Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Pages: 1 2 3 ... 12 [All]

Author Topic: Updating the Top 5 lists  (Read 87985 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Updating the Top 5 lists
« on: November 01, 2011, 04:24:49 pm »
+7

Now that we have a bit of experience with Hinterlands, it might be interesting to revisit the Top 5 lists that were featured on the site earlier this year, and see if any Hinterlands cards deserve to be Best or Worst at their price points.  I suppose we could talk about Cornucopia again as well, since most of those lists predate Cornucopia's release.  Might as well give my thoughts first.

The $2s
From Cornucopia, Hamlet obviously deserves a spot on the Best list; I don't think Hinterlands' shiny new trap cards change its placement at #2 behind only Chapel there.  Cheap, flexible, and combo-licious.

The Hinterlands cards are trickier.  As much as Crossroads is not half as good as it looks, it may still squeak onto the Top 5 on the strength of $2 cards generally having puny effects to go with their puny price.  It probably edges Native Village out of the Honorable Mention spot? Remember that I'd still also like to find space for Lighthouse.  I'd also definitely put Duchess on the Worst list, in fact I think it just might edge out Secret Chamber and Pearl Diver to claim the #1 spot.  If Pearl Diver is mainly an exercise in "just how weak and inconsequential we can make a cantrip", Duchess does the same thing for terminal silver.  I guess it's sometimes worth picking up with a Duchy in lumpy, Action-light decks, but its presence has virtually no potential to change whatever strategy the other nine cards present.  While Fool's Gold is also usually a pretty bad card, it actually does have potential to reshape and dominate strategies on favorable boards, and in recognition of that I'd probably keep it just above the Worst list.

The $3s
Cornucopia comes through with another top card: Menagerie is for sure neck-and-neck with Fishing Village for the #3 spot behind Ambassador and Masquerade.  Fortune Teller is weak but not weak enough to make the Worst list; it's better than several cards which missed the Worst list first time around, like Smugglers and Black Market.

There is one Hinterlands card that I would definitely put on these lists: Develop is IMO the very worst $3 card in the game.  Yes, really!  I get that it can have combo potential; I was even beaten by Develop once or twice.  But it takes Hinterlands' trickiness and difficulty-to-play to an absolute extreme.  It's so slow on Coppers and Estates, try it on a $3 and you'll end up top-decking Estates after a while, try it on a good card and maybe you're building your engine more but at the expense of losing a good card that you could have played for advantage this turn.  In short, there are so many ways to play this card poorly, and so few ways to play it well; it's also very slow in a set that mostly rewards fast BM strategies.  I feel that I'm not experienced or good enough to play Develop well, so I just avoid it and that works out well most of the time.  Given how many games I've played, I think that's a damning indictment of the card.  The other Hinterlands cards probably don't make any lists: Oracle is about on par with Fortune Teller, weak but not weak enough.  Tunnel is actually quite good, as it's becoming rarer and rarer to find setups where you can't leverage its Reaction ability to get piles of Gold (Embassy and Cartographer are two of my favorite ways to do this), so I'd consider it for the Best list, but competition is stiff, as the top 4 are pretty much set in stone and we haven't even made room for Steward yet.

The $4s
Okay, the $4s need a total rehaul.  The Best list should be dominated by new cards, as Remake, Tournament, and Jack of All Trades are simply miles better than anything we'd seen before at that price point.  Remake is an elite trasher, Tournament is Tournament, and JoaT is my new most hated card in the game for the manner in which it creates a lightning-fast and super-resilient BM deck, at least in Province matches- it actually does what people erroneously thought Envoy did.  They have to be the new Top 3, in some order.

The worst $4s also need a total rehaul, not so much because new cards have replaced old slots but because the original list was by far the weakest we've seen: no way Ironworks and Cutpurse belong anywhere near the bottom when the utter stinkers Coppersmith, Pirate Ship, and Scout were ignored, and Thief isn't "honorable mention" it's the worst card in the game at any price.  There is one addition I would make, though:  for all people were saying Noble Brigand was supposed to be a strictly better Thief, turns out it's also incredibly weak.  It does have the obnoxious potential to force a crippling 3/2 open if you buy it Turn 1 and get really lucky, but that's pretty much it for NB's power given how often the attack just fizzles, or oh no it takes a Silver which just doesn't hurt that much.  I'd find room for it near the bottom, along with Thief, Pirate Ship, Scout, Treasure Map, and I dunno, maybe Bureaucrat or Talisman or Coppersmith can take Honorable Mention.

The $5s
Theory originally made three lists here, so I'll keep with the split of attacks and non-attacks.  There are two new $5 attacks to consider, both of which are better than Rabble and worse than the already-existent power Top 5.  I'd give Margrave the edge over Jester for the privilege of Honorable Mention; its attack is weaker than Militia or Torturer for sure, but the +Buy is a pretty powerful incentive to go engine-building.  Getting the Council Room-Militia combo in one card is nice.

