Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[jaybeez]

I think Junk Dealer is nearly always better in games with Shelters, which Junk Dealer helps to bring about.

Well, pretty much all TfB cards are worse in Shelter games, because your deck begins with $3 of total coin-value, instead of $6 total.

[markusin]

We know that Junk Dealer is better than Upgrade at trashing coppers. It can be better at trashing estates. But don't forget, it's also better at trashing curses and ruins. Also, the price points don't always work out for Upgrade. But then Upgrades into Gold is a strategy in itself. Junk Dealer doesn't have one of those, but I think it's still better overall.

Also yeah, discard attacks really hurt both of them.

[dondon151]

We know that Junk Dealer is better than Upgrade at trashing coppers.

I want to upgrade all of my Coppers into Poor Houses.

[markusin]

We know that Junk Dealer is better than Upgrade at trashing coppers.

I want to upgrade all of my Coppers into Poor Houses.

Whoops, forgot about that edge case.

[eliegel34]

I want to upgrade all of my Coppers into Poor Houses.

I sure lost pretty hard the one time I did that by accident

[WanderingWinder]

That YW is the best single card for BM 1 card is really academic, of course.

It's a bit interesting that it wins every single matchup, though. (Actually, does it beat masquerade?)

My reasoning on Junk Dealer vs Upgrade is coming in the bit on Junk Dealer.

[heron]

Masquerade seems to have an edge; however, neither strategy is at all optimized.

[WanderingWinder]

15.   Junk Dealer
This is better than upgrade basically because it helps you maintain 5 much better early on whilst trashing, and I think this is generally of higher importance than the later benefit of upgrade gaining for you later. It's reasonably close, but cantrip trash a card and still being able to hit the amount you want is pretty bananas.

14.   Hunting Party
This card gives such a strong fast baseline with HP-X. But you know, that's not the best all *that* often. On the other hand, it's just a great engine card anyway, with many different cards, even if the incremental benefit isn't as high. You know lab is good? This is usually better even for your engines. Yeah...

13.   Jack of All Trades
Just powers through so much stuff. It's really hard to stop this guy. One of the very best BM enablers, plays well with others, and not too bad in a decent number of engines, too.

12.   Cultist
It's like a cross between lab and witch. The on-trash benefit, I don't know, I am probably underrating. Ruins are quite a bit worse to give out than curses, which is why in general this just loses out to:

11.   Witch
The draw isn't nothing here, and the unconditional curse-giving is something you see on very very few other cards (sea hag, familiar). This is a card that I feel is far more ignorable than I used to, because strong trashing engines get around it - which knocks it down from 'almost never' to 'extremely rarely'.

10.   Chapel
The supposed most powerful card for its cost which will ever be printed. Really good as it just trashes you everything really fast, plays clean up really well against junking attacks after that happens, yeah. So very fast.

9.   Doctor
Biggest. Overrate. Ever. The idea was that it's a chapel which, though slightly slower, let's you get stuff when playing it, too. Well, that's true - if it works.

8.   Goons
An almost-every-time card. Actually, though, if you can't chain these and have some other discard attack (margrave, anyone?), it can be gotten around. And if you can't just play gobs of these on a turn (and you need a strong engine with lots of villages for that - so while this is a great finisher, that other stuff ends up being more important a lot of times), it is only really really good.

7.   King’s Court
Does ridiculous stuff with most other actions - or really just most other cards. Basically if you can start off with KC-KC-Something-that-draws, you are in good shape for your turn.

6.   Steward
It trashes you, and then it's useful, really useful actually, on the back end. It's even pretty good for BM. Coins are the least important option, but they still help a lot - particularly in engines where some stewards get used to draw the deck and others provide payload.

5.   Wharf
The best draw card. Moat now, Smithy later. Or, Council Room on average. But collides a lot less in multiples and doesn't have the labbing-opponents drawback. Basically you play BM-this like an engine and win against most anything not using Wharf. Or you play engine-with-wharf and REALLY win against anything not using this. Or you play it in slogs... you know, it's just extremely rare to find a board where getting wharf isn't a good idea, and it's not rare to find one where "won wharf split" doesn't give you great chances of winning the game.

4.   Masquerade
It draws and trashes, so good. And the passing edges up with some stuff - discard attacks, we look to you.

3.   Mountebank
Smash in with two junk cards against their engine, this is seriously annoying to deal with. Sure, it has some counters (counting house, trader), but on the other hand, it is incredible raw power. And it doesn't stack *that* well, but the first copy is so good, it don't matter.

2.   Rebuild
This just puts a clock on the game and eats through the comeback potential. Basically, you are virtually forced to outrace this if you want to win, and it's pretty darn fast and very hard to slow down.

1.   Ambassador
You may have noticed a theme amongst many of the other top cards - they trash or junk. This is just crucial, particularly in the engine world we now live in. And this does both, in a very will-imposing way.





Expect my updated list with comments on what I feel are the most significant differences soon (but not tonight probably).

