your deck or give your opponent another free card. If you have a good running engine with any spying attack (like Scrying Pool), Jester is very good. And in 3+ player games Jester is even stronger, because you can gain multiple good cards per turn. The main reason this attack is ranked that low, may be that you all take 2 player games into account where it's very swingy. Jester/Chapel is the #62 ▼13 best opening.
	#28 Festival (Base) Weighted Average: 53.8% ▼1.6pp / Median: 58.3% ▲0.9pp / Standard Deviation: 16.2% ▼1.6pp Highest Value(s): 85.1% (1x), 85.0% (1x), 80.9% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 26.7% (3x), 25.0% (1x) Festival is 4 ranks lower than last time. It has a pretty low deviation for a middle ranked card. The high agreement is proven by the fact that it's the first card in this list with no vote below 20% and only 5 votes below 30%. It has 3 votes above 80%. It would be 3 ranks higher in the unweighted ranking - so newer players overrate it. Festival is a simple card and is like a combined Village and (Grand) Market without the draw. The lack of draw is really the only but big downside of this card. Still it is good in any engine, giving the money and actions you need and if you have "draw up to ..." cards like Watchtower or Library, it's really great. In any Non-Big-Money game Festival is superior to Silver.
	#27 Rabble (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 54.3% ▲4.9pp / Median: 55.0% ▲8.2pp / Standard Deviation: 17.2% ▼3.8pp Highest Value(s): 85.0% (1x), 78.0% (1x), 76.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 10.0% (2x), 8.3% (1x) Rablle is 4 ranks higher than last time with nearly 5pp better. It was voted 3 times below 20%, but all 3 votes were big outliers. In the unweighted rating it would be one rank lower. The attack of one Rabble may even be worse than a Fortune Teller, as it can't guarantee to hit. It's not a very good opener, especially with good trashers, but gets stronger and stronger in the late game. Rabble is stronger the more you play in one turn. If you build up a (Village-Smithy-like) engine and need good drawing power, Rabble is the way to go, because if your opponent goes green too early, he gets bad hands regularly pretty soon and you may crush him. Your Rabbles can hit him even stronger than any other discarding attack, because he has at best only 2 good cards in hand. But beware of Farming Village, which is a very effective counter. And if you don't need the drawing power, you can skip over Rabble, because one Rabble isn't that strong per se.
	#26 Rebuild (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 54.8% / Median: 51.7% / Standard Deviation: 22.2% Highest Value(s): 93.3% (2x), 91.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 25.0% (3x), 11.7% (2x) Here's the fifth best Dark Ages card in this list. It has also a pretty high deviation with 7 votes above 80% and 3 votes above 90%. I'm interested to hear your opinions on this card. I don't want to say to much personal opinions in this series, but I expect it to be much higher the next time because it's a card which seems not so strong at first glance, but honestly is. The big advantage of this card is that you can get guaranteed Victory Points and don't care that much about attacks. Rebuild lets you expand victory that aren't even in your hand and give also an additional action. Especially in non-Shelter games you can easily get 3 Provinces out of your starting Estates. If your opponent keeps on building you can easily deplete the Provinces if you trash them into more Provinces. Alternatively you could first try to deplete Duchies and then trash them for Provinces. That prevents your opponent with an good engine to catch up by buying Duchies while he fears buying Provinces because of depleting the pile too fast. Junking Attacks are still good against it as you won't draw Rebuilds that often anymore, but the effect isn't so bad anymore as you can just buy Estates and expand them later. Discarding Attacks can prevent you from buying Duchies, but might even help you as you can discard Victory cards from your hand which you would otherwise not have been able to expand. Also Rebuild combos with a lot of cards. In a deck full of Tunnels you get one Gold per Tunnel in your deck and you only need your starting Estates to get some of those. In a similar way Feoda are great as you can trash those for Silver and just get a new Feodum. Rebuild profits a lot from sifters as you don't need a big hand size, so Cellar, Warehouse and Wandering Winstrel will work well. Farmland is another Victory card which is nice. If you're lucky to have $6 just buy a Farmland to profit from the remodel functionality and then you can use Rebuild to remodel Farmland itself. Also, Victory card gainers like Baron and Count work well and also Trade Route will go up in value very fast while you profit from a thinner deck. But be careful, if a Rebuild strategy doesn't work out because another strategy is faster and you are behind in points you often have lost because you probably haven't enough money to buy Provinces to catch up.
	#25 Highway (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 55.4% ▲2.1pp / Median: 56.7% ▲1.4pp / Standard Deviation: 16.2% ▼2.3pp Highest Value(s): 91.5% (1x), 83.3% (1x), 80.9% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 23.7% (1x), 21.3% (2x) Highway is 2pp better than last time, but still one rank worse. It has also no cards below 20% and would be 3 ranks higher in the unweighted ranking. Highway is highly dependant for supporter cards to make it useful. One vanilla Highway is really bad and even worse than Market or Treasury, it's just a Peddler, so basically only worth $4. It seems similar to Bridge, but in fact it isn't. You can use it as a cantrip Bridge, but most of the times this isn't worth it, because you need +Buy and either need a small deck to play multiples or big drawing power what also means you need villages. So that is really slow. The only real combo is Highway/Market in a small deck. But you can do things with Highway what would be very difficult with Bridge. It cab combo nice with trash-for-benefit cards, so you can at best replace Coppers with Provinces. Its best use may to use it with cards with fixed cost in the card text like Saboteur, Smugglers, Feast, Ironworks, Horn of Plenty, Altar etc to gain (or trash) Provinces with these cards. So while it can be worse than Market or Highway it can - unlike those cards - really shine in some situations. As Highway is good in small decks, Highway/Chapel is a #45 ▼7pp opening.
	#24 Count (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 55.4% / Median: 58.3% / Standard Deviation: 23.6% Highest Value(s): 95.0% (1x), 86.7% (1x), 85.0% (2x) / Lowest Value(s): 13.6% (1x), 8.3% (1x), 0% (1x) It was really close between Highway and Count for rank #24. Count is the fourth best rated Dark Ages card. It has the third highest deviation in this list as it has 8 votes above 80%, but still some really low votes. Yeah, it was even voted last. In the unweighted ranking it would be 3 ranks better. Count is also a card which is really hard to grasp at first glance. The 9 different options are not so poweful for a card costing $5, but its flexibility makes it good. The $3 coin option let you have either a Horse Traders effect without +Buy or a Mandarin or let you gain a Copper. If you use Count as virtual money in an engine, then the Mandarin effect is probably best as you can put a village or another card you don't need back and safe for next turn. If you use Count in alt VP games, gaining a Copper is not really a disadvantage. The discarding option is probably the weakest although you can choose it if you really don't need those 2 cards or have a Tunnel in hand. If you open 5/2 the trash your hand option can be really powerful and is similar to a 5/2 with Trading Post. Keep in mind that putting back a Copper is mostly worse than gaining a Copper if you want to trash starting cards with it. But mostly you want to safe a card for next turn if you want to choose that option. Discarding two cards is here mostly the weakest option too unless you really want to use Count to only trash 2 cards and discard 2 cards. Gaining Duchies is of course really powerful with Duke, Silk Road, Ill-Gotten-Gains or Rebuild and can pretty strong in the end game when Duchy dancing. Although a terminal Gold seems to be more powerful, think it through! If you end up buying a Duchy anyways you wasted 2$. So, all in all not a particular power card, but can be very good on a 5/2, in Alt-VP games - especially Duke and in most end game scenarios.
	#23 Catacombs (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 55.7% / Median: 58.3% / Standard Deviation: 17.0% Highest Value(s): 80.0% (1x), 78.3% (1x), 76.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 28.3% (1x), 18.3% (1x), 13.3% (1x) Catacombs is the third best Dark Ages card in this list. It has a pretty low deviation for a Dark Ages card with no votes above 80% and only 2 lower votes. It would be 4 ranks lower in the unweighted ranking. Catacombs is no complicated card. It combines the strengths of Smithy and Oracle into one card, making it a very good card drawer for Big Money as well as for engines and is therefore a very good and solid card overall. The on-trash effect is a very nice bonus. You probably won't trigger it by yourself as often as you can't get a Duchy out of it and there really needs to be good targets for this to be worth for any trash-for-benefit card. But it can be really nice with Procession as you will draw 6 cards and get another Procession for free. But most of the times it's just a really good defense against trashing attacks like Knights or Swindler especially if you can replace it with a Smithy instead.
	#22 Bazaar (Seaside) Weighted Average: 56.4% ▲3.2pp / Median: 56.7% ▲3.5pp / Standard Deviation: 13.4% ▲0.2pp Highest Value(s): 85.0% (1x), 81.7% (1x), 78.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 30.0% (1x), 27.7% (1x), 19.1% (1x) Bazaar is one rank better than last time and has a really low deviation. The last card with a lower deviation on this list was Mandarin on #51. It has only 2 votes velow 30%, but no extraordinary high votes; it was only voted above 80% twice. It would be 2 ranks lower in the unweighted ranking. Bazaar is a village with an additional coin. At first glance a village for $5 looks really expensive. But if you see it as Cantrip Money + Bonus card like Market the additional Action is really one of the best bonuses. Especially in engines virtual money is pretty handy and more Bazaars help you to get easily even more Bazaars. Not much more to say about this vanilla card. Uncommon for a Village, Bazaar has a very high opening with Bazaar/Chapel on #22 ▲9.

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	#21 Duke (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 57.0% ▼2.8pp / Median: 58.3% ▲0.9pp / Standard Deviation: 21.3% ▼1.6pp Highest Value(s): 95.0% (1x), 93.3% (1x), 90.0% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 18.3% (2x), 14.9% (1x) After that big jump last time of 14 ranks better, it loses only one rank. It has a really high deviation - the highest deviation of a Non-Dark Ages card in this list so far, with only one card higher than it to come. You can see this on the 10 votes above 80%, but still 3 votes below 20%. It would be 2 ranks lower in the unweighted ranking. Duke can be played similar to Silk Road and Gardens Rushes as you need to get the Duchies and Dukes as fast as you can. So you need similar good supporter cards which help getting $5 even if you're already greening, like Vault, Hoard, Duchess, Horse Traders and Silver-gainers in general to just name a few. Duke can be very strong as it can easily be worth 6-8 VP if your opponent doesn't deny your strategy and is better than Province in those cases. 3-piling isn't that hard afterwards as there are 2 piles already gone. The problem is to realize when a board is a good Duke board. With good attacks (Curser and Handsize-Reducer) and especially Swindler or Knights as Counter, you really have to be careful and want to ignore Dukes. What makes Duke strong is that you have to consider it in every game and can be a nice Plan B if you're behind in a mirror game and don't want to contest Provinces anymore. Why? 5 Provinces are worth the same as 5 Duchies and 3 Dukes, so that's only 3 cards more, but each of them costs way less. Your opponent has then the tough decision if you can outrace you with Provinces or if he has to contest you on Duchies (and Dukes).
	#20 Bandit Camp (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 59.6% / Median: 65.0% / Standard Deviation: 17.4% Highest Value(s): 88.1% (1x), 83.3% (2x) / Lowest Value(s): 26.7% (2x), 25.0% (1x) Bandit Camp is the second best Dark Ages card with a solid lead over Duke of 2.6pp. It has 5 votes above 80%. It would be one rank higher in the unweighted ranking. The obvious comparism to Bandit Camp is Bazaar which was rated 2 ranks lower. You get one-shot Golds instead of $1. Which one is better? Of course it depends... While Bazaar is an obvious Engine Card, Bandit Camp can be very good incorporated in a money-ish approach. The Spoils ramp your economy fast for early Golds or Provinces. But Bandit Camp is also especially good with +Buys as you won't waste money from the Spoils. And with trashing in draw engines where you draw your whole deck, you probably want to play your Spoils each time to keep your deck thin. So the Spoils make you draw engine more unreliable. But if you are still able to draw your deck, then Bandit Camp effectively gives you $3 instead of $1 and is way better than Bazaar. But if your engines falls apart, it's hard to get it back running.
	#19 Upgrade (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 60.9% ▲9.2pp / Median: 61.7% ▲14.9pp / Standard Deviation: 17.8% ▲0.6pp Highest Value(s): 93.3% (1x), 91.7% (1x), 86.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 25.0% (1x), 23.3% (1x), 20.7% (1x) Upgrade is a winner of this list. It's 5 ranks, over 9pp in the weighted average and even nearly 15pp in Median better. In the unweighted ranking it's even one more rank better. Non-terminal trashers or trash-for-benefit-cards are really strong. No surprise that Upgrade costs $5 so you can't open with it most of the times. With Upgrade you can trash your Coppers and Curses or turning your Estates into Silver without spending an action and keep playing all your other valuable action cards. This may also its best use - just be sure that there's no Poor House. Spamming Upgrades and upgrading all other cards slowly to better cards seems nice, but is very slow. But Upgrading an Upgrade into an early Grand Market can be very strong. I like to add, that Upgrade is indeed a cantrip, that doesn't hurt your deck early on. But like Lookout, if you have a deck with a high quality density later on, this may be a dead card in your hand, when you don't want to trash a card from your hand. With Dark Ages there's now Junk Dealer - a comparable card. Like already said Junk Dealer is better at the start, but you can use the trash-for benefit effect later to get Duchies what's really good with Rats or Fortress on the board. It's still no surprise Upgrade has some very high ranked openings, the best being Upgrade/Chapel on #8 ▲8 or Upgrade/Courtyard on #70 ▼22.
	#18 Stables (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 60.9% ▲0.4pp / Median: 60.0% ▼1.7pp / Standard Deviation: 15.9% ▲0.5pp Highest Value(s): 88.3% (1x), 86.7% (1x), 85.0% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 25.0% (1x), 23.3% (2x) Stables has only 0.04pp better than Upgrade and can stay on the same rank as last year. Its rating is also nearly the same and it has a good consensus. When you try to evaluate Stables, the comparism to Laboratory is very obvious. Both give you an action and a hand with one card more. In games with no trashing a few Stables can even be stronger, because you get an additional Warehouse-like cycling effect. Just discard your Coppers and you'll see your valuable cards more often. If you buy Stables and don't play Big Money, then your action density increases and the chances that you draw no treasure cards with Stables in hand increases too. Then Stables may be a dead card in hand. Especially in cursing games Stables is weaker. And even if your only treasure card is a Gold it highly depends on your deck if you really want to discard the Gold for 3 new cards. But a few Stables, Silvers and a +Buy card like Horse Traders can make a pretty good Hunting-Party-like deck. An early Stables is great and superior to Laboratory on a board with no trashing, but with more Action Cards, Victory Cards or Curses, Stables is getting weaker, so just don't buy too many. Just compare a hand of 5 Laboratories and 5 Stables. Stables/Chapel is on #61 of the best openings.
	#17 Haggler (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 63.0% ▲0.7pp / Median: 63.3% ▼0.5pp / Standard Deviation: 15.3% ▲0.7pp Highest Value(s): 88.3% (1x), 86.7% (1x), 85.1% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 38.3% (1x), 30.0% (1x), 28.3% (1x) Haggler is over 2pp better and stays also on the same rank. It was voted 7 times above 80% and only 3 times below 40% and 14 times below average. Haggler is very good for building up engines with multiple components. It adds the Border Village effect to any card you wish and also gives $2, so you can be pretty sure to get two good cards if you play Haggler. And in the middle to end game you can use it as a pseudo Hoard to get a Gold for a Province or even a Platinum on Colony boards. With Haggler you don't necessarily need +Buys early, you even have to beware that you don't use your additional buy for a low-cost card, so you have to get an additional Copper. It is a good starter for any good engine, for example Hunting Party, so you can get one more Hunting Party for every Province bought. But with discarding attacks and Cursers where you can get bad hands really often, Haggler isn't that good as you have to pick up a Copper or other cards you probably don't want. Similar is true with Potion cost cards as they have a lower coin value. Haggler/Chapel is the #53 ▲31 best opening.
	#16 Laboratory (Base) Weighted Average: 65.4% ▲0.8pp / Median: 68.1% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 13.7% ▲0.1pp Highest Value(s): 91.7% (2x), 90.0% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 43.3% (1x), 29.8% (1x), 26.7% (1x) Laboratory is the next card in the row which stays on the same rank. It was voted 2 times above 90% and 7 times above 80%. It was voted below 50% only 5 times. Unlike Stables, like mentioned before, Laboratory is a good card in nearly every deck. It increases the hand size by one which is a often underrated benefit. And if you have multiple Laboratories in your deck you have a consistent Village+Smithy engine in your deck where it isn't possible to draw dead. So, it's a engine on its own and you best begin early to build it. Therefore it's no surprise Laboratory/Chapel is on #32 ▼13 in the openings list.
	#15 Embassy (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 68.1% ▼2.2pp / Median: 72.3% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 17.2% ▲1.2pp Highest Value(s): 91.7% (1x), 91.5% (1x), 90.0% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 31.7% (2x), 6.8% (1x) Embassy has a solid lead over Laboratory, but with over 2pp worse than last time it's 1 rank worse, although it was pretty close. It was still voted 8 times below 50% with one pretty big outlier, so it has still a high deviation, but the consensus is a little bit higher. Embassy is a great Big Money card. An early Embassy is so good that your opponent gets a Silver for free. The mix of a terminal drawer and a Warehouse-like filter makes it that powerful. Yes, basically it's only +2 cards, but every time you play it, you can choose the best 6 cards out of 9 cards. Similiar to Envoy: If you have 5/2 and have the luck to draw it on turn 3, you may draw it in turn 4 and 5 again and will probably have already a huge lead, due to quick cycling. But it is also good in engines if you can guarantee to draw it with an action card. So just like Wharf it combos well with Fishing Village, it only misses the +Buy.
	#14 Vault (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 68.1% ▼1.1pp / Median: 73.3% ▲1.0pp / Standard Deviation: 17.5% ▼0.7pp Highest Value(s): 90.0% (1x), 87.2% (1x), 85.1% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 28.8% (1x), 21.7% (1x), 16.7% (1x) Vault is basically tied with Embassy as it's only 0.02pp better. So it switched places with Embassy and is one rank better than last time although it lost over 1pp. It got no vote above 90%, but 14 votes above 80% on the other side. It was voted 8 times below average. The +2 Cards that make the difference between Secret Chamber and Vault are very important to make Vault a good card and Secret Chamber a weak one. With every play of Vault you are guaranteed a Gold or even better - a Grand Market. And if you have a Gold in hand or draw one you can buy a Province for sure. This makes Vault a great counter to cursing attacks and is still great after you've gone green. No surprise your opponent has the chance to make his hand better too, because this effect is very strong. This effect makes it also a good card for Duke. Like Secret Chamber it's also good if you can draw your whole deck for example with Scrying Pool, discard all actions for a lot of money, just to draw all actions again with another Scrying Pool. Similar to this, it's great in Double Tactician decks. Another combo is Vault/Tunnel and with Tunnel you could even profit from your opponents' Vaults. The downside of this card is that it's very vulnerable to discarding attacks. Although it shines in big decks with a lot of junk the #12 ▼1 opening Vault/Chapel shows its strength if you are able to play it every turn.
	#13 Margrave (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 72.8% ▲1.1pp / Median: 74.5% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 13.2% ▲0.2pp Highest Value(s): 90.0% (1x), 87.9% (1x), 87.2% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 38.3% (1x), 36.7% (1x), 35.0% (1x) After a big jump of nearly 5pp we're now above 70%. Margrave stays on the same rank and got slightly better ratings. It was voted 14 times above 80%, but no voted above 90% too. It got also only 4 votes below average. Terminal drawers with +Buy are very strong as they tend to let you have many money in hand, more than you often need for a Province. Council Room has the drawback of give your opponent another card, but Wharf is still to come in this list. Margrave gives you an additional discard attack. The discard attack itself is not as strong as Militia's or Goons' discard attack because your opponent may draw a card first. But the discard attack is still very strong. It's just like you play Council Room+Militia or Governor+Militia. Margrave is another good Big Money card. With $11 you can buy an additional Silver to your Province. And terminal draw and +Buy is all Fool's Gold needs. No surprise Margrave/Fool's Gold is the best opening on #96 ▲39. It's also a good addition to your engine, but you have to be careful to add not too many Margraves to your engine, because every time you play a Margrave your opponent has another chance to draw a hand like 2 Golds and a Silver to buy a Province himself.
	#12 Apprentice (Alchemy) Weighted Average: 74.8% ▲2.1pp / Median: 75.8% ▲3.5pp / Standard Deviation: 13.3% ▲1.3pp Highest Value(s): 98.3% (1x), 95.0% (2x) / Lowest Value(s): 51.1% (1x), 45.0% (1x), 36.7% (1x) Apprentice is also on the same rank as last time. It was voted 5 times above 90% with one vote being on second place. And with only 2 votes below average makes this a clear better card than every other card before. Although you can use an early Apprentice to trash your Coppers, Apprentice epitomizes (just like Salvager) Trash-for-Benefit cards; because the benefit is huge. If you don't hesitate to trash e.g. a Gold to get 6! cards and draw at least a card with +Buy or a Gainer you can really fasten the game. With Apprentice+Hoard or Apprentice+Haggler you can buy a Province nearly every turn. It combos also nice with Border Village. And as being one of the strongest Trash-for-Benefit cards, I especially mention the danger in Possession games. Your opponent won't hesitate to trash a Province or even a Colony for drawing nearly your whole deck. And now with Dark Ages TfB is even more interesting. You could now trash Rats for +5 Cards or Fortress for +4 Cards without losing anything or Catacombs with no real loss on the right board, and so on so forth.

[Qvist]

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	#11 Tactician (Seaside) Weighted Average: 79.5% =0pp / Median: 81.7% ▲0.8pp / Standard Deviation: 12.3% ▲0.6pp Highest Value(s): 100% (1x), 98.3% (1x), 93.6% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 53.3% (1x), 53.2% (1x), 43.3% (1x) We're making another big jump of nearly 5pp and are now nearly in the 80% range. Tactician stays where it was. It is the second card with a first rank. It has only one vote below average and only 7 votes below 60%. Tactician makes use of the phrase "One big turn is better than 2 mediocre ones". So in a deck in that you can't guarantee a Province each turn, with Tactician it's still very likely to get 2 Provinces each 2 turns. This applies especially to cards that take profit of big hand sizes like Forge, Bank or Tournament+Province. It's also great to get key cards like King's Court early or as a defense against discarding attacks (0/8 is definitely better than 3/3). And in combination with Black Market or Action cards that let you gain virtual money like Vault/Secret Chamber, Baron or a bunch of Festivals/Conspirators/Grand Markets you can even setup a Double Tactician strategy. You can play your second Tactician in your Tactician turn and still have enough money to buy something and get another 10 card hand in the next hand.
	#10 Ghost Ship (Seaside) Weighted Average: 81.4% ▼1.0pp / Median: 85.0% ▼0.1pp / Standard Deviation: 12.3% ▼0.1pp Highest Value(s): 97.9% (2x), 94.8% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 51.1% (1x), 46.7% (1x), 44.7% (1x) After going up 2 ranks last time, it went back 2 ranks again. Ghost Ship has 2 votes below average and 11 votes above 90%. Ghost Ship is very strong because it's a discard attack in which you don't have to discard, you have to top deck. So this messes up this turn and the next turn. You have then to choose to get 2 mediocre turns or a bad turn and hopefully a better next turn if you aren't getting "ghostshipped" again. This results in really slow games in which it takes long until you reshuffle and see the newly bought cards the first time. The difference to all other strong attack cards is you don't want to play as many as you can in one turn, you just want to constantly play it each turn. That's the reason why Ghost Ship with Schemes can be devastating. If there are no good defense cards / counters, you are in a soft pin you aren't likely to get out soon. So in comparism to Torturer and Minion a single play is stronger. Ghost Ship/Chapel is the #30 ▼7 best opening.
	#9 Minion (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 82.8% ▲1.3pp / Median: 86.7% ▲3.7pp / Standard Deviation: 10.2% ▼0.7pp Highest Value(s): 96.7% (1x), 95.0% (2x) / Lowest Value(s): 56.7% (2x), 55.0% (1x) Minion is the 5th best $5 Attack Card and stays on the same rank. It's the first card with no votes below average and got only 6 votes below 70%. It was voted above 90% 10 times. It would be even 2 ranks higher in the unweighted list. Minion's discard attack can hit even stronger than any other discard attack. You have one card more than with Militia, but against Minion you cannot choose which card to keep. The non-terminal $2 is great in every engine and the discard option helps you to cycle faster. Those two benefits make it a self-working engine. If you win the Minion split, you can play the first Minions in your hand to get $2 and the last one to get the next 4 cards, then just proceed. And every non-terminal card with virtual coins and/or a non-terminal trasher fit very well in a Minion deck. Yes, there has to be some requirements: You are playing a 2-player game and have a thin deck and don't play with Colony, ... to name the major issues. But then a Minion deck is super strong. Minion/Chapel is the #16 ▼3 best opening.
	#8 Torturer (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 83.4% ▲3.4pp / Median: 85.0% ▲2.0pp / Standard Deviation: 9.3% ▲1.2pp Highest Value(s): 100% (1x), 98.3% (1x), 96.7% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 61.7% (2x), 60.0% (1x) Torturer is the 4th best $5 Attack Card and is 2 ranks and over 3pp better than last time. It was voted first once and has no vote below 60% and only 6 votes below 70%. In the unweighted ranking it would be 3 ranks higher. A single Torturer is not that great. You can choose to take a Curse in hand or discard. Taking the Curse in hand is not that great as getting it onto your discard pile or even on top. If you have a Forge or a Jack of All Trades in hand, a Curse in hand doesn't hurt you that much. In all other cases it's just a Militia-like discarding attack. But multiple Torturers can really torture you, especially because you have a choice, but still are between the devil and the deep blue sea. So Torturer highly depends from Villages; especially with Border Villages, Fishing Villages or Crossroads a Torturer Chain is definitely the way to go. The first one that gets this set up is likely to win. When the Curses are gone, Torturers are no danger anymore. But the Curse split is likely highly in your favor and you already have a good running engine to maybe pick a few more treasures and then go green. Only with direct Cursers you may still skip them, because until you've set up this chain, there are few Curses left. Necropolis makes going for Torturers maybe a little bit more viable. Torturer/Chapel is a #57 ▲12 opening and Torturer/Crossroads is at #83 ▲8.
	#7 Cultist (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 85.0% / Median: 88.3% / Standard Deviation: 14.3% Highest Value(s): 98.3% (1x), 96.7% (4x) / Lowest Value(s): 49.2% (1x), 48.3% (1x), 43.3% (1x) Cultist is the best Dark Ages card and the 3rd best $5 Attack Card. It was voted 3 times below average, but got 16 votes over 90%, so over a third of all votes. Cultist is the Looter pendant to Witch. As Ruins are not as bad as Curses it has the benefit of getting sort of +1 Action which can only be used to play more Cultists. So you are able to play multiple Cultists in a turn and therefore junk harder than Witch. In a chapeled down thin deck it can be devastating to get like 4 Ruins in a turn and can totally shut you down. And even if the Ruins are gone around 4 Cultists give you really good draw and allow you to get a lot of money in hand. The second benefit is that it can be trashed for +3 cards what can be really strong with Procession for example or any trash for benefit card. Still it's not enough to be stronger than Witch.
	#6 Governor (Promo) Weighted Average: 85.1% ▲0.9pp / Median: 87.8% ▲0.6pp / Standard Deviation: 20.6% ▼3.4pp Highest Value(s): 96.7% (4x) / Lowest Value(s): 23.3% (1x), 3.4% (1x), 0% (1x) Governor is still on the same rank. But, wow, what a high deviation, especially for such a high ranked card. It has two and a half really big outliers and 4 votes below 50%. In the unweighted ranking it's 3 ranks lower. The different options make it difficult to play. And depending on what you choose it can a really bad card or a great one. That may also explain the high deviation. Like Council Room, the +1 card may pretty huge for your opponent if you choose +3 cards. And if you even choose that multiple times in a row, you give your opponent a great hand too. So either do that only if you a) play a discard attack afterwards, b) can end that game in a mega turn or c) possess your opponent afterwards. In all these 3 cases Governor is really powerful. The remodel effect is bad in the early game, you're helping your opponent even more for letting him trash his Coppers or get a Silver for an Estate, you can use it in the end game to remodel your treasure card in respective Victory card. The best option without above mentioned supporting cards may be the Gold gaining. The Silver can be really bad for your opponent in a Colony game or if he builds a deck with high action density. And you can pick up Governors over Golds because you can get Golds with Governor later. That leads to a state where Governor can combo with itself. Gain many Governors, choose the gain Gold option every time. With many Governors and Gold in your deck use a few Governors for +3 cards and the rest to remodel your Gold into Provinces in a mega turn. Its power in a thin deck shows the rank #3 =0 in the best openings for Governor/Chapel.
	#5 Ill-Gotten Gains (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 85.9% ▼3.6pp / Median: 91.5% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 21.4% ▼12.3pp Highest Value(s): 100% (1x), 98.3% (1x) / Lowest Value(s): 28.3% (1x), 12.8% (1x), 5.0% (1x) Ill-Gotten-Gains is no attack per se, but we could call it the third best $5 attack card instead of Cultist. It went down one rank and has only a small lead over Governor. What's most notable is that it has a really high deviation with some really low votes. In the unweighted ranking it would 3 ranks worse. I remember reading Ill-Gotten-Gains the first time and it seemed not that strong. You have only a one-shot curser to get a better Copper? But that's not like it is. A Ill-Gotten-Gains Rush is really strong. Just buy Ill-Gotten-Gains every time you get to $5. The optional extra Copper make that possible. With a 5/2 opening it's even possible to deal out a Curse before the opponent's first reshuffle, especially for the first player. When the IGGs are gone, the Curses are usually gone too, so you just have to empty the Duchy pile to win the game and IGGs give enough money to accomplish exactly this. Often you are even able to pick up a Province in between. But you have to be sure to hit your opponent. While these Curses are nearly unstoppable, not even with Moat or Lighthouse (making IGG even stronger), with Trader or Ambassador on the board the Curse pile won't be empty if you empty the IGG pile and your opponent may have enough time to pick up enough Provinces before you empty 2 piles. The same applies with other Cursers on the board. But in all other cases when IGG is on the board, a IGG rush is probably the dominant strategy. Ill-Gotten Gains / Courtyard is the 115th best opening. It has the highest per gain win rate of all kingdom cards (1.21), even higher than Grand Market or any alternative victory card.
	#4 Hunting Party (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 90.5% ▲1.1pp / Median: 91.7% ▲0.2pp / Standard Deviation: 7.2% ▼0.9pp Highest Value(s): 100% (1x), 97.9% (1x), 96.7% (4x) / Lowest Value(s): 74.5% (1x), 71.7% (1x), 63.3% (1x) Hunting Party has a slightly better rating than last time and is a rank better. It has a really low deviation, the fourth lowest - only one voted it below the upper third. It was voted on the first rank once and 15 times it was voted on 95% or higher. After Stables and Laboratory, Hunting Party is the best non-terminal hand-size increasing $5 card. The advantage is the even better filter effect than Stables to get the cards in hand you really need. It's also an engine on its own, just have one Gold and at least a Silver and a good terminal action which gives you at least $2, like Goons, Monument, Horse Traders, Haggler or Baron. With at least 5-6 Hunting Parties you are almost guaranteed a Province each turn because you only have few different cards in your deck and get those all in hand. Going green doesn't hurt you much (only Duchies) and with Cursers you only need a Hunting Party more to filter Curses. It's not strictly better than Laboratory if there are no different cards left in your deck, but that mostly occurs only if you already have a very strong deck or you have a heavily trimmed deck what you don't need when you go for Hunting Parties. The only thing you have to watch out in such a deck is when to trigger the reshuffle so you get at least a Hunting Party in the next hand again. With Dark Ages it got a little bit worse. Shelters hurt a Hunting Party deck a lot and Ruins from Looters also hurt a lot more than Curses. Hunting Party/Chapel is the #11 ▲11 best opening.
	#3 Wharf (Seaside) Weighted Average: 95.3% ▲0.7pp / Median: 95.7% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 4.5% ▼0.2pp Highest Value(s): 100% (6x) / Lowest Value(s): 88.3% (1x), 85.0% (1x), 70.2% (1x) Wharf is the best non-attack $5 card. There is no doubt, it has the lowest deviation in this list, was voted below 85% only one time, was voted first 6 times and has a lead over Hunting Party of nearly 5pp. +2 Cards are mostly weak. The benefit you get in this turn is pretty weak too. But the duration effect of +2 Cards without playing an action is like 2 Caravans or if you played 2 Laboratories at the start of your next turn. And Laboratory is already a #16 Card of the same cost. If you have 2 Wharves and you play them alternating each turn, you start each turn with 7 cards and basically each Wharf is a Council Room without the drawback of giving your opponent an additional card. And as already mentioned the +Buy for a terminal draw is really nice too, you need it with so many cards in hand. You can use Wharf for Big Money with less probability of colliding (because of the duration effect) or you can build an engine. In combination with Fishing Village you are almost guaranteed big hands (like you're playing Double Tactician) and even have enough Actions left for Attacks. No matter if you're going Big Money or build a engine with it, Wharf is so strong that those games are over very quick. Wharf's draw and +Buy is also good for Fool's Gold, making Wharf/Fool's Gold the #14 ▼2 best opening. Wharf/Chapel is "only" on #60 ▼14.
	#2 Witch (Base) Weighted Average: 97.0% ▲0.3pp / Median: 98.3% ▲0.4pp / Standard Deviation: 5.5% ▲3.9pp Highest Value(s): 100% (13x) / Lowest Value(s): 83.3% (1x), 74.6% (1x), 72.3% (1x) It was again very close, not as close as last time, but Witch is again only #2. With 13 first places there is no doubt about such a high rank. It was voted below 80% only 2 times and has the second lowest deviation. Cursers are the strongest cards in the game, I think everyone agrees. There are only 5 guaranteed Cursers, one gives you no benefit and only costs $4, another one is a one-shot and ranked #5 on this list, the third one has Potion in its cost and the fourth is a Prize Card. So Witch is a guaranteed Curser with no drawback and definitely one of the strongest cards in the game. Not only you can curse your opponent, you get 2 additional cards. King's Courting a Witch is basically "Game Over" for your opponent. The defense with Witch on the board is mostly to get it for yourself, faster than your opponent and play it more often. Witch/Chapel is the #5 ▼1 best opening, but it is good with every 5/2 split. It is in the Top 100 14 times, even Witch/nothing is on #82 ▲11.
	#1 Mountebank (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 98.3% ▲1.3pp / Median: 100% ▲2.1pp / Standard Deviation: 10.5% ▼1.6pp Highest Value(s): 100% (31x) / Lowest Value(s): 93.3% (1x), 89.4% (1x), 22.0% (1x) The decision was close again, but it had a higher lead over Witch this time: 1.3pp. It was clearly voted better with 31 first ranks. It has a really big outlier, but other than that, it was only voted 4 times below 95%. Witch already is very strong, but Mountebank managed to beat it again. Yes, it cannot deal out curses guaranteed, but dealing out 2 junk cards per play is really strong and if the opponent has a Curse in hand, he is mostly behind in the Curse split anyway. So, it's stronger in the beginning where junk hurts you more. Your deck can get clogged up so fast. Then it may not hit every time in the middle game, but when the Curse pile is empty, you can still deal out Coppers, that's another advantage. While $2 is mostly weaker than +2 cards (especially in Colony games), there's no big difference in Cursing games as your deck has more junk and it's more difficult to get a money average of $1 per card at the start anyway. So, it really depends on the board which card is stronger, but mostly it is Mountebank because it hurts more. Just beware with Trader on the board or you may be giving your opponent 2 Silvers. Another reason for Mountebank being first is the opening list. Mountebank/Chapel is still the overall best opening =0. Mountebank is 14 ▼1 times in the Top 100, 11 of them in the Top 50, with Mountebank/nothing even on #75 ▼11.