For the best non-attacks, Cornucopia's Hunting Party stands alone.  Like, #1 better than Wharf alone.  Like, good enough to crack a combined Top 5 list despite the power Attacks.  I don't think I'd quite put any of Hinterlands' $5 cards on the Top Non-Attacks list, but Stables and Cartographer have to come close.  Stables is, obviously, a strong Lab variant which gives you better cycling power at the expense of absolutely forcing a Treasure-heavy deck.  (The net +Cards is the same as Lab, remember).  Cartographer, obviously, blows Navigator out of the water; it is a great addition to virtually every single kind of deck, whether it be Action-heavy or BM.  Embassy is also nice; interesting that giving Silver is usually a nerf but can sometimes make it even stronger!

One other thing to consider with this list: does Ill-Gotten Gains count as an Attack for our purposes?  It gives Curses, so it's obviously getting bought with Attacking intent, but it doesn't say "Attack" on it.  It seems to be a strong card that forces really weird games if you rush it, and I sure don't yet have a handle on how to play it well.  Maybe it would make a Best of list, but can you really justify losing cards like Vault or Apprentice?

As for the worst $5s, I would definitely consider making room for both Mandarin and Cache: obviously they're useful sometimes, all $5 cards are, but those times are just so rare.  My sense is that Mandarin is a good buy about as often as your opponent's Ghost Ship actually helps you: the on-gain effect is supposed to be its big plus, but frankly it's usually a detriment.  And none of the terminal-treasure-no-other-bonus cards are that great, look at the mediocre Harvest and Merchant Ship.  The stats seem to be bearing out my intuition that Cache is sub-Contraband-level bad: people don't buy it, and they lose when they do.  My sense is that the Coppers are usually a big penalty, and on the rare occasions where they're good to have, then chances are you bought Cache because you screwed up: for example, you went Spice Merchant-Stables and need more fuel, probably shoulda just skipped the Merchant.  Or hey, Cache is a great defense against Noble Brigand, woo I'm so excited.  Cache is now my third least-bought card after Thief and Explorer, and I honestly can't point to a single game where I didn't get it, but wish I had bought one.


The $6-plusses
I've said it before, I'll say it again, I'm a broken record: Harem and Nobles ought to be switched. :P  Other than that, Border Village is a great card, IMO the second-best Village, and probably deserves Honorable Mention on the Best list, kicking off Harem (should have been Nobles, there I go again).  As for the worst list, I'd put Farmland somewhere on there; it's not a bad card but the competition is so stiff at this price point.  The requirement that Farmland's insta-Remodel effect be exactly two makes it a lot less flexible and difficult to play. Guess I'd put it at third, worse than all but Adventurer and… Harem.
« Last Edit: November 01, 2011, 05:00:56 pm by chwhite »
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

guided

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 940
  • Respect: +94
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #1 on: November 01, 2011, 04:43:52 pm »
0

Nobody said Noble Brigand is awesome, just that it's clearly better than Thief.

And it is. :P
Logged

painted_cow

  • Moneylender
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 151
  • Respect: +20
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #2 on: November 01, 2011, 04:54:10 pm »
0

Good update, I dont disagree with even one card on your additions to the Top5 lists. Good Job!
Logged

timchen

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 704
  • Shuffle iT Username: allfail
  • Respect: +234
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #3 on: November 01, 2011, 04:58:38 pm »
0

I feel your ranking of the cards reflect strongly on your playing style.


For what I feel, fool's gold is definitely on the useful list, as it can dominate on some boards. Except chapel and to some extent hamlet, no other cards at $2 do that. I will not rate a $2 terminal silver bad. It may be boring, but not bad.

And for whatever reason, a hard to play card is not a bad card. Also I don't rate remake that high. It is a very good opener but that's probably it. Didn't someone state that a single NB beats Smithy? That sounds good enough for me.

For harem and noble, I think you are wrong. Harem is only bad when you consider extreme action heavy decks. Both cards give the same points. However, the best way you can use Nobles is to use it as a smithy. So that is a 4 cost card, and for harem it is a 3 cost card. Not so different. However, if yiu are in for an action heavy deck, and that proves to be a strong strategy, there is usually some other dominant card. Nobles is just icing on the cake.
(Barring those interactions with vp) on the other hand harem is really a good card to drop in randomly in a money deck.

Sure, I won't put nobles on the worst list. But it is really not as good as one might think.
Logged

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #4 on: November 01, 2011, 05:22:41 pm »
0

I feel your ranking of the cards reflect strongly on your playing style.


For what I feel, fool's gold is definitely on the useful list, as it can dominate on some boards. Except chapel and to some extent hamlet, no other cards at $2 do that. I will not rate a $2 terminal silver bad. It may be boring, but not bad.