[JacquesTheBard]

A fantastic conclusion! Yes, Doctor is overrated. Interesting that Witch and Cultist didn't make top 10. I completely agree, though, about Wharf's placement. It's easily the best purely economic card in the game: Ambassador and Mountebank are attacks, Rebuild doesn't build up your economy but rather rushes towards victory, and I'd even consider Masquerade an attack.

I didn't expect the extraordinary placement of Goons, but I honestly can't dispute it. If you can play multiples, it obsoletes Provinces. Very few cards can render Provinces irrelevant. And as for Ambassador, it's weird. I definitely appreciate its worth as a trasher-junker combo, but you seem to suggest it's mostly an engine card, and engine games, though common, certainly aren't universal. Aren't King's Court and Goons slightly lowered by the fact that they're relatively engine reliant? So why not Ambassador?

And as for Mountebank, my first IRL Prosperity game with my brother ended when he realized that the best King's Court-able source of virtual money was Mountebank. At the end of the game, I had the entire copper pile in my deck.

Thanks, WW!

[sudgy]

Heh, you say all the top cards trash or junk when Rebuild does neither...

[WanderingWinder]

Heh, you say all the top cards trash or junk when Rebuild does neither...

I say many of them do.
Wharf, KC, and Goons don't either.

Edit: And I didn't mean it this way, but in some technical sense, Rebuild does indeed trash...

[Robz888]

A great list, and I on the whole I agree with it almost entirely, though I would quibble with a few placements throughout, and here at the end.

I would still give the whole shebang to Rebuild, and then Masq. Rebuild can be ignored almost never. Ambassador is far more ignorable than Rebuild. And then, as far as how good they are, okay, when it's Ambassador, sure, that's often crushingly powerful when it's good. But... Rebuild is no less crushingly powerful. You almost always have to get it, and it's almost always the whole point of the deck. I think Ambassador you get less, and I think it's certainly no stronger when it is good than Rebuild is, almost always.

With Masq, it's similar, although here it's easier to argue that even though you want it more often than Amb, it's not as powerful when you do want it, compared to when you do want Amb. But, I think you glossed over the attack function of Masq a bit. It's not just the discard thing--the sheer act of passing can actually mess up your opponent decently often. And it's not blockable! Add in the fact that Shelters are weaken (while not crippling) Amb, and I would have to give it to Masq.

[I may have a chronic inability to rate Masq fairly though, since I played a lot of 3 and 4 player with friends IRL, and Intrigue is the first set I owned, meaning lots of multiplayer Masq, and Masq is really, really essential in 3 and 4 player, unless you want all 9 or 12 Estates for some reason. And Amb is sort of obsolete there.]

[JacquesTheBard]

Rob, I wonder how the lists would change if multiplayer were taken into account. I suspect Masquerade and ambassador would change the most.

[Robz888]

Rob, I wonder how the lists would change if multiplayer were taken into account. I suspect Masquerade and ambassador would change the most.

Yeah, there would be a few changes, probably most cards wouldn't change very much. Jester gets way better is the one off the top of my head. Some of the bad attacks get at least a little better, the trashing attacks mostly.

[Piemaster]

[I may have a chronic inability to rate Masq fairly though, since I played a lot of 3 and 4 player with friends IRL, and Intrigue is the first set I owned, meaning lots of multiplayer Masq, and Masq is really, really essential in 3 and 4 player, unless you want all 9 or 12 Estates for some reason.

That really isn't true at all.  Masq isn't a junking card, it's a trashing card.  If you're not playing with it and your opponents are, then for every trash card you gain you get to give one away as well.  In fact it's highly likely you would end up with less than your starting 3 Estates because the other players would all be trashing them and would eventually start passing you Copper instead.

Not saying Masq isn't great, of course, but you seem to have a very strange idea as to why.

[ipofanes]

[I may have a chronic inability to rate Masq fairly though, since I played a lot of 3 and 4 player with friends IRL, and Intrigue is the first set I owned, meaning lots of multiplayer Masq, and Masq is really, really essential in 3 and 4 player, unless you want all 9 or 12 Estates for some reason.

That really isn't true at all.  Masq isn't a junking card, it's a trashing card.  If you're not playing with it and your opponents are, then for every trash card you gain you get to give one away as well.  In fact it's highly likely you would end up with less than your starting 3 Estates because the other players would all be trashing them and would eventually start passing you Copper instead.

Not saying Masq isn't great, of course, but you seem to have a very strange idea as to why.

Given only one player starts buying Masquerade in a multiplayer setting, I would guess that the player right to her would have most of the junk for the longest time, as pleft player gets handed cards from a deck being cleaned. Thus, player right to Masquerade player would have most incentive to follow suit.

Not that this is much relevant as you'd be buying Masquerade anyway.