[Robz888]

Oh thank God.

[Robz888]

I have very few disagreements here. Although even Counting House and Saboteur aren't as dreadful as I once thought (I really don't think they come close to the levels of bad of Adventurer, Scout, Thief, and Transmute), they are still last. I might say that Contraband was better than Harvest, and I would certainly say that Explorer (and possibly Outpost) are better than Tribute. But that's nitpicking. Unless there's some card I'm not thinking of, these all deserve their placement on this list.

[LastFootnote]

No Dark Ages cards here, huh? That's probably legit. I'd expect to see Rogue and Pillage in the second batch, though.

[clb]

Oh thank God.

That Qvist has returned to good health and has posted more list, or that Witch wasn't on the list?

[Qvist]

Oh thank God.

That Qvist has returned to good health and has posted more list, or that Witch wasn't on the list?

Actually I had a relapse (is this the correct word?) and lying here with low fever again. 

[Robz888]

Oh thank God.

That Qvist has returned to good health and has posted more list, or that Witch wasn't on the list?

I was just excited this was finally back!

No Dark Ages cards here, huh? That's probably legit. I'd expect to see Rogue and Pillage in the second batch, though.

Agreed, although at the time I ranked them, I had barely played with them at all, so I may not have even judged them correctly.

[clb]

Oh thank God.

That Qvist has returned to good health and has posted more list, or that Witch wasn't on the list?

Actually I had a relapse (is this the correct word?) and lying here with low fever again. 

I am sorry to hear that!
I think relapse is the right word; I usually hear it with chronic illnesses, but I see no reason it wouldn't fit here.
Here's hoping you get better quickly.

[ChocophileBenj]

Yeah, I was wondering about the $5 cards. Too bad you're ill, Qvist, and I truly hope (not only for the ranking of course) it will get better soon. (I was ill a few days ago too and I know what it is like !)

Concerning the rankings :
Yeah, CH and saboteur are the bottom 2 !
I didn't expect contraband to get so low, even though I didn't remember how I ranked it (but not truly high)
Harvest is really low, and it pleases me to see this, as I ranked it very low myself !
And no dark ages cards... I'm not surprised, I didn't notice bad $5 cards from DA, but I wonder where will come :
->pillage : probably low ; too bad it is a one-shot that gives one-shot treasures. But not so low because of the attack -which seems not as powerful as I thought first : it can destroy a turn, as it can just annoy a bit-
->knights : well, they may be everywhere in this ranking, but I expect them in one of the first three parts. Or maybe not.
->junk dealer : below or above upgrade ?
->cultist : probably highly ranked, but... how ?

Hope to see the following soon

[ftl]

I think tribute belongs below outpost. Outpost can be really, really good in engines appropriate for it.

[Mic Qsenoch]

My immediate thoughts looking at this list are something like "How can card X be this low, it works great in situation Y!" Which is basically what everyone wants to say when discussing these ranking lists. And I think everyone gets a little shortsighted in these discussions, but it's especially hard with the $5's because some of the niche cards at this price really shine in their niche, but really suck everywhere else. That being said, I'm just going to go ahead and do what I'm saying not to do.

Tribute is almost always okay and can be quite nice anytime you and your opponent are building similar decks. I don't think it belongs this low.
Outpost is of course a monster in some situations, a whole extra turn! I also think it is too low.

I would replace them with Royal Seal (top decking not a big deal), and probably one of the weak DA cards, but I'm not sure which because of limited play (Graverobber or Rogue maybe?).

Now we just wait for brokoli to show up and defend Saboteur/Harvest.

[Alexmf]

The $5s are really hard to rank, imo. I mean, even the cards on the last ranks aren't really bad, rather situational.

Concerning the concrete rankings:

CH is certainly not a great $5, but imo worth it not that rarely. I've seen it put to good use in Ambassador games, for example, and the $ generated by it is not that bad when compared to say, Harvest. I don't think it's the worst $5, probably not even in the worst five $5.
I would also have rated Saboteur a bit higher. It can turn games around with a bit of luck, when you're desperate.

I pretty much agree on the rest, although i would have switched the rankings a bit.

Edit: Yay for the rankings going up!

[Robz888]

The $5s are really hard to rank, imo. I mean, even the cards on the last ranks aren't really bad, rather situational.

Concerning the concrete rankings:

CH is certainly not a great $5, but imo worth it not that rarely. I've seen it put to good use in Ambassador games, for example, and the $ generated by it is not that bad when compared to say, Harvest. I don't think it's the worst $5, probably not even in the worst five $5.
I would also have rated Saboteur a bit higher. It can turn games around with a bit of luck, when you're desperate.

I pretty much agree on the rest, although i would have switched the rankings a bit.

Edit: Yay for the rankings going up!

But then which cards would you say are worse? I agree Counting House and Saboteur have their uses, every card has its uses, but which cards have fewer uses?

[Alexmf]

The $5s are really hard to rank, imo. I mean, even the cards on the last ranks aren't really bad, rather situational.

Concerning the concrete rankings:

CH is certainly not a great $5, but imo worth it not that rarely. I've seen it put to good use in Ambassador games, for example, and the $ generated by it is not that bad when compared to say, Harvest. I don't think it's the worst $5, probably not even in the worst five $5.
I would also have rated Saboteur a bit higher. It can turn games around with a bit of luck, when you're desperate.

I pretty much agree on the rest, although i would have switched the rankings a bit.

Edit: Yay for the rankings going up!

But then which cards would you say are worse? I agree Counting House and Saboteur have their uses, every card has its uses, but which cards have fewer uses?

Well, I don't really know the DA cards, so can't comment on them.
But I can see myself rating Harvest (imo the worst $5), Mine, Contraband, Cache and Stash below CH and Saboteur. Maybe Explorer too, but I probably underestimate that card.
I think that CH and Saboteur more often have a dramatic impact on the game than those other cards I mentioned, and that often CH and Saboteur are disregarded prematurely (this does not make them "good" $5's in most cases anyway, and I'm pretty sure both belong to the worst ten $5 cards overall).
 
In fact, I would rate Tribute below CH and Saboteur as well. That may, however, be a personal issue, as I just dislike buying and using this unstable card which relies so much on luck. You don't know what you will get, you can't choose anything, and usually options range from  +4 Actions over +4 Cards to $4 (all of which sometimes great, sometimes horrible). You can even be so unlucky as to draw two same cards. Such a random effect is not what I want when I play a card, especially a $5 card.

[ftl]

Tribute is almost always okay and can be quite nice anytime you and your opponent are building similar decks.

Well, Tribute just seems really bad whenever your opponent is building an engine. +4 actions is sort of not very good - unless you're using it as your primary source of actions, but if you're doing that then suddenly if it doesn't give you actions you're screwed. And it's very common for people to build action engines, so Tribute ends up sitting there as an unreliable, expensive village.

[Robz888]

The $5s are really hard to rank, imo. I mean, even the cards on the last ranks aren't really bad, rather situational.

Concerning the concrete rankings:

CH is certainly not a great $5, but imo worth it not that rarely. I've seen it put to good use in Ambassador games, for example, and the $ generated by it is not that bad when compared to say, Harvest. I don't think it's the worst $5, probably not even in the worst five $5.
I would also have rated Saboteur a bit higher. It can turn games around with a bit of luck, when you're desperate.

I pretty much agree on the rest, although i would have switched the rankings a bit.

Edit: Yay for the rankings going up!

But then which cards would you say are worse? I agree Counting House and Saboteur have their uses, every card has its uses, but which cards have fewer uses?

Well, I don't really know the DA cards, so can't comment on them.
But I can see myself rating Harvest (imo the worst $5), Mine, Contraband, Cache and Stash below CH and Saboteur. Maybe Explorer too, but I probably underestimate that card.
I think that CH and Saboteur more often have a dramatic impact on the game than those other cards I mentioned, and that often CH and Saboteur are disregarded prematurely (this does not make them "good" $5's in most cases anyway, and I'm pretty sure both belong to the worst ten $5 cards overall).
 
In fact, I would rate Tribute below CH and Saboteur as well. That may, however, be a personal issue, as I just dislike buying and using this unstable card which relies so much on luck. You don't know what you will get, you can't choose anything, and usually options range from  +4 Actions over +4 Cards to $4 (all of which sometimes great, sometimes horrible). You can even be so unlucky as to draw two same cards. Such a random effect is not what I want when I play a card, especially a $5 card.

Okay, well  don't totally disagree with you. Counting House's best cases are actually pretty good. What's Harvest's best case?

I do think Mine, Contraband, and Cache beat out CH and Saboteur, though. I resort to the former more frequently, and they can make a difference in certain games.

Tribute is a really weird card. I don't think I'm a very good judge of it.

You know, maybe Harvest is the worst $5 card. I can't think of the last time I've bought it.

[WanderingWinder]

Yeah, I've come around to thinking this recently. I do think harvest is the worst $5 card, which is really weird, because it isn't really bad. In fact, it's usually not even the card you'd swindle a $5 into most in most cases - even if we wouldn't allow duchy.

But you know, I'm pretty sure I'd put royal seal very close after it, because it's also just not all that useful. I mean, it's always fine, virtually never worse than silver, but... I mean, you can look at stash similarly to it, and which one is better? Usually RS is a tiny tiny bit better, but the problem is that in those few cases where stash is better, it's incredibly powerful.

So if I made a list today, I think it would probably be Harvest, Rogue, Royal Seal, Graverobber, Counting House, Stash, Pillage, Mine, Saboteur, Tribute, Cache, Outpost, Explorer, etc. or something thereabouts. I really don't have a good feel for Dark Ages though.

Tribute, the problem is, well, where is it good? I mean, it's really good if they are swimming in Harems, but how often is that? And so, ok, 4 cards is magnificent for $5, but it won't do that often (and it comes with the drawback of skipping two of their dead cards - already I am not sure that this is better than Council Room); 2 cards and $2 is really good for money, but you usually have a better payload in anything resembling an engine. 2 cards and 2 actions is obviously really really good, but again, they don't often have so much green. 2 Actions and $2 is worse than festival by a buy, and that's okay, but nothing super special. 4 actions is great if you have a draw-to-X card. But I mean, it is village village necropolis, or NVx3, picking up the third and starting with an empty mat. And well, if you have lots of terminals this is good, but the terminal density you'd need for this, you are going to have big chances at very dead hands. And the problem with counting on it for actions isn't so much that it's unreliable (though that can indeed be vexing) as it is that, well, in order for it to be reliable, they have a big action density. And if they have big action density, they probably have a different village to support, and getting that and something else on 5 is almost always going to be better than this. Add in that sometimes it's going to be terminal silver, occasionally moat-without-reaction, and (albeit rarely) necropolis, and that it does nothing for you at all on curses (and hovel), and it's pretty bad, even while very often it gives you a benefit that would be too strong to put on a $5.

Harvest... terminal gold-ish for 5 is actually not that good. And usually when it is, you are building a draw-your-deck engine, and this has the unfortunate property of not producing any money when your whole deck is drawn.

Counting House has so many nice things going for it, almost all of which are about 20% too complicated to actually work and be worth it. But it's an enormous counter to mountebank, and it has some nice marginal uses, particularly with high-sifting engines. Also not terrible in grind-to-a-halt kinds of games - goons and inn come to mind. But with some sifting, buy, village, can often be worth the cost. But very rarely by very much, and there's usually something a bit better.

Contraband can actually be excellent when you need +buy, and really almost anytime that there are lots of options you wouldn't mind. Especially if you can T4B it later. Okay, it's not too often, but it can really shine, oh maybe 15-20% of the time?

Cache is excellent for slogs. Really really great - except after long, you are buying green instead. And it's okay for big money. Just usually, you wish there was something better to do for $5. Of course, it also combos really nicely with trader and has a mild but in-a-pinch useful watchtower ticket.

[Robz888]

Its kind of interesting how bad all the $5 Treasure Cards are. Ill-Gotten Gains is the star, and Horn of Plenty is pretty good. I think Counterfeit is pretty mediocre, and the rest are deserving of very low ranks.

But yeah, I'm just realizing that I'm coming around on Harvest being the worst, too, so I second what WW said.

[WanderingWinder]

At the same time, virtually none of these wouldn't be game-warping at $4, and there aren't so many that would be actually powerful at $6. Shows you how good Donald and his playtesters/developers were at pricing these, the most important price point.

Indeed probably the biggest pricing mistake when it comes to the 5s is that Adventurer isn't one.

[Qvist]

I think Counterfeit is pretty mediocre

I disagree, I think it's amazing.

[Tables]

Hmm, the thoughts on Harvest here are interesting. I feel it's generally quite a good card - it's usually +$3, sometimes +$4 and rarely +$2/+$1, as long as you don't buy it as an opener. But how good is terminal +$3? It's decent, but there's usually something better. It does also give you cycling, and by the time cycling's bad, it's reaching the point where it's more likely to give +$4.

But yet at the same time, I struggle to think back to games where I've bought Harvests. Or even games where I remember seeing Harvests in the supply. It could be that I just don't see it that often, but more likely, it's just never really significant.

[Dsell]

Where is Mandarin??

[math]

I actually think Mandarin is a decent card.  I don't buy it very often, but I get it more than Outpost or Explorer.  I think it'll probably show up in the first few cards of the next list.

[Mic Qsenoch]

I'm not sure if this idea has been posted on here before (seems likely) but one way to evaluate the $5 cards is to consider the Gold Test. How often and how many times per game would you purchase this card with $6 hands instead of Gold. Like the Silver Test, it basically means nothing, but maybe you can have fun thinking about it! Variants of the Gold Test include questions like: how often do you buy this card with your first $6 hand instead of Gold? The potential for analysis is endless.

If you look at the top tier $5 cards, the answer for the Gold Test is: a lot. If you look at the cards down at the bottom, the answer is: not much. For some of the treasure cards, the answer is: almost never. That's why the Silvers with a bonus and the Golds with a penalty aren't good. That's why terminal cash is terrible unless there's a nifty effect too.

[brokoli]

Now we just wait for brokoli to show up and defend Saboteur/Harvest.

Sorry
Well, I agree with you... I think all bottom $5 card are underrated somehow. I am sad to see counting house last even if I agree.
It's true that I do think Saboteur deserves more defense than the others, and I feel that most people hate it and that's why it's still so low.
I won't repeat the same speech, but yes these two (+ outpost) are too low for me ^^ And I have an irrational love for Harvest, I often use it even if it's not the best move.

That said, I recently (thanks to the article) realized I absolutely underused Contraband.

Mandarin, Royal Seal and Rogue should probably be there, but it wouldn't change much.

[Dsell]

I actually think Mandarin is a decent card.  I don't buy it very often, but I get it more than Outpost or Explorer.  I think it'll probably show up in the first few cards of the next list.

I'm sure it will, but I'd put it behind a lot of these. Personally I'd probably put it right behind Harvest. Neither is great for big money, but harvest is better in flimsy engines going for 1-2 provinces a turn. In a draw-your-deck engine (and obviously after you've drawn your whole deck) Mandarin probably gains the edge for being able to top-deck to set up for the next turn.

The on-gain is cool and sometimes useful. It definitely gives it a niche over Harvest, but I think harvest tends to be consistently better.

I definitely find more uses for Mine and Tribute than Mandarin.

[Mic Qsenoch]

Now we just wait for brokoli to show up and defend Saboteur/Harvest.

Well, I agree with you... I think all bottom $5 card are underrated somehow. I am sad to see counting house last even if I agree.

You are 100% correct about all the bottom $5 cards being underrated, and it's a vicious cycle where these lists reinforce the underrating.

But these cards are underrated in the sense that people don't play them often enough or don't play them correctly. They aren't underrated in the sense that they should be higher on the ranking list (well, some of them are underrated that way too).

[Hks]

I would've put Contraband above Harvest and Cache, I never buy them anyway.

[WanderingWinder]

I actually think Mandarin is a decent card.  I don't buy it very often, but I get it more than Outpost or Explorer.  I think it'll probably show up in the first few cards of the next list.

I'm sure it will, but I'd put it behind a lot of these. Personally I'd probably put it right behind Harvest. Neither is great for big money, but harvest is better in flimsy engines going for 1-2 provinces a turn. In a draw-your-deck engine (and obviously after you've drawn your whole deck) Mandarin probably gains the edge for being able to top-deck to set up for the next turn.

The on-gain is cool and sometimes useful. It definitely gives it a niche over Harvest, but I think harvest tends to be consistently better.

I definitely find more uses for Mine and Tribute than Mandarin.

Mandarin is better than harvest. I mean, let's face it, neither one is a barrel full of laughs. But the on-gain is actually really big for big money. It's actually fairly high on the list of cards for BM strategies on its own, though it's a lot better in supplementing another BM strategy. Something like BM/Smithy, BM/Monument, BM/Envoy... actually almost any terminal BM will be happy to pick this up in the right spot even early on as a second terminal, and will definitely love picking it up as a third or fourth in the late going. Of course, it's tricky on when exactly to do that, and well, money strategies aren't so hot nowadays, so it deserves to be pretty low. But if you are playing money, it's going to put you over the top in, I dunno, 30-40% of the games?

[dondon151]

Sab belongs in this tier but is too low within this tier, IMO. Outpost is criminally underrated. In almost any engine game with trashing, if Outpost is in the kingdom and my opponent doesn't go for the engine, I know that Outpost will give me more than enough time to win.

[Schneau]

My biggest problem with this group is that Royal Seal hasn't appeared yet. I entirely agree with WW that it's one of the worst $5 - it's almost always better than Silver, but never excitingly so.

[Willvon]

So happy to have the list back again, but sorry you are still fighting your bug, Qvist.

l like the list so far, other than I am starting to agree that perhaps Harvest should be lower. When it is in the kingdom, I never buy it unless there are no other 5's worth buying. And if that is true, there are probably 4's in the kingdom that are better.

[Chuckleslovakian]

I've found games where Contraband, Stash, Saboteur, were all useful. Hell even remember a game where Counting House was key. Don't ever remember Harvest being useful.

[Blueswan]

YES, it's back. Thank you Qvist. Looking forward to the rest of the list. I didn't participate in the voting since I only started playing Dominion this january and I'm still not a very good player, but I plan to take part if there is a list next year - hopefully there is to accommodate the Guilds cards.

For my money I would rate Counting House and Saboteur higher. I think I would rate Explorer and Harvest as the bottom two cards.

[brokoli]

I think the best uses for Mandarin are :
- When the on-gain effect is a benefit (Buy province + Mandarin and put golds on top of your deck)
- When the courtyard effect is a benefit (Play mandarin, put tunnel on top then play venture).

On the other side, Harvest is almost always worth $3 - $4 which is usually better than mandarin, and Harvest is nice for deck-cycling. Maybe in BM or even slogs Mandarin is better, but not in engines...

Actually, I would rank Harvest just above Merchant ship.

And Explorer is fine where it is.

[Blueswan]

Harvest better than Merchant Ship? For real?

[WanderingWinder]

I think the best uses for Mandarin are :
- When the on-gain effect is a benefit (Buy province + Mandarin and put golds on top of your deck)
- When the courtyard effect is a benefit (Play mandarin, put tunnel on top then play venture).

Sure.

On the other side, Harvest is almost always worth $3 - $4 which is usually better than mandarin,

Well, by $0-1. Not to mention that sometimes it only gets you 2 or even 1. So, usually it's the same amount of cash, more often more than less, but on average, probably what, $.2 better? Ok, a grant you that's a plus.

and Harvest is nice for deck-cycling.

Well, yes and no. If you get it really early, then yes. But if you are getting Mandarin where forward cycling is good, you are probably doing it wrong. One of mandarin's biggest draws, no THE biggest draw, is that it anti-cycles for you, selectively. Cycling through four cards generally isn't that important though - that's a bit of a fallacy. I mean, it helps a little bit, but usually you want cycling because cards that help you cycle will help you to make an engine you can draw your deck with, rather than being dead-to-draw cards other stuff has to lift. Cycling itself also has a benefit, but it's a small one.

Maybe in BM or even slogs Mandarin is better, but not in engines...

But the problem in engines is that you have to play harvest before you draw your deck, and that is a pain, particularly because it essentially means you have to have more villages, which is a pretty significant nuisance, actually. And the Courtyard effect of mandarin can help engines where you're over-drawing, by being able to seed your next hand with an important card, thus allowing you to be sure not to have the engine sputter next turn. So I have actually found Mandarin more useful in engines, too, though to be fair, you usually want neither one of them in an engine.

[Tables]

and Harvest is nice for deck-cycling.

Well, yes and no. If you get it really early, then yes. But if you are getting Mandarin where forward cycling is good, you are probably doing it wrong. One of mandarin's biggest draws, no THE biggest draw, is that it anti-cycles for you, selectively. Cycling through four cards generally isn't that important though - that's a bit of a fallacy. I mean, it helps a little bit, but usually you want cycling because cards that help you cycle will help you to make an engine you can draw your deck with, rather than being dead-to-draw cards other stuff has to lift. Cycling itself also has a benefit, but it's a small one.

By the time Harvest's cycling is bad, it's going to be getting to the big numbers more reliably, though, as by endgame, you generally have a much more varied deck.

[DG]

I'll stick up for stash actually. I think it's fine and plenty of people do buy it, get value from it, and forget about it. There are plenty of kingdoms where you can't afford to overload with terminal cards so that leaves stash as good value at cost 5. As with the explorer, not all cards can be always be exciting. Unlike all the other cards on that bottom list, it is practically always better than silver.

[jaybeez]

Its kind of interesting how bad all the $5 Treasure Cards are. Ill-Gotten Gains is the star, and Horn of Plenty is pretty good. I think Counterfeit is pretty mediocre, and the rest are deserving of very low ranks.

Venture's solid.

[dondon151]

Venture is still ranked in the bottom half of $5 cards IIRC.

[Robz888]

Its kind of interesting how bad all the $5 Treasure Cards are. Ill-Gotten Gains is the star, and Horn of Plenty is pretty good. I think Counterfeit is pretty mediocre, and the rest are deserving of very low ranks.

Venture's solid.

Yeah, Venture is okay, but there's actually no other card that has fallen as far in my estimation. I used to think it was really good (and to be fair, it probably used to be better, relative to other things). Now, you know what? Meh. Meh, I say. Occasionally you see a really great set up for it, and that's fun, but the entirely-Venture-based-deck is an increasingly rare and disappointing thing.

[heatthespurs]

I've found games where Contraband, Stash, Saboteur, were all useful. Hell even remember a game where Counting House was key. Don't ever remember Harvest being useful.

I remember having a game once which my opponent successfully combo Scrying Pool with Harvest (similar to how SP-Vault work) and won him a game. Of course it is much weaker than SP-Vault, but I was pretty amazed how he worked that out.

For me the biggest plus for Harvest is that you get the satisfaction when you hit +$4... It feels like winning a lottery

[Fragasnap]

Paragraph defending Counting House incoming:
I think Counting House is better than people give credit. Assuming there is no trashing, it can be decent for swinging up to a higher money value, and it is half-decent in Colony games. It is not very often that it can be used as your primary strategy, but if there is any amount of a slog going on, it can be a decent buy. I would say that Saboteur has fewer instances where it can be used (and to be clear, I like Saboteur). You're not really getting anywhere with Saboteur unless you're playing 3-4 in a turn (and if you can do that, surely there's something better to play than Saboteur) or two other players decide to start a Saboteur war. Mine is probably harder to justify than Counting House in more games.
Tribute is too inconsistent to be good: It is all the swinginess of Counting House but without any certainty of its actual effect. It is similar to how one cannot rely upon Ironmonger to build an engine-- either drawing cards or providing actions-- except that Ironmonger is nice because it's at least a Cantrip, so you always know you'll end up ahead when you play it. If you have Tribute and another great Action in your hand, which do you play? Tribute might end up being nonterminal, but you can't be certain, so you have to play your other Action.
Also, I harbor an irrational grudges against Explorer and Outpost. I know neither are that bad, but I always feel a little bit sad when one of the Kingdom card slots is occupied by one of them.

Now with Scavenger, there exists even a more powerful combo for a guaranteed Province each turn in a deck with 4 Stashes and 2 Scavengers.

Scavenger itself produces $2, so you only need 3 Stashes and 2 Scavengers to make this work. Also it's stopped by Attacks that mess with your hand.

I think Counterfeit is pretty mediocre

I disagree, I think it's amazing.

I agree with Qvist. It's not the best thing ever, but if you want some trashing, it is clearly better than Moneylender. When you trash a Copper with it, you get the same +$3 as Moneylender, but it's a Treasure, so you don't need to worry about having the Actions to play it; it provides a +Buy so you can build a fun engine out of cheap components; even when it doesn't collide with Copper, or when you are out of Coppers, it provides $1; and at the end of a game you can start trashing Silvers and Golds for bigger money swings to start picking up extra Duchies (with those +Buys it handily gives anyway) or just to jump up to snagging those last couple Provinces.

Prediction: Rebuild is Dark Ages's strongest $5. Maybe people don't think it now (mabye they put Cultist higher), but Rebuild is one of those cards that requires you to completely change your thinking for the game-- particularly if you start with three Estates.

[Tables]

Now with Scavenger, there exists even a more powerful combo for a guaranteed Province each turn in a deck with 4 Stashes and 2 Scavengers.

Scavenger itself produces $2, so you only need 3 Stashes and 2 Scavengers to make this work. Also it's stopped by Attacks that mess with your hand.

Not true. What if you draw Scavenger/Scavenger/Stash/Stash/Stash after the reshuffle?

[Qvist]

Now with Scavenger, there exists even a more powerful combo for a guaranteed Province each turn in a deck with 4 Stashes and 2 Scavengers.

Scavenger itself produces $2, so you only need 3 Stashes and 2 Scavengers to make this work. Also it's stopped by Attacks that mess with your hand.

Like Tables said, 2 Scavengers and 3 Stashes is basically enough in practice, but you might be screwed by this unlucky hand. So this still doesn't guarantee you it.
And of course discarding attacks are ignored here like in every "Golden Deck", because then you probably wouldn't go for it in the first place.

[HiveMindEmulator]

The bottom $5 cards is on of the hardest part of the rankings to do, because it involves a lot of cards that you want to use infrequently enough that it's hard to really have a good sense of their actual power, and if you miss chances to use them, you might not even notice. That said, I feel like Harvest is hands down the worst, since it is basically never strong. It's at best usable when you need disappearing money, have an action to spare, and aren't drawing your whole deck. Then I have Tribute, Royal Seal, Rogue, and Saboteur. Tribute and Royal seal aren't terrible a lot of the time, and you don't mind having them in your deck, but they're at best situational support cards, never really key cards. On the other hand, all the other cards here can really the key piece to your strategy at least some of the time. Other than Royal Seal escaping this tier (and Tribute nearly doing so as well) the biggest problem I see with this list is that Contraband is way too low. Sure it can be bad to play Contraband in the end of the game when you want to buy Provinces, but there are a lot of really good cards that you don't want to play at that stage of the game, like trashers. But in the early part of the game, Contraband is really good. $3 and a buy without using an action helps building up a lot. Most of the time there are multiple things you can do with $6 and 2 buys that are better that what you could do for $5 and 1 buy, and since only one of these can be blocked, it easily passes the Silver test and can often be better than whatever $2-producing 5's are out there for the build-up phase of the game.

[eHalcyon]

Now with Scavenger, there exists even a more powerful combo for a guaranteed Province each turn in a deck with 4 Stashes and 2 Scavengers.

Scavenger itself produces $2, so you only need 3 Stashes and 2 Scavengers to make this work. Also it's stopped by Attacks that mess with your hand.

Like Tables said, 2 Scavengers and 3 Stashes is basically enough in practice, but you might be screwed by this unlucky hand. So this still doesn't guarantee you it.

However, you suggested 4 Stash/2 Scavenger.  It's more likely that you should go 3 Stash/3 Scavenger, because Scavenger is only $4.

[SCSN]

I think Counterfeit is pretty mediocre

I disagree, I think it's amazing.

I agree with Qvist. It's not the best thing ever, but if you want some trashing, it is clearly better than Moneylender. When you trash a Copper with it, you get the same +$3 as Moneylender, but it's a Treasure, so you don't need to worry about having the Actions to play it; it provides a +Buy so you can build a fun engine out of cheap components; even when it doesn't collide with Copper, or when you are out of Coppers, it provides $1; and at the end of a game you can start trashing Silvers and Golds for bigger money swings to start picking up extra Duchies (with those +Buys it handily gives anyway) or just to jump up to snagging those last couple Provinces.

And it combos pretty well with spoils.

[KingZog3]

Counterfeit is just good in general, and once in a while it stands out as excellent.

As for the rankings of DA cards, Cultist and Rebuild will very high I think, as maybe Graverobber. Bandit Camp I think will be middle/high middle too, along with Count.

[shraeye]

I think Counterfeit is pretty mediocre

I disagree, I think it's amazing.

I very much agree.  I enjoy counterfeiting things.  Counterfeiting counterfeits is also fun.

[GiB]

Counterfeit is just good in general, and once in a while it stands out as excellent.

I agree too.

As for the rankings of DA cards, Cultist and Rebuild will very high I think, as maybe Graverobber. Bandit Camp I think will be middle/high middle too, along with Count.

My guess (maybe I'm underrating Graverobber, I think it's good but rather situational) :

• Cultist : Top 5 (I'm curious to see how it was ranked compared to Wharf)
• Rebuild : Top 10
• Catacombs, Junk Dealer, Bandit Camp, Pillage : High, something like 11-16 ? (15-20 for Bandit Camp and Pillage)
• BoM, Graverobber, Count, Counterfeit, Mystic : Middle or high middle (20-29)
• Rogue, Knights : Lowish, but can also be deadly in the right conditions. I guess it was hard to rank Knights as a whole.

[Blueswan]

I really enjoy playing Junk Dealers. Wonder how high it will be.

[brokoli]

How I would rank :

• Cultist : Top 5
• Rebuild : Top 10
• Bandit camp, Graverobber, Count, Knights : 11-25
• BoM, Counterfeit, Mystic, Catacombs, Junk dealer : middle
• Rogue : 45-50 (this card really depends on the board, more than the majority of the cards in the game

[PitzerMike]

Heh, I have Graverobber fifth to last. I think it's almost the worst. 

[KingZog3]

Heh, I have Graverobber fifth to last. I think it's almost the worst. 

Definitly not. In many boards it just really good. Essentially it makes Expand almost useless. True it doesn't have as much versatility, but turning your $5's into Provinces is amazing, then gainig them back, topdecking them and doing it again next turn is even better. It also works with itself, and lets not mention University where you would be crazy to ignore it. Top 20 I say, I buy it almost every board and usually regret it when I don't.