And for whatever reason, a hard to play card is not a bad card. Also I don't rate remake that high. It is a very good opener but that's probably it. Didn't someone state that a single NB beats Smithy? That sounds good enough for me.

For harem and noble, I think you are wrong. Harem is only bad when you consider extreme action heavy decks. Both cards give the same points. However, the best way you can use Nobles is to use it as a smithy. So that is a 4 cost card, and for harem it is a 3 cost card. Not so different. However, if yiu are in for an action heavy deck, and that proves to be a strong strategy, there is usually some other dominant card. Nobles is just icing on the cake.
(Barring those interactions with vp) on the other hand harem is really a good card to drop in randomly in a money deck.

Sure, I won't put nobles on the worst list. But it is really not as good as one might think.

Sure, I'll happily admit that my play-style informs my rankings, but I don't think it's a perfect correspondence or anything: my preferences are strongly against the sort of games that Jack forces, and I have a hard time sticking to the simulator script so I lose Jack games a bunch, but I'm still putting it up here. FWIW, I've been playing money decks way more often since Hinterlands came out, since that expansion has so many cards that are heavily geared towards boosting money and so few cards that let you get away with little-to-no-treasure.

Fool's Gold is a judgement call: say it's a strong strategy or even dominant 25 percent of the time, marginal 25 percent, and sucks 50 percent of the time (I think these numbers are a little generous, but in the right ballpark).  Compare to, say, Haven, which is never quite as strong, but is almost always better than Copper at least.  Do you take the best-case scenario or the average?  You could go either way.  I'd say you have to take both into account, and if best-case it's near the top, more often it's near the bottom, then I'm inclined to just leave it off both lists.

I certainly don't think all hard-to-play cards are bad cards: Inn is also hard to play and I like it just fine.  As for Remake, it's a better opener than Steward; and I have even been known to take it even over Chapel.  That's powerful.

Harem... I just have a hard time getting excited about Harem unless, say, Mint is on the board.  Even when I'm playing money decks, most of the time I'd rather just have a Gold or a Duchy.  Heck, I might even rank Nobles over Harem in the specific case of money decks; consider that in such a situation their primary competition is going to be Duchy, and if I'm going Action-light adding a points-giving Smithy or two later on has the potential to be more useful for limping to $8 than a points-giving Silver.

« Last Edit: November 01, 2011, 05:28:57 pm by chwhite »
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

Epoch

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 421
  • Respect: +38
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #5 on: November 01, 2011, 05:22:56 pm »
0

And for whatever reason, a hard to play card is not a bad card. Also I don't rate remake that high. It is a very good opener but that's probably it. Didn't someone state that a single NB beats Smithy? That sounds good enough for me.

I stated that... and I'm like 95% sure that I was right.  But I was about to restate it for this thread, so I reran it in the simulator, and it lost fairly substantially to Single Smithy.

So.  Um.  Not sure what happened there.  I want to blame the simulator, but since neither card involves making any choices, unless there was an actual bug fix or bug introduction since I first ran it, I don't think that was it.  Maybe I swapped the columns in my mind a week ago, or ran into a very rare quick simulation edge case where it got a 10% swing in win rates?

EDIT:  Presently, with Accurate simulation and the built in Noble Brigand and Smithy bots, I get 44% NB, 48.66% Smithy, 7.34% tie.  Which does suggest to me that NB is probably better than chwhite is giving it credit for, even if it doesn't beat Smithy.

EDIT2: 

This bot beats built in Single Smithy by a very substantial margin, though (basically, it buys 2 NBs instead of 1):

Code: [Select]
<player name="2xNoble Brigand" author="Epoch" description="Big Money + 2 Noble Brigands.  Waits until after turn 1/2 to buy the NBs, to minimize chances of just missing and hitting Coppers.">
 <type name="Province"/>
 <type name="UserCreated"/>
 <type name="SingleCard"/>
 <type name="Generated"/>
 <type name="Bot"/>
 <type name="TwoPlayer"/>
 <type name="BigMoney"/>
   <buy name="Province"/>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="5.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Noble_Brigand">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Noble_Brigand"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Silver"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
</player>

More surprisingly, it beats single Mountebank?!?  And single Witch?!?  Geronimoo, can you investigate this?  Is there a bug?
« Last Edit: November 01, 2011, 05:33:41 pm by Epoch »
Logged

theory

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3603
  • Respect: +6121
    • View Profile
    • Dominion Strategy
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #6 on: November 01, 2011, 05:24:40 pm »
+2

I'd love public feedback on this.  I'm planning on revisiting all of them before the next expansion, though I guess I should sneak in the best and worst of Alchemy first.
Logged

Epoch

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 421
  • Respect: +38
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #7 on: November 01, 2011, 05:24:55 pm »
0

Fool's Gold is a judgement call: say it's a strong strategy or even dominant 25 percent of the time, marginal 25 percent, and sucks 50 percent of the time (I think these numbers are a little generous, but in the right ballpark).  Compare to, say, Haven, which is never quite as strong, but is almost always better than Copper at least.  Do you take the best-case scenario or the average?  You could go either way.