[Robz888]

[I may have a chronic inability to rate Masq fairly though, since I played a lot of 3 and 4 player with friends IRL, and Intrigue is the first set I owned, meaning lots of multiplayer Masq, and Masq is really, really essential in 3 and 4 player, unless you want all 9 or 12 Estates for some reason.

That really isn't true at all.  Masq isn't a junking card, it's a trashing card.  If you're not playing with it and your opponents are, then for every trash card you gain you get to give one away as well.  In fact it's highly likely you would end up with less than your starting 3 Estates because the other players would all be trashing them and would eventually start passing you Copper instead.

Not saying Masq isn't great, of course, but you seem to have a very strange idea as to why.

The reason is, they are always initiating a chain of passing stuff to you, and you aren't. So while a lot of the junk does get trashed, whatever doesn't get trashed pools in your deck. I have watched this happen multiple times.

[Robz888]

Eventually, yeah, it will all be gone. But in the meantime, they are cleaning out their deck much faster than you, and you have to try to deck build a deck with that and you have much less control over the passing than they do.

[Piemaster]

The reason is, they are always initiating a chain of passing stuff to you, and you aren't. So while a lot of the junk does get trashed, whatever doesn't get trashed pools in your deck. I have watched this happen multiple times.

It just doesn't work like that (well, unless you're talking about extreme edge cases involving discard attacks and/or pins of course).  They play Masquerade, you pass an Estate, get passed another Estate.  Then you pass that Estate and get passed a Copper.  Then you pass that Copper and get another Estate and so on, and so on.  The amount of junk in your deck never actually increases.  All that happens is that your opponents' decks all get thinner and meaner and yours doesn't.  So yes, you do end up with 'all the junk' but all the junk is no more junk than you started with.

[Robz888]

They can rely on their own Masqs to pass and trash junk. You can only rely on their Masqs to pass junk. It doesn't end well.

[Piemaster]

They can rely on their own Masqs to pass and trash junk. You can only rely on their Masqs to pass junk. It doesn't end well.

Oh yes, I totally agree with that 100%.  Sorry, I only just realised that you ninja'd me with your previous post, if I had read that first I would have responded differently.  In a 4 player game (or 3 or 2 player as a matter of face) if your opponents are playing Masq and you aren't then it's quite likely you will lose.  But this isn't because it junks your deck, but because it is a great card that in 90+% of boards you ignore to your severe detriment.

[Beyond Awesome]

I just can't agree with Ambassador being 1. Ever since DA, it has become more and more ignorable. On boards with Rebuild, opening Ambassador is just helping the opponent. Shelters are out, Amb. is much weaker. You're facing against Ruins, you just can't return them as easily as curses. Masquerade on the other hand, still maintains the same power level, maybe even goes up due to all the engine stuff going on these days.

But, I would put Rebuild at 1. You can almost never ignore it, and the card is just crazy powerful. At one point, Ambassador was crazy powerful and still is on a lot of boards, but I am finding myself purchasing it less and less.

[Awaclus]

I still think that Cultist is at least better than Witch, if not better than Mountebank, because ignoring it or going for it too late means getting your deck full of junk so fast. Mountebank is aggressive early on, but it obviously becomes much slower when the discard a curse option is used, and Witch isn't particularly fast at all.

[SCSN]

You, like most players, criminally underestimate Cultist. Not just based on this list, but also based on a recent game we played where you opted to ignore it in favor of Familiar, a choice which I think reduces your win % to less than 20 right there.

12.   Cultist
It's like a cross between lab and witch. The on-trash benefit, I don't know, I am probably underrating. Ruins are quite a bit worse to give out than curses, which is why in general this just loses out to:

11.   Witch

While I agree that Curses are quite a bit worse than Ruins*, two Ruins are much worse than a single Curse**, and Cultist, due to its chainability, junks more than twice as fast as Witch. No curser is even remotely competetive in a direct match-up: the player ignoring Cultist generally has all the Ruins in his deck somewhere between T9 and T12, and after that it's a momentous achievement to even find your curser amidst all the junk.

In non-direct match-ups, Cultist is also far more disruptive than any curser out there due to its sheer speed and, to a lesser extend, the variable names of the junk cards it deals.

And then there's its on-trash effect, which obviously isn't its greatest selling point but it's nonetheless a nice extra bonus that allows for some neat combos in the post-Ruin landscape, like Apprentice (+8 Cards), Upgrade (+3 Cards, gain a Gold) and Graverobber (+3 Cards, gain a Province).

Overall, I think this makes Cultist the second strongest $5, with the power-gap between Cultist and Mountebank being larger than that between Mountebank and Witch.

*except with Shanty Town, Hunting Party, Ambassador, Doctor and Journeyman
**except with Vineyards and maaaybe Scrying Pool and Menagerie

[WanderingWinder]

You, like most players, criminally underestimate Cultist. Not just based on this list, but also based on a recent game we played where you opted to ignore it in favor of Familiar, a choice which I think reduces your win % to less than 20 right there.

You mean that game where you got cultist on a 5/2 and I went for familiar on a 4/3?