How I would rank :

• Rogue : 45-50 (this card really depends on the board, more than the majority of the cards in the game

I agree on Rogue. It too rigid to normally be good. The $2 helps it, but its easily ruined by putting something like Loan in the trash. The best I've seen is to ruin Foragers that have Golds and Silvers in the trash. But is it worth it over the attack cards that probably trashed them? I'm not sure...

[LastFootnote]

[Graverobber] also works with itself, and lets not mention University where you would be crazy to ignore it.

Or Altar.

[KingZog3]

[Graverobber] also works with itself, and lets not mention University where you would be crazy to ignore it.

Or Altar.

Oh yeah, and Altar.

[GiB]

My biggest concern with Graverobber is that it needs some support to be useful. Just like Counting House, it often either really shines or sucks (only difference is that it shines much more often than Counting House).

On the other hand, all the other $5 (except BoM) will do their job almost whatever the kingdom. I don't think situational cards should be ranked so high, combo potential should only be a plus in the ranking.

[KingZog3]

It's better with suport, but good in it's own. There will always be other graverobbers to graverobber, and you can upgrade ever $2 Actions into them. Sure it's not the BEST strategy, but it's decent on an otherwise slow kingdom. For sure it beats straight BM at least.

[shraeye]

[Graverobber] also works with itself, and lets not mention University where you would be crazy to ignore it.

Or Altar.

Oh yeah, and Altar.

I recently got smashed by an Altar/City combo.

[Awaclus]

I think Saboteur should be higher and Harvest and Explorer should be lower.

[KingZog3]

I think Saboteur should be higher and Harvest and Explorer should be lower.

Agreed. I've only taken explorer in weak boards where Feodum was present.

Like Ghost ship, you need to play Saboteur often to make it worth it. It provides no benefit to you, so it's harder to do, but if you can it's deadly (also why it provides no benefit to you).

[Robz888]

Cultist and Rebuild are very powerful (Rebuild much more so than I first thought). Catacombs and Junk Dealer are also nice, and Counterfeit, too. But the rest of the DA cards, I'm quite worried will be over-ranked. Knights, Count, and Graverobber especially are less useful than they appear, I think.

[jaybeez]

Cultist and Rebuild are very powerful (Rebuild much more so than I first thought). Catacombs and Junk Dealer are also nice, and Counterfeit, too. But the rest of the DA cards, I'm quite worried will be over-ranked. Knights, Count, and Graverobber especially are less useful than they appear, I think.

I agree with pretty much everything you said, except regarding Count.  It can be an elite early trasher, or a pseudo-Mandarin in midgame (which I think is a much better card than some people realize) and can gain you Duchies straight-up in the late game when the +$3 option won't get you to a Province.  And that's not counting more unusual situations where the option to gain a Copper isn't so bad, or you really want to discard two cards (Menagerie, Tunnel).  It's not the strongest card but it's so flexible, which means you can use it in a lot of different situations, which makes it pretty solid I think.  I think it's a lot like Steward in that I've mostly used it for early trashing and then terminal money when I don't want to trash any more, it's just more complicated than Steward and not quite as good because you can't open with it every time.

[KingZog3]

Cultist and Rebuild are very powerful (Rebuild much more so than I first thought). Catacombs and Junk Dealer are also nice, and Counterfeit, too. But the rest of the DA cards, I'm quite worried will be over-ranked. Knights, Count, and Graverobber especially are less useful than they appear, I think.

I agree with pretty much everything you said, except regarding Count.  It can be an elite early trasher, or a pseudo-Mandarin in midgame (which I think is a much better card than some people realize) and can gain you Duchies straight-up in the late game when the +$3 option won't get you to a Province.  And that's not counting more unusual situations where the option to gain a Copper isn't so bad, or you really want to discard two cards (Menagerie, Tunnel).  It's not the strongest card but it's so flexible, which means you can use it in a lot of different situations, which makes it pretty solid I think.  I think it's a lot like Steward in that I've mostly used it for early trashing and then terminal money when I don't want to trash any more, it's just more complicated than Steward and not quite as good because you can't open with it every time.

It's options cover each stage of the game. Early trashing, money boost then VP gains near the end.

[SirPeebles]

Cultist and Rebuild are very powerful (Rebuild much more so than I first thought). Catacombs and Junk Dealer are also nice, and Counterfeit, too. But the rest of the DA cards, I'm quite worried will be over-ranked. Knights, Count, and Graverobber especially are less useful than they appear, I think.

and can gain you Duchies straight-up in the late game when the +$3 option won't get you to a Province. 

Even if you already have $5 in hand, getting two Duchies can be a life saver if you would otherwise break PPR.

[WanderingWinder]

I agree with pretty much everything you said, except regarding Count.

Count is not good.

It can be an elite early trasher,

Actually, it can't. I mean, chapel is an elite early trasher. Ambassador. Remake possibly. Count is hardly better than steward. Of course, if you're fortunate enough to get one on turn 1-2, then it's pretty good, but this will be rare. And after you've reshuffled a second time, its value as a trasher diminishes GREATLY. You must trash your whole hand, which is a pretty big negative, and you can save one card with the top-deck, but then you have to anti-cycle it, or you can save two, but then you have to discard them. And if you want to trash everything, then you have to gain a copper. So you end up netting only 3 cards trashing, which hey, that's not bad if you can get it t1-2, but I think I'd actually take steward half the time. And steward costs $3.

or a pseudo-Mandarin in midgame (which I think is a much better card than some people realize)

Mandarin IS a much better card than some people realize - but mostly for its on-gain effect! Buying count to be a mandarin is... well, it's not the worst thing ever, but you almost always have something better to do.

and can gain you Duchies straight-up in the late game when the +$3 option won't get you to a Province.

This situation actually comes up infrequently. If you have $5+, the $3 gets you a province. So you have less than $5. But if you have $2+, then the $3 gets you a duchy anyway. So gaining it only actually gets you a cheaper card - maybe an estate. Now, that's not nothing, but it isn't much. More useful is when you can already buy a province, or when you need to do 2 duchies rather than a province, because you're behind.[/quote]
And that's not counting more unusual situations where the option to gain a Copper isn't so bad, or you really want to discard two cards (Menagerie, Tunnel).[/quote]
It has to be incredibly rare that you discard two cards for menagerie. I mean, first of all, you need to have an extra action already, then you need to have multiple copies (often 3+ or you'd top-deck) of said card, and not be able to play them. Generally we are talking copper (you shouldn't have so many of these hands in a deck where menagerie and count are important cards) or like province. So province is a situation, but I have to say, that's a really low percentage thing - that you have so many provinces that they're colliding and you need to discard them with the count to have a menagerie activate to win? Got to be SUPER rare. And tunnel, well there yes, you are going to want to discard some. But, having played count and discarded 2 cards, you then have only two cards left in hand, which is not too much to make $8 with. Of course, with the amount of gold you might have floating, you can do it sometimes. But generally, well it can't be the backbone of a strategy really, it's just too slow.

It's not the strongest card but it's so flexible, which means you can use it in a lot of different situations, which makes it pretty solid I think.

The problem is... well, there are lots of decks where if you asked me 'would you like an extra count in your deck for free' then I would take it. Though even there, often I wouldn't, and many other times, I would take it but not by much. But the problem is, that isn't the question, EVER. It's always would you rather have it than anything else you can have. And that usually means over EVERY other $5, every cheaper card, and often enough some more expensive ones. And it doesn't pass that test too often, and when it does, it tends to not come too close to winning the game on its own, ergo it's not that good.

I think it's a lot like Steward in that I've mostly used it for early trashing and then terminal money when I don't want to trash any more, it's just more complicated than Steward and not quite as good because you can't open with it every time.

Steward is a much better card. First off, the drawing on steward is generally a lot better than the money. And often enough, 2 cards is better than 3 coin, and that's not even factoring in count's drawback. Of course, count has some plusses, too, but the big deal is that count costs $5, which is a LOT more than 3, and most of all makes it a MUCH less effective trasher, especially given how it has to trash things.

Okay, so what is count's best situation? Well, it isn't bad to spike a s a trasher on turn 1 or 2, but the best thing is alt-vp slogs, where gain a copper and a duchy, or gain a copper and $3, and sometimes top-decking, are very very useful.

Okay, I don't mean to pick on you here - it was just a convenient way of running down the points I want to make about count.

[LastFootnote]

WW, what I'm getting from your post is, "Count is not a good engine card." Is that valid?

[dondon151]

You do want to discard 2 cards often enough with Menagerie that a card like Horse Traders is a good enabler with a surplus of +action. The problem with Count is, obviously, that it's weaker than HT if you take +$3, discard 2 cards because it doesn't give +buy and it's not a Reaction.

Also, I wouldn't say that Count is necessarily a bad engine card. If you have a strong drawing engine, the topdecking from hand could be beneficial for improving consistency on subsequent turns. If you draw $8 with a Count, you can still gain Province + Duchy. It can serve as kind of a gimped Forge if you so desire. It's not really good, but the card is designed to be flexible at what it does, not good at what it does.

[Robz888]

I completely agree with WW.

Certainly Count's best case is going to be altVP stuff like Duke and Silk Roads, but even then, I can think of a lot of less expensive cards that also rock in those situations (like Horse Traders, Feast, Ironworks, Beggar...).

Everyone needs to check themselves when the say "X is a pretty solid card." Okay, what does that mean? Is it better than Market? I don't think Count is, on average, a better card than Market. I'm pretty confident it's worse. Is Market a "pretty solid card?" If Market isn't, than Count isn't. Does Market crack the top 50%? I don't know if it does. There are a lot of awesome cards taking up like the first 20 slots, and then there are a lot of good cards that used to be great cards getting pushed out. Laboratory was once considered the second best $5 card! Well, by theory, who was wrong there to begin with, but you know, subsequent expansions introduced a whole bunch of cards that displaced Laboratory, either directly (like Hunting Party) or indirectly (like good draw cards that, when coupled with villages, make for a better engine than a bunch of Labs). Now, is Laboratory "a pretty solid card?" Yeah, I think it passes that test. Does Count? I really don't think so.

[SCSN]

I'm with Rob and WW. I've bought Count alot just because I like buying lots of new stuff, but it has resulted in buyer's remorse more than once.

[KingZog3]

Count in the top 20? Definitely not. But I've seen it (and used it) enough to think it's a decent card. Let's not go crazy, because it's no Mountebank, but I do think it's comparable to Market.

[ftl]

I think count is pretty good just because it's a multi-card trasher that retains some usability later.

The best case for count is I think in an engine game where it's the only good trasher around, and I don't think that's particularly rare. In that case, count really is sort of dominatingly good, providing both the trashing and money and some vp later. (Comparing to market, I think it's much more common for market to have some sort of reasonable substitute on the board, some other source of +buy. I think it's definitely above market.)

[Robz888]

Count in the top 20? Definitely not. But I've seen it (and used it) enough to think it's a decent card. Let's not go crazy, because it's no Mountebank, but I do think it's comparable to Market.

There are only 61 $5 cards though. So it's automatically bottom 50% unless it cracks the Top 30. Should a card in the bottom 50% get the designation "pretty solid?" Probably not unless it's real close to the #30 mark.

And I think you will buy Market far more often than Count. They may have similarly negligible effects on your deck most of the time. Perhaps Count shines more often than Market? I'm not sure it does. Market is sometimes super important with Throne or King or Highway or Quarry. And again, you buy it way more frequently than count. So Market wins convincingly, in my estimation.

[chwhite]

By far the largest problem with this list is that Outpost is criminally underrated.  Yes, it is a dead card more than half the time.  But it is so crushingly good in many engine games- yes, I would like straight-up double turns in my Minion or Wharf or Scrying Pool or [fill in the powerful card here] engine deck.  And it even has some unexpected corner-case utility as a pseudo-+Buy in Gardens slogs.

Contraband is a bit lower than it should be, too.  Yeah, it mostly sucks, but I really like it as a setup card for decks built on cheap engine parts.  It probably belongs in this tier, but I'd place it a good deal higher within the tier.

Royal Seal is definitely the card that should take Outpost's place, it's pretty unimpressive even when you want to buy it.  I'd be open to throwing Mandarin or maybe the worst Dark Ages card (which I still really have nothing to say about) down here as well.  Explorer still seems a little high; I don't hate it as much as I used to, but it still only seems strong in alt-VP matches to me, and $5 is pricey for that.

As much as I hate to admit it, y'all are probably right that Harvest really unimpressively is near the bottom.  I'd probably put Counting House and Stash behind it, still.

I've got nothing intelligent to say about any of the Dark Ages cards.

EDIT: Actually, I totally dominated multiple IRL games last weekend almost wholly due to deft use of Counting House (first one was, obviously, a Mountebank game, second one was a weird slog with Sea Hag, Ghost Ship, and Native Village where Counting House let me buy the game's only Province). 

Yeah, I feel pretty confident saying that Stash is the worst $5 card, actually.

[Robz888]

I think count is pretty good just because it's a multi-card trasher that retains some usability later.

Again, this "pretty good" distinction. What does that mean? Embasy is pretty good. Count is at best below average.

[Eevee]

I think count is pretty good just because it's a multi-card trasher that retains some usability later.

Again, this "pretty good" distinction. What does that mean? Embasy is pretty good. Count is at best below average.

Embassy is ( at least was, before DA ) a crushingly awesome BM-strategy to the extent of boringness. Much better than "pretty good".

Edit: Other than that, +1 Robz.

[KingZog3]

Count in the top 20? Definitely not. But I've seen it (and used it) enough to think it's a decent card. Let's not go crazy, because it's no Mountebank, but I do think it's comparable to Market.

There are only 61 $5 cards though. So it's automatically bottom 50% unless it cracks the Top 30. Should a card in the bottom 50% get the designation "pretty solid?" Probably not unless it's real close to the #30 mark.

And I think you will buy Market far more often than Count. They may have similarly negligible effects on your deck most of the time. Perhaps Count shines more often than Market? I'm not sure it does. Market is sometimes super important with Throne or King or Highway or Quarry. And again, you buy it way more frequently than count. So Market wins convincingly, in my estimation.

Everything is good with Throne and King

I think I buy them in equal amounts. Not every board has Quarry or Highway or good engines, so Count can be good on those boards while Market will be good on the other ones. And I never said it was solid. Just that it can be decent.

[WanderingWinder]

Count in the top 20? Definitely not. But I've seen it (and used it) enough to think it's a decent card. Let's not go crazy, because it's no Mountebank, but I do think it's comparable to Market.

There are only 61 $5 cards though. So it's automatically bottom 50% unless it cracks the Top 30. Should a card in the bottom 50% get the designation "pretty solid?" Probably not unless it's real close to the #30 mark.

And I think you will buy Market far more often than Count. They may have similarly negligible effects on your deck most of the time. Perhaps Count shines more often than Market? I'm not sure it does. Market is sometimes super important with Throne or King or Highway or Quarry. And again, you buy it way more frequently than count. So Market wins convincingly, in my estimation.

Everything is good with Throne and King

Count isn't

[WanderingWinder]

I think count is pretty good just because it's a multi-card trasher that retains some usability later.

A la Trading Post, which is pretty bad?

The best case for count is I think in an engine game where it's the only good trasher around, and I don't think that's particularly rare. In that case, count really is sort of dominatingly good, providing both the trashing and money and some vp later. (Comparing to market, I think it's much more common for market to have some sort of reasonable substitute on the board, some other source of +buy. I think it's definitely above market.)

You think that "engine games" where there's no other "good trasher around", which also have need of "money" and/or "some vp" later on are not "particularly rare", and that on such boards, "count really is sort of dominatingly good"? Really? I mean, I could probably design such a board, but it would take a good deal of work. Thing is, most boards, if you are relying on a trasher that is that slow, you either don't build an engine, or the trashing doesn't help that much, because you've got the engine in place without it - and in the latter case, there's often going to be something else that's juicier to do. Heck, that's just true in general.

[ftl]

Ah well, you guys are better than me, I'll just believe you. I still don't really get why though :/ maybe I'm overrating how fast it trashes or something, it seems like it trashes much faster than trading post to me.

I looked up old lists and sticking count in them, it seems like it would go just a bit the middle, so maybe I don't really disagree that much, it's just that most of the $5 cards are good.

[Qvist]

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7836.msg225803#msg225803

Discuss.

[eHalcyon]

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7836.msg225803#msg225803

Discuss.

You didn't mention that Mystic combos with Scout!

I think I would rank Library higher than Council Room.

[Tables]

You mention Inn's "On buy effect", this should be "on gain effect"

[Tables]

Nothing here really surprises me. Of the cards we've seen so far, the highest one I had was Inn at #40. The only cards I have that still haven't come up are: City (in 2p, it's so rarely much good, maybe I should have put it a little higher, eh), Counterfeit (new card syndrome, this should definitely be about 10-15 ranks higher, I'd say. It's no power card, but it's a decent copper trasher and slingshot effect), and Haggler (this was only barely down here, and I think I should probably have put it a fair bit higher - it's not great all that often, but when it is, it can be incredible).

[Robz888]

Pretty good second part. We've already talked about how Royal Seal belongs much lower, so there's that. I think Mystic is easily better than Graverobber and Rogue, but maybe when I play with them more I will change my mind.

Everything else is just quibbling, but I would probably put Inn ahead of Library and Council Room. Part of the problem of Library/Council Room is that other cards can do what they do (Watchtower and Menagerie for Library, and like any draw card, but especially Governor and Margrave, for Council Room) while being less expensive or prohibitive. Inn's on-gain shuffle feature is truly unique, and extremely useful.

[Qvist]

You mention Inn's "On buy effect", this should be "on gain effect"

 

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7836.msg225803#msg225803

Discuss.

You didn't mention that Mystic combos with Scout!

I think I would rank Library higher than Council Room.

Ha, I wondered how long it would take that someone would comment on that. Not very long, obiviously.
But I left Scout out intentionally. I still can't see any great Scout/Mystic engine.

[eHalcyon]

Pretty good second part. We've already talked about how Royal Seal belongs much lower, so there's that. I think Mystic is easily better than Graverobber and Rogue, but maybe when I play with them more I will change my mind.

Everything else is just quibbling, but I would probably put Inn ahead of Library and Council Room. Part of the problem of Library/Council Room is that other cards can do what they do (Watchtower and Menagerie for Library, and like any draw card, but especially Governor and Margrave, for Council Room) while being less expensive or prohibitive. Inn's on-gain shuffle feature is truly unique, and extremely useful.

I think this is pretty interesting.  What do you value more -- the chance to draw a card, or the ability to topdeck cards you buy?  That's essentially the difference between Royal Seal and Mystic.  Mystic is pretty much a Silver+.  I like Mystic a lot, but I'm not sure it's actually that much better than Royal Seal.

Rogue is probably too high for me.  And I think I would rank Mint higher?  I probably overestimate it though.

[Qvist]

I like to comment on this list, too. Graverobber is no great card, but it's much better than Rogue, in my opinion. In my experience Rogue is such a weak card and should belong maybe in the bottom 5, but at least in the bottom 10. I'm not sure if Graverobber is properly ranked, but I guess it's alright where it is.

[werothegreat]

I like to comment on this list, too. Graverobber is no great card, but it's much better than Rogue, in my opinion. In my experience Rogue is such a weak card and should belong maybe in the bottom 5, but at least in the bottom 10. I'm not sure if Graverobber is properly ranked, but I guess it's alright where it is.

In Rats games, Rogue is useless.  It's so neutered in order to not be overpowered, that it's just not all that good.  The +$2 does help, though.

[heatthespurs]

In my experience Rogue is such a weak card and should belong maybe in the bottom 5, but at least in the bottom 10.

The lack of option really kills Rogue. You cannot choose whether to attack or to gain card. And when you are forced to gain a card, it is common that you are forced to gain a particular card (the only card costing 3-6 in the trash). This is really bad.

[gman314]

Yeah, I would definitely put Rogue below Graverobber, particularly after some games I played today which illustrated all Rogue's weak points. In one, my opponent couldn't trash my Alchemists with it and just had to play two on a turn to maybe steal a card. In the next, we both used Rogue and a couple of times I just gained what he had trashed, making it a rather silly card.

Graverobber on the other hand I've had quite a bit of fun with, and I think it's quite good. It definitely belongs above Rogue, and I'd probably put Rogue below Mystic as well.

[math]

I agree with what other people have been saying - that Rouge is definitely worse than Graverobber.  I haven't played very much with either, but the one time I bought Rouge I regretted it.  As has been pointed out, the lack of a choice makes it just a bad card in general.

I think Mystic is underrated, but maybe I'm just overrating it.  I would put it above Graverobber, but that's probably just because I don't have much experience with Graverobber.

[SCSN]

I'm really surprised by Mystic being this low, and by Count and Pillage not being on the list. I think Mystic > Graverobber > Pillage > Count > Rogue. Mystic combos decently with itself and well with a couple of other DA cards (Vagrant, Ironmonger, Wandering Minstrel, Scavenger) and can again be decent with stuff like Mandarin, Courtyard, Watchtower and Pearl Diver, it slightly mitigates an opponent's Spy/Scrying Pool/Ghost Ship attack, and makes good use of plain old strategic guessing and keeping proper track of your deck.

Not saying it's great, but it's definitely better than quite a few cards higher on the list, and I have the suspicion it ended here mostly because people (including me at times) are too lazy to put it to good use.

[kn1tt3r]

I'd also put Mystic a bit higher and Rogue a bit lower.

Mystic on its own is just a silver, but so is Festival. But Mystic has this neat self-synergy and makes a really strong comob with some cards (Cartographer being one of the best). It's certainly not a power card, but I would put it either on top of this second fifth or even into the next one.

And Rogue... well, it CAN be good on some boards, but many many times it's not only a weakish attack, it's also only an attack half the time, AND it's terribly slow if you really intend to steal your opponent's cards (which might be only Silvers).

[brokoli]

I think Rogue is one of the complex and interesting card of Dark Ages.
Complex, because it really depends on the board (if there are trashers, weak card that could end on the trash pile) AND your opponent's strategy. The lack of choice (you are forced to one of the two effects) make it particularly weak but also particularly interesting. I love this card, and I think it is more or less well ranked. However, Graverobber is obviously better because it's more flexible and self-synergizing.

Mystic seems also too low.

I would put Inn and Library above Council room. Maybe library should even be in the third part.

[KingZog3]

I have rarely seen Rogue be good. There are too many ways to slow down the attack and make the gaining useless. Not only do you not get to choose whether to attack, but if you reveal a Gold and an Urchin from your opponents deck you can't even choose what to trash. Maybe i you play 2 everyturn to attack+gain, but then what if you trashed a bad card from his deck, like loan or Scout? You can't attack until that card is out of the trash and in your deck. And you can't get rid of it, because you would need to pick it up again if you want to keep attacking.

[Watno]

Mystic its way too low.

[Schneau]

I am going to have to disagree with many of you about Rogue and Graverobber. I think Rogue is ranked about right here, but Graverobber should actually be worse. Graverobber isn't nearly as general as Rogue. I played a game the other day trying to go Graverobber, and multiple times I ended up not playing it because there were no cards to gain from the trash and I didn't have an Action card to remodel in my hand. For Graverobber to work, you need strong trashing plus the ability to gain a lot of $5s quickly, since you want to be able to trash them into Provinces. Plus, it's terrible in Colony games. I might be wrong here, since I don't have a ton of experience with either card, but at least Rogue gives you a terminal Silver with a bonus, and is improved in multiplayer games.

[markusin]

Graverobber lower than Rogue? Hmm...it sort of makes sense, but I was expecting Graverobber to be higher. Graverobber can be really nice to have in games with lots of draw and lots of cards at the 5$ price point, but in other games it ends up with nothing to gain or trash. It's not as general as Rogue, although personally I find Graverobber more fun to use and when it's good it's really good. Both cards are great to have with TfB cards, but only Graverobber is itself a TfB card.

One thing I will say about Rogue based on personal experience with it: It's nice to have in alt-VP card games, or at least in games where you can trash your Feodums (I just realized, Feodum can also be a good defense against Rogue if you want silvers). Trashing the contested alt-VP card from your opponents deck and even gaining it if you're lucky is nifty.

I should use Mystic more. The opportunity cost tends to be high at 5$, but it's a good support card. Like a conspirator, but with less risk.

[Tables]

One key thing with Rogue I think is that it gives +$2. That's quite considerable, I think. Terminal +$2, gain a silver is sometimes what it is, and that's about the same as Explorer. Of course, being about the same as Explorer isn't anything special, but that's pretty close to the worst it gets. +$2, gain a Gold, or +$2, trash your opponent's stuff are both very, very nice.

It's definitely board dependent, and I think one of the most interesting cards in the set. I don't disagree with it's rating.

[GendoIkari]

One key thing with Rogue I think is that it gives +$2. That's quite considerable, I think. Terminal +$2, gain a silver is sometimes what it is, and that's about the same as Explorer. Of course, being about the same as Explorer isn't anything special, but that's pretty close to the worst it gets. +$2, gain a Gold, or +$2, trash your opponent's stuff are both very, very nice.

It's definitely board dependent, and I think one of the most interesting cards in the set. I don't disagree with it's rating.

Actually, the worst it gets is +$2, discard the top 2 cards of your opponent's deck. It won't always successfully trash.

Actually, the worst it gets is probably +$2, gain a Sea Hag from the trash (after Curses are all gone). Of course in that situation you probably just don't play the Rogue.

[RTT]

One key thing with Rogue I think is that it gives +$2. That's quite considerable, I think. Terminal +$2, gain a silver is sometimes what it is, and that's about the same as Explorer. Of course, being about the same as Explorer isn't anything special, but that's pretty close to the worst it gets. +$2, gain a Gold, or +$2, trash your opponent's stuff are both very, very nice.

It's definitely board dependent, and I think one of the most interesting cards in the set. I don't disagree with it's rating.

Actually, the worst it gets is +$2, discard the top 2 cards of your opponent's deck. It won't always successfully trash.

Actually, the worst it gets is probably +$2, gain a Sea Hag from the trash (after Curses are all gone). Of course in that situation you probably just don't play the Rogue.

So the attack is like dame silvya i dont like rouge as well its to unflexible

[clb]

I think that the Graverobber is much stronger than Rogue.
If there are cantrips and/or decent thinning on the board (or esp. $5 cantrips), Graverobbers basically become $5 Provinces. I don't think it is too hard to design a deck where 2 Graverobbers collide with some consistency. This means you need very little economy - once you have a few, you will either be trashing them for Provinces or recovering them from the trash to recycle.
I am not saying it is a top-tier card, but I do think it is better than it is ranked presently.
That was the only card I felt was markedly out of place on this set.

[achmed_sender]

Library is far too low. I would rank it about 25th-30th

[KingZog3]

Library is far too low. I would rank it about 25th-30th

I can be really good, but many times it's weak because there isn't a way to lower your hand size. Or if there is it's not effective. Sure Cellar lowers your hand size, but unless cards like Feast are present Library's not that good.

And about Count, the Discard option is good for Library, while the $3 helps to hit $5 for both cards. Just throwing that information out there!

[HiveMindEmulator]

I agree that Rogue should be much lower. Yeah it gets you $2, so it's not the worst thing to have, but how often do you really want it? Rarely. If you want to destroy their deck, you need to play it a lot, but then every other time you play it, you're picking up whatever you trashed, so you need to play it twice as much. And then what if the stuff you're trashing just gets in the way of your engine? Seems too hard to use to any great effect. Graverobber I think is better (and reasonably ranked), since even though having it in a random deck is not useful, there's a decent amount of situations where you can make it pretty useful. Throning it with a $5 action in hand is just " discard a $5 action, gain a Province".

It's hard to be too picky with this list, since I think we're getting into the section where most people (including me) semi-randomly ranked the cards. There's probably not a lot separating the top of this list from the top of the next set, but with that said, I have Inn near the top of the next list, not on this one. Just being a village is really useful, so it gets a decent amount of points for that, and even though as an action it nearly didn't get printed for being too weak for $5, once you throw in the on-gain effect, I think it becomes really good, a great way to set up mega-turns.

Since I don't have much to say about the cards that have shown up so far, I want to bring up a card that hasn't: Merchant Ship. When Council Room came back up, it wouldn't load my Popular Buys page since I had too many games, so I started an alt account (Psi Disruptor) to get stats. In 22 games with Merchant Ship, I never bought/gained one, and neither did any of my opponents! Now 22 is a pretty small sample size, and I don't really think it should never be bought, but it was just kind of striking to see. The only other cards I never bought were Thief and Scout. This seems a bit weird since Merchant Ship is "good". It gives a good amount of money. But the problem is that it's really pretty vanilla. It's like Mystic. There's nothing wrong with it, but nothing good about it. This turn it's just a terminal Silver, next turn it's a successful Mystic, and it has problems missing shuffles. I'm usually happy to it with a spare action in a money deck, but if it weren't there, I don't think I'd ever really miss it. I think it's a bottom 20 kind of card.

[LastFootnote]

Graverobber I think is better (and reasonably ranked), since even though having it in a random deck is not useful, there's a decent amount of situations where you can make it pretty useful. Throning it with a $5 action in hand is just " discard topdeck a $5 action, gain a Province".

Fixed that for you.

[Robz888]

I've never been all that convinced that Merchant Ship is good. I accept that it's not bad, and can find a place in money or engines, and is less likely to collide... but still. I didn't expect (or want) to see it yet, but it should be coming soon.

[DG]

Merchant ship is fine. People seem obsessed with big engine cards when sometimes you just need some coins. Merchant ships certainly give coins and the disadvantage from missing shuffles can sometimes be an advantage, so that's the time to buy them. Looking back at my council room stats I was getting in 46% of games, but overbuying it since I was doing a bit better without, so I'm guessing 30-35% would have been right for me.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Merchant ship is fine. People seem obsessed with big engine cards when sometimes you just need some coins. Merchant ships certainly give coins and the disadvantage from missing shuffles can sometimes be an advantage, so that's the time to buy them. Looking back at my council room stats I was getting in 46% of games, but overbuying it since I was doing a bit better without, so I'm guessing 30-35% would have been right for me.

Oh I agree that it's fine, and probably close to 30% gain rate is reasonable. But it's still a bottom 20 $5 card.

[chwhite]

I completely agree that Merchant Ship belongs down in this echelon as well.

I remember the last time we did this list, I put Merchant Ship right next to Harvest on the grounds that both were basically just terminal sources of Treasure that give you not quite $4 (on the grounds that the time value of money makes Merchant Ship's duration $2 worth less than $2).  Obviously this is not quite right, the Merchant's duration effect actually significantly improves it, since the next turn effect is actually equivalent to an activated Conspirator, not a terminal silver.

But it's still a fairly boring and mediocre effect.

[WanderingWinder]

So, uh, guys.... where's trading post?

[dondon151]

I don't think Trading Post is this bad. It's good for money strats and it's not even that bad for engine strats because it removes a card from the deck (and it will usually replace bad cards with a better one).

[Jack Rudd]

Laboratory was once considered the second best $5 card!

If I recall Theory's article correctly, it said no such thing: it said Laboratory was the second-best non-Attack $5 card. He was well aware of the power of Mountebank, Witch and Torturer.

[Robz888]

Laboratory was once considered the second best $5 card!

If I recall Theory's article correctly, it said no such thing: it said Laboratory was the second-best non-Attack $5 card. He was well aware of the power of Mountebank, Witch and Torturer.

Yeah I should have specified that. But even calling Laboratory the second-best non-Attack $5 card at this point seems crazy. But my point was not to insult theory, whose lists were very good, just to point out how the strategic landscape has changed such that Laboratory is not even close the second best $5 non-Attack card (Wharf, Ill-Gotten Gains, Hunting Party, Governor, Tactician, Embassy, Apprentice, Rebuild, Stables... and that's just off the top of my head.)

[Robz888]

So, uh, guys.... where's trading post?

You think Trading Post should be this low? I don't think so. Soon, but not yet.

[brokoli]

Yes, I think Trading post and merchant ship should be lower than Library, Inn, Treasury and maybe Mystic. Merchant ship is really close to Harvest.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I don't think Trading Post is this bad. It's good for money strats and it's not even that bad for engine strats because it removes a card from the deck (and it will usually replace bad cards with a better one).

It's only good for money if you can open with it. After that, it's kind of too late, as it will rarely even produce $2. And yeah, it's not bad for engines, but not that good either, unless there's cursing or something. I think it belongs down here, though I won't be disappointed if it's one of the next 2 cards to show up or something.

[only3provinces]

I don't think Trading Post is this bad. It's good for money strats and it's not even that bad for engine strats because it removes a card from the deck (and it will usually replace bad cards with a better one).

It's only good for money if you can open with it. After that, it's kind of too late, as it will rarely even produce $2. And yeah, it's not bad for engines, but not that good either, unless there's cursing or something. I think it belongs down here, though I won't be disappointed if it's one of the next 2 cards to show up or something.

I agree. Trading Post always looks good at the beginning, but if you don't open 5/2, it is not usually worth the buy (unless there is cursing/ruining going on).  It should have shown up by now.

I want to give more love to Mystic. It s a great source of money in an engine and synergizes well with plenty of cards (especially with itself, Minion-style).  Once everyone gets a better handle on DA, we should see more love. 

And Rogue is way overrated.

[Drab Emordnilap]

Man, you guys are way underrating Trading Post. Sure, it's not usually worth it after the first 5 turns or so, but you wouldn't buy Chapel on turn 6 either. Trading Post is just harder to get to that early.