I think you can very fairly say that Fool's Gold is almost always better than Copper.  The only scenarios where it's not that I can think of involve Counting House or Coppersmith.  Surely Haven is worse than Copper at least that often.
Logged

Copernicus

  • Baron
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 50
  • Respect: +31
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #8 on: November 01, 2011, 05:31:09 pm »
0

For what I feel, fool's gold is definitely on the useful list, as it can dominate on some boards. Except chapel and to some extent hamlet, no other cards at $2 do that. I will not rate a $2 terminal silver bad. It may be boring, but not bad.

I agree.  Fool's Gold is one of the three $2 buys that can set up a brand new strategy.  It needs good trashing (2+ cards) or +buy and +card draw.  At the same time, without those aspects it's a terrible card that should be avoided.  It might not crack the top-5 list because of how swingy it is, but it needs to be an honorable mention.

----

For $5 non-attacks, I believe Vault needs to be the one bumped off the list instead of Tactician.  I'd argue for Tacticican being in the top three (below Hunting Party and Wharf)... but that's more personal opinion.

-------------

One of the big things with the best/worst list is that a lot of it is trying to teach Dominion concepts.  Simple things like "Merely drawing a card and getting an action is not a good thing" and "Discarding your entire hand to get ten cards next turn is really strong".  Which is why a card like Ironworks is on there -- it looks good initially, but playing it without a plan is a bad idea.  Same with stuff like Pearl Diver and Pawn.

------------

Regarding Noble Brigand-- it becomes more powerful in multiplayer and its power level is closely associated with how much your opponent's deck is "big money".  Like the other money attack cards.
Logged

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #9 on: November 01, 2011, 05:33:16 pm »
0

EDIT:  Presently, with Accurate simulation and the built in Noble Brigand and Smithy bots, I get 44% NB, 48.66% Smithy, 7.34% tie.  Which does suggest to me that NB is probably better than chwhite is giving it credit for, even if it doesn't beat Smithy.

I have a hard time giving credit to a card which I have a 0.33 Win Rate With.  :P

Zero point three three!  That's even worse than Develop and Thief!
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #10 on: November 01, 2011, 05:38:51 pm »
0

For what I feel, fool's gold is definitely on the useful list, as it can dominate on some boards. Except chapel and to some extent hamlet, no other cards at $2 do that. I will not rate a $2 terminal silver bad. It may be boring, but not bad.

I agree.  Fool's Gold is one of the three $2 buys that can set up a brand new strategy.  It needs good trashing (2+ cards) or +buy and +card draw.  At the same time, without those aspects it's a terrible card that should be avoided.  It might not crack the top-5 list because of how swingy it is, but it needs to be an honorable mention.

----

For $5 non-attacks, I believe Vault needs to be the one bumped off the list instead of Tactician.  I'd argue for Tacticican being in the top three (below Hunting Party and Wharf)... but that's more personal opinion.

-------------

One of the big things with the best/worst list is that a lot of it is trying to teach Dominion concepts.  Simple things like "Merely drawing a card and getting an action is not a good thing" and "Discarding your entire hand to get ten cards next turn is really strong".  Which is why a card like Ironworks is on there -- it looks good initially, but playing it without a plan is a bad idea.  Same with stuff like Pearl Diver and Pawn.

------------

Regarding Noble Brigand-- it becomes more powerful in multiplayer and its power level is closely associated with how much your opponent's deck is "big money".  Like the other money attack cards.

I can see where you're coming from on Fool's Gold; I just think that Crossroads is a better candidate for that "sometimes awesome, sometimes trap" Honorable Mention spot.

Agreed re: Tactician, I also would put it at #3 non-attack.  Personally I'd bump Venture, but that may be my play-style bias speaking.  (Oh, and City needs to go.  It's not even the best $5 Village. :P)

I think it's sufficient to keep Workshop on the Worst list for that lesson rather then to force Ironworks there when there are a lot of really bad $4 cards, given that Ironworks is so much better than Workshop in so many more situations.  Pearl Diver I think belongs in the same boat as Duchess; it's not that they harm your deck it's just that they do so little; and Pawn was also on the Best list, remember.
« Last Edit: November 01, 2011, 05:41:43 pm by chwhite »
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

DG

  • Governor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4074
  • Respect: +2624
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #11 on: November 01, 2011, 07:17:13 pm »
0

As I've come to see more of the Hinterlands expansion I thinking it's quite important to see the cards in their setting. Just in the way that herbalist is poor without alchemy, and a counting house is poor without prosperity, a lot of the hinterlands cards will be poorer without hinterlands support. So the question is whether to rate a card poorly when it plays well in it's expansion, a physical box that a person can buy from a store and take cards from collectively, or to rate them in a wider context.