[WanderingWinder]

Man, you guys are way overrating Trading Post. Sure, it can be pretty nice on turn 1-2, but after that it's virtually worthless. And you only have a 1/6 chance of getting it that early (okay, nomad camp and Noble Brigand shenanigans... pretty much 1/6).

Okay, slight exaggeration. But seriously, I don't understand why it isn't really near the bottom. I think I would have it as something around 10th worst. Let's look at what it does - as a trasher, it only reduces the size of your deck by 1. This is like a trade route. Of course, trade route isn't all that terrible - for a 3-cost. And this gives you silver. Well, that is *generally* going to be a little better than trade route, but on the other hand, you have to have two cards to trash, which is a definite downside, it doesn't give a buy, and you probably aren't buying trade route and playing it for 0 coins very much.

Alright, so how valuable are the silvers? That's the real question. And well, okay they're decent enough for big money, but if you're playing big money, you tend to want other terminals more. I mean, it's a little bit like jack of all trades here, except it costs 5, gives you some money, leaves your hand-size smaller, and most importantly, often can't be played later on. For being able to trash some coppers. Basically that's a pretty good (though by no means game-breaking) deal on t1-2, occasionally buyable on 3-4, and almost never worth it after, for money. The best uses I find for it after 1-2 are in game with lots of junking attacks which are totally, particularly if they are going to be money-based out of that or engines-based with absolutely no other trashers around.

I mean, I just don't get it.

[Robz888]

Man, you guys are way overrating Trading Post. Sure, it can be pretty nice on turn 1-2, but after that it's virtually worthless. And you only have a 1/6 chance of getting it that early (okay, nomad camp and Noble Brigand shenanigans... pretty much 1/6).

Okay, slight exaggeration. But seriously, I don't understand why it isn't really near the bottom. I think I would have it as something around 10th worst. Let's look at what it does - as a trasher, it only reduces the size of your deck by 1. This is like a trade route. Of course, trade route isn't all that terrible - for a 3-cost. And this gives you silver. Well, that is *generally* going to be a little better than trade route, but on the other hand, you have to have two cards to trash, which is a definite downside, it doesn't give a buy, and you probably aren't buying trade route and playing it for 0 coins very much.

Alright, so how valuable are the silvers? That's the real question. And well, okay they're decent enough for big money, but if you're playing big money, you tend to want other terminals more. I mean, it's a little bit like jack of all trades here, except it costs 5, gives you some money, leaves your hand-size smaller, and most importantly, often can't be played later on. For being able to trash some coppers. Basically that's a pretty good (though by no means game-breaking) deal on t1-2, occasionally buyable on 3-4, and almost never worth it after, for money. The best uses I find for it after 1-2 are in game with lots of junking attacks which are totally, particularly if they are going to be money-based out of that or engines-based with absolutely no other trashers around.

I mean, I just don't get it.

Well, I don't disagree with the points you're making, even though I hold Trading Post in at least slightly higher esteem. I guess I would say that the junking case seems like a bigger deal to me. And we have more stuff that junks your deck now, thanks to Dark Ages. Trading Post is going to be one of my go-to deck rebuilders if I am overwhelmed by Curses and Ruins, I think. Also, Dark Ages likes cards that trash other cards, so Trading Post has that slight boost going for it.

[Robz888]

Although now that I am thinking about it, if I am trying to recover from junking, I still prefer Chapel, Steward, Masquerade, Jack-of-All Trades, and Remake. So maybe I am wrong.

Trading Post = better in 3 and 4-player junking games, maybe?

[jaybeez]

I think really the only nice upside of Trading Post is that you gain the Silver in-hand, so you can trash two cards and still (maybe) buy something you actually want.  But I agree with the people who are saying it should have appeared already, it's really only at its best as a counter to Torturer, I think.  Almost all other trashers are better for actual deck-thinning.

[DG]

Trading post is the trasher that gives you all the treasure that you need. All you have to do is harness it.

[Awaclus]

Okay, slight exaggeration. But seriously, I don't understand why it isn't really near the bottom. I think I would have it as something around 10th worst. Let's look at what it does - as a trasher, it only reduces the size of your deck by 1. This is like a trade route. Of course, trade route isn't all that terrible - for a 3-cost. And this gives you silver. Well, that is *generally* going to be a little better than trade route, but on the other hand, you have to have two cards to trash, which is a definite downside, it doesn't give a buy, and you probably aren't buying trade route and playing it for 0 coins very much.

I think Steward is a better comparison - Trading Post is much like Steward, you just can choose two options and always have to choose +$2 and trash, and then it gives a Silver in addition to that. Which is not great for a $5.

[dondon151]

Let's look at what it does - as a trasher, it only reduces the size of your deck by 1.

A lot of trashers reduce the size of your deck by 1. Actually, most trashers reduce the size of your deck by 1. And honestly, trashing 1 card at a time very often makes a huge difference in determining engine viability. Playing a single-card trasher a few times over the course of the game adds up to something substantial. With Trading Post, you also replace another card with a Silver.

This is like a trade route. Of course, trade route isn't all that terrible - for a 3-cost. And this gives you silver. Well, that is *generally* going to be a little better than trade route, but on the other hand, you have to have two cards to trash, which is a definite downside, it doesn't give a buy, and you probably aren't buying trade route and playing it for 0 coins very much.

I'm going to disagree with almost everything here. A "little" better than Trade Route is understating how bad Trade Route really is (and I think Trade Route is not a bad $3, but it's not great either). Trading Post will give +$1 the first, maybe the second time that you play it (+$2 if you get lucky). Trade Route will almost always give +$0 the first few times that you play it. If you're in the situation where playing Trading Post will yield +$0, in that same situation, playing Trade Route will yield -$1.

That $1 makes a big difference! The difference between $3 and $4 matters if what you want is at $4 and not $3. Replacing another card with a Silver just makes your hands more productive on average on future shuffles. This is a lot better than Trade Route.

Trading Post doesn't give a +buy: what good would a +buy do you when your hands have trouble hitting even $5? Trade Route needs either an existing engine or lots of tokens on the mat to make its +buy useful. That doesn't happen until later.

You probably aren't buying Trade Route and playing it for +$0 very much: if TR were the only trasher in the kingdom, then I'd take it if I need a trasher. TR shines in slog endgames, but that's not the only situation in which it is desirable to buy one. Of course Trading Post gets progressively worse as the game goes on, but that's just what it is.

Alright, so how valuable are the silvers? That's the real question. And well, okay they're decent enough for big money, but if you're playing big money, you tend to want other terminals more. I mean, it's a little bit like jack of all trades here, except it costs 5, gives you some money, leaves your hand-size smaller, and most importantly, often can't be played later on. For being able to trash some coppers. Basically that's a pretty good (though by no means game-breaking) deal on t1-2, occasionally buyable on 3-4, and almost never worth it after, for money.

I think you are missing the potential of TP in engines, particularly drawing engines. In any case, replacing Estates with Silvers is incredibly strong in money strategies, as I'm sure we all know.

[gman314]

I think you are missing the potential of TP in engines, particularly drawing engines. In any case, replacing Estates with Silvers is incredibly strong in money strategies, as I'm sure we all know.

Totally agree here. I've used TP as the only trashing to get a Conspirator engine going. No, the Silver wasn't that useful, so once I got to the deck drawing stage I was trashing two of them each turn. Even getting your deck down in size by a couple of cards can really help in all sorts of engines.

[Davio]

Jack of all Trades is all the rage, but Trading Post can turn two Estates into a Silver instead of just one, hah!

[achmed_sender]

Jack of all Trades is all the rage, but Trading Post can turn two Estates into a Silver instead of just one, hah!

...or just trash Coppers to save a place in hand for later

[SCSN]

Jack of all Trades is all the rage, but Trading Post can turn two Estates into a Silver instead of just one, hah!

Remake is unimpressed.

[only3provinces]

Trading post is the trasher that gives you all the treasure that you need. All you have to do is harness it.

I really like the can-do optimism here. It sounds like a quote from Mr. Miyagi or Yoda (though Trading Post is not as quick or seductive as the dark side).

The silver-in-hand ability of TP does add to its power. The trash for benefit is immediate and can help a ton early, maintaining buying power while thinning.

It's still rated too high.

[Davio]

Jack of all Trades is all the rage, but Trading Post can turn two Estates into a Silver instead of just one, hah!

Remake is unimpressed.

Trader snarks at Remake: you need two Estates for two Silvers, how about just one?

[GendoIkari]

Jack of all Trades is all the rage, but Trading Post can turn two Estates into a Silver instead of just one, hah!

Remake is unimpressed.

Trader snarks at Remake: you need two Estates for two Silvers, how about just one?

Remodel an Estate, gaining Feodum, revealing Watchtower to trash Feodum and get 3 Silvers.

Also, discard 10 Market Squares to get 10 Golds, revealing Trader to each one to turn them into 10 Silvers.

[math]

Is this turning into the "how many silvers can you gain in one turn" thread?

[Robz888]

Jack of all Trades is all the rage, but Trading Post can turn two Estates into a Silver instead of just one, hah!

Remake is unimpressed.

Trader snarks at Remake: you need two Estates for two Silvers, how about just one?

Salvager says, "I'll just give you Silver-equivalent coin, no Treasure Card necessary."

[LastFootnote]

Is this turning into the "how many silvers can you gain in one turn" thread?

I'm sure the answer is "all of them". I just don't know how yet.

[Tables]

All the silvers in one turn? Trivial. One action? That might actually be useful.

[math]

If you're allowed to play as many actions as you want, gaining all the silvers is easy-just play 4 labs, then TR-KC-Trader-Trader to trash 5 Provinces.

[dondon151]

It's still rated too high.

Do you really think it's bad enough to be in the same tier of cards as Royal Seal and Mandarin? Trading Post changes games. Royal Seal and Mandarin... mostly don't.

[WanderingWinder]

It's still rated too high.

Do you really think it's bad enough to be in the same tier of cards as Royal Seal and Mandarin? Trading Post changes games. Royal Seal and Mandarin... mostly don't.

I fully agree that Royal Seal is worse than it - but RS should be very near the overall bottom of the list. Mandarin probably changes games about as much as trading post - though late game instead of early. But Saboteur probably has more game-changing impact than trading post, in all honesty. And I absolutely think that treasury, library, Council Room, Inn, are superior. For sure for sure.

[dondon151]

I suppose we'll agree to disagree, but CR's popular buys indicate that Trading Post is not as bad of a card as you make it out to be.

[Robz888]

I don't think that Library and Council Room are superior, though it's a close-ish call for me. Inn, maybe. Setting up your net turn and keeping your deck pumping is just such a huge benefit.

[Robz888]

I don't know. My mind isn't totally made up on the issue. Council Room and Library are not my favorite draw cards. Well, I want to like Library, but it never seems to work as well as you'd want.

[jaybeez]

I suppose we'll agree to disagree, but CR's popular buys indicate that Trading Post is not as bad of a card as you make it out to be.

How much are those stats skewed by games where Trading Post is the only trasher, so even though it's not good you still may want to go for it because you really need trashing?

I mean, more than once I've used Trading Post to successfully help set up a Scrying Pool engine when there were no other trashers on the board.  But that only worked because even comparatively weak trashing helps Scrying Pool a lot.  It was the Pools that made my TP buy good, more than TP itself.  That's how I see it, maybe I'm wrong.

[Robz888]

I suppose we'll agree to disagree, but CR's popular buys indicate that Trading Post is not as bad of a card as you make it out to be.

How much are those stats skewed by games where Trading Post is the only trasher, so even though it's not good you still may want to go for it because you really need trashing?

I mean, more than once I've used Trading Post to successfully help set up a Scrying Pool engine when there were no other trashers on the board.  But that only worked because even comparatively weak trashing helps Scrying Pool a lot.  It was the Pools that made my TP buy good, more than TP itself.  That's how I see it, maybe I'm wrong.

That's not SKEWING the stats, though. Those situations where TP is the only trasher should count toward its consideration. If that's one of the things that gives it a boost (I think it is, in a very very small way), than yes, it deserves that credit. That's a situation that should be accounted for.

[HiveMindEmulator]

The only real problem with Trading Post is that it costs $5, and there are often other trashers that cost less, and thus can usually be obtained quicker. If you have a 5/2 opening, a lot of the time you're going to prefer Trading Post to another trasher, but if you open with another trasher, then adding the Trading Post doesn't seem that useful. I do think that Trading Post is one of the best, if not the best trasher to have for Lab-type engines which don't need to get as tight as +cards/+actions engines. As long as you have a little drawing, it's easy to hit effective Trading Posts that can quickly collapse all your starting cards into 5 Silvers, which provides most of the economy you need while getting your deck slim enough to work.

[jaybeez]

I suppose we'll agree to disagree, but CR's popular buys indicate that Trading Post is not as bad of a card as you make it out to be.

How much are those stats skewed by games where Trading Post is the only trasher, so even though it's not good you still may want to go for it because you really need trashing?

I mean, more than once I've used Trading Post to successfully help set up a Scrying Pool engine when there were no other trashers on the board.  But that only worked because even comparatively weak trashing helps Scrying Pool a lot.  It was the Pools that made my TP buy good, more than TP itself.  That's how I see it, maybe I'm wrong.

That's not SKEWING the stats, though. Those situations where TP is the only trasher should count toward its consideration. If that's one of the things that gives it a boost (I think it is, in a very very small way), than yes, it deserves that credit. That's a situation that should be accounted for.

You're right.  But I guess the point I was trying to make (which I did a poor job of) is this: how much do those stats really tell us about the strength of TP?  The frequency at which it is bought certainly has a correlative relationship with how strong a card it is.  But how close is that correlation?  To pick what might be a bad example, Fishing Village gets bought more than Ambassador because it's nice to have lots of Fishing Villages, whereas you almost never need more than two Ambassadors and most times you only want one.  Ambassador is definitely the stronger card, even if that particular statistic doesn't demonstrate that fact.

I mean, Trading Post has a higher Win Rate With on CR than Highway, Horn of Plenty, Duke.  It has a lower Win Rate Without than Jester, Bazaar, and HoP and Highway again.  That doesn't necessarily mean that TP is a better card though.

[dondon151]

No, it doesn't, but it strongly suggests that Trading Post is roughly in the same tier of cards as the examples that you just brought up. My point is that Trading Post is not a $5 card that deserves to be in the bottom-one-third-tier. You can't just wave your hand and say, oh, statistics don't matter.

[WanderingWinder]

No, it doesn't, but it strongly suggests that Trading Post is roughly in the same tier of cards as the examples that you just brought up. My point is that Trading Post is not a $5 card that deserves to be in the bottom-one-third-tier. You can't just wave your hand and say, oh, statistics don't matter.

As a statistician, I can! These statistics aren't strong indicators of what you say they are - it's a classic example of using a statistic that is set up over a very particular population and trying to (invalidly - this is always invalid) apply them to a different population. Basically, here, they're inflating trading post in a couple of ways. First is that if they are both or neither getting trading post, things are drawn toward 50%, which simply dilutes things. More important is that most of these games are played a somewhat lower level - in which case, there are some advantages to trading post. First of all, it's incredibly simple to play - there's almost never a decision on it that isn't a no-brainer, and while there is a little bit of fancy stuff you can do, it isn't much. Second, it thrives in games played where there is that little bit of extra slack because the opponent isn't being so sharp - i.e. you're getting an extra shuffle, or maybe just half a shuffle, but this is enough to make the card a good bit better, since one of its two big flaws is that you can't get it fast enough. And again, the other issue is that it isn't a bad card, just other things are better. Still, here we can see it's getting bought in less than half of games, and people do better without it than with it. It clearly is below-par, and we're mostly quibbling over 5-10 spots here.

[Tables]

No, it doesn't, but it strongly suggests that Trading Post is roughly in the same tier of cards as the examples that you just brought up. My point is that Trading Post is not a $5 card that deserves to be in the bottom-one-third-tier. You can't just wave your hand and say, oh, statistics don't matter.

As a statistician, I can! These statistics aren't strong indicators of what you say they are - it's a classic example of using a statistic that is set up over a very particular population and trying to (invalidly - this is always invalid) apply them to a different population. Basically, here, they're inflating trading post in a couple of ways. First is that if they are both or neither getting trading post, things are drawn toward 50%, which simply dilutes things. More important is that most of these games are played a somewhat lower level - in which case, there are some advantages to trading post. First of all, it's incredibly simple to play - there's almost never a decision on it that isn't a no-brainer, and while there is a little bit of fancy stuff you can do, it isn't much. Second, it thrives in games played where there is that little bit of extra slack because the opponent isn't being so sharp - i.e. you're getting an extra shuffle, or maybe just half a shuffle, but this is enough to make the card a good bit better, since one of its two big flaws is that you can't get it fast enough. And again, the other issue is that it isn't a bad card, just other things are better. Still, here we can see it's getting bought in less than half of games, and people do better without it than with it. It clearly is below-par, and we're mostly quibbling over 5-10 spots here.

Another thing worth noting is, let's roll with the assumption that it's a strong opener with 5/2, and bad to get otherwise. Then, there's a good chance a large amount of people buying it will be on those 5/2 hands - when it is good to get. This would skew it's win rate with upwards and win rate without downwards.

The question from here becomes, "How strong an opener at 5/2 is it, and how bad is it afterwards?" That's a question I'm sure you guys can tackle far better than I can.

[WanderingWinder]

No, it doesn't, but it strongly suggests that Trading Post is roughly in the same tier of cards as the examples that you just brought up. My point is that Trading Post is not a $5 card that deserves to be in the bottom-one-third-tier. You can't just wave your hand and say, oh, statistics don't matter.

As a statistician, I can! These statistics aren't strong indicators of what you say they are - it's a classic example of using a statistic that is set up over a very particular population and trying to (invalidly - this is always invalid) apply them to a different population. Basically, here, they're inflating trading post in a couple of ways. First is that if they are both or neither getting trading post, things are drawn toward 50%, which simply dilutes things. More important is that most of these games are played a somewhat lower level - in which case, there are some advantages to trading post. First of all, it's incredibly simple to play - there's almost never a decision on it that isn't a no-brainer, and while there is a little bit of fancy stuff you can do, it isn't much. Second, it thrives in games played where there is that little bit of extra slack because the opponent isn't being so sharp - i.e. you're getting an extra shuffle, or maybe just half a shuffle, but this is enough to make the card a good bit better, since one of its two big flaws is that you can't get it fast enough. And again, the other issue is that it isn't a bad card, just other things are better. Still, here we can see it's getting bought in less than half of games, and people do better without it than with it. It clearly is below-par, and we're mostly quibbling over 5-10 spots here.

Another thing worth noting is, let's roll with the assumption that it's a strong opener with 5/2, and bad to get otherwise. Then, there's a good chance a large amount of people buying it will be on those 5/2 hands - when it is good to get. This would skew it's win rate with upwards and win rate without downwards.

The question from here becomes, "How strong an opener at 5/2 is it, and how bad is it afterwards?" That's a question I'm sure you guys can tackle far better than I can.

Well, but if that's what it is, as in the previous 'skewing' comment, then it deserves the credit.

Also, Depends on the Kingdom.

[dondon151]

As a statistician, I can! These statistics aren't strong indicators of what you say they are - it's a classic example of using a statistic that is set up over a very particular population and trying to (invalidly - this is always invalid) apply them to a different population.

It is certainly a stronger indicator than "WanderingWinder says" or "dondon says."

[Robz888]

As a statistician, I can! These statistics aren't strong indicators of what you say they are - it's a classic example of using a statistic that is set up over a very particular population and trying to (invalidly - this is always invalid) apply them to a different population.

It is certainly a stronger indicator than "WanderingWinder says" or "dondon says."

I disagree. I think "WanderingWinder says" and "dondon says" are actually stronger indicators...

[dondon151]

Not when they say opposite things

[WanderingWinder]

Not when they say opposite things

Well, if it helps, I think just 'dondon says' is a stronger indicator - even if you happen to be slightly off in this particular instance.

The reason is... well, I am sure you are saying that it's better because it's more objective. But the problem is, for a statistic to be good, it has to be established that it has meaning, that it actually shows you just what it is that you are looking for. And nobody has done that for these statistics. I mean, I could assign a card to each starting hitter, positions 2-6, in the major leagues and then loo at those guys' on-base percentage for the next year, and then proclaim that they show something. Of course, I think CR stats will be more relevant than that, but but still not actually particularly relevant. I don't think they're entirely nothing, but the correlation is very weak and general.

[Qvist]

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7836.msg225805#msg225805

Part 3/6 is online. I'm looking forward to hear your thoughts.

One quick note from me. As already said in the last part, I'm dissappointed Counterfeit being so low. I rated at #13. While I think it's proabably a bit high, I'm pretty sure it's a Top 20 card.

[math]

Pillage and Knights are good here.  I think Junk Dealer should be higher than Upgrade, but maybe I'm just bad with Upgrade.

Band of Misfits is too low.  You do need to consider what $3-4 cards are available, but when it shines, it's just so good.  If you're building any sort of engine that uses cheap components, this is practically a must-buy if you have $5 in the absence of other power cards.  It's just so flexible.

Counterfeit should definitely be higher.  At worst, it's a non-terminal Moneylender, and it can provide critical huge amounts of cash and +Buy for game-winning turns.

[Robz888]

Band of Misfits is criminally underrated here. I would put it higher than all these other cards, at least. I'm surprised to see Junk Dealer already as well, but it's probably close to where it needs to be. Market is better than Trading Post, but that's probably just Trading Post getting overranked, not market getting underranked.

I'm not of the opinion that Counterfeit is so game warpingly good, but I could be wrong. I don't have a lot of experience with it.

City and Venture got exactly what they deserved. Merchant Ship is a shade more contentious, I'll have to see what comes next, but I'm okay with its placement.

I would put Knights last on this list, behind even Pillage. I would probably place several cards from the last list above them. Not every Knight is the one that makes your opponent discard or the one that draws you two cards, you know. There's the stupid gaining one, the VP one that never survives the whole game, the one that becomes a Gold... they are really terrible.

[serakfalcon]

I think I'm happy with the rankings so far except for maybe Junk dealer, which I don't really like.

I'm not of the opinion that Counterfeit is so game warpingly good, but I could be wrong. I don't have a lot of experience with it.

At the start of the game it has the same effect as Moneylender, but it doesn't cost an action, and gives you a +buy, towards the end of the game you can counterfeit silvers or golds to reach for Province or Province+Duchy (or to stretch for platinum/colony), or at least just take the $1 and +buy, so for sure its pretty powerful.

I would put Knights last on this list, behind even Pillage.

Knights deserves the placement. I've seen more than one engine game dissolve into a knights rush, and at least one where my entire engine got chewed up by knights and there was nothing I could do about it. If played correctly Knights are much, much worse than saboteur. Of course, its not as good as the better attack cards like Mountebank, so I think it deserves its ranking. Honestly, if anything I think Junk Dealer is slightly overrated but I guess it depends on the kingdom^TM
If anything, Pillage is overrated.

[Robz888]

I think I'm happy with the rankings so far except for maybe Junk dealer, which I don't really like.

I'm not of the opinion that Counterfeit is so game warpingly good, but I could be wrong. I don't have a lot of experience with it.

At the start of the game it has the same effect as Moneylender, but it doesn't cost an action, and gives you a +buy, towards the end of the game you can counterfeit silvers or golds to reach for Province or Province+Duchy (or to stretch for platinum/colony), or at least just take the $1 and +buy, so for sure its pretty powerful.

I would put Knights last on this list, behind even Pillage.

Knights deserves the placement. I've seen more than one engine game dissolve into a knights rush, and at least one where my entire engine got chewed up by knights and there was nothing I could do about it. If played correctly Knights are much, much worse than saboteur. Of course, its not as good as the better attack cards like Mountebank, so I think it deserves its ranking. Honestly, if anything I think Junk Dealer is slightly overrated but I guess it depends on the kingdom^TM
If anything, Pillage is overrated.

Sure, but Counterfeit is more expensive than Moneylender in a non-trivial way. There are a lot of great, less expensive cards, that also gobble up your Copper efficiently.

As for Knights, fine, I'm sure they are good some of the time, if you have like a ton of extra actions or something, and they do hurt engines. But hey, a  lot of times, the bad one is on top to begin with. And you don't want to buy the bad one--then your opponent will get the good one! And I mean it's not even that good Yeah, better than Saboteur, but still not very good.

[Robz888]

Really it's similar to the Thief situation.

Thief turned out be a really pathetically weak card. Okay, so we got an upgraded Thief: Pirate Ship. Wow, that's a lot better! Except it actually isn't. Okay okay, well what about this: Noble Brigand! That's going to be great! No, no, it's still south of mediocre. The cards all rely on the same mechanic, and it turns out that that mechanic just isn't useful very often.

Saboteur, Rogue, and Knights are kind of the same deal, I think. Trashing your opponent's cards (or stealing their Treasures) just isn't as good as junking their decks with Ruins, giving them negative VP with Curses, decreasing their hand size, leaving them garbage on top of their deck, swindling their cards, or making them reveal cards and then choosing who gains that card.

[serakfalcon]

Sure, but Counterfeit is more expensive than Moneylender in a non-trivial way. There are a lot of great, less expensive cards, that also gobble up your Copper efficiently.

Its also better in a non-trivial way, especially since the effect doesn't cost an action-- More for BM strategies than for engines though. with most BM strategies a $5 turn is often wasted, so its priced well for them. For engines, an extra +buy at no cost to your engine is nice, but not as nice as other engine cards, but look, most of the engine piece 5's are/will be ranked above it, so no surprises there.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Really it's similar to the Thief situation.

Thief turned out be a really pathetically weak card. Okay, so we got an upgraded Thief: Pirate Ship. Wow, that's a lot better! Except it actually isn't. Okay okay, well what about this: Noble Brigand! That's going to be great! No, no, it's still south of mediocre. The cards all rely on the same mechanic, and it turns out that that mechanic just isn't useful very often.

Saboteur, Rogue, and Knights are kind of the same deal, I think. Trashing your opponent's cards (or stealing their Treasures) just isn't as good as junking their decks with Ruins, giving them negative VP with Curses, decreasing their hand size, leaving them garbage on top of their deck, swindling their cards, or making them reveal cards and then choosing who gains that card.

While this is something that can possibly happen, I don't think it's the case with the trashing attacks. For one, you left out Swindler, which is like one of the best cards in the game. Secondly, one of the big things holding Saboteur back from being usable (maybe not good, but usable) is that it allows your opponent(s) to gain cards, which can push the game toward a 3-pile ending. So you can't really just build up your engine to play Sabs and then catch up on score. With Knights, you just straight-up kill cards. They don't gain anything. Of course, you can't kill Provinces (without cost-reduction), so you need some other source of points to beat someone rushing Provinces, but you can quite effectively screw things up pretty badly for your opponent(s). I think Knights are underrated on this list.

Also underrated are Pillage and City. All 3 of these cards have the ability to (at least reasonably often) completely dominate the board to the point where the whole game revolves around them, and this attribute keeps them in the top half of the $5 cards in my book. Maybe I'm wrong on how often Pillage and Knights dominate, but I feel like (from very limited games) it's pretty often, like at least a third of the time. If you can draw most of your deck, Pillage's disadvantage of being a one-shot is largely negated by its ability to produce enough money (in the form of Spoils) to buy another Pillage to replace it. So if you draw your deck with $7, a spare buy, and a Pillage, you do the completely brutal attack, get a Province, and in a sense keep your Pillage (until they run out).

[Robz888]

Really it's similar to the Thief situation.

Thief turned out be a really pathetically weak card. Okay, so we got an upgraded Thief: Pirate Ship. Wow, that's a lot better! Except it actually isn't. Okay okay, well what about this: Noble Brigand! That's going to be great! No, no, it's still south of mediocre. The cards all rely on the same mechanic, and it turns out that that mechanic just isn't useful very often.

Saboteur, Rogue, and Knights are kind of the same deal, I think. Trashing your opponent's cards (or stealing their Treasures) just isn't as good as junking their decks with Ruins, giving them negative VP with Curses, decreasing their hand size, leaving them garbage on top of their deck, swindling their cards, or making them reveal cards and then choosing who gains that card.

While this is something that can possibly happen, I don't think it's the case with the trashing attacks. For one, you left out Swindler, which is like one of the best cards in the game. Secondly, one of the big things holding Saboteur back from being usable (maybe not good, but usable) is that it allows your opponent(s) to gain cards, which can push the game toward a 3-pile ending. So you can't really just build up your engine to play Sabs and then catch up on score. With Knights, you just straight-up kill cards. They don't gain anything. Of course, you can't kill Provinces (without cost-reduction), so you need some other source of points to beat someone rushing Provinces, but you can quite effectively screw things up pretty badly for your opponent(s). I think Knights are underrated on this list.

Also underrated are Pillage and City. All 3 of these cards have the ability to (at least reasonably often) completely dominate the board to the point where the whole game revolves around them, and this attribute keeps them in the top half of the $5 cards in my book. Maybe I'm wrong on how often Pillage and Knights dominate, but I feel like (from very limited games) it's pretty often, like at least a third of the time. If you can draw most of your deck, Pillage's disadvantage of being a one-shot is largely negated by its ability to produce enough money (in the form of Spoils) to buy another Pillage to replace it. So if you draw your deck with $7, a spare buy, and a Pillage, you do the completely brutal attack, get a Province, and in a sense keep your Pillage (until they run out).

Well, I strongly disagree. On the Swindler point, I did mention Swindler (bolded above)! I just wasn't counting it as a trashing attack. Because the thing that's so destructive about Swindler isn't that it trashes your cards, it that it replaces them with bad cards in mandatory fashion. I mean, if Swindler just trashed your Coppers, that would actually be a good thing usually. No, what it does that's really strong is it replaces them with Curses. In which case, it's really a discounted Witch that actually hurts your economy more (because you lose a Treasure and gain a Curse), and can also grind $5 Actions into useless Duchies or vice versa. Of course it has the drawback of possibly hitting an Estate, or a $3 or $4 card that doesn't matter as much if it gets swindled. Swindler is not great because it trashes your opponent's cards, it's great because it fills their deck with cards they don't want. It's closer to Jester than Saboteur, in my mind.

City and Pillage are nice sometimes, but everything ahead of them is nice more often. Well, not Knights. Seriously, they are so bad.

[brokoli]

I think the list is ok, except for merchant ship which is really overrated.

I don't think Knights are particularly good, but not too bad either. And Dame Josephine (the VP one) is clearly the most underrated, she survives very often in the game !

I would put pillage lower though, but I'm not sure.

[loppo]

The thing with Counterfeit is, that its not gamewarpingly good in a sense that games are won and lost with the counterfeit split (like Minion...). It's a card i gladly pick up as my first 5 and very rarely pick up more than 2. I would only pick the strongest attacks over it.

It provides money, +buy and improves your deck in a subtle way. In the endgame you can safely break PPR if your opponent ignores Counterfeit. I also noticed a lot of people don't use Counterfeit on goko. And in a lot of theese games they tell me afterwards, they didn't know Counterfeit is SOOO GOOD.

Counterfeit is a strong card probably top 15-20 in my opinion. It just doesn't have superstar written all over it, it's more a reliable workhorse that will never let you down. And very often this is what your deck needs.

[Qvist]

The thing with Countereit is, that its not gamewarpingly good in a sense that games are won and lost with the counterfeit split (like Minion...). It's a card i gladly pick up as my first 5 and very rarely pick up more than 2. I would only pick the strongest attacks over it.

It provides money, +buy and improves your deck in a subtle way. and in the endgame you can safely break PPR if your opponent ignores Counterfeit. I also noticed a lot of people ignore Counterfeit on goko. And in a lot of theese games they tell me afterwards, they didn't know Counterfeit is SOOO GOOD.

Counterfeit is a strong card probably top 15-20 in my opinion. It just doesn't have superstar written all over it, its more a reliable workhorse that will never let you down. And very often this is what your deck needs.

I couldn't have said it better. I absolutely agree.

[PitzerMike]

Also underrated are Pillage and City. All 3 of these cards have the ability to (at least reasonably often) completely dominate the board to the point where the whole game revolves around them, and this attribute keeps them in the top half of the $5 cards in my book.

I'm kind of sitting on the fence with City. My first impression was it should be lower because often it's just a VERY expensive village. But then again if there's a nice engine on the board and the only thing you need to make it work is a village, then you won't mind too much whether it's expensive or not.
And on the other hand there are those boards where it completely dominates.
So overall I guess I'm fine with where it's sitting at.

[KingZog3]

Pillage is strong, especially early in the game when every turn matters. Discarding key attack cards, Silvers and Golds or other important parts to their decks slows them down. Plus you get the spoils that boost your deck. I think of it as a way to get a turn ahead of your opponent.

And there's always the chance of discarding your opponent's Pillage.

[Tables]

Two cards stick out at me here: City and Junk Dealer.

Everyone knows how awesome level 3 Cities are. They're amazing. And Level 2 Cities are great too. But how often do you see them? Level 2 you probably see pretty often, but it's rare you can properly balance adding a lot of village+labs to a deck that previously didn't have them, without suddenly having a lot of wasted spare actions - so often, I find, it's only marginally better than a lab, which you can only get late. Level 3 cities are even rarer, and it's unusual you play them for more than 2-3 turns. Yes, if the game is working towards them, you need to either end it quick, or split them yourselves, but I find those situations are increasingly rare, especially when playing with all expansions, lowering the chance of colony games to about 1/5 (given City is in the game).