The main cards under discussion here are fool's gold and the tunnel which I see as the core of the expansion, even though they are cheap cards. The margrave looks like a strong card until you see that it is fatally weak against those cards. The same can be said for the noble brigand. The jack of all trades doesn't look so wonderful when your opponent has used a lousy spice trader to create a fool's gold rush.

For general wider play I'd accept that the border village and jack of all trades are in the top 5 lists. Farmlands are a fair card with a fair price and are better than harems, imho, as a 6 cost victory card with 2 vp and an extra ability. Mandarins are a weak 5 cost card, not useless but rarely game changing and lacking the power of other 5 cost cards. The highway could be one of the most misplayed cards I've seen, much more frequently than develop which looks far more complicated. Cache is ok and against works best in hinterlands.
Logged

ackack

  • Explorer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 302
  • Respect: +19
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #12 on: November 01, 2011, 07:47:46 pm »
0

As I've come to see more of the Hinterlands expansion I thinking it's quite important to see the cards in their setting. Just in the way that herbalist is poor without alchemy, and a counting house is poor without prosperity, a lot of the hinterlands cards will be poorer without hinterlands support. So the question is whether to rate a card poorly when it plays well in it's expansion, a physical box that a person can buy from a store and take cards from collectively, or to rate them in a wider context.

Given that this is a forum peopled mostly by Isotropic players, I think the wider context is the obvious one. I understand from a business/design perspective the importance of making self-synergizing expansions, but in the internet game it feels like a very artificial restriction.
Logged

ChaosRed

  • Duke
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 387
  • Respect: +13
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #13 on: November 01, 2011, 07:57:08 pm »
0

I think we need to remember isotropic is a very artificial environment, that as of right now, doesn't put a dime in Donald's pocket. I am still a big fan and supporter of cardboard games, and value the fact each expansion has synergy and theme contained in the box. My lousy wooden nickel on the subject.
Logged

rinkworks

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1316
  • Respect: +937
    • View Profile
    • RinkWorks
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #14 on: November 01, 2011, 10:46:42 pm »
0

I'd love public feedback on this.  I'm planning on revisiting all of them before the next expansion, though I guess I should sneak in the best and worst of Alchemy first.

Count me as another that thinks chwhite nailed it perfectly.  I might find some quibbles if I put more thought into it, but the broad strokes sound exactly right to me.
Logged

Saucery

  • Thief
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 93
  • Respect: +82
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #15 on: November 01, 2011, 10:55:26 pm »
0

Best $5: Embassy is some high level ridiculousness and I think it'll eventually get its due. I give Embassy and Wharf a slight edge over Hunting Party/Lab, with Vault and Venture as #5 and #6. I used to use and abuse Tactician very often but there are many fast boards in which the double turn is simply unnecessary.

Worst $5: Probably stays in tact (Sab, Stash, Explorer, Contraband, Mine). Cache has potential to enter the list then drop back out once its usefulness is fleshed out.

Best $4: Jack, Remake, Tournament, Envoy, Bishop are all up there, but prioritizing Sea Hag is still the go-to strategy on most boards. It might be interesting to see how well Jack does against it as the draw/trash seems like a direct counter.
Worst $4: With the addition of Hinterlands I think Bureaucrat definitely moves up in strength, and was already better than Thief, Scout, and Coppersmith. Funnily enough I have +1.64 effect with Thief but it is very much a trap card in non-KC games. (Thief, Coppersmith, Scout, Pirate Ship, Noble Brigand)

Best $3: Masquerade should probably replace Steward as #3. Menagerie is the most board dependent of the top $3 cards so it gets bumped below the others. My list at this point would be Ambassador, FV, Masq, Warehouse, Tunnel/Menagerie.

Best $2: Chapel and Courtyard to me are locked in as #1 and #2. Courtyard is so dynamic in terms of managing your resources and is one of my favorite cards period. Crossroads, while often misused, has chapel-level implications when used correctly and is a powerful buy in most decks going into late game. #4 and #5 to me are a toss up between lighthouse and hamlet.
Logged

jonts26

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2746
  • Shuffle iT Username: jonts
  • Respect: +3668
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #16 on: November 01, 2011, 10:57:13 pm »
0

The only change I'd consider making is the inclusion of Young Witch in the top five $4 card along with Sea Hag and the three chwhite mentioned (JoaT, Remake, Tournament). Obviously, the strength of the card is contingent on the bane card, but very few bane cards offer a really strong defense. On average, this card is great. For some proof of the card's eliteness, I submit the following: http://councilroom.com/win_weighted_accum_turn.html?cards=sea%20hag%2C%20young%20witch
Logged

Jimmmmm

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1762
  • Shuffle iT Username: Jimmmmm
  • Respect: +2017
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #17 on: November 01, 2011, 11:05:45 pm »
0

For what I feel, fool's gold is definitely on the useful list, as it can dominate on some boards. Except chapel and to some extent hamlet, no other cards at $2 do that.