Junk Dealer, on the other hand, I find myself considering, and almost always buying, in just about every game it's in. It's an extremely nice card, giving you continued economy while trashing anything and everything. It's great in cursing games, and against top deck attacks (early on at least). Obviously it has weak points, but it's seemed like an extremely strong DA card in my experience. Ironically I actually put it 38th on my list, but I'd probably shove it up to top 20 now.

[KingZog3]

Junk Dealer, on the other hand, I find myself considering, and almost always buying, in just about every game it's in. It's an extremely nice card, giving you continued economy while trashing anything and everything. It's great in cursing games, and against top deck attacks (early on at least). Obviously it has weak points, but it's seemed like an extremely strong DA card in my experience. Ironically I actually put it 38th on my list, but I'd probably shove it up to top 20 now.

I agree on Junk Dealer. It's great for trashing and keeps economy, as well as being non-terminal and drawing before you trash. I've even seen a friend of mine run an engine on Fortress and Junk Dealers. It was basically immune to junking attacks (works with the name ).

[shraeye]

For some reason I've never equated Junk Dealer to Upgrade.  Don't know how I missed that.

[Witherweaver]

I seem to find Junk Dealer more useful than upgrade.  Though perhaps it's because I think of Upgrade as, well, something to deal with Junk and occasionally find the gaining to be detrimental (particularly with Dark Ages when I don't want Poor Houses or don't want the available $2 cards).  Junk Dealer seems much better in the early game with the extra $1 that turn.  Upgrades can turn starting estates into silvers, but the extra $1 can help you buy the cards you need earlier.  Mid- or late-game, Upgrade is probably better because it can turn cards that have outlived their usefulness into more useful cards (and get victory cards).  I don't find myself doing this a whole lot, though.. but I'm probably not using it to its full utility.

[markusin]

Upgrade is usually better than Junk Dealer when trashing Rats/Fortress/Cultist/Feodum. If nothing else, that makes the whole Upgrade-your-Upgrade-to-Gold thing easier. Junk Dealer still rocks though.

Knights are good if you have more knights than your opponent and can play them often. Even if you fall behind on provinces, If you do something crazy like KC-Knight to trash a bunch of their cards and then buy out all the duchies, you might be able to pull a come-from-behind victory. It really sucks to lose your knights to other knights though. Often you'll get knights just because your opponent got them, but both players might have been better off avoiding them altogether. I find it weird than Sir Martin only costs 4$. Is he really that much worse than the card gaining one or the VP one or the on trash one? Heck, when there are cost reducers or peddlers, I want Sir Martin most of all, but then I lose him to some other knight.

All in all, the knights are pretty unreliable and are most probably not underrated here.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Well, I strongly disagree. On the Swindler point, I did mention Swindler (bolded above)! I just wasn't counting it as a trashing attack. Because the thing that's so destructive about Swindler isn't that it trashes your cards, it that it replaces them with bad cards in mandatory fashion. I mean, if Swindler just trashed your Coppers, that would actually be a good thing usually. No, what it does that's really strong is it replaces them with Curses. In which case, it's really a discounted Witch that actually hurts your economy more (because you lose a Treasure and gain a Curse), and can also grind $5 Actions into useless Duchies or vice versa. Of course it has the drawback of possibly hitting an Estate, or a $3 or $4 card that doesn't matter as much if it gets swindled. Swindler is not great because it trashes your opponent's cards, it's great because it fills their deck with cards they don't want. It's closer to Jester than Saboteur, in my mind.

If Swindler didn't trash and just gave junk (like reveal a card and gain one of equal value), it would still be good -- mostly as a curser -- but not nearly as good as it is now. Non-trashing Swindler could be handled just fine with trashing. Swindler as it is now kills engines. If all your Worker's Villages turn into Coppersmiths, you're screwed, whereas if you are given a few Coppersmiths without losing your engine pieces, you can just trash them, no problem.

And Jester is a completely different story than Swindler. Jester is about the gaining. The "attack" part is generally innocuous. If you give a Curse to win by 1 point, then it's good, but for the most part, if you're not gaining stuff with Jester, it's not the best $5 card to have.

City and Pillage are nice sometimes, but everything ahead of them is nice more often. Well, not Knights. Seriously, they are so bad.

There's "nice" and then there's "powerful". Venture or Merchant Ship might be "nice" more often, but in a kind of "who cares" kind of way. The presence of City and Pillage has to completely alter the way you evaluate the board.

Everyone knows how awesome level 3 Cities are. They're amazing. And Level 2 Cities are great too. But how often do you see them? Level 2 you probably see pretty often, but it's rare you can properly balance adding a lot of village+labs to a deck that previously didn't have them, without suddenly having a lot of wasted spare actions - so often, I find, it's only marginally better than a lab, which you can only get late. Level 3 cities are even rarer, and it's unusual you play them for more than 2-3 turns. Yes, if the game is working towards them, you need to either end it quick, or split them yourselves, but I find those situations are increasingly rare, especially when playing with all expansions, lowering the chance of colony games to about 1/5 (given City is in the game).

I think one of the problems we get into with these lists is differences in valuing what a card does when you play it versus how impactful it was on the general strategic decisions you made in the game. Even if you don't hit level 3 Cities often, the threat of this impacts the way you play the game. If your opponent is getting the majority of the Cities, you have to be careful not to put piles too close to ending and maintain some type of lead so that you can survive when their deck goes into beast-mode. And playing them as simple villages may not be exciting, but a lot of times it's downright crucial. Villages are simply really important cards.

I think people sometimes have a negative opinion of Cities because strategies like just massing Cities without buying any other actions turn out really bad. Well this is to be expected. They're villages! If you're not using the extra actions, then you really are just getting cantrips that eventually turn into Labs when it's too late. That is bad. But that's not what Cities are supposed to be...

[achmed_sender]

The Dark Ages cards seem all pretty low to me, except Pillage which I would rate about the same.

Junk Dealer is normally on par with Upgrade, maybe better at the begin and wit curses, and weaker in engines and fancy combos.

Counterfeit is about rank 15-20 for me, it's so much better than Moneylender! Example: You want to hit 7 asap for KC, Forge, whatever. So you can just decide to trash a silver instead a copper. And don't forget nice synergies with cards like Fools Gold, Bank (yes with buy!) or potion.
Further, because of being treasure, it's much easier to line up multiple counterfeits for faster trashing or brutal conterfeit-counerfeit-platinum-platinum (yes you can call it megaturn). At the end if the game it changes much more into Salvager-for-treasures. And yes, don't foget the +buy, the only treasure +buy aside Contraband

And yes, Knights are really devasting, if theres a solid engine option, or bridge, or, but can also countered by tons of cards like reactions, silver flood cards,..., but still way higher than it is, I'd say 20th.

[Robz888]

Well, I strongly disagree. On the Swindler point, I did mention Swindler (bolded above)! I just wasn't counting it as a trashing attack. Because the thing that's so destructive about Swindler isn't that it trashes your cards, it that it replaces them with bad cards in mandatory fashion. I mean, if Swindler just trashed your Coppers, that would actually be a good thing usually. No, what it does that's really strong is it replaces them with Curses. In which case, it's really a discounted Witch that actually hurts your economy more (because you lose a Treasure and gain a Curse), and can also grind $5 Actions into useless Duchies or vice versa. Of course it has the drawback of possibly hitting an Estate, or a $3 or $4 card that doesn't matter as much if it gets swindled. Swindler is not great because it trashes your opponent's cards, it's great because it fills their deck with cards they don't want. It's closer to Jester than Saboteur, in my mind.

If Swindler didn't trash and just gave junk (like reveal a card and gain one of equal value), it would still be good -- mostly as a curser -- but not nearly as good as it is now. Non-trashing Swindler could be handled just fine with trashing. Swindler as it is now kills engines. If all your Worker's Villages turn into Coppersmiths, you're screwed, whereas if you are given a few Coppersmiths without losing your engine pieces, you can just trash them, no problem.

Swindler does hurt engines, but I maintain that it's not because it trashes your Workers Villages. Saboteur does that, does Saboteur destroy engines? Not really. Occasionally, if you can play it a lot, yes it does. Swindler hurts your deck because it deals out cards you don't want, mainly Curses and early Duchies. It's primarily a junking attack.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Well, I strongly disagree. On the Swindler point, I did mention Swindler (bolded above)! I just wasn't counting it as a trashing attack. Because the thing that's so destructive about Swindler isn't that it trashes your cards, it that it replaces them with bad cards in mandatory fashion. I mean, if Swindler just trashed your Coppers, that would actually be a good thing usually. No, what it does that's really strong is it replaces them with Curses. In which case, it's really a discounted Witch that actually hurts your economy more (because you lose a Treasure and gain a Curse), and can also grind $5 Actions into useless Duchies or vice versa. Of course it has the drawback of possibly hitting an Estate, or a $3 or $4 card that doesn't matter as much if it gets swindled. Swindler is not great because it trashes your opponent's cards, it's great because it fills their deck with cards they don't want. It's closer to Jester than Saboteur, in my mind.

If Swindler didn't trash and just gave junk (like reveal a card and gain one of equal value), it would still be good -- mostly as a curser -- but not nearly as good as it is now. Non-trashing Swindler could be handled just fine with trashing. Swindler as it is now kills engines. If all your Worker's Villages turn into Coppersmiths, you're screwed, whereas if you are given a few Coppersmiths without losing your engine pieces, you can just trash them, no problem.

Swindler does hurt engines, but I maintain that it's not because it trashes your Workers Villages. Saboteur does that, does Saboteur destroy engines? Not really. Occasionally, if you can play it a lot, yes it does. Swindler hurts your deck because it deals out cards you don't want, mainly Curses and early Duchies. It's primarily a junking attack.

But junking attacks don't stop engines, and Swindler does. So clearly the trashing is doing some of the heavy lifting.

[LastFootnote]

But junking attacks don't stop engines, and Swindler does. So clearly the trashing is doing some of the heavy lifting.

I tend not to pursue engines when junking attacks are present (with some exceptions: Chapel, Ambassador, Remake, etc.). Is that wrong? Are you saying that the presence of junking attacks has no impact on your decision whether to pursue an engine strategy?

[Robz888]

Well, I strongly disagree. On the Swindler point, I did mention Swindler (bolded above)! I just wasn't counting it as a trashing attack. Because the thing that's so destructive about Swindler isn't that it trashes your cards, it that it replaces them with bad cards in mandatory fashion. I mean, if Swindler just trashed your Coppers, that would actually be a good thing usually. No, what it does that's really strong is it replaces them with Curses. In which case, it's really a discounted Witch that actually hurts your economy more (because you lose a Treasure and gain a Curse), and can also grind $5 Actions into useless Duchies or vice versa. Of course it has the drawback of possibly hitting an Estate, or a $3 or $4 card that doesn't matter as much if it gets swindled. Swindler is not great because it trashes your opponent's cards, it's great because it fills their deck with cards they don't want. It's closer to Jester than Saboteur, in my mind.

If Swindler didn't trash and just gave junk (like reveal a card and gain one of equal value), it would still be good -- mostly as a curser -- but not nearly as good as it is now. Non-trashing Swindler could be handled just fine with trashing. Swindler as it is now kills engines. If all your Worker's Villages turn into Coppersmiths, you're screwed, whereas if you are given a few Coppersmiths without losing your engine pieces, you can just trash them, no problem.

Swindler does hurt engines, but I maintain that it's not because it trashes your Workers Villages. Saboteur does that, does Saboteur destroy engines? Not really. Occasionally, if you can play it a lot, yes it does. Swindler hurts your deck because it deals out cards you don't want, mainly Curses and early Duchies. It's primarily a junking attack.

But junking attacks don't stop engines, and Swindler does. So clearly the trashing is doing some of the heavy lifting.

? Junking attacks do stop engines, or at least slow them. Well, you have to deal with the junk. If you can effectively trash the junk, sure, you can still fire an engine. But you can't just ignore the junk and still go engine. If you go for an engine against Witch, or IGG, or Swindler, and don't contest the junking or pick up a card that neutralizes the junk, your engine will fail 90% of the time. And, this demonstrates my point well, because if you try to build an engine and your opponent tries to counter with Saboteur... you will probably be fine. You don't need to course correct nearly as much as when you are facing junking. So I still say that junking is much worse than trashing in general, and against engines, and the junking aspect of Swindler is more harmful than the trashing aspect.

Now, Swindler is certainly effective as well because it can trash your good cards, don't get me wrong. I think that ha something to do with the fact that Swindler has a better vanilla bonus than Saboteur, and is cheaper, so it's just a ridiculously effective little card. But its Witch effect hurts more than its Saboteur effect.

[Robz888]

But junking attacks don't stop engines, and Swindler does. So clearly the trashing is doing some of the heavy lifting.

I tend not to pursue engines when junking attacks are present (with some exceptions: Chapel, Ambassador, Remake, etc.). Is that wrong? Are you saying that the presence of junking attacks has no impact on your decision whether to pursue an engine strategy?

Yeah, I think that comment was totally wrong. Junking attacks DO stop engines, far more than trashing attacks.

[Witherweaver]

Upgrade is usually better than Junk Dealer when trashing Rats/Fortress/Cultist/Feodum. If nothing else, that makes the whole Upgrade-your-Upgrade-to-Gold thing easier. Junk Dealer still rocks though.

Knights are good if you have more knights than your opponent and can play them often. Even if you fall behind on provinces, If you do something crazy like KC-Knight to trash a bunch of their cards and then buy out all the duchies, you might be able to pull a come-from-behind victory. It really sucks to lose your knights to other knights though. Often you'll get knights just because your opponent got them, but both players might have been better off avoiding them altogether. I find it weird than Sir Martin only costs 4$. Is he really that much worse than the card gaining one or the VP one or the on trash one? Heck, when there are cost reducers or peddlers, I want Sir Martin most of all, but then I lose him to some other knight.

All in all, the knights are pretty unreliable and are most probably not underrated here.

This discussion of knights, however, indicates how cool the concept is.  If you had a kingdom and you had a bunch of knights and your neighboring kingdoms did not, then you could just clobber everyone.  So everyone else has to get knights too.  But then the knights go up against the knights in a big ugly calvary charge, wash each other out, and the battle gets decided by what's left (infantry, archers, whatever).  Unless of course someone has better knights, then they come out with a few surviving and have the upper hand in the battle.

[HiveMindEmulator]

But junking attacks don't stop engines, and Swindler does. So clearly the trashing is doing some of the heavy lifting.

I tend not to pursue engines when junking attacks are present (with some exceptions: Chapel, Ambassador, Remake, etc.). Is that wrong? Are you saying that the presence of junking attacks has no impact on your decision whether to pursue an engine strategy?

In fact I think junking attacks (and attacks in general) tend to FAVOR engines for a couple reasons:
1. The slow the game down. This gives engines more time to build up while the other player can't just rush down Provinces
2. When you have an engine, there are more ways of mitigating the attack. You draw more cards, so it's easier to line up your junk with your trasher.

? Junking attacks do stop engines, or at least slow them. Well, you have to deal with the junk. If you can effectively trash the junk, sure, you can still fire an engine. But you can't just ignore the junk and still go engine. If you go for an engine against Witch, or IGG, or Swindler, and don't contest the junking or pick up a card that neutralizes the junk, your engine will fail 90% of the time. And, this demonstrates my point well, because if you try to build an engine and your opponent tries to counter with Saboteur... you will probably be fine. You don't need to course correct nearly as much as when you are facing junking. So I still say that junking is much worse than trashing in general, and against engines, and the junking aspect of Swindler is more harmful than the trashing aspect.

Of course you can't ignore junk and go engine. But usually there's some way of dealing with the junk, and it's easier to deal with it in an engine. Swindler is a completely different beast because it actually strikes at the engine pieces themselves.

[Robz888]

Of course you can't ignore junk and go engine. But usually there's some way of dealing with the junk, and it's easier to deal with it in an engine. Swindler is a completely different beast because it actually strikes at the engine pieces themselves.

But if all Swindler did was strike at your engine pieces, you could very often just ignore it, the same way you ignore Saboteur. In reality, you can never ignore Swindler because it destroys your deck like a Witch or a Mountebank or a Cultist, with some Saboteur mixed in.

[WanderingWinder]

I don't know why you guys are arguing so hard on this. Clearly, it's both a junker and a trasher, and if it did only one or the other, it wouldn't be nearly so good. Also, it clearly costs 3, yet is dominating this part of the discussion. Well, I guess this is part 3....

[Robz888]

I don't know why you guys are arguing so hard on this. Clearly, it's both a junker and a trasher, and if it did only one or the other, it wouldn't be nearly so good. Also, it clearly costs 3, yet is dominating this part of the discussion. Well, I guess this is part 3....

I think this all came about from our disagreement on the nature of trashing attacks which have now all showed up, Saboteur, Rogue, and Knights. I'm really dismissive of trashing attacks (although Saboteur is so over-maligned that it's probably actually underrated, it's still not a very good card), and he was saying but look at Swindler, it's so good! And I was saying it's good because it's a junker, etc. And truly it is good because it does both, but realistically, I'm usually buying Swindler because I want to give my opponent Curses or early Duchies, because the junking is disruptive. Junking is really the top Dominion priority IMO.

[HiveMindEmulator]

And my point is that trashing attacks are not inherently bad. They can be strong (look at Swindler). Many of the existing ones are weak, but not because they are trashing attacks. I think Knights, while not nearly as good as Swindler, are much better than Saboteur and Rogue, and deserve to be in the top half of $5 cards.

[Drab Emordnilap]

Junking is really the top Dominion priority IMO.

I think that's only true because it's so much more consistent than trashing attacks. If I play a Witch, you always get a bad card. If I play a Knight, you sometimes lose a good card. An attack giving a curse is like a trashing attack trashing a Laboratory.

[Robz888]

Junking is really the top Dominion priority IMO.

I think that's only true because it's so much more consistent than trashing attacks. If I play a Witch, you always get a bad card. If I play a Knight, you sometimes lose a good card. An attack giving a curse is like a trashing attack trashing a Laboratory.

Well true, but... that doesn't make me wrong. You're right that trashing attacks are inconsistent. That's part of what makes them bad. I mean look, if you lump all the trashing attacks together--Thief, Pirate Ship, Noble Brigand, Rogue, Saboteur, Knights, Swindler--you have a collection of some the weakest cards in the game. The star of the group is Swindler, which is also and primarily a junker.

And my point is that trashing attacks are not inherently bad. They can be strong (look at Swindler). Many of the existing ones are weak, but not because they are trashing attacks. I think Knights, while not nearly as good as Swindler, are much better than Saboteur and Rogue, and deserve to be in the top half of $5 cards.

Well agree to disagree. Maybe after I play 100 games with Knights I'll think better of them.

[Drab Emordnilap]

Well true, but... that doesn't make me wrong. You're right that trashing attacks are inconsistent. That's part of what makes them bad. I mean look, if you lump all the trashing attacks together--Thief, Pirate Ship, Noble Brigand, Rogue, Saboteur, Knights, Swindler--you have a collection of some the weakest cards in the game. The star of the group is Swindler, which is also and primarily a junker.

Really, I wasn't disagreeing with you; I was just noticing myself that the reason that the junking attacks that exist are so much more important than the trashing attacks that exist is because the junking attacks always work, and the trashing attacks don't; it's not necessarily the fact that 'junking' in a vacuum is stronger than 'trashing'.

[DG]

I mean look, if you lump all the trashing attacks together--Thief, Pirate Ship, Noble Brigand, Rogue, Saboteur, Knights, Swindler--you have a collection of some the weakest cards in the game."

Correction. Some of the weaker cards in 2 player games.

[math]

It seems to me that junking attacks are inherently reliable, whereas trashing attacks are swingy.  The only trashing attack that's not a junking attack that is perfectly reliable is Saboteur, and it is nerfed by letting the opponent take a cheaper card and not giving any benefit to you.  If it didn't give the opponent anything and gave you some small bonus like the knights, it would be one of the most powerful attacks in the game.  This, again, suggests that junking is not automatically more powerful than trashing; junking is simply more reliable.

[Robz888]

I mean look, if you lump all the trashing attacks together--Thief, Pirate Ship, Noble Brigand, Rogue, Saboteur, Knights, Swindler--you have a collection of some the weakest cards in the game."

Correction. Some of the weaker cards in 2 player games.

They are better in 3P and 4P than in 2P, relative to many other cards. On the whole, most are still fairly weak. Pirate Ship gets the biggest upgrade, probably.

[Awaclus]

Band of Misfits was too early, it is simply absolutely awesome whenever it's good. Counterfeit should probably be a little higher too. Market and Trading Post should switch places. We should've seen Bazaar by now. Other than that, I don't have problems with the third part.

[SCSN]

So Count belongs to the 31 best $5's? That's awesome

[brokoli]

I've never found BoM that good, usually it works well if there are <$4 villages in the game, but otherwise, not really grat. And all $5 are just so much better than $4...

[Powerman]

Swindler without trashing would be sooooo much better early!  Reveal an estate... gain another estate.  Reveal a curse... gain another curse!

[Tables]

Swindler without trashing would be sooooo much better early!  Reveal an estate... gain another estate.  Reveal a curse... gain another curse!

Reveal a Tournament, gain a scout. NASTY!

[KingZog3]

Swindler without trashing would be sooooo much better early!  Reveal an estate... gain another estate.  Reveal a curse... gain another curse!

Reveal a Tournament, gain a scout. NASTY!

Well Scout puts Provinces in your hand for Tournament... so at least there's something beneficial from that. Better that losing the Tournament too.

[eHalcyon]

Swindler without trashing would be sooooo much better early!  Reveal an estate... gain another estate.  Reveal a curse... gain another curse!

Reveal a Tournament, gain a scout. NASTY!

Well Scout puts Provinces in your hand for Tournament... so at least there's something beneficial from that. Better that losing the Tournament too.

Scout could also take away the Province that would have matched the Tournament in your next hand...

[Tables]

Man, now I need to forge a log where I use Scout, revealing two Provinces and two Tournaments...

[KingZog3]

Swindler without trashing would be sooooo much better early!  Reveal an estate... gain another estate.  Reveal a curse... gain another curse!

Reveal a Tournament, gain a scout. NASTY!

Well Scout puts Provinces in your hand for Tournament... so at least there's something beneficial from that. Better that losing the Tournament too.

Scout could also take away the Province that would have matched the Tournament in your next hand...

Or you don't play it without Tournament in your hand... I'm just trying to give a little love to Scout. <3

[ftl]

Hand: Province province, scout, smithy, smithy. Play scout, reveal village, village, tournament, tournament. Cry.

[ipofanes]

Maybe Treasury deserves some honorary mention when King's Court/Throne Room is in the kingdom (less chance drawing the latter dead) or with Menagerie (more chance for variety).

[SCSN]

Hand: Province province, scout, smithy, smithy. Play scout, reveal village, village, tournament, tournament. Cry.

And play Smithy out of frustration.

[ChocophileBenj]

(not) New Godwin's law : when talking of any card, most people of Dominion Strategy eventually talk about scout.

Hand: Province province, scout, smithy, smithy. Play scout, reveal village, village, tournament, tournament. Cry.

Overly Geekly geek : only if it triggers a reshuffle

[Schneau]

I just played a game where Harvest really shined in combination with Tunnel. There was a Torturer engine possible, but I double Embargoed Torturer pretty quickly and my opponent only got one Torturer. The rest of the board was mediocre at best, with Bazaar being the only village and relatively little draw besides Torturer. I played mostly Harvest / Tunnel BM, with a few Embargoes here and there. On such a weak board, I was able to get half the Provinces and win because of the Tunnel points. I know Harvest/Tunnel isn't that great, but there are some boards where there isn't anything better.

Not to say Harvest is all that great or even good. But, just wanted to point out that it can sometimes be the key card, I would argue unlike Royal Seal.

[LastFootnote]

I think people undervalue topdecking in general. It's not crucial in an engine deck, but if it's taking you 3 or 4 turns to get through a reshuffle, topdecking good cards is stronger.

[jomini]

One thing I just noticed when glancing at the cards is that Outpost overlooks one of its big synergies with Tactician. Outpost is one of two cards (the other being Black Market) that currently allow you to play treasures with Tac every "turn". Take an ideal setup - Tac/Scheme/Outpost. Start on a Tac hand, play Scheme, play Outpost, play treasure; okay now buy whatever you want and return Tac to deck top. Outpost turn: draw 3 cards (one of them is Tac), discard them.

And there are a LOT of cards that let you get this sort of reliability - Scheme needs only one Tac, but you can use Haven, Courtyard, Mandarin, Count, Graverobber (requires a way to trash a Tac, but can let you really pound the provinces), and you can also use a second Tac with some "draw your entire deck" tricks. E.g. discard a Tac when you have an empty discard & draw deck with any discarder (e.g. Horse Traders); play Scout (one of the few times where Scout may be better than any other card), Navigator, Duchess, Scavenger, etc.; and now you can continue on to an assured Tac in your 3 card hand. This can be a very cheap setup as you can use your starting coppers to fuel big turns e.g. Courtyard/Tac/Opst needs just 17 coin to get into province range (buying a copper) and is quite reliable.

Which is part of the larger reason I'm sure Opst is undervalued by far. For engine decks, it becomes too easy to spend a turn overbuilding the engine so you can abuse stuff like Horse traders/Scout to setup your Opst turn and then cash in twice as fast.

[Robz888]

I can't believe Knights are ahead of Band of Misfits. Criminal!

[Qvist]

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7836.msg225806#msg225806

Part IV is up.

[Schneau]

I feel like Rebuild and Horn of Plenty are criminally underrated in this batch. Everything else at least seems in the ballpark, though I'm still on the fence whether Count is really this good or not.

[ipofanes]

Bazaar and Festival are examples of how hard it is to compare cards. Festival can be the crucial card so often in situations where Bazaar is merely the card that won't hurt any deck. But Festival could be just a Silver as well.
 

[Awaclus]

I still think that Bazaar should've been in 3/6.

[Robz888]

Well, Count is the most egregiously misranked card, not just on this list, but any list. Ever.

Rebuild is really good. Count is not. This is seriously criminal.

Everything else is okay. I'm not sure Catacombs is as good as Rabble and Horn, but that's okay.

[liopoil]

count is good with duke, but that's about it...

[calimero]

Rebuild is the most powerful card of dominion

[AJD]

count is good with duke, but that's about it...

Count is also good with Rebuild!

[brokoli]

I don't think Catacombs is that strong. Ok, the little spy/Oracle effect is cool, and you can discard 3 cards for the deck cycling... but otherwise, nothing really impressive. And the on-trash effect is so often useless, just like Hunting grounds (that said I really like to make that effect work).

Horn of plenty is honestly too low. The more I play with HoP, the more I find myself impressed by how good, even in a mediocre kingdom, this card can be.

Rebuild, I think is too low too, but I do not particularly agree with those that think this is the best $5. I still prefer something like Mountebank, Witch, IGG or even Hunting party and Cultist.

[SCSN]

count is good with duke, but that's about it...

Count is also good with Rebuild!

Buying Count when you could have bought an additional Rebuild (or later a Duchy) is pretty bad?

Rebuild should be top 10, even though it's one of the two cards I feel least comfortable with. My general plan is to buy ~3 of them as soon as possible, buy estates with <$5 hands whenever I expect to be out of Rebuild targets soon, then Rebuilding Estates into Duchies until they're out, and only then aim for Provinces. This works pretty well, but every now and then I get completely owned by something that just doesn't look that great to me (like Alchemists into Rebuild, that should be way to slow???), so any advice would be appreciated (if this isn't the right place for that I'd be happy to open a thread in the Help! forum with some sample games).

[Awaclus]

Rebuild is the most powerful card of dominion

No, that's Bureaucrat.

[math]

Most of the cards here are okay, I think.

Rebuild is criminally underrated.  Looking at the last list, I would definitely put it in the top 10, if not the top 5.  I would say it's definitely better than Cultist, and as game-changing as Hunting Party or Ill-Gotten Gains.  Out of 20+ games I have played with this card, there was only one where it wasn't part of a dominating strategy.  Sometimes that strategy involved getting Mountebank first and Rebuild later, or something like that, but Rebuild is always a card to be aware of.

[Tables]

Rebuild being as low as it is doesn't surprise me, for the reasons Qvist said. It definitely needs to go up, as it's really extremely effective, and is pretty resilient to most attacks.

Count, I really think is about right here. I overrated it at first, but this looks pretty good. It's kinda a hard card to judge, I think, because it offers so many options. With three options for the downside, I find that most of the time, one of the three downside options will be almost negligible to you, and even when it isn't it's usually fairly minor damage. The upside choices can be very good as well. +$3 with a minor penalty is solid, is mediocre. Gain a Duchy is really nice late, an extremely powerful option in the right kind of deck. Trashing your hand is great early, even if you only trash 3 cards out of it usually (the main upside here being, once you've done the trashing, later on the card still has powerful options, unlike e.g. Chapel).

Except for occasional late game Duchies, none of it's options are really that awesome, but the flexibilitiy is what really makes it decent. Add in that it's very strong in alternate VP games - Duke, Gardens, Silk Road off the top of my head are ones that Count is a good enabler for - and I think that it's in about the right place. Certainly, it shouldn't have appeared any earlier than part 3.

(Disclaimer: I've played games with Count maybe 20 times total, which might not be enough to have a full assessment of it. But in my experience, it's pretty good).

[AJD]

count is good with duke, but that's about it...

Count is also good with Rebuild!

Buying Count when you could have bought an additional Rebuild (or later a Duchy) is pretty bad?

I mean, you've gotta get those Duchies from someplace, right?

Count is probably a better support for Rebuild in Shelter games than Estate games. You don't want Rebuild too early because you've got nothing to rebuild yet. And I don't think you want to just buy a couple of Duchies before getting Rebuild either.

[markusin]

Yeah I'm surprised to see Rebuild so low. Like most of the typically Top 10 5$ cards out there, it's rarely ignorable. If you're not going for Rebuild yourself, you're probably doing something to cripple your Rebuild playing opponent, by say rushing to get 5 Duchies. This is why getting a Count in a Rebuild game can actually pay off. In a Rebuild mirror, you can get a game winning edge by having five different VP cards that were at Duchy level at some point, and Count helps you do that.

Count itself lends itself to being overrated, but I think it's fine where it is on the ratings. Like Band of Misfits, it's power lies in its flexibility and there's usually something positive you can do with it. It's probably best in slogs, where getting a Copper while gaining a Duchy is actually a strong play. The trash option has a similar issue with the trash options of Mint and Forge. Those cards trash so much more effectively when your hand is large, but they don't do anything to increase your hand size.

[SCSN]

I mean, you've gotta get those Duchies from someplace, right?

You get them by rebuilding Estates in the early game and buying them directly mid game (when they start running out). Rebuild is almost strictly better than Count here: it gives you a Duchy early/mid and a Province late, whereas Count can't get you a Province as your economy is likely shit.

You don't want Rebuild too early because you've got nothing to rebuild yet. And I don't think you want to just buy a couple of Duchies before getting Rebuild either.

Why is that? You have Overgrown Estate and you can just buy a regular Estate with the first crap hand you get after buying your first Rebuild. Hell, I'd open Rebuild/Estate given the chance.

I lose games with Rebuild more than average so it's possible that I'm way off, but I haven't the slightest clue as to why that would be!

[dondon151]

Rebuild is one of those cards whose power is difficult to assess. I think it is underrated in the list and probably overrated in the topic itself. It's not apparent that it really strongly combos with anything, and we don't have simulation data to show how strong it is on its own.

[Robz888]

Okay people, Rebuild isn't THAT good. Its not igg, lets slow down here. It should be ranked better but certainly not top 5, and I'm even doubtful on top 10.

[markusin]

I think we need more time to really assess the strength of Rebuild. More than anything, it's scary. Against a player going for Rebuild, I think many players, including myself, would rather go for Rebuild themselves rather than try to beat it without buying it, even though doing so might be relatively simple on some boards.

From my experience, Rebuild on its own isn't as strong as it can be with appropriate support. Even adding something like Beggar to buy Duchies directly can make all the difference. Remember that you can't turn an Estate into a Province if all the Duchies are gone unless there are alt-VP cards in the kingdom

[Powerman]

Well, I'm a guy who ranked Rebuild with 11.7%, and I do think that is too low.  But, it is not top 5 either.  I think my problem is it just isn't nearly as good in games with Shelters as it is in games without shelters... and it's part of the expansion with Shelters.  Now without ISO, you are limited to the expansions you have in person or buy on GOKO, so you will have more DA + Base.  In this case, the chance of having Rebuild in the kingdom and having shelters VS. just rebuild but no shelters goes up a LOT.  I maintain in games with shelters it is not that good.  But, I did underestimate the level in games without shelters, because all games we play with DA we use shelters, so I have not experienced it as much.

[Mic Qsenoch]

Rebuild is a card that I suspect will become weaker as people become used to it, rather than better. My experience has been that most players (including me) feel obligated to go for Rebuild  mirrors, especially on boards that have a bit of a power vacuum. Your opponent greening early has a powerful psychological effect.

With more experience I think Rebuild focused strategies will be vulnerable to counter play by the opponent, because Rebuild isn't a terribly flexible card, and these decks tend to get a little stuck at the end of games (stagnating at a point where you only add $3 value to your deck a turn, not great). It is a strong card though, and we'll just have to wait and see if people can learn how to beat it.

[KingZog3]

I've played a lot of DA games since it's the 2nd expansion I got. Rebuild is good, but easily beaten if the non-rebuild player grabs enough duchies. Rebuilds are limited in Provinces by the number of Duchies they get. With the right cards, getting 5 Duchies is not impossible, especially if the Rebuild player has to buy Rebuilds too. Sure they can simply empty the Province pile, but they'll be slow at doing that and not increasing their points. Colonies are another story, and just crazy for Rebuild.

It is a game changer though, as said before.

[Beyond Awesome]

To be honest, Rebuild is one of my weakest cards. I lost when I buy it, and then I lose when I choose to ignore it. So, I honestly have no clue how to rank it.

With that said, HoP is an amazing card. I will admit, it took me more than a year to figure it out. It is a card that takes a bit of planning and analyzing the board, but once you "get" HoP, I would say it can be among the power $5's. It is a skill testing card.

Now, Catacombs and Rabble should be switched. Simply put, the attack of Rabble is stronger than Catacombs sifting. However, I will say there was one game that I actually intentionally bought Catacombs for the on-trash effect. I had a Salvager and used it to get a Province and then gain a Tournament from it, and that was actually my plan when I bought it. Actually, I did that twice in that game and won the Tournament race as a result. I was very proud because I felt that was something that only a very highly skilled Dominion player would be able to pull off. But, yah, Rabble is better than Catacombs.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Count me with the people who think Count is overrated. Sure it does a lot of decent things, but nothing great. That works for $3-4 cards, but to be a good $5 card, it has to do something great.

Speaking of doing great things, Horn of Plenty is the biggest miss so far. It's a borderline top 5 $5 non-attack, imo (I guess it's #6 -- top 5 are Wharf, IGG, Governor, Duke, and HP). It's completely dominant so often. I think people overlook how useful gainers are in general, as I've said on all the lists. And HoP is the best gainer, because it maintains value the whole game. You get one with your first or second $5 hand, use it to gain cheap engine pieces, then expensive engine pieces, then more Horns, then Provinces! I think people think of it only as a card that functions in mega-turns, but forget how useful it is at setting up that mega-turn by building the engine for you.

Rabble is also too low. The nature of the attack does make it one of the weaker attacks, but it's still strong enough to be a top 20 $5 card.

And Bazaar continues to be overrated for reasons I still don't understand. I feel like Festival is clearly the best $5 village, and yet Bazaar is 6 spots higher. Yes the fact that it draws a card means that you can't have too many, but the buy is just so crucial for engines. The fact that Bazaar doesn't give a buy and can't be gained with the $3-$4 gainers makes it demand a lot more from the kingdom to be a viable village. Sure the rest of the time it's okay as a Peddler, but when you use it as a Peddler, that's in "who cares" territory for me.

[Fragasnap]

Prediction: Rebuild is Dark Ages's strongest $5. ...Rebuild is one of those cards that requires you to completely change your thinking for the game-- particularly if you start with three Estates.

Criminal.

I didn't get a vote in, but Rebuild is should be in the top 10 at least.

[Qvist]

I think people think of it only as a card that functions in mega-turns, but forget how useful it is at setting up that mega-turn by building the engine for you.

But even without a megaturn, Horn of Plenty is very useful, something that's often ignored.

Dito.

[DG]

"I feel like Festival is clearly the best $5 village, and yet Bazaar is 6 spots higher."

Market, bazaar, and festival are pretty much balanced, certainly to the point where you need to look at a kingdom to see which is best. Personal preference is really down to play style.

[ChocophileBenj]

And BTW, doesn't HoP combo well with counterfeit ? Gain 2 victory cards (ideally provinces, why not dukes) instead of one and trash it anyway... like Feast and Pillage (after a Council Room) with Procession of course !

[eHalcyon]

And BTW, doesn't HoP combo well with counterfeit ? Gain 2 victory cards (ideally provinces, why not dukes) instead of one and trash it anyway... like Feast and Pillage (after a Council Room) with Procession of course !

Partially.  Counterfeit doesn't help (other than adding another unique card) if you're not yet ready to gain VP with HoP.  Also, you have to be careful with how many different cards you have in play.  The second Counterfeited HoP may be missing one card -- HoP itself, after it gets trashed the first time.

[dondon151]

I actually don't like HoP all that much. Unless I want to gain $2s or $3s, I have been screwed far too often by drawing dead HoPs in one hand and then all of my engine components in another. It might deserve to be higher than this, but it's not quite an amazing $5.

[jaybeez]

Speaking of doing great things, Horn of Plenty is the biggest miss so far. It's a borderline top 5 $5 non-attack, imo (I guess it's #6 -- top 5 are Wharf, IGG, Governor, Duke, and HP). It's completely dominant so often. I think people overlook how useful gainers are in general, as I've said on all the lists. And HoP is the best gainer, because it maintains value the whole game. You get one with your first or second $5 hand, use it to gain cheap engine pieces, then expensive engine pieces, then more Horns, then Provinces! I think people think of it only as a card that functions in mega-turns, but forget how useful it is at setting up that mega-turn by building the engine for you.

This is spot-on, HoP is way too low here, although I wouldn't rate it quite as highly as you, I would put it somewhere in the 15-20 range I think.  The fact that it's effectively a non-terminal gainer makes it so great, it's even good for engines when you're not going for a HoP-fueled megaturn.

Question though: do you really think Duke is a top-5 non-attack $5 card?  I'm not saying that I think you're wrong necessarily, I'm just wondering why you think that because I would probably rank Tactician, Apprentice, Vault, Haggler, and perhaps Embassy above Duke.

[Fabian]

......Haggler?

[jaybeez]

I think Haggler is very strong, probably the best virtual +Buy card, it fits into engine strats and money strats.  Duke is very strong too, but it seems to me not in as many contexts.  Look, the fact is, I'm not a very good player, maybe I'm way off.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Speaking of doing great things, Horn of Plenty is the biggest miss so far. It's a borderline top 5 $5 non-attack, imo (I guess it's #6 -- top 5 are Wharf, IGG, Governor, Duke, and HP). It's completely dominant so often. I think people overlook how useful gainers are in general, as I've said on all the lists. And HoP is the best gainer, because it maintains value the whole game. You get one with your first or second $5 hand, use it to gain cheap engine pieces, then expensive engine pieces, then more Horns, then Provinces! I think people think of it only as a card that functions in mega-turns, but forget how useful it is at setting up that mega-turn by building the engine for you.

This is spot-on, HoP is way too low here, although I wouldn't rate it quite as highly as you, I would put it somewhere in the 15-20 range I think.  The fact that it's effectively a non-terminal gainer makes it so great, it's even good for engines when you're not going for a HoP-fueled megaturn.

Question though: do you really think Duke is a top-5 non-attack $5 card?  I'm not saying that I think you're wrong necessarily, I'm just wondering why you think that because I would probably rank Tactician, Apprentice, Vault, Haggler, and perhaps Embassy above Duke.

The question of Duke is mostly philosophical. Clearly Duke doesn't do a lot for your deck, since it's just a victory card, so if you evaluate the strength of cards by what you do when you play them, it's going to be much lower. But if you think about how it affects strategy, I think it's a very important card. Along with Colony, Vineyards, and the VP chip cards, it's one of the few cards that can allow you to outscore someone who has most of the Provinces. This I feel adds a very different dynamic to the game, and I view that as being powerful. Generally, the cards I rank higher are the ones that pop out at me when I look at a kingdom, putting curse-givers and sources of VP among the top cards.

[DrFlux]

I've played a lot of DA games since it's the 2nd expansion I got. Rebuild is good, but easily beaten if the non-rebuild player grabs enough duchies. Rebuilds are limited in Provinces by the number of Duchies they get. With the right cards, getting 5 Duchies is not impossible, especially if the Rebuild player has to buy Rebuilds too. Sure they can simply empty the Province pile, but they'll be slow at doing that and not increasing their points. Colonies are another story, and just crazy for Rebuild.

It is a game changer though, as said before.

As KingZog says, it changes the game. Its reasonably strong, but I think right now, people are only just learning how to play it, but don't know how to play AGAINST it at all. It grabs green cards quick, and empties out duchies, so if you are playing an engine, you can't hope to catch up that way later. So its a little like playing a rush strategy, and you need to play accordingly.

[Blueswan]

Can't wait for the continuation!

[kn1tt3r]

Rebuild is a card that I suspect will become weaker as people become used to it, rather than better. My experience has been that most players (including me) feel obligated to go for Rebuild  mirrors, especially on boards that have a bit of a power vacuum. Your opponent greening early has a powerful psychological effect.

With more experience I think Rebuild focused strategies will be vulnerable to counter play by the opponent, because Rebuild isn't a terribly flexible card, and these decks tend to get a little stuck at the end of games (stagnating at a point where you only add $3 value to your deck a turn, not great). It is a strong card though, and we'll just have to wait and see if people can learn how to beat it.

I also think Rebuild is a bit overrated by many here. Sure it can lead to quick wins, but the big big BIG downside of a dedicated Rebuild strategy is the (not unlikely situation) when the Duchies are out (which the likely will be) and you are not in the lead. That's sort of a dead end road right there. Sure, a Rebuild "rush" can be strong and hard to beat on certain boards, but it's far from the be-all-end-all strategy that dominates the vast majority of the games.

[Tables]

I really need to play Rebuild more in games vs. people. Currently I think I've played all of one game against a non-bot with it, and bots tend to ignore it, or at the very least, never try and counter it, and so you can win very easily. I really need to get a little practice with it against real players, to properly gauge it's strength.

[mameluke]

Rebuild is pretty strong. I just played it to great effect vs. a player who was going crazy with Goons. It was a Colony game, so it helped out that I got a huge number of colonies just from playing rebuild over and over and buying estates/duchies when I could, even with 3 cards each hand. (alchemist helped, too).

[Fragasnap]

I've played a lot of DA games since it's the 2nd expansion I got. Rebuild is good, but easily beaten if the non-rebuild player grabs enough duchies. Rebuilds are limited in Provinces by the number of Duchies they get. With the right cards, getting 5 Duchies is not impossible, especially if the Rebuild player has to buy Rebuilds too. Sure they can simply empty the Province pile, but they'll be slow at doing that and not increasing their points. Colonies are another story, and just crazy for Rebuild.

It is a game changer though, as said before.

So is the general consensus is that the strategy to play against Rebuild is to buy lots of Duchies? That would slow down your own acquisition of game winning Provinces... if you have so many Duchies in your deck, you logically buy Rebuild.
The counter to Rebuild is Rebuild.

It's not that amazing in games with Shelters, but the fact is: Rebuild is non-terminal. You can throw it into a deck and all it costs you is a $5 Buy and a card spot in your hand every so often. If a player goes for a dedicated Rebuild rush (which I do not think is optimal play), he has to have some way to get to Rebuild fast enough to snatch up Duchies before they are bought up from under him, and the other players who are buying Duchies are going to notice themselves choking on the early green that they could easily upgrade into Provinces by also buying Rebuild (which, again, is nonterminal and thusly easy to stick into a deck).
If a card is countered primarily by playing it more effectively than the opponent, then that seems like a pretty powerful card to me.

[serakfalcon]

So is the general consensus is that the strategy to play against Rebuild is to buy lots of Duchies? That would slow down your own acquisition of game winning Provinces...

Not really, if you get most of the duchies you can get rebuild later, its not like your opponent will have money

[Witherweaver]

I also feel like Rebuild makes it harder to know who is winning or when the game will end.  I guess any of the remodel-into-victory strategies have this, but since Rebuild is upgrading victory cards you have to take special note that your Province gains are netting you +3 victory points instead of +6, or take time to look into the trash and recount. 

Well, maybe it's not harder, but the "feel" of how the game is going and who has the advantage seems to be different than in other kinds of games.

[Robz888]

I used to think Rebuild was Dark Age's Jack-of-All Trades--by that I mean, a powerful baseline strategy--but I'm starting to see it as more of an Ill-Gotten Gains, almost unavoidable single card rush thing.

Sure, you can buy Duchies in order to fight the person going Rebuild... but then why not go Rebuild yourself? Perhaps some sort of engine where you are immediately trashing them with a TfB card would work.

There's just nothing that really disrupts Rebuild. Hand-size decreasers and junkers will only help the Rebuild player, and they won't slow him down one iota.

I don't know, people. It's a strong card.

[jaybeez]

I haven't played with Rebuild much yet.  Robz (and others), how strong would you say Rebuild is against simple money strats that get to 4+ Provinces very quickly, like Masq, Jack, Wharf, Courtyard?

[Robz888]

I haven't played with Rebuild much yet.  Robz (and others), how strong would you say Rebuild is against simple money strats that get to 4+ Provinces very quickly, like Masq, Jack, Wharf, Courtyard?

I could be totally wrong, but I think Rebuild is probably similarly fast to all four. Masq and Jack are perhaps slower than Rebuild (in pure BM). Wharf and Courtyard I suspect are faster.

[WanderingWinder]

I actually do think Rebuild is quite a bit like Jack. It's a very strong baseline which more than anything is very very resilient, and quite a bit weaker in colony games. Jack is one of the strongest few 4s, and Rebuild is stronger. Of course, it costs more, which isn't so much a problem, except that there's more of an opportunity cost. The best way to beat either one is to be faster.

I played Jack against Rebuild a few days ago and won, well I felt relatively comfortable, but it was reasonably close. Note that actually on the same board, they don't work so terribly together. Well, if in the same hand, rebuild into a jack is marvelous. At the same time, trashing estates with jack isn't so terribly hot for rebuild as normally it is.


On the other hand, I don't really have a very good feel as to how to play Rebuild, and I have quite a bad understanding of how to play against it.

[Robz888]

Another way in which it is similar to strong BM strategies like Jack and Masquerade (and unlike Courtyard and usually Wharf) is that it survives Junkers and Discarders with barely a scratch.

Junkers: Masq hard counters, Jack counters, Wharf takes a hit, Courtyard succumbs. Rebuild is hurt by negative VP from Curses, but the deck doesn't slow one bit.

Discarders: Jack counters, Wharf takes a hit, Courtyard takes a hit, Masq takes a big hit. Has no effect on Rebuild, and could actually help (discard your Duchies!).

Deck inspection attacks also have no effect on Rebuild, although they barely hurt the other BM strategies, either. Trashers are probably the one attack that can really mess with Rebuild, since you can't afford to lose your Duchies to a Knight or a Rogue or a Saboteur.

[meandering mercury]

An important difference, though, is that Rebuild is not a terminal. In most kingdoms, you'd be able to add in some strong terminal card (as long as it's not terminal draw) to significantly boost the strength of the Rebuild-based deck in a way that can be hard with Jack/Wharf/Courtyard/Masq.

I don't think a pure Rebuild deck is representative of the strength of the card for the same reason that BM without actions isn't representative of the strength of BM.

[soulnet]

Jack + Rebuild seems like it would be pretty strong. Jack's Silvers will help you get to 5 even while adding green, so you can buy those duchies and Rebuild on the same turn.

How many Rebuilds should be bought before starting to buy Duchies? 2? 3? I went with 2 the only Rebuild game I played and it seemed ok for the small amount we could use them without trashin our own Estates (it was a mirror, and Duchies went out quick and we got to 3-3 Provinces + 1 Duchy each in no time, so Estate dancing all the way to the end until some lucky $8 hand appeared).

[Awaclus]

Jack + Rebuild seems like it would be pretty strong. Jack's Silvers will help you get to 5 even while adding green, so you can buy those duchies and Rebuild on the same turn.

How many Rebuilds should be bought before starting to buy Duchies? 2? 3? I went with 2 the only Rebuild game I played and it seemed ok for the small amount we could use them without trashin our own Estates (it was a mirror, and Duchies went out quick and we got to 3-3 Provinces + 1 Duchy each in no time, so Estate dancing all the way to the end until some lucky $8 hand appeared).

I think 3 is better than 2.

[KingZog3]

Jack + Rebuild seems like it would be pretty strong. Jack's Silvers will help you get to 5 even while adding green, so you can buy those duchies and Rebuild on the same turn.

How many Rebuilds should be bought before starting to buy Duchies? 2? 3? I went with 2 the only Rebuild game I played and it seemed ok for the small amount we could use them without trashin our own Estates (it was a mirror, and Duchies went out quick and we got to 3-3 Provinces + 1 Duchy each in no time, so Estate dancing all the way to the end until some lucky $8 hand appeared).

I think 3 is better than 2.

I agree. But not 4, since you'll just start to pass over Rebuilds with other Rebuilds.

[Powerman]

Jack + Rebuild seems like it would be pretty strong. Jack's Silvers will help you get to 5 even while adding green, so you can buy those duchies and Rebuild on the same turn.

How many Rebuilds should be bought before starting to buy Duchies? 2? 3? I went with 2 the only Rebuild game I played and it seemed ok for the small amount we could use them without trashin our own Estates (it was a mirror, and Duchies went out quick and we got to 3-3 Provinces + 1 Duchy each in no time, so Estate dancing all the way to the end until some lucky $8 hand appeared).

I think 3 is better than 2.

More is better than less
because if stuff is not if there is more less stuff then you might want to have some more
and your parents just don't let you because there's only just a little bit.
Right. We want more, we want more.
Like you really like it, you want more.

[dondon151]

I hate that commercial.

[Beyond Awesome]

Jack + Rebuild seems like it would be pretty strong. Jack's Silvers will help you get to 5 even while adding green, so you can buy those duchies and Rebuild on the same turn.

How many Rebuilds should be bought before starting to buy Duchies? 2? 3? I went with 2 the only Rebuild game I played and it seemed ok for the small amount we could use them without trashin our own Estates (it was a mirror, and Duchies went out quick and we got to 3-3 Provinces + 1 Duchy each in no time, so Estate dancing all the way to the end until some lucky $8 hand appeared).

I think 3 is better than 2.

Honestly, I think 2 Rebuilds is usually the right call. You need to use your other $5 hands to start buying Duchies and not Rebuilds. Sometimes, though, 3 Rebuilds is the correct call.

[KingZog3]

Jack + Rebuild seems like it would be pretty strong. Jack's Silvers will help you get to 5 even while adding green, so you can buy those duchies and Rebuild on the same turn.

How many Rebuilds should be bought before starting to buy Duchies? 2? 3? I went with 2 the only Rebuild game I played and it seemed ok for the small amount we could use them without trashin our own Estates (it was a mirror, and Duchies went out quick and we got to 3-3 Provinces + 1 Duchy each in no time, so Estate dancing all the way to the end until some lucky $8 hand appeared).

I think 3 is better than 2.

Honestly, I think 2 Rebuilds is usually the right call. You need to use your other $5 hands to start buying Duchies and not Rebuilds. Sometimes, though, 3 Rebuilds is the correct call.

Depends on the board.

[soulnet]

Jack + Rebuild seems like it would be pretty strong. Jack's Silvers will help you get to 5 even while adding green, so you can buy those duchies and Rebuild on the same turn.

How many Rebuilds should be bought before starting to buy Duchies? 2? 3? I went with 2 the only Rebuild game I played and it seemed ok for the small amount we could use them without trashin our own Estates (it was a mirror, and Duchies went out quick and we got to 3-3 Provinces + 1 Duchy each in no time, so Estate dancing all the way to the end until some lucky $8 hand appeared).

I think 3 is better than 2.

Honestly, I think 2 Rebuilds is usually the right call. You need to use your other $5 hands to start buying Duchies and not Rebuilds. Sometimes, though, 3 Rebuilds is the correct call.

Depends on the board.

What do you think are the things to look for to see the decision? A junker I would say should imply more Rebuilds, as you won't see them as often, right? Are there any others?

[KingZog3]

Jack + Rebuild seems like it would be pretty strong. Jack's Silvers will help you get to 5 even while adding green, so you can buy those duchies and Rebuild on the same turn.

How many Rebuilds should be bought before starting to buy Duchies? 2? 3? I went with 2 the only Rebuild game I played and it seemed ok for the small amount we could use them without trashin our own Estates (it was a mirror, and Duchies went out quick and we got to 3-3 Provinces + 1 Duchy each in no time, so Estate dancing all the way to the end until some lucky $8 hand appeared).

I think 3 is better than 2.

Honestly, I think 2 Rebuilds is usually the right call. You need to use your other $5 hands to start buying Duchies and not Rebuilds. Sometimes, though, 3 Rebuilds is the correct call.

Depends on the board.

What do you think are the things to look for to see the decision? A junker I would say should imply more Rebuilds, as you won't see them as often, right? Are there any others?

Junkers for sure. Junkers often are $5 and interfere with buying Rebuilds too. Possibly Pillage if the opponent has some way to gain them all the time, like University+Pillage or Graverobber+Pillage. Would that be enough to shut down Rebuild? And what about Pirate Ship? It's not great but Rebuild has little money to be losing to Pirate Ship, so would that slow them enough in actually getting Rebuilds and Duchys?

[Qvist]

Part 5:

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7836.msg225807#msg225807

[Mic Qsenoch]

Apprentice should be at the bottom of this section, not at the top. It is an incredibly slow early game trasher unless you are lucky in pairing it with estates. Buying it early doesn't do enough for your economy. It gets a lot better in the end game to squeeze all the value out of your deck, but when to buy over green? The combos with Gold gainers are nice but these decks tend to be inconsistent and because they require specific cards they don't show up that often. There's also a real possibility that I'm just bad with Apprentice.

I also think Stables should get the nod over Lab for being useful on a wider range of boards. The copper filtering is powerful, and I think makes up for the potential Stables nightmare hands.

[Blueswan]

It's back. YAY!

[Robz888]

I'm actually largely satisfied with part 5. A few little errors:

--Stables should beat Laboratory. The dread Stables hand can be a real threat, but if you have that many actions you probably have some other non-terminal draw cards to hopefully alleviate it. On the whole, Stables's draw is just so much better than Lab's.

--Bandit Camp looks overrated. All the Dark Ages cards were significantly misranked, and perhaps Bandit Camp isn't as egregious as the others, but I have a hard time believing it belongs in such elite company. It's an expensive village that generates 1-shot Golds. That's nice, but I don't think it's 20th best card in the game nice. And as for DA cards, Rebuild, Band of Misfits, arguably Junk Dealer and Catacombs, are all better than Bandit Camp, I would say.

--Embassy one place worse than Vault? That's a tough call, but I would probably switch them.

I like the placements of Duke and Apprentice. It's possible Margrave is underrated here, but I'm not sure.

[LastFootnote]

--Embassy one place better than Vault? That's a tough call, but I would probably switch them.

  Embassy is one place worse than Vault.

[Robz888]

--Embassy one place better than Vault? That's a tough call, but I would probably switch them.

  Embassy is one place worse than Vault.

Uh, let me change that. What I meant was "Vault is one place better than Embassy?" I would probably switch them. I think Embassy slightly beats Vault these days.

[mail-mi]

I would like to add to apprentices description that you can trash a cultist when the ruins are all gone for +8 cards

[Lekkit]

Bandit Camp is really good when it's good. In engines. I love myself te card that says +1 Card, +2 Actions, +3 Coins. But when it's not in engines, it's not that good. Most of the times I'd rather have that Silver that stays in my deck. Most of the time you get a Spoils in hand and exchange it for a real Gold. That goes for Spoils in general.

Stables is beastly. Laboratory is mostly a win more card. You got a nice engine that need that little extra draw, you get a Lab. Stables makes engines possible when there aren't any good way of getting rid of coppers. And 3 cards for a copper will always be a nice trade off in most BM games. Especially if you can do it more than once a turn.

[Blueswan]

I would like to add to apprentices description that you can trash a cultist when the ruins are all gone for +8 cards

WOW! Hadn't thought of that combo. Of course, you could also trash a Peddler for +8 cards.

[brokoli]

Yes, Embassy is often better than vault...
I didn't expect Stables to be so high, but I don't know so much about this card.
Upgrade seems to high compared to Junk dealer.

[jaybeez]

Apprentice should be at the bottom of this section, not at the top. It is an incredibly slow early game trasher unless you are lucky in pairing it with estates. Buying it early doesn't do enough for your economy. It gets a lot better in the end game to squeeze all the value out of your deck, but when to buy over green? The combos with Gold gainers are nice but these decks tend to be inconsistent and because they require specific cards they don't show up that often. There's also a real possibility that I'm just bad with Apprentice.

You're right about Apprentice being a slow early game trasher, but the thing is, it can really accelerate your endgame.  If you have a lead, I think that Apprentice and Salvager are two of the best cards to help you close out the game quickly.  Granted, Salvager may be better because it works well as an early game trasher too (though not so much with Shelters), but the fact that Apprentice is non-terminal is big.  You can trash stuff late game to prevent your engine from misfiring, which you can't really do with Salvager--your engine needs to go off first and then you can finish the turn with a Salvager.  Apprentice can be the card that helps you start or maintain the big turn that leads to a double-Province or Province-Duchy buy or something.

[soulnet]

Bandit Camp is really good when it's good. In engines. I love myself te card that says +1 Card, +2 Actions, +3 Coins.

If you want to count the +$3 from the Spoils you would have to, at the very least, remove the +1 Card, since you need to draw the Spoils. If you are drawing your deck, then the +1 Card does not help either.

Of course, there is a BIG difference, which is, drawing your deck is a lot easier if the money is at the end and the drawing cards are at the beginning, and that's why Bandit Camp is BETTER than "+2 Actions, +$3" in a draw-your-deck engine. This was addressed in Bandit Camp's article.

[AJD]

I think that Apprentice and Salvager are two of the best cards to help you close out the game quickly.  Granted, Salvager may be better because it works well as an early game trasher too

Well wait, Salvager vs. Apprentice as an early-game trasher....

If you're trashing Copper with Spice Merchant, most times (but not always) you choose the +cards rather than the +coin, right? This suggests to me that if you're trashing Estates, most times (but not always) you'd rather use an Apprentice to do it than a Salvager, which have the same two effects as Spice Merchant.

Of course, Salvager is cheaper than Apprenctice, so if what you want is an early-game trasher Salvager is easier to come by.

[zporiri]

im glad to see duke getting some love, most players don't know the power of duke. most boards have enough support for duke to make it preferable over a province strategy(in 2 player), and most players don't know how to play against, resulting in an easy win.

[Beyond Awesome]

Apprentice should be at the bottom of this section, not at the top. It is an incredibly slow early game trasher unless you are lucky in pairing it with estates. Buying it early doesn't do enough for your economy. It gets a lot better in the end game to squeeze all the value out of your deck, but when to buy over green? The combos with Gold gainers are nice but these decks tend to be inconsistent and because they require specific cards they don't show up that often. There's also a real possibility that I'm just bad with Apprentice.

I also think Stables should get the nod over Lab for being useful on a wider range of boards. The copper filtering is powerful, and I think makes up for the potential Stables nightmare hands.

Agreed with everything you said. Also, Embassy is better than Vault.

[jaybeez]

I think that Apprentice and Salvager are two of the best cards to help you close out the game quickly.  Granted, Salvager may be better because it works well as an early game trasher too

Well wait, Salvager vs. Apprentice as an early-game trasher....

If you're trashing Copper with Spice Merchant, most times (but not always) you choose the +cards rather than the +coin, right? This suggests to me that if you're trashing Estates, most times (but not always) you'd rather use an Apprentice to do it than a Salvager, which have the same two effects as Spice Merchant.

Of course, Salvager is cheaper than Apprenctice, so if what you want is an early-game trasher Salvager is easier to come by.

Yeah, I could have been more clear about that.  Salvager is a better early game trasher more because you can always open with it, rather than its actual rules text.

[Eevee]

Embassy wins over vault for me for being better in colony games.

[soulnet]

Embassy wins over vault for me for being better in colony games.

I think its also better for most engines (usually draw is better than virtual money, basically). For BM+X, I'm not really sure, both are pretty darn good.

[ftl]

It's hard to evaluate them because of the on-gain bonus to your opponent of Embassy. It's just really hard, for me at least, to properly add in the "value" of that silver to your opponent, it's not a common thing to have effects like that so I don't know how to integrate it into my thinking about Embassy.

[KingZog3]

I'm honestly surprised Bandit Camp got rated this high. It's a good $5 Village, but I think it's about as strong as Festival. If anything, switch it's spot with Rebuild. Of course everyone is still discussing Rebuild's strength, but it belongs up here much much more than Bandit Camp.

[Beyond Awesome]

Bandit Camp is really good though. In BM, you are essentially getting a gold for $5. In engines, the spoils usually come handy. Sometimes, though, Bandit Camp isn't worth getting, especially if other villages are on the board. But, I like that added strategic element.

[lespeutere]

Upgrade seems to high compared to Junk dealer.

Upgrade lower than lab or vault makes me cry. But that may be due to personal preference.

[-Stef-]

Upgrade seems to high compared to Junk dealer.

Upgrade lower than lab or vault makes me cry. But that may be due to personal preference.

I agree 100%. Upgrade should be way, way higher. It helps building an engine, it helps when you get cursed, it generates enormous power once your engine is running, it provides end game control.

Checking good old CouncilRoom, I see the average %with for all players was 59.7%. I played 94.6% of my games with it; only Fishing Village and tournament are higher.
It's also 2nd on my 'Win rate given availability' ranking. And I think it got better with Dark Ages (Fortress, Rats and more) unless Poor House is on the table.

Honestly, I don't know what I was doing in the remaining 5.4% of the games. Ironworks-Silkroad? Maybe.

[NoMoreFun]

The best comparison to Bandit Camp isn't Bazaar, it's Gold. It's highly likely you'll be able to play the Bandit Camp every time it comes up unless you have a badly designed terminal drawing engine, so in every shuffle after the first one you have the Bandit camp, you essentially have a treasure worth $3 in your deck.

Thus, in return for missing a reshuffle, you get a free Village (a card that's very unlikely to hurt your deck), a $1 discount and a few other fringe benefits (the ability not to play Spoils shouldn't be underestimated). I would think the only cards better than it are the ones that you'd often consider buying over Gold when you have an early $6... which is most of the cards ranked above it.

It's certainly a lot better than the other discounted Golds.

[brokoli]

Upgrade seems to high compared to Junk dealer.

Upgrade lower than lab or vault makes me cry. But that may be due to personal preference.

I agree 100%. Upgrade should be way, way higher. It helps building an engine, it helps when you get cursed, it generates enormous power once your engine is running, it provides end game control.

Checking good old CouncilRoom, I see the average %with for all players was 59.7%. I played 94.6% of my games with it; only Fishing Village and tournament are higher.
It's also 2nd on my 'Win rate given availability' ranking. And I think it got better with Dark Ages (Fortress, Rats and more) unless Poor House is on the table.

Honestly, I don't know what I was doing in the remaining 5.4% of the games. Ironworks-Silkroad? Maybe.

I guess upgrade is a high skill card, like develop or procession ^^
However, I still think Junk dealer is underrated, as an early game trasher it's much better than upgrade (especially with shelters)

[DG]

Checking good old CouncilRoom, I see the average %with for all players was 59.7%. I played 94.6% of my games with it; only Fishing Village and tournament are higher.

I'm guessing that for Stef there isn't such a thing as a big money game. He just needs a few four player militia games against the Goko bots to knock some sense into him.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I think this section of the list is pretty reasonable for the remaining cards. The right cards are mostly in the top 11. I think Duke should be up there instead of Tactician, but other than that, it seems fine. I do think, however, that all the cards 16-20 (Lab, Haggler, Stables, Upgrade, Bandit) shouldn't have been up here while there are cards that are really often the focal point of games that are below (Duke, Highway, Rabble, Horn, City, Rebuild). But I guess a lot of it is related to the ranking philosophy. I feel that in general, the "general purpose" cards like Labs are getting rated too high relative to the "specialty" cards.

Getting into something specific, I don't see how Haggler can be better than Horn. Haggler gives money and then gains a cheap card, while Horn doesn't give money but gains a potentially expensive card. So a lot of times you can gain the same pair of cards with them, but Horn has much greater potential, letting you gain multiple cards at the same price point or even play multiple Horns to gain a lot of cards since they're treasures. Haggler is only better if you're not drawing enough cards to make use of Horn. But in those decks, you don't really care much for gaining anyway, and you're probably just gaining Silver. So Haggler is better for Silver-heavy strategies, but worse for any engine. You could easily invert their positions in the rankings. (I have Horn at 12 and Haggler at 25).

[LastFootnote]

I disagree. Horn of Plenty takes a lot more work to set up than Haggler, and doesn't work on as many boards.

Also, if I have $6 to spend without my Haggler, I'll have $8 total and can pick up a Province and a Gold/$5 card. If I have $6 and a Horn of Plenty, even if I have 8 different cards in play and can gain the same two cards (Province, Gold/$5), my Horn gets trashed when I gain the Province.

[Tables]

The only card I put in the top 11 that's come out already is Margrave (and I put that 11th) so I agree that the top cards are correct, although we'll see about their order.

One card I think is overrated here is Haggler, but I've seen a lot of people saying otherwise. I find it's rare you get the circumstances to make it much more than a terminal silver/workshop hybrid that occasionally gains a $5, which is certainly good, but not top 30 $5's good. Those rare occasions you can make it do more push it up a bit, but probably I'd say outside the top 20 at best.