First ever Crossroads game I played had both Baron and Harem. Now that was a dominant $2 card.

Just wondering... how do we define the "worst" cards? I mean, take Pearl Diver. Sure, it doesn't do a lot for me, but if I have a spare $2, a spare buy and nothing else I want, I'm taking the Pearl Diver most of the time. And most of the time buying it instead of nothing will increase my chances of winning, even if it's by an incredibly small amount. And, you know, if it keeps my Mountebank from missing a shuffle, win for the Pearl Diver.

Also, how do we feel about Cache as an opening?
Logged

jonts26

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2746
  • Shuffle iT Username: jonts
  • Respect: +3668
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #18 on: November 01, 2011, 11:10:09 pm »
0

I mean, take Pearl Diver. Sure, it doesn't do a lot for me, but if I have a spare $2, a spare buy and nothing else I want, I'm taking the Pearl Diver most of the time. And most of the time buying it instead of nothing will increase my chances of winning, even if it's by an incredibly small amount. And, you know, if it keeps my Mountebank from missing a shuffle, win for the Pearl Diver.

In a lot of set ups pearl diver won't hurt you to buy if you have a spare $2. However, there are also a lot of times it will. The biggest is probably when you might draw PD dead. But you also don't want it when you want to have some sort of reaction card in hand as a defense. And this includes having a curse in hand against the Mountebank. So no, I would not grab pearl divers with MB on the board.
Logged

greatexpectations

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1097
  • Respect: +1067
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #19 on: November 01, 2011, 11:21:55 pm »
+1

Also, how do we feel about Cache as an opening?

well, on the right board you can potentially have a turn 3 province. cache/nothing will get you a slightly better average money value (12/13) than silver/silver (11/12) but it comes at the cost of the slightly larger deck.   would work well in a gardens deck, and could be a fantastic buy with trader in hand. i've only seen it on one or two boards though so i can't comment much more.
Logged
momomoto: ...I looked at the tableau and went "Mountebank? That's for jerks."
rrenaud: Jerks win.

Jimmmmm

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1762
  • Shuffle iT Username: Jimmmmm
  • Respect: +2017
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #20 on: November 01, 2011, 11:33:38 pm »
0

I mean, take Pearl Diver. Sure, it doesn't do a lot for me, but if I have a spare $2, a spare buy and nothing else I want, I'm taking the Pearl Diver most of the time. And most of the time buying it instead of nothing will increase my chances of winning, even if it's by an incredibly small amount. And, you know, if it keeps my Mountebank from missing a shuffle, win for the Pearl Diver.

In a lot of set ups pearl diver won't hurt you to buy if you have a spare $2. However, there are also a lot of times it will. The biggest is probably when you might draw PD dead. But you also don't want it when you want to have some sort of reaction card in hand as a defense. And this includes having a curse in hand against the Mountebank. So no, I would not grab pearl divers with MB on the board.

Yes the two situations that I could think of which made me say "most" instead of "all" are if you're going to be playing terminal drawers without spare actions (something which I usually try to avoid) and if you want to have defensive/Reaction cards in hand as often as possible. Possibly I should have mentioned these but they were meant to be implied. Personally I find that more often than not I'd rather buy any given cantrip than nothing at all.

Although good call on the Mountebank. It was meant to be a token powerful card. I didn't think of the defensive issue. Replace it with, I don't know, Gold.

Anyway, not saying that Pearl Diver is a great card. It's obviously not. But I think in most games in which it's present there is a high probability that you'll find yourself in one or more situations in which it's worth buying. There are many cards that this cannot be said for and go unbought much more often than Pearl Divers.

So my original question: how do we define "worst"? If it's "does the least for you", maybe PD deserves to be there. If it's "worth buying least often", I'd say it doesn't.
Logged

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #21 on: November 01, 2011, 11:45:41 pm »
0

For what I feel, fool's gold is definitely on the useful list, as it can dominate on some boards. Except chapel and to some extent hamlet, no other cards at $2 do that.

First ever Crossroads game I played had both Baron and Harem. Now that was a dominant $2 card.

Just wondering... how do we define the "worst" cards? I mean, take Pearl Diver. Sure, it doesn't do a lot for me, but if I have a spare $2, a spare buy and nothing else I want, I'm taking the Pearl Diver most of the time. And most of the time buying it instead of nothing will increase my chances of winning, even if it's by an incredibly small amount. And, you know, if it keeps my Mountebank from missing a shuffle, win for the Pearl Diver.

Also, how do we feel about Cache as an opening?

Yeah, Pearl Diver generally doesn't hurt you if you have a spare buy and you're not likely to draw it dead, which is why I've generally considered Secret Chamber and possibly Moat to be worse, because sometimes buying them with $2 will actively harm your deck in a way that PD usually won't.  I find PD to be best in games with Goons or Conspirator or Peddler, where the fact it's a $2 cantrip is the main draw.

So my original question: how do we define "worst"? If it's "does the least for you", maybe PD deserves to be there. If it's "worth buying least often", I'd say it doesn't.

I'd say it's a somewhat subjective weighing of those two factors.  PD quite possibly does less for you than any card in the game (though Scout is often just as bad on that count), but there are literally dozens of cards I'd buy less frequently.  So I'd say it probably ought to be on a Worst list, but not dead last: for the $2s my vote would be Secret Chamber, which is rarely worth buying and does very little for you except in rare combo situations like Tactician (and then you'd always rather have a Vault).

_________

I am unsold on Cache as an opening.  You're adding $5 worth of treasure over 3 cards, so the average value of the cards you're adding to your deck is $1.83- worse than if they were Silvers.  Maybe it's not actually worse than three Silvers, on the principle that Gold + Copper is better than two Silvers since you want variance, but then you're tying yourself to a lumpy, inconsistent treasure strategy. 

A Silver/Silver opening will give you $11 worth in cash over 12 cards; a Cache/nothing opening gives you $12 over 13 cards, which is better by a miniscule amount, but also means an additional card will miss the Turn 5 reshuffle, god help you if Cache is one of them.  Basically, I don't see it outperforming Silver/Silver by much if at all, and frankly Silver/Silver is a pretty low baseline.
« Last Edit: November 02, 2011, 12:00:58 am by chwhite »
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

mischiefmaker

  • Golem
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 185
  • Respect: +108
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #22 on: November 02, 2011, 01:03:45 am »
0

How does the Secret Chamber-Tactician combo work? I tried putting this together once and was not happy with the results. You can't go double tactician because your 10 card hand has to include Secret Chamber, Tactician, and a card to discard to Tactician, leaving you with only 7 cards to discard -- not enough for a province. Is the idea to use the combo once and then wait for it to hit again? Or is it to pick up a coin-giving action to make up the slack? Or...something else I'm not seeing?

Also, not that this is something you would want to build a deck around or anything, but if you happen to have a Watchtower in your deck for some other reason, it works nicely with Cache.
Logged

kn1tt3r

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 585
  • Respect: +278
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #23 on: November 02, 2011, 03:03:20 am »
+1

How does the Secret Chamber-Tactician combo work?

Not really well actually. It does work with some Lab support, but it's still very slow to set up and not really reliable once you have a bunch of green cards in your deck.

Tactician-Vault, however, is rather strong.
Logged

rspeer

  • Witch
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 469
  • Respect: +877
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #24 on: November 02, 2011, 05:52:11 am »
0

Best $4: Jack, Remake, Tournament, Envoy, Bishop are all up there, but prioritizing Sea Hag is still the go-to strategy on most boards. It might be interesting to see how well Jack does against it as the draw/trash seems like a direct counter.

DoubleJack beats Sea Hag even more easily than it beats Witch. 75-25 against one hag + big money, 64-36 against two hags + big money.
Logged

DStu

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2627
  • Respect: +1490
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #25 on: November 02, 2011, 05:54:16 am »
0

DoubleJack beats Sea Hag even more easily than it beats Witch. 75-25 against one hag + big money, 64-36 against two hags + big money.

There might be a problem with Geronimoos simulator, also concerning JoaT. Or was this yours?
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #26 on: November 02, 2011, 12:23:19 pm »
0

Best $4: Jack, Remake, Tournament, Envoy, Bishop are all up there, but prioritizing Sea Hag is still the go-to strategy on most boards. It might be interesting to see how well Jack does against it as the draw/trash seems like a direct counter.

DoubleJack beats Sea Hag even more easily than it beats Witch. 75-25 against one hag + big money, 64-36 against two hags + big money.

Just because A beats B head to head doesn't mean that A is better than B in general. I think you guys are overrating Jack, though it is obviously strong. I'll try to post my thoughts on top/bottom lists soon.

ChaosRed

  • Duke
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 387
  • Respect: +13
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #27 on: November 02, 2011, 12:26:37 pm »
0

Just because A beats B head to head doesn't mean that A is better than B in general. I think you guys are overrating Jack, though it is obviously strong. I'll try to post my thoughts on top/bottom lists soon.

Yeah, agreed. It is so hard to rate individual cards, because of this exact problem. A card's strength is often actualized with complementary cards on the board. It's hard to judge cards in a vacuum. It can be done, (this thread is an excellent example that it can be done), but you have to remember that cards don't stand on their own.

My favorite 4? Well, how about Gardens? It can dominate a board, warp a game and generally is a complete and utter tactic-changer. See? Here we have a card, that on its own, isn't really anything, but with the right synergy, is arguably one of the more powerful cards in the pantheon.
Logged

Copernicus

  • Baron
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 50
  • Respect: +31
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #28 on: November 02, 2011, 01:07:15 pm »
0

The main issue with any "top X list" is that it needs to be written with a specific goal in mind.