[dondon151]

Haggler is probably better than HoP on a lot of engine boards. It essentially doubles the number of buys that you use and almost doubles your buying power depending on what cards in are in kingdom.

Saying that Haggler is only a good enabler for strategies that like Silver is really short-sighted; almost as much as, say, Workshop is only a good enabler for Gardens.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I find it a little weird that Haggler is so high. In general, I have felt that all the gainers have been underrated on these lists, but for some reason people really like Haggler. I guess it's because it's the gainer that works best in non-engine strategies, so it seems like it comes up more often. But as has been argued in a lot of places, I think the main role of gainers is in engines, and HoP is like the ultimate engine card.

Also, if I have $6 to spend without my Haggler, I'll have $8 total and can pick up a Province and a Gold/$5 card. If I have $6 and a Horn of Plenty, even if I have 8 different cards in play and can gain the same two cards (Province, Gold/$5), my Horn gets trashed when I gain the Province.

The problem with this type of argument is that it ignores how you got to your current situation, and what happens the rest of the game. On a given turn, having one card may be better than having another, but you have to evaluate cards in the context of the entire game rather than an individual turn. With the HoP in that situation, maybe you just want to gain 2 more HoPs and then cash them in next turn or the turn after. Maybe you'd be in a situation where you're not just looking at $6 since you had your terminal action to spend on something else. On the whole, Horn of Plenty usually dominates the game, and all strategy is built around it. Haggler is more like just a good gainer. You often still need to find a +buy elsewhere.

Saying that Haggler is only a good enabler for strategies that like Silver is really short-sighted; almost as much as, say, Workshop is only a good enabler for Gardens.

I didn't say Haggler is only good there. I said that's the only real place where you want a gainer but don't want HoP.

[LastFootnote]

The problem with this type of argument is that it ignores how you got to your current situation, and what happens the rest of the game. On a given turn, having one card may be better than having another, but you have to evaluate cards in the context of the entire game rather than an individual turn. With the HoP in that situation, maybe you just want to gain 2 more HoPs and then cash them in next turn or the turn after. Maybe you'd be in a situation where you're not just looking at $6 since you had your terminal action to spend on something else. On the whole, Horn of Plenty usually dominates the game, and all strategy is built around it. Haggler is more like just a good gainer. You often still need to find a +buy elsewhere.

Look, dude. I tried to explain my reasoning as best I know how. Your example isn't any more specific.

Also, Horn of Plenty usually dominates the game? Really? Usually? I'd say that when Horn of Plenty is good, it's worlds better than Haggler, but Haggler is better on most boards.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Also, Horn of Plenty usually dominates the game? Really? Usually? I'd say that when Horn of Plenty is good, it's worlds better than Haggler, but Haggler is better on most boards.

Yes, usually. I'd say like 2/3 of the time? At least half.

[lespeutere]

as an early game trasher [junk dealer]'s much better than upgrade (especially with shelters)

This is - uhm - debatable.

[eHalcyon]

I feel that HoP ends up dominant more often than Haggler ever does, in that Haggler is rarely dominant.  But I don't think HoP is dominant that often.  And Haggler is more often just generally useful, I think.

[markusin]

Horn of Plenty and Haggler have similar shortcomings. Neither are great in games with only terminals, and both really suffer from junkers and handsize reducers. Something to note about Haggler is that it is strong in the presence of money generating cards, but the Horn can be strengthened by lots more, from the lowly Pearl Diver and a random Oasis to the scary Altar and the loyal Golem, all while being non-terminal. The non-terminal feature of Horn is what really adds to its explosive potential. I do think Haggler does better as an opening, but I don't know if it belongs higher on the list than Horn.

[Beyond Awesome]

I love both Haggler and HoP. I find myself buying Haggler more often, and it is very useful, but I love pulling off a HoP megaturn. HoP engines are probably my favorite to play. So, I think that maybe the attachment to HoP comes from the whole megaturn aspect that it allows. I wouldn't say that makes it better than Haggler, but more fun to play as a whole. I still love both of them though.

[Robz888]

I fully endorse Haggler outperforming Horn.

[DStu]

Join in to defend Haggler.  Both HoP and Haggler are the strong gainers. HoP has more potential to be really great, but needs the right board for it (ie an engine).  Haggler you can play on almost every board.  Engine? Usually good. Big Money? good, especially Haggler lets you go BigMoney+Cantrip basically for free.  Slog? Free Silvers.
It's that Haggler is a strong addition of all of this deck that get's it up here, and in my opinion also gets it above HoP.  But HoP of course also belongs here due to it's possibility of totally dominating engine games.

[dondon151]

DStu is right on the money. Here are two other pieces of evidence to consider:

1. In order for HoP to be effective, it needs a way to play many (different) cards. In order for Haggler to be effective, it only needs a way to generate a hand with a decent amount of $. Generating a decent amount of $ every hand - about $5 - is not only much easier, but it's also much more consistent.

This is in accordance with common opinion that HoP is only viable in engine games. However, we should also consider that not every type of engine is good for HoP. Engines that rely on cantrips and/or draw-to-X can't use HoP effectively. Hunting Party without another drawing card typically isn't very good either.

2. If CR.com stats are anything to go by, a top player like -Stef- gains Haggler more often than he does HoP given both are available (81.6% vs. 61.3%).

[WanderingWinder]

Okay. Comments.
Count is significantly too high. I've gone over this.

Catacombs should be above Rabble, slightly. Let's break it down. Both are smithies. Rabble gets the attack, which, if they are going big money, is going to be pretty painful if you can repeat it. Catacombs gives you the filtering. First of all, this directly counters the top-of-deck-mucking of Rabble. But it's also always useful until you are drawing the last three or fewer cards of your deck, whereas Rabble's attack is useful to skip past good cards, if it does that. Each play of Rabble typically doesn't worsen their top-of deck quality by all that much (on average).
So Rabble chains, with LOTS of Rabbles, are particularly potent against, say, slogs, but it's pretty rare you get such a matchup, and in general, Catacombs have a bit more utility. Just off of this, it would be very very close, though I think I would give the tiny edge to Catacombs. The trash ability makes it clear for me, though still not a very large difference.

Lab is, I think, a bit too high, and stables a bit too low. I definitely like stables more overall. In either case, you don't want to build an engine just on the backs of one of these too often, and when it's more of a supplement or general good card, stables is just a bit better. The ability to trade what is usually a copper for a random card of your deck generally outweighs the chance of the no-treasure disaster. The NTD does suck, of course, but you build your deck around it.

Vault seems too high. It is excellent in Big Money, of course, but not so good for much else (eh, it grabs GMs); it is totally hosed by discard attacks and/or colony games, and the drawback is pretty significant in quite a lot of games. Embassy should definitely be better. It's a touch worse in a head-to-head BM matchup, but this is slight, and quite frankly, this situation is rare, and Embassy is better for almost every other situation.

I would put apprentice below Lab, for sure. Probably not much below, but below.

Upgrade should not be this far above Junk Dealer. I think that's mostly based on Junk Dealer being too low. I actually think I would put JD a slot or so above upgrade, but it is really tough. I find it strange to say that upgrade should be 'way way' higher, though, considering it's at 19 and a lot of the cards that are left MUST be better than it, as well as, I think, some of them we've already seen.

Bandit Camp isn't so much better than than Bazaar. Indeed, in most engines, I think I usually even prefer Bazaar, as it's easier to draw with. Of course, BC is pretty good even in other situations, whereas Bazaar is fairly marginal there. So BC is probably a touch better overall, but they're close.

Rebuild - I do not understand this card, other than it is strong. Definitely underrated here, but I am not sure how to play it. Can someone write an article here??

I agree with Bazaar>Festival - the buy is not so important as the extra card, usually.

Haggler vs. HoP. Well, I think it's probably pretty obvious that HoP has more upside, but Haggler is better more often. Actually one might compare Haggler to BoM, in some ways, being dependent on how good the cheap cards are. Uh, I think I would nudge HoP a touch higher than Haggler, but it's close - I certainly don't blame people for going the other way.

Counterfeit - I think this guy's being underrated. But, I might just write a little article on him.

[Robz888]

There's already been a long discussion about Rebuild, and I don't want to restart it, but... man, that's a powerful card. I had two games with it recently. We both bought it, so I can't really tell if not buying it was an option (although I'm almost positive it wasn't), but it was like the most important card both times. And one of the times, I had a really nice engine going and everything... but I still wanted Rebuild in it. I don't know. I can't imagine a situation where you wouldn't buy it at all. Seriously, guys.

[lespeutere]

There's already been a long discussion about Rebuild, and I don't want to restart it, but... man, that's a powerful card. I had two games with it recently. We both bought it, so I can't really tell if not buying it was an option (although I'm almost positive it wasn't), but it was like the most important card both times. And one of the times, I had a really nice engine going and everything... but I still wanted Rebuild in it. I don't know. I can't imagine a situation where you wouldn't buy it at all. Seriously, guys.

There were one or two games (against SCSN?) where not getting it was the right call, I believe. Anyway, I just scanned the article very, very briefly and one of the advice in the 'to review' section stroke me as plain wrong (which has also already been mentioned by someone else). And WW himself did answer in that thread so I assume he has read the article at that time.

[WanderingWinder]

Ironically, just before Robz888's post, I played a game where I'm pretty sure I correctly didn't buy one - a double jack game with shelters were I never hit 5 exactly, or at least not until there were only a few provinces left and duchy was very clear.

[Beyond Awesome]

I feel your frustration WW on Rebuild. I wrote the same words as you months ago that I don't get this card but I know it is very strong. Rebuild is the main reason I will only play 5000+ players. I would lose games to players with ranks of 2000 to that card who filled their decks with terminals and were playing horrible. Then, I would win against players with a higher rank than me. And, I do feel I have a better handle on Rebuild, but like you, I just don't get it all the time, and it is the one card that when I see it pop up in a kingdom, I automatically get worried.

[soulnet]

I feel your frustration WW on Rebuild. I wrote the same words as you months ago that I don't get this card but I know it is very strong. Rebuild is the main reason I will only play 5000+ players. I would lose games to players with ranks of 2000 to that card who filled their decks with terminals and were playing horrible. Then, I would win against players with a higher rank than me. And, I do feel I have a better handle on Rebuild, but like you, I just don't get it all the time, and it is the one card that when I see it pop up in a kingdom, I automatically get worried.

If you consistently lose to them, maybe they are not playing horrible and that's just the way (or a way) to play Rebuild.

[heron]

I feel your frustration WW on Rebuild. I wrote the same words as you months ago that I don't get this card but I know it is very strong. Rebuild is the main reason I will only play 5000+ players. I would lose games to players with ranks of 2000 to that card who filled their decks with terminals and were playing horrible. Then, I would win against players with a higher rank than me. And, I do feel I have a better handle on Rebuild, but like you, I just don't get it all the time, and it is the one card that when I see it pop up in a kingdom, I automatically get worried.

If you consistently lose to them, maybe they are not playing horrible and that's just the way (or a way) to play Rebuild.

I think the issue is not that Beyond Awesome plays rebuild poorly, it's that it is not difficult to play rebuild well. A lot of the time when rebuild is on the board, the game turns into a 55/45 chance of winning, even if one of the players is far superior to the other. It's like when double jack is the dominant strategy, except that it happens more often.

[soulnet]

I think the issue is not that Beyond Awesome plays rebuild poorly, it's that it is not difficult to play rebuild well. A lot of the time when rebuild is on the board, the game turns into a 55/45 chance of winning, even if one of the players is far superior to the other. It's like when double jack is the dominant strategy, except that it happens more often.

Agreed, I just said that in this context this opponents are not playing horrible

... I would lose games to players with ranks of 2000 to that card who filled their decks with terminals and were playing horrible. ...

[ragingduckd]

I think the issue is not that Beyond Awesome plays rebuild poorly, it's that it is not difficult to play rebuild well. A lot of the time when rebuild is on the board, the game turns into a 55/45 chance of winning, even if one of the players is far superior to the other. It's like when double jack is the dominant strategy, except that it happens more often.

I actually find Rebuild rather challenging to play.  Rebuild's speed makes every decision important and it demands skills that don't usually get a lot of practice, like knowing your exact VP cards and their location in your shuffle.

Rebuild strategy is counter-intuitive too.  You can win with just a couple Silver and no Gold at all.  The most important card on the board is Duchy and cantrip sifters are better than drawers.  Estates hurt you worse than Curses if you've won the Duchy split, but pile-driving Estates can be better than going after Provinces if you've lost it.  I'd rather categorize Rebuild with Possession than with Jack.... high skill as well as high variance.

[heatthespurs]

Estates hurt you worse than Curses if you've won the Duchy split, but pile-driving Estates can be better than going after Provinces if you've lost it.

Not sure I get this... could you elaborate?

[kn1tt3r]

Estates hurt you worse than Curses if you've won the Duchy split, but pile-driving Estates can be better than going after Provinces if you've lost it.

Not sure I get this... could you elaborate?

He probably means that you:
1. have less chance hitting Duchy>Province with lots of Estates in your deck
2. there are no Duchies left to upgrade your Estates into (so you have to Estate>Estate, which is a dead turn basically)

Whether Curses hurt you less I don't know, but the big issue with Rebuild is that you have virtually no chance of coming back once you're behind. And this Estate problem is part of that.

[ragingduckd]

Estates hurt you worse than Curses if you've won the Duchy split, but pile-driving Estates can be better than going after Provinces if you've lost it.

Not sure I get this... could you elaborate?

He probably means that you:
1. have less chance hitting Duchy>Province with lots of Estates in your deck
2. there are no Duchies left to upgrade your Estates into (so you have to Estate>Estate, which is a dead turn basically)

Whether Curses hurt you less I don't know, but the big issue with Rebuild is that you have virtually no chance of coming back once you're behind. And this Estate problem is part of that.

Thanks, kn1tt3r.  That's most of my story.  I'll just elaborate on the pile-driving Estates defense, which I learned from SheCantSayNo.

When you lose the Duchy split, it's often because you bought some extra Rebuilds, sifters, or Estates while your opponent bought an extra Duchy and/or rebuilt his Estates faster.  So you're behind on Duchies and you're stuck with some un-rebuildable Estates.  Your deck can play Rebuild more often than your opponent's, but you're going to run out of Duchies first.

Trying to catch up by buying Provinces is tough because you don't have much cash after racing for Duchies.  But you're never too poor for Estates, and Estates are more valuable than usual.  A purchased Province is six Estates, but a Province that's rebuilt from a Duchy is only three.  Furthermore, your opponent can't buy Estates without slowing down his Duchy rebuilding (and he can't afford Provinces either).

So a reasonable defense is to buy out the remaining Estates while running out the Province pile (play Rebuild naming Estate).  If you're lucky, you make use of your deck's superior sifting/rebuilding to end the game before your opponent can rebuild use of his extra Duchies.  While losing the Duchy split is never a good thing, this defense gives you a fighting chance.  Trying to buy Provinces usually doesn't.

[SCSN]

Well, obviously the player who is ahead should just mirror that (piledive Estates and protect them upon Rebuilding), as for him trashing a Province into Province is pretty good since it brings the game closer to an end with less VP left for your opponent to grab.

I see people protecting their Provinces alot, but I'm becoming more and more convinced that while it can be the right play in a few specific situations, it's pretty bad as a default.

[ragingduckd]

Well, obviously the player who is ahead should just mirror that (piledive Estates and protect them upon Rebuilding), as for him trashing a Province into Province is pretty good since it brings the game closer to an end with less VP left for your opponent to grab.

I see people protecting their Provinces alot, but I'm becoming more and more convinced that while it can be the right play in a few specific situations, it's pretty bad as a default.

I don't quite follow.  Are you saying your play was only reasonable because I didn't respond correctly?  I thought that your defense was correct and that, as the player with the extra Duchies, I was also correct to pass on Estates.

I agree that the player with a Duchy advantage is the favorite to win if both pile-drive Estates, but he's the favorite to win anyway.  Both players pile-driving seems better for the player who lost the split than the usual situation does.

[SCSN]

Are you saying your play was only reasonable because I didn't respond correctly?

No, I think it was correct regardless of how you would respond, but I also think that your best response would have been to mirror.

Both players pile-driving seems better for the player who lost the split than the usual situation does.

How so?

[ragingduckd]

Both players pile-driving seems better for the player who lost the split than the usual situation does.

How so?

What I'm calling "the usual situation" is when the player who's ahead on Duchies rebuilds into Provinces while the player who's behind tries to actually buy a Province or two.  That's a pretty lousy proposition for the player who's behind.

On the other hand, if both players are buying Estates and naming Estate when they play Rebuild, then it's something of a crapshoot as to who ends up rebuilding Duchies and who ends up rebuilding Provinces.  There's also more opportunity for the stronger player to track his shuffle and sometimes name Province instead of Estate.  The player who's behind gets more chances to get lucky and catch up, and if he's also better at tracking his shuffles, then he has more opportunities to benefit from that skill too.

[SCSN]

On the other hand, if both players are buying Estates and naming Estate when they play Rebuild, then it's something of a crapshoot as to who ends up rebuilding Duchies and who ends up rebuilding Provinces.

Unless you have only two types of victory cards in your deck, Rebuild, like many cards in dominion, always carries with it a decent amount of randomness, regardless of what you name. I disagree that this strategy in particular makes it a crapshoot.

Assume you've won the Duchy split 5-3 and have at least one Estate*. When you want to maximize the probability of Rebuilding into Provinces, it's clearly best** to name Estate until you have at least as many Provinces as Estates. Once you have exactly as many and you are ahead, you still want to name Estate because Rebuilding Province->Province is better for you (since it brings the game closer to an end and removes VP from the kingdom) than Rebuilding Estate->Estate.

So only once you have strictly more Provinces than Estates can you even start to consider naming Province as a default. Whether you want to is a different question. If you have 3 or more Provinces, the only way for your opponent to catch up is to directly buy Provinces. In order to prevent this, you want to deplete the Province pile asap, and your best chance for doing this is again by naming Estate. So the only questionable spot that remains is having exactly 2 Provinces and one Estate, and I can't really provide a clear-cut answer to that case. I think it would depend alot on how far behind your opponent is and his chances (in terms of direct Province buys) of catching up. In any case, even this isn't a clear "name Province" spot to me.

So since in most cases it's best to name Estate, you might as well piledrive them to grab a few extra VPs and prevent your opponent from getting them. Sure, they clog your deck a bit, but that's not such a big deal as you're looking to draw one specific card, not hit a certain amount of money.

There's also more opportunity for the stronger player to track his shuffle and sometimes name Province instead of Estate.

I consider this a good thing, though I can see why you would think it's not

*When you have 5 Duchies and no Estates I think it's indeed best to always name Province and not buy Estates.
**Assuming for simplicity a fresh reshuffle with no green in hand.

[ragingduckd]

Once you have exactly as many and you are ahead, you still want to name Estate because Rebuilding Province->Province is better for you (since it brings the game closer to an end and removes VP from the kingdom) than Rebuilding Estate->Estate.

This is the key point we differ on.  I think the +Duchies player wants a longer game.  His Duchy-rebuilding prospects are better than his opponent's Province-buying prospects.

We should probably move this discussion to a dedicated thread or to e-mail.

[SCSN]

Once you have exactly as many and you are ahead, you still want to name Estate because Rebuilding Province->Province is better for you (since it brings the game closer to an end and removes VP from the kingdom) than Rebuilding Estate->Estate.

This is the key point we differ on.  I think the +Duchies player wants a longer game.  His Duchy-rebuilding prospects are better than his opponent's Province-buying prospects.

I certainly agree that his Duchy-rebuilding prospects are better than his opponent's Province-buying prospects, but that doesn't automatically mean that you want a longer game, as it might decrease your win % even if you're still a big favorite. However, I don't think it actually does and you're probably right here.

But... that still means that when the -Duchies player is going to piledrive Estates, he's evidently not going for a Province buy strategy, so you can no longer count on a long game. Now those Estates VP are going to be extra important (since there'll be quite some Province->Province Rebuilding, there's less VP overall and as you mentioned Duchy->Province only nets you 3), and generally I don't think you can afford to not mirror, unless you have 0 Estates.

I think we have to use the simulator to settle the matter, though. Whish I knew how to use it... everytime I plan on learning it I think "meh, I'd rather play an actual game!"

We should probably move this discussion to a dedicated thread or to e-mail.

Heh, at least we're still talking about a $5 card.

[SCSN]

Curiously enough, two of the three games I've played today were Rebuild games. Both were kinda interesting, but I only have the log of the second. I get "unlucky" by not being able to buy a Familiar on T3 or T4, but grab instead a Baron and a Rebuild, which I knew was a strong combo but apparently it's so strong that Familiar is too slow and I have to help my opponent piledrive the Curses!

[thirtyseven]

So, while we wait patiently for the last part, what's everyone's order for the remaining cards?

[Beyond Awesome]

So, while we wait patiently for the last part, what's everyone's order for the remaining cards?

I know I put Rebuild in my top 5. I am sad that it was severely underestimated in these rankings. Anyway, I think Mountebank will be 1, Witch 2, and Cultist 3. That's my guess for the top 3.

[brokoli]

So, while we wait patiently for the last part, what's everyone's order for the remaining cards?

I know I put Rebuild in my top 5. I am sad that it was severely underestimated in these rankings. Anyway, I think Mountebank will be 1, Witch 2, and Cultist 3. That's my guess for the top 3.

I don't think Cultist will be so high, at least not above IGG.

[SCSN]

My probably highly-controversial top 5:

1. Cultist
2. Rebuild
3. Mountebank
4. Witch
5. IGG

All are absolute power-houses, but in a kingdom consisting only of any two of these cards, the higher ranked one is gonna be dominant and the lower ranked one becomes pretty much ignorable (at least until the ruins are gone, in the case of Cultist).

[Mr Anderson]

Wharf is definitely in the top 5.

[achmed_sender]

Wharf is definitely in the top 5.

Yeah, maybe Wharf above IGG, and as 7th HP.
And I don't think Rebuild is above Witch or MB, it seems fine at 5th or 6th

[LastFootnote]

I wonder how these rankings would look if we all mostly played 4-player games. It's possible they'd be very similar, but I wouldn't be shocked if the junkers weren't all on top like this.

[Just a Rube]

I wonder how these rankings would look if we all mostly played 4-player games. It's possible they'd be very similar, but I wouldn't be shocked if the junkers weren't all on top like this.

Junkers are still pretty strong in 4 player. Sure, you can in principle skip them with less of a loss (since your opponents will be junking each other), but your deck will still be junked enough to be very painful.

What would really take a hit is cards like Minion or Hunting Party, where you want a bunch of them. It's really hard to run an engine based on either one with only 2.5 Minions or HPs. On the other hand things like Jester become insane, and pirate ship and thief become significantly stronger.

3-piling is much more common, so something like city obviously would be bumped up a lot, but once again you can't count on getting too many (especially since buying the last city is almost always a sucker's move).

Things like treasure map get stronger (simply because the odds of winning go down, so taking a gamble becomes more appealing, especially for poor player 4), while engines get weaker.

[Davio]

Saboteur becomes relatively better in the sense that if 3 players get Saboteurs, it's hard to combat a $2 loss almost every hand.

[brokoli]

I definitely think HP is overall better than Wharf, even with dark ages, because wharf is not the only good terminal draw, there are a lot of other : ghost ship, torturer, cultist, Embassy... which are better or not depending on the board. There is not so much non-terminal draw cards, only lab, stables and Hunting party.
My top 5 is something like Mountebank-Witch-IGG-Cultist-Hunting party or Rebuild

[HiveMindEmulator]

So, while we wait patiently for the last part, what's everyone's order for the remaining cards?

I know I put Rebuild in my top 5. I am sad that it was severely underestimated in these rankings. Anyway, I think Mountebank will be 1, Witch 2, and Cultist 3. That's my guess for the top 3.

I don't think Cultist will be so high, at least not above IGG.

I think Cultist is better than IGG, because it's possible to go for decks with a single Cultist and other stuff. IGG is kind of all-or-nothing. If you're not just rushing the IGGs, you're usually better of skipping them entirely, while the other junkers you can get as a part of your engine, giving them much greater utility. For me the top of the list is Mountebank, Witch, Cultist. Then I have Wharf, IGG, Governor at 4-6. But I could see IGG moving up or down a slot.

[WanderingWinder]

Someone convince me that Rebuild shouldn't be #1. Almost every time I play with it, it seems more and more like it should be.

[soulnet]

I would bet on Mountebank-Witch-Cultist-Torturer-Wharf-Governor-Ghost Ship-IGG being the top, although I suspect Ghost Ship may be underrated and Wharf and Governor may be overrated.

I think Rebuild has a similar taste to IGG in which is all-or-nothing most of the time, but IGG seems like it has more counters (basically, almost every Curser will make IGG weak, while I don't know of single cards that will make Rebuild clearly weak). Also, Rebuild seems like it will combo with many cards while IGG only combos with TfB, and not as powerfully.

[Beyond Awesome]

Someone convince me that Rebuild shouldn't be #1. Almost every time I play with it, it seems more and more like it should be.

I have been feeling that way for quite some time.

[jsh357]

I don't know about it being #1, but Rebuild's definitely top 3.

For me the Top 10 is
1. Witch
2. Mountebank
3. Rebuild
4. Wharf
5. Governor
6. Hunting Party
7. IGG
8. Tactician
9. Cultist
10. Minion

Honorable mention to Apprentice.  For the record, I think Torturer is one of the most overrated cards in the game.  Top 15, but annoying more often than it's dominating.

I have no idea how I ranked these when Qvist ran the poll, but I imagine it's different now.

[werothegreat]

Someone convince me that Rebuild shouldn't be #1. Almost every time I play with it, it seems more and more like it should be.

I have been feeling that way for quite some time.

That's because Rebuild basically does the whole point of Dominion all by itself.  All you have to do is feed it Duchies.

[flowuhpowuh]

A question because I haven't played with Rebuild too much but it seems very strong:

where do people think it would be on this list if it was terminal?
(that is, assuming that its current list position is too low)

[KingZog3]

A question because I haven't played with Rebuild too much but it seems very strong:

where do people think it would be on this list if it was terminal?
(that is, assuming that its current list position is too low)

It's current position is WAY too low, and I think it would only make it slightly worse. Yes, you can't play multiple in a turn, but it's looking like only having 2-3 is the optimal amount, and your deck is all green cards, meaning they don't collide all the time. Probably still near the top of the list.

[Mr Anderson]

When can we expect the next part?

[Qvist]

When can we expect the next part?

I'm more and more hesitant to say anything because I broke my promises already too often. But let me say Monday next week.

[Qvist]

When can we expect the next part?

I'm more and more hesitant to say anything because I broke my promises already too often. But let me say Monday next week.

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=7836.msg225808#msg225808

[Schneau]

Overall, I can't complain too much about the top of the list. We've already said a million times that Rebuild should be up here, so I won't say it again. Otherwise, it's mostly the right cards, though I do think that Torturer and Cultist are overrated and I didn't have them in the top 11 (though Cultist probably deserves it).

Otherwise, I think that Hunting Party and Wharf are a few spots overrated and Ghost Ship, Governor, and IGG are a tad underrated. But, things are close enough to not make a fuss about it.

[werothegreat]

Looks about right.  I think next time around, Rebuild and Soothsayer will both be in the top 11.

[gman314]

In my mind, Torturer belongs up here for the same reason Rebuild does: I don't understand it. When I get it, the other guy ignores it and beats it or gets his engine going faster, and when I ignore it, the other guy Torturer-pins me. Similar things happen with Rebuild.

[Robz888]

Eh, this list has all the right cards (well, except Rebuild, which should probably be #1), but in a rather off order.

Here's the correct list, ignoring the Rebuild problem:

1. Witch -- It's better than Mountebank. No by much. But it is. The Curses fly in faster, making them harder to block.
2. Mountebank -- Occasionally the extra damage would be an upgrade over Witch. Is this usually the case? I don't think so. And then consider all the cases where the extra attack is preferable, like Counting House, Trader, Gardens, possibly Apothecary and PStone.
3. Cultist -- Junk is junk. And you can chain this guy.
4. Wharf -- I sense this should be a place behind Cultist, but I could be wrong.
5. IGG -- Almost always important.
6. Governor -- Again, almost always important.
7. Hunting Party -- Hugely overrated on this list! Don't get me wrong, it's a great card. Really great. The stack does wonders. But the top 6 are just even more essential, usually, and no less strong. Governor may be a little more skippable than HP, but I think it has an even bigger effect on the game when you do need it. The rest aren't really close.
8. Torturer -- These last three are hard to rank, and I could actually see Minion beating out Torturer. But when a Torturer chain is possible, that's just like automatically the thing to go for, it's so strong.
9. Minion
10. Ghost Ship

[Robz888]

Oh, and I wasn't really considering the Guilds cards at all, obviously. No idea about them yet. The Cursing one should of course grace the top 10. But I've only played with it once.

[WanderingWinder]

IGG is overrated.

[eHalcyon]

Who put Mountebank at 22%?? 

[SirPeebles]

Who put Mountebank at 22%?? 

Same person who put IGG at 5% and Governor at 0% ?

[Powerman]

Will post full comments later, but main thing I say is Tactician is overrated.  It's not great for good engines, because well... normally they can work both turns anyway.  It's not great for terminal draw BM.  It's best either as Double-Tac, which needs a good board for it, or in some weird combo deck.  Regardless, I think it should not be ahead of say... Margrave, or Embassy.

[Beyond Awesome]

Overall, seems mostly right. Rebuild being 26 is the grossest mistake ever. I agree with Powerman that Tactician is overrated. I wouldn't have it in the top 11.

I think Robz has the rankings spot on except Mountebank is usually better than Witch. I would put Cultist above Wharf and Governor above Hunting Party. With Soothsayer maybe the top 5 will look something like this.

1. Rebuild
2. Mountebank
3. Witch
4. Cultist
5. Soothsayer

Maybe Soothsayer is better than Cultist, but Cultist is so fast. And, I have only used Soothsayer like 3 times or so.

[jsh357]

I can't see Soothsayer being that high on the list... giving your opponent a Lab is too big a drawback, especially if they are playing with the knowledge that they might be getting a Lab.  Not saying it's a bad $5 card by any means, but Witch/MBank/Cultist are so good because they flat out give your opponent junk.  The Gold gain is of course great, but not immediate and pretty useless in the last couple of turns barring edge cases.

[Beyond Awesome]

I can't see Soothsayer being that high on the list... giving your opponent a Lab is too big a drawback, especially if they are playing with the knowledge that they might be getting a Lab.  Not saying it's a bad $5 card by any means, but Witch/MBank/Cultist are so good because they flat out give your opponent junk.  The Gold gain is of course great, but not immediate and pretty useless in the last couple of turns barring edge cases.

I have not played with Soothsayer much, but the reason I think it might hit that high (and, it very well might not) is because it makes the game fast for a cursing game. Of the three games I played two of them ended 16 and 18 turns respectively.

[eHalcyon]

I can't see Soothsayer being that high on the list... giving your opponent a Lab is too big a drawback, especially if they are playing with the knowledge that they might be getting a Lab.  Not saying it's a bad $5 card by any means, but Witch/MBank/Cultist are so good because they flat out give your opponent junk.  The Gold gain is of course great, but not immediate and pretty useless in the last couple of turns barring edge cases.

I have not played with Soothsayer much, but the reason I think it might hit that high (and, it very well might not) is because it makes the game fast for a cursing game. Of the three games I played two of them ended 16 and 18 turns respectively.

Why does that suggest that Soothsayer is better?  You could interpret it as being worse because it doesn't slow down your opponents as well.

[jaybeez]

Maybe Soothsayer is better than Cultist, but Cultist is so fast. And, I have only used Soothsayer like 3 times or so.

Not that I have a great feel for Soothsayer, but I feel like Cultist has to be better, because, like you said, Cultist is SO FAST.  And Soothsayer really isn't, it's slow.  The free Gold is great, but it actually slows you down, it means you're going to be just that much slower getting back to the Soothsayer again.  And it actually helps your opponent get to a reshuffle a little sooner!  When there isn't another junker on the board, that doesn't matter.  But I think Soothsayer has to be the weakest of the $5 junkers overall, because of the tempo issue.  Not to mention the fact that it's the only $5 junker that does nothing at all for you the turn you play it.

I feel it's kind of like the difference between Marauder and Sea Hag, sort of.  Sea Hag's better mostly because it's faster, although its "speed" derives more from the fact that it's very effective at slowing your opponents down rather than accelerating your game.  The Spoils from Marauder is great, but the tempo advantage that Sea Hag gives you outweighs whatever benefit you might get from the Spoils.

EDIT: unrelated, but I just have to say, Hunting Party and Ill-Gotten Gains are both overrated here.  And I say that as someone who loves both HP stacks and going for IGG rushes.

[SirPeebles]

I think that the power of Soothsayer will be that, even if you lose the Curse split 4-6, you have the extra 4 Golds too.  If the game turns into a slog, then the extra buying power from your Golds may well make up for the loss in the Curse split.

Edit:  Also, I see lots of people comment that the Soothsayer doesn't give enough immediate benefit.  Witch gives +2 Cards.  Mountebank gives +$2.  But Soothsayer's Gold you won't see until the next reshuffle!  But one thing to keep in mind is, what were you going to do with that +2 Cards or +$2?  For much of the game, you would hope for it to boost you to $6 so that you can afford to buy a Gold (which you won't draw until next shuffle!).  Soothsayer just gives you that Gold outright, leaving you to spend the remainder of your hand on a Silver or something.  This is weaker in the end game when you want a Province, not a Gold.  But hey, by that point your Soothsayer has already accumulated what, four or five Golds?  She's done her job.