There are probably three different articles that could be written-

* A list of cards that are powerful by themselves.  Cards that change the way the game is played in combination with others (Gardens, Fool's Gold, Crossroads) should not be on this list or be given an honorable mention.

* A list of cards that are game-altering.  Stuff like Gardens or Fool's Gold would make that list, but other cards that are just "good" might not (like Laboratory).

* An educational article for a mid-level player.  Clump together cards that do similar things with an emphasis on the power of things like Tactician and Vault and the weakness of cards like Great Hall or Spy.
Logged

ehunt

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1528
  • Shuffle iT Username: ehunt
  • Respect: +1856
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #29 on: November 02, 2011, 01:08:34 pm »
0

A few remarks:

1. Duchess isn't a great card, but it's a welcome relief on some boards when you split 5/2, which is more than can be said for herbalist.

2. I still haven't really figured out how to use the "duchy" aspect of Duchess strategically. There might be something really clever lurking that we haven't discovered yet. (I felt this way about transmute for a very long time before giving up on it.)

3. As for develop, is it worse than trade route? (A card that I love, but that isn't very good in most games.) Certainly absent island or great hall it's a stronger opener, and like trade route, it can be board-dependently outstanding in the late game. Trade route probably has a higher must-buy feel to it on boards where it's ridiculously good than develop, and occasionally you hold your nose and buy a trade route just for the +buy, but I think develop's better early trashing ability would make me call it a slightly better card.
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #30 on: November 02, 2011, 01:11:51 pm »
0

A few remarks:

1. Duchess isn't a great card, but it's a welcome relief on some boards when you split 5/2, which is more than can be said for herbalist.

2. I still haven't really figured out how to use the "duchy" aspect of Duchess strategically. There might be something really clever lurking that we haven't discovered yet. (I felt this way about transmute for a very long time before giving up on it.)

3. As for develop, is it worse than trade route? (A card that I love, but that isn't very good in most games.) Certainly absent island or great hall it's a stronger opener, and like trade route, it can be board-dependently outstanding in the late game. Trade route probably has a higher must-buy feel to it on boards where it's ridiculously good than develop, and occasionally you hold your nose and buy a trade route just for the +buy, but I think develop's better early trashing ability would make me call it a slightly better card.
I must disagree. I think that develop is a pretty dreadful opener most of the time, it trashes really terribly (hardly better than trade route), and I also don't think that trade route is almost ever a must buy.

ehunt

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1528
  • Shuffle iT Username: ehunt
  • Respect: +1856
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #31 on: November 02, 2011, 01:24:48 pm »
0

To clarify, I agree that develop is almost always a mistake as an opener, and am just arguing that it's better than trade route as an opener.
Logged

guided

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 940
  • Respect: +94
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #32 on: November 02, 2011, 01:27:20 pm »
0

I think situations where Develop is a strong opener will be rarer than situations where Trade Route is a strong opener.

At the risk of blowing a minor secret weapon of mine... Trade Route can sometimes be really good to open with if it's the only trasher on a Colony board.
Logged

ehunt

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1528
  • Shuffle iT Username: ehunt
  • Respect: +1856
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #33 on: November 02, 2011, 01:29:57 pm »
0

Wait - I almost always open trade route if it's the only trasher (and strategies that will rely on me making 5 dollars early aren't obviously dominant) - is this wrong?
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #34 on: November 02, 2011, 01:34:20 pm »
0

Wait - I almost always open trade route if it's the only trasher (and strategies that will rely on me making 5 dollars early aren't obviously dominant) - is this wrong?
Yes.

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #35 on: November 02, 2011, 01:41:15 pm »
0

Oh, Trade Route.

Trade Route is my kryptonite.  When it's around, I go for it the vast majority of the time, and invariably crash and burn, playing really really stupidly.  And yet I can't give up its siren song.  I wish I could quit you, Trade Route.

Serously, though, Trade Route is pretty weak; its trashing is probably the worst part about it, and is best thought of as a late-game source of +Buy and income.  It's a better trasher than Develop and Transmute and maybe Mine and that's it.  (Okay maybe it's better at thinning the deck than Remodel, since that doesn't thin your deck at all).  Really the +Buy (and Colony games) is what's keeping it out of the Bottom 5.
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

guided

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 940
  • Respect: +94
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #36 on: November 02, 2011, 01:56:34 pm »
0

To be sure, Trade Route is not frequently a strong opener. But Develop is... just, so bad as an opener, man.

When I open with Trade Route it's because I think the game will be long enough that trashing one card at a time with a terminal action (not normally strong!) is strong in and of itself. The late-game +Buy and +$ are little throw-in bonuses that don't (usually) factor into the decision to open with the card.
Logged

DG

  • Governor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4074
  • Respect: +2624
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #37 