[AJD]

I think that the power of Soothsayer will be that, even if you lose the Curse split 4-6, you have the extra 4 Golds too.  If the game turns into a slog, then the extra buying power from your Golds may well make up for the loss in the Curse split.

But if you lose the Curse split, doesn't your opponent have more Golds as well?

[SirPeebles]

I think that the power of Soothsayer will be that, even if you lose the Curse split 4-6, you have the extra 4 Golds too.  If the game turns into a slog, then the extra buying power from your Golds may well make up for the loss in the Curse split.

But if you lose the Curse split, doesn't your opponent have more Golds as well?

I thought we were talking about Soothsayer's strength relative to other junkers.  So I'm assuming that your opponent bought, say, Witch instead.

You can't really argue that Soothsayer is weak because it lost in a mirror match with itself.

[jaybeez]

But one thing to keep in mind is, what were you going to do with that +2 Cards or +$2?  For much of the game, you would hope for it to boost you to $6 so that you can afford to buy a Gold (which you won't draw until next shuffle!).

Well, sometimes you want $6 for a Gold.  But often getting to $5 is actually more important, which +2 Cards or +$2 can help you do right away as opposed to next shuffle.  And the +2 Cards bonus helps you get to play your key cards like your junker(s) more.  I just don't think exchanging that for a free Gold (and giving your opponent a Council Room effect!) is a good move.

[markusin]

I think Cultist has a slight edge over Witch in games with good trashing. Witch is devastating when ignoring it leaves you with a deck of 10 or so curses at the end, but when good trashing is available it's harder to keep up with the ruins of the Cultist than the curses of the Witch. The tempo loss when facing against Cultist can really leave you behind.

And Soothsayer? You can still maintain an engine if you can trash the gold for benefit. And that +1 card the other player gets for some reason doesn't seem to be as much of a backfire as Council Room, maybe because curses are bound to be present.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Cultist is underrated, probably from lack of experience at the time we voted. And Hunting Party is overrated, which I think is consistent with the general trend that stuff that is simple is viewed as being stronger since it doesn't require too much thought or skill to play it well enough.

IGG is overrated.

Where do you have it?

The way I see it, it's bad when there is strong trashing, but otherwise it's like completely dominant. That's worse than the junking attacks and Wharf and Governor and Rebuild, which seem to be key cards practically all the time, but it's better than everything else.

[Powerman]

Cultist is underrated, probably from lack of experience at the time we voted. And Hunting Party is overrated, which I think is consistent with the general trend that stuff that is simple is viewed as being stronger since it doesn't require too much thought or skill to play it well enough.

IGG is overrated.

Where do you have it?

The way I see it, it's bad when there is strong trashing, but otherwise it's like completely dominant. That's worse than the junking attacks and Wharf and Governor and Rebuild, which seem to be key cards practically all the time, but it's better than everything else.

I don't think it is overrated.  There are few strategies that can beat uncontested HP.  And contesting and losing 6-4 is normally gg.  Even cursers have decent counters (trashing, sifting, HP), and losing the curse split 6-4 is alright if you have slightly better economy afterward.

I'd say for the $5's there is a big 7: Wharf, HP, Rebuild, Cultist, IGG, Witch, Mountebank.  The order within these depends a lot on individual player preference -- ie. BM vs. Engine.

Then it's the group of MUCH more board dependent cards: Torturer, Minion, Governor, and (not as much so) Ghost Ship.  Torturer needs village support, Minion needs trashing, Governor needs one of a number of things, Ghost Ship isn't as much so.

But, those are just my thoughts.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Cultist is underrated, probably from lack of experience at the time we voted. And Hunting Party is overrated, which I think is consistent with the general trend that stuff that is simple is viewed as being stronger since it doesn't require too much thought or skill to play it well enough.

I don't think it is overrated.  There are few strategies that can beat uncontested HP.  And contesting and losing 6-4 is normally gg.  Even cursers have decent counters (trashing, sifting, HP), and losing the curse split 6-4 is alright if you have slightly better economy afterward.

Actually, I'd probably say "there are few really simple strategies that can beat uncontested HP (with a sufficiently good terminal)". There are plenty of strategies that beat HP-centric strategies, they just involve more than 2 kinds of kingdom cards.

I would also not say HP counters cursing. I'd say the opposite. And I also don't think a 6-4 HP split is as bad as you make it out to be. You can make the same argument you made about losing the Curse split. If you have a better deck otherwise, it's fine to be on the losing end of either split.

Anyway, I think HP is probably about 4 spots too high. It's not like I want it out of the top 10. But I do think it's more in the company of Torturer and Minion than Wharf and IGG.

[serakfalcon]

I think Robz has the rankings spot on except Mountebank is usually better than Witch. I would put Cultist above Wharf and Governor above Hunting Party. With Soothsayer maybe the top 5 will look something like this.

1. Rebuild
2. Mountebank
3. Witch
4. Cultist
5. Soothsayer

lololol Rebuild isn't that good come on

[loppo]

I think Robz has the rankings spot on except Mountebank is usually better than Witch. I would put Cultist above Wharf and Governor above Hunting Party. With Soothsayer maybe the top 5 will look something like this.

1. Rebuild
2. Mountebank
3. Witch
4. Cultist
5. Soothsayer

lololol Rebuild isn't that good come on

hmm..., Rebuild is that good in a province/estate game. Add shelters and/or colonies and you have a different picture. The more i play with rebuild the more i think shelters should be autoincluded when rebuild is in the kingdom to eve things out.

[brokoli]

Wharf is a great, but I don't see it as an essential card, unlike Hunting party. IGG is really dominant most of the time. I don't remember any game where I ignored Cultist, although this could be a mistake because DA is still recent.
I'm tempted to say that Tactician should be higher than ghost ship, but it is very dependent. And Minion is as always overrated...

My top 10 :
1. Mountebank
2. Rebuild
3. Witch
4. IGG
5. Cultist
6. Hunting party
7. Wharf
8. Governor (I may be in bad faith since I hate this card, but it doesn't seems so strong for me)
9. Ghost ship / Tactician
10. Ghost ship / Tacician

And I have no idea where to put Soothsayer. I think the gold gaining is a little bit overrated and the free lab can be very good for the opponent in a game with slow or fast trashing, so I think it won't belong in the first part of the list, but I may be wrong because I played no more than 3 games with this card.

[Qvist]

I think Counterfeit is pretty mediocre

I disagree, I think it's amazing.

Ok. I make a confession. As you might know I'm a big fan of Counterfeit. I've put Counterfeit at #13 and I thought while making that, that it's probably too high, but now I'm more and more sure that this about the correct rank. It should be somewhere around rank #15 and is currently still way underrated. You want it almost always over your first Gold.

And now I just saw this video of WanderingWinder:
Amazing!

[ragingduckd]

You want it almost always over your first Gold.

I'd be interested to see the base cards included next time around.

This is a fun read and a great resource. Really nice work, Qvist!

[RTT]

You want it almost always over your first Gold.

I'd be interested to see the base cards included next time around.

This is a fun read and a great resource. Really nice work, Qvist!

Best Cards List 2014: 8$ Cards
#1 Province
#2 Peddler

[Qvist]

You want it almost always over your first Gold.

I'd be interested to see the base cards included next time around.

The majority declined that. See for example this: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=5693.0

[SirPeebles]

You want it almost always over your first Gold.

I'd be interested to see the base cards included next time around.

This is a fun read and a great resource. Really nice work, Qvist!

Best Cards List 2014: 8$ Cards
#1 Province
#2 Peddler

What about $8 Stonemason for two Grand Markets?

*ducks*

[NoMoreFun]

Best $10 cards

1) Masterpiece, gaining 7 silvers
2) Herald, setting up a hand plus an extra card
3) Doctor, sifting 7 cards
4) Stonemason, gaining 2 Peddlers

[liopoil]

10$ doctor is probably better than 10$ herald, right? I mean, it obviously depends, but early in the game that doctor is huge. If you have 2 KC and 3 Bridges in your discard, on the other hand...

[gman314]

Best $10 cards

...
4) Stonemason, gaining 2 Peddlers

Only works if you have $10 with no actions.

[gman314]

And, I now have a weird rules question. Can Stonemason gain two Peddlers for $0 if you overpay by $0 for it after playing at least 4 action cards?

[liopoil]

we've been over that one, the answer is no.

I think you could also gain two peddlers from a 10$ stonemason that you bought from the black market deck.

[eHalcyon]

And, I now have a weird rules question. Can Stonemason gain two Peddlers for $0 if you overpay by $0 for it after playing at least 4 action cards?

No, overpay cannot be $0. But you can overpay $P.

[Just a Rube]

Best $10 cards

...
4) Stonemason, gaining 2 Peddlers

Only works if you have $10 with no actions.

My death cart trashed itself. As did my mining villages and Dame Sylvia.

Hey, I really wanted those peddlers!

[gman314]

Dame Sylvia didn't trash herself; Sir Vander trashed her!

[SirPeebles]

Dame Sylvia didn't trash herself; Sir Vander trashed her!

Cards don't trash people;  people trash people.

[LastFootnote]

hmm..., Rebuild is that good in a province/estate game. Add shelters and/or colonies and you have a different picture. The more i play with rebuild the more i think shelters should be autoincluded when rebuild is in the kingdom to eve things out.

Yeah, there are a lot of cards that are better in their own expansion, but Rebuild stands out as the card that's the worst in the context of its own expansion. It's like it needs the other Dark Ages cards to hold it back. Shelters are the big one, of course, but Knights (and perhaps Rogue) can also really hurt a Rebuild strategy.

[AJD]

Yeah, there are a lot of cards that are better in their own expansion, but Rebuild stands out as the card that's the worst in the context of its own expansion.

Good point! There's an old thread about this; I think I might nominate Philosopher's Stone for top honors in this category.

[Schneau]

In the Secret History of Dark Ages, Donald says that Rebuild was a late addition to the set. This may be the reason it fits so poorly with Dark Ages.

[Qvist]

In the Secret History of Dark Ages, Donald says that Rebuild was a late addition to the set. This may be the reason it's overpowered and not balanced.

FIFY

[LastFootnote]

In the Secret History of Dark Ages, Donald says that Rebuild was a late addition to the set. This may be the reason it's overpowered and not balanced.

FIFY

Yeah. Goons was also a late addition to its set. I'm seeing a pattern here.

Good point! There's an old thread about this; I think I might nominate Philosopher's Stone for top honors in this category.

Good call, although experience tells me that I'm actually more likely to buy a Philosopher's Stone in an Alchemy heavy game simply because I'm more likely to have a Potion to spend. Rarely am I buying a Potion just for PStone. Obviously in a Scrying Pool deck or one with a bunch of Alchemists I don't want the Stones. But in a game with Familiar, Herbalist, even Golem, I really do want them.

[HiveMindEmulator]

In the Secret History of Dark Ages, Donald says that Rebuild was a late addition to the set. This may be the reason it fits so poorly with Dark Ages.

This brings up an interesting question. Donald says: "Originally it didn't give +1 Action, but that version could not compete." But from everything I'm reading people say about Rebuild, it seems like it would pretty strong even without the +1 Action. What gives? I'm sure Donald tested just mass Rebuild+Duchy in Province games without shelters. Are we missing something and overestimating its strength?

[Awaclus]

I'm not sure if Rebuild is better than Cultist, but if it isn't, Cultist should be the #1.

[Schneau]

In the Secret History of Dark Ages, Donald says that Rebuild was a late addition to the set. This may be the reason it fits so poorly with Dark Ages.

This brings up an interesting question. Donald says: "Originally it didn't give +1 Action, but that version could not compete." But from everything I'm reading people say about Rebuild, it seems like it would pretty strong even without the +1 Action. What gives? I'm sure Donald tested just mass Rebuild+Duchy in Province games without shelters. Are we missing something and overestimating its strength?

Part of it may be because Donald aimed the game at 3-player and 4-player more than 2-player, and maybe straight Rebuild + Duchy isn't as powerful there? I'm not even sure that's true since I haven't played any 3+ player games with Rebuild, but maybe it is?

[gman314]

I played a 3p game with Rebuild, and it was reasonably strong there.

[ragingduckd]

I played a 3p game with Rebuild, and it was reasonably strong there.

I'd expect Rebuild to be at its best in a 4-player game, with only 3 Provinces per player.

[WanderingWinder]

IGG is overrated.

Where do you have it?

The way I see it, it's bad when there is strong trashing, but otherwise it's like completely dominant. That's worse than the junking attacks and Wharf and Governor and Rebuild, which seem to be key cards practically all the time, but it's better than everything else.

Around 10th. It's bad with strong trashing, or in rushes, or with other cursers, or against good engines which have just middling trashing, and otherwise it's usually strong - but not *totally* dominant.

[AJD]

IGG is overrated.

Where do you have it?

The way I see it, it's bad when there is strong trashing, but otherwise it's like completely dominant. That's worse than the junking attacks and Wharf and Governor and Rebuild, which seem to be key cards practically all the time, but it's better than everything else.

Around 10th. It's bad with strong trashing, or in rushes, or with other cursers, or against good engines which have just middling trashing, and otherwise it's usually strong - but not *totally* dominant.

It's bad in rushes? Isn't the IGG-Gardens rush totally a thing? (And the IGG-Duchy rush too, of course.)

[Davio]

IGG is overrated.

Where do you have it?

The way I see it, it's bad when there is strong trashing, but otherwise it's like completely dominant. That's worse than the junking attacks and Wharf and Governor and Rebuild, which seem to be key cards practically all the time, but it's better than everything else.

Around 10th. It's bad with strong trashing, or in rushes, or with other cursers, or against good engines which have just middling trashing, and otherwise it's usually strong - but not *totally* dominant.

It's bad in rushes? Isn't the IGG-Gardens rush totally a thing? (And the IGG-Duchy rush too, of course.)

The IGG-Duchy rush isn't really a rush as you're only gaining one card per turn, so it will take at best ~20 turns to get them, which is plenty of time for a decent engine to overcome the Curses and points.

On to the actual list.

I would actually rate Wharf above Witch.
And of course Rebuild feels sad for being so low.

[HiveMindEmulator]

IGG is overrated.

Where do you have it?

The way I see it, it's bad when there is strong trashing, but otherwise it's like completely dominant. That's worse than the junking attacks and Wharf and Governor and Rebuild, which seem to be key cards practically all the time, but it's better than everything else.

Around 10th. It's bad with strong trashing, or in rushes, or with other cursers, or against good engines which have just middling trashing, and otherwise it's usually strong - but not *totally* dominant.

It's bad in rushes? Isn't the IGG-Gardens rush totally a thing? (And the IGG-Duchy rush too, of course.)

The IGG-Duchy rush isn't really a rush as you're only gaining one card per turn, so it will take at best ~20 turns to get them, which is plenty of time for a decent engine to overcome the Curses and points.

You definitely need more than a "decent" engine to overcome the Curses. If you go IGG and your opponent doesn't, it's pretty easy to buy Provinces if you just add in any draw card, since your deck is mostly treasures. Then the engine guy has to work his way through 10 Curses which slows down building up the engine a lot, and often by then the IGG guy can get half the Provinces. It's not a "rush", but you need good trashing to make an engine build up fast enough against it. IGG+Duchy is really only for the mirror.

[achmed_sender]

I'd say Cultist is above Witch. Of course, the ruins are way better than Curses, but if there is trashing, you have to trash the cards anyway and then nobody cares how bad the trashed cards were. So in this case (maybe more than 50% of curse games have trashing I suppose), Cultist is judt ridiculous faster in junking your opponents.
I had a game with a elite trasher (steward?) witch and cultist. My opponent went for witch, I went Cultist. He only gave me about 3 curses when the ruins pile was empty!

[DG]

Cultists have one big problem. Ruins are not so bad as curses. This leads to a variety of weaknesses, not least that looters are vulnerable to a 3 pile finish with the ruins having no direct impact on the score.

[jsh357]

While I'll agree Cultist can win against Witch when you pit them one on one, I still think Witch is a better card that's useful in a bigger variety of games.  Curses can win you a mirror, Ruins can't (unless Gardens or Vines are involved).  Curses can be Rabbled, Fortune Tellered, etc.  Ruins can occasionally help your opponent.  Don't get me wrong, Cultist is good, but there's no way it's above Witch and Mountebank.  Maybe it's better for some games, but not enough to rank it above them.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I'd say Cultist is above Witch. Of course, the ruins are way better than Curses, but if there is trashing, you have to trash the cards anyway and then nobody cares how bad the trashed cards were. So in this case (maybe more than 50% of curse games have trashing I suppose), Cultist is judt ridiculous faster in junking your opponents.
I had a game with a elite trasher (steward?) witch and cultist. My opponent went for witch, I went Cultist. He only gave me about 3 curses when the ruins pile was empty!

If you're going to trash the Ruins/Curses, then there's not much point in going mass Cultist. And in the case that you just have 1 Cultist, it's not any faster than Witch at junking. If you're not going to trash them, then Witch is better since Curses affect score. The only place Cultist is better is in the semi-engine decks where you're getting much of your draw from a Cultist chain. I'm not sure that happens often enough to make Cultist better than Witch.

[Awaclus]

I think that junking is relevant even in the presence of a trasher, because it slows down the trashing a lot. And the faster your junker is, the more it slows down the opponent's trashing. Mountebank is probably the best here, but Cultist is better than Witch. And without a trasher, getting two or more junkers is easy and often the correct play (though less so for Witches), and your Cultists never collide.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I think that junking is relevant even in the presence of a trasher, because it slows down the trashing a lot. And the faster your junker is, the more it slows down the opponent's trashing. Mountebank is probably the best here, but Cultist is better than Witch. And without a trasher, getting two or more junkers is easy and often the correct play (though less so for Witches), and your Cultists never collide.

Junking is still relevant, but you usually only want 1 junker, so you can use your other buys on actual engine pieces. And if you only have one Cultist, the only advantage over Witch is the on-trash ability. Cultist is only faster than Witch if you mass it. But by massing it you slow down your engine building.

[LastFootnote]

I think that junking is relevant even in the presence of a trasher, because it slows down the trashing a lot. And the faster your junker is, the more it slows down the opponent's trashing. Mountebank is probably the best here, but Cultist is better than Witch. And without a trasher, getting two or more junkers is easy and often the correct play (though less so for Witches), and your Cultists never collide.

Junking is still relevant, but you usually only want 1 junker, so you can use your other buys on actual engine pieces. And if you only have one Cultist, the only advantage over Witch is the on-trash ability. Cultist is only faster than Witch if you mass it. But by massing it you slow down your engine building.

I don't think that's quite fair. Unlike Witches, Cultists themselves can make a decent draw component for an engine precisely because you can chain them.

[Powerman]

I think it is most appropriate at the $5 price point to group the actions by what they do to see the relative strengths.  Yes, these are not perfect (witch is after all a terminal draw and a junker, but... it's more of a junker than a drawer).

Junkers: Mountebank, Witch, Ill-Gotten Gains, Cultist
Terminal Draw: Wharf, Torturer, Ghost Ship, Margrave, Vault, Embassy, Catacombs, Rabble, Council Room, Library
Non-Terminal Draw: Hunting Party, Laboratory, Stables
Silver+ Treasures: Venture, Royal Seal, Cache, Contraband, Stash
Trash (from hand): Apprentice, Upgrade, Junk Dealer, Counterfeit, Trading Post, Graverobber, Mine
Terminal Money: Haggler, Jester, Merchant Ship, Mandarin, Explorer, Harvest
Village: Bandit Camp, Bazaar, Festival, City, Inn
Cantrip +: Highway, Cartographer, Market, Treasury
Trash (from opponent): Knights, Rogue, Saboteur
Other: Governor, Minion, Tactician, Duke, Count, Rebuild, Horn of Plenty, Band of Misfits, Pillage, Mint, Mystic, Tribute, Outpost, Counting House

What does this tell us generally?  Well, nothing we didn't already know, but it does say something about the mechanics...
-Junkers are very strong
-Terminal Draw is strong
-Non-Terminal Draw is good
-Silver+/Gold- treasures are very weak
-Trashing is a mixed bag.  Having a +Action makes them much better.
-Terminal money is pretty weak.
-Villages and cantrip+'s are middle of the road... useful, but rarely important on their own.
-Trashing from your opponents is pretty weak.

I find it most interesting looking in the other category.  A player just reading the text of Counting House and Rebuild would probably not be able to guess one is really strong and one is really weak...

[HiveMindEmulator]

I think that junking is relevant even in the presence of a trasher, because it slows down the trashing a lot. And the faster your junker is, the more it slows down the opponent's trashing. Mountebank is probably the best here, but Cultist is better than Witch. And without a trasher, getting two or more junkers is easy and often the correct play (though less so for Witches), and your Cultists never collide.

Junking is still relevant, but you usually only want 1 junker, so you can use your other buys on actual engine pieces. And if you only have one Cultist, the only advantage over Witch is the on-trash ability. Cultist is only faster than Witch if you mass it. But by massing it you slow down your engine building.

I don't think that's quite fair. Unlike Witches, Cultists themselves can make a decent draw component for an engine precisely because you can chain them.

This is why I previously stated that there is one set of scenarios in which Cultist is better than Witch, and that's semi-engine where you're using Cultists to draw. But Cultists aren't the best drawers, so in many engines you'd rather look somewhere else for your drawing, and it's likely going to require spending your $5 buys on that.

It is an interesting question how often this comes up. I guess if you have villages that decrease hand-size, Cultist becomes a more attractive drawer since you will be able to get some off without spending actions on them. Perhaps you're willing to get a second or third Cultist in this case. If there's no other good draw, you may be forced to use it as the draw card. What else?

Then the question is how often these scenarios show up and how important they are compared to the scenarios where Witch is better (times when you won't end up trashing the Curses).

[markusin]

The thing about Cultist is that it gives you more options than Witch after the junk pile is empty. You can trash it and get a nice 1-turn bonus, or get a bunch of them and go for some sort of terminal draw thing. I'd say that just trashing the Cultists after the ruins have been given out tends to be more helpful. Now if your opponent has all the ruins, terminal draw is probably enough to seal the game, but if your opponent retaliates with junkers of their own it might not be enough.

Scenarios where you have a semi-engine that can use Cultist for draw are pretty uncommon. More often, loading up on Cultists strips your deck of whatever your deck could have been and turns it into a terminal draw deck. Even when there is a semi-engine, the Cultist draw is not that great.

[mail-mi]

The thing about Cultist is that it gives you more options than Witch after the junk pile is empty. You can trash it and get a nice 1-turn bonus, or get a bunch of them and go for some sort of terminal draw thing. I'd say that just trashing the Cultists after the ruins have been given out tends to be more helpful. Now if your opponent has all the ruins, terminal draw is probably enough to seal the game, but if your opponent retaliates with junkers of their own it might not be enough.

Scenarios where you have a semi-engine that can use Cultist for draw are pretty uncommon. More often, loading up on Cultists strips your deck of whatever your deck could have been and turns it into a terminal draw deck. Even when there is a semi-engine, the Cultist draw is not that great.

R u kidding? I do cultist engines all the time.

[KingZog3]

The thing about Cultist is that it gives you more options than Witch after the junk pile is empty. You can trash it and get a nice 1-turn bonus, or get a bunch of them and go for some sort of terminal draw thing. I'd say that just trashing the Cultists after the ruins have been given out tends to be more helpful. Now if your opponent has all the ruins, terminal draw is probably enough to seal the game, but if your opponent retaliates with junkers of their own it might not be enough.

Scenarios where you have a semi-engine that can use Cultist for draw are pretty uncommon. More often, loading up on Cultists strips your deck of whatever your deck could have been and turns it into a terminal draw deck. Even when there is a semi-engine, the Cultist draw is not that great.

R u kidding? I do cultist engines all the time.

Cultist draw works often enough that its quite good. And why does it make it terminal draw? I have Village and Cultist in my hand, and draw 2 more Cultists is better than having a Hunting Grounds. Sure I had to buy all the Cultists, but I also probably loaded my opponent with all the Ruins in a time frame of about 3-4 turns. Yes the +3 cards on trash ability is great with TFB cards, but using Cultist simply to draw after the Ruins are gone is good.

[markusin]

The thing about Cultist is that it gives you more options than Witch after the junk pile is empty. You can trash it and get a nice 1-turn bonus, or get a bunch of them and go for some sort of terminal draw thing. I'd say that just trashing the Cultists after the ruins have been given out tends to be more helpful. Now if your opponent has all the ruins, terminal draw is probably enough to seal the game, but if your opponent retaliates with junkers of their own it might not be enough.

Scenarios where you have a semi-engine that can use Cultist for draw are pretty uncommon. More often, loading up on Cultists strips your deck of whatever your deck could have been and turns it into a terminal draw deck. Even when there is a semi-engine, the Cultist draw is not that great.

R u kidding? I do cultist engines all the time.

I still think Cultist doesn't make for particularly powerful engines when it's the only draw card. I don't think I ever get more than 3 Cultists, and it seems to me that massing up cultists like they were minions is not optimal. It only looks strong relative to your ruins ridden opponent's deck.

[markusin]

The thing about Cultist is that it gives you more options than Witch after the junk pile is empty. You can trash it and get a nice 1-turn bonus, or get a bunch of them and go for some sort of terminal draw thing. I'd say that just trashing the Cultists after the ruins have been given out tends to be more helpful. Now if your opponent has all the ruins, terminal draw is probably enough to seal the game, but if your opponent retaliates with junkers of their own it might not be enough.

Scenarios where you have a semi-engine that can use Cultist for draw are pretty uncommon. More often, loading up on Cultists strips your deck of whatever your deck could have been and turns it into a terminal draw deck. Even when there is a semi-engine, the Cultist draw is not that great.

R u kidding? I do cultist engines all the time.

Cultist draw works often enough that its quite good. And why does it make it terminal draw? I have Village and Cultist in my hand, and draw 2 more Cultists is better than having a Hunting Grounds. Sure I had to buy all the Cultists, but I also probably loaded my opponent with all the Ruins in a time frame of about 3-4 turns. Yes the +3 cards on trash ability is great with TFB cards, but using Cultist simply to draw after the Ruins are gone is good.

That's exactly it. Cultist is such a hard card to ignore because it not only dishes out ruins really quickly, but it also has a follow-up plan. However, the draw ability of the Cultist wanes when the ruins are split between the players, as it often is. You'll just draw more ruins a lot of the time. That's when cards like forager come to the rescue.

[KingZog3]

The thing about Cultist is that it gives you more options than Witch after the junk pile is empty. You can trash it and get a nice 1-turn bonus, or get a bunch of them and go for some sort of terminal draw thing. I'd say that just trashing the Cultists after the ruins have been given out tends to be more helpful. Now if your opponent has all the ruins, terminal draw is probably enough to seal the game, but if your opponent retaliates with junkers of their own it might not be enough.

Scenarios where you have a semi-engine that can use Cultist for draw are pretty uncommon. More often, loading up on Cultists strips your deck of whatever your deck could have been and turns it into a terminal draw deck. Even when there is a semi-engine, the Cultist draw is not that great.

R u kidding? I do cultist engines all the time.

Cultist draw works often enough that its quite good. And why does it make it terminal draw? I have Village and Cultist in my hand, and draw 2 more Cultists is better than having a Hunting Grounds. Sure I had to buy all the Cultists, but I also probably loaded my opponent with all the Ruins in a time frame of about 3-4 turns. Yes the +3 cards on trash ability is great with TFB cards, but using Cultist simply to draw after the Ruins are gone is good.

That's exactly it. Cultist is such a hard card to ignore because it not only dishes out ruins really quickly, but it also has a follow-up plan. However, the draw ability of the Cultist wanes when the ruins are split between the players, as it often is. You'll just draw more ruins a lot of the time. That's when cards like forager come to the rescue.

Well Forager can be good enough trashing that maybe Cultists may not be the best option (sometimes). But the fact still remains, Cultist draw is pretty good. It's irrelevant whether Ruins block it, because maybe you have watchtower to trash them when you gain them. It depends on the board.

[markusin]

The thing about Cultist is that it gives you more options than Witch after the junk pile is empty. You can trash it and get a nice 1-turn bonus, or get a bunch of them and go for some sort of terminal draw thing. I'd say that just trashing the Cultists after the ruins have been given out tends to be more helpful. Now if your opponent has all the ruins, terminal draw is probably enough to seal the game, but if your opponent retaliates with junkers of their own it might not be enough.

Scenarios where you have a semi-engine that can use Cultist for draw are pretty uncommon. More often, loading up on Cultists strips your deck of whatever your deck could have been and turns it into a terminal draw deck. Even when there is a semi-engine, the Cultist draw is not that great.

R u kidding? I do cultist engines all the time.

Cultist draw works often enough that its quite good. And why does it make it terminal draw? I have Village and Cultist in my hand, and draw 2 more Cultists is better than having a Hunting Grounds. Sure I had to buy all the Cultists, but I also probably loaded my opponent with all the Ruins in a time frame of about 3-4 turns. Yes the +3 cards on trash ability is great with TFB cards, but using Cultist simply to draw after the Ruins are gone is good.

That's exactly it. Cultist is such a hard card to ignore because it not only dishes out ruins really quickly, but it also has a follow-up plan. However, the draw ability of the Cultist wanes when the ruins are split between the players, as it often is. You'll just draw more ruins a lot of the time. That's when cards like forager come to the rescue.

Well Forager can be good enough trashing that maybe Cultists may not be the best option (sometimes). But the fact still remains, Cultist draw is pretty good. It's irrelevant whether Ruins block it, because maybe you have watchtower to trash them when you gain them. It depends on the board.

Fair enough. It's much better draw than Witch anyway. But you know, often times players will want to trash their witch once the curses are gone because the Witch won't add much anymore, so why not the Cultist as well? It even gives you a bonus if you trash it. Of course, you get the best of both worlds by playing Cultist with Procession. Now that's a great payoff.

[mail-mi]

The thing about Cultist is that it gives you more options than Witch after the junk pile is empty. You can trash it and get a nice 1-turn bonus, or get a bunch of them and go for some sort of terminal draw thing. I'd say that just trashing the Cultists after the ruins have been given out tends to be more helpful. Now if your opponent has all the ruins, terminal draw is probably enough to seal the game, but if your opponent retaliates with junkers of their own it might not be enough.

Scenarios where you have a semi-engine that can use Cultist for draw are pretty uncommon. More often, loading up on Cultists strips your deck of whatever your deck could have been and turns it into a terminal draw deck. Even when there is a semi-engine, the Cultist draw is not that great.

R u kidding? I do cultist engines all the time.

Cultist draw works often enough that its quite good. And why does it make it terminal draw? I have Village and Cultist in my hand, and draw 2 more Cultists is better than having a Hunting Grounds. Sure I had to buy all the Cultists, but I also probably loaded my opponent with all the Ruins in a time frame of about 3-4 turns. Yes the +3 cards on trash ability is great with TFB cards, but using Cultist simply to draw after the Ruins are gone is good.

That's exactly it. Cultist is such a hard card to ignore because it not only dishes out ruins really quickly, but it also has a follow-up plan. However, the draw ability of the Cultist wanes when the ruins are split between the players, as it often is. You'll just draw more ruins a lot of the time. That's when cards like forager come to the rescue.

Well Forager can be good enough trashing that maybe Cultists may not be the best option (sometimes). But the fact still remains, Cultist draw is pretty good. It's irrelevant whether Ruins block it, because maybe you have watchtower to trash them when you gain them. It depends on the board.

Fair enough. It's much better draw than Witch anyway. But you know, often times players will want to trash their witch once the curses are gone because the Witch won't add much anymore, so why not the Cultist as well? It even gives you a bonus if you trash it. Of course, you get the best of both worlds by playing Cultist with Procession. Now that's a great payoff.

True dat.

[lespeutere]

I haven't read all the posts extremely carefully, so forgive any repetitions.
There are some situations, however, which make cultist not only worse but A LOT worse than witch: Library may just skip them in draw to X engines. Scrying Pool does not mind to have some extra action card density. Vineyards like to get some free action cards.

[SirPeebles]

I haven't read all the posts extremely carefully, so forgive any repetitions.
There are some situations, however, which make cultist not only worse but A LOT worse than witch: Library may just skip them in draw to X engines. Scrying Pool does not mind to have some extra action card density. Vineyards like to get some free action cards.

That's true.  Fairgrounds and Menagerie also.

But similarly there are times when Ruins hurt more.  Like with Hunting Party, Golem, Wandering Minstrel, Journeyman, Farming Village, Ambassador, and Doctor

[KingZog3]

I haven't read all the posts extremely carefully, so forgive any repetitions.
There are some situations, however, which make cultist not only worse but A LOT worse than witch: Library may just skip them in draw to X engines. Scrying Pool does not mind to have some extra action card density. Vineyards like to get some free action cards.

That's true.  Fairgrounds and Menagerie also.

But similarly there are times when Ruins hurt more.  Like with Hunting Party, Golem, Wandering Minstrel, Journeyman, Farming Village, Ambassador, and Doctor

Ahem...I believe that it depends on the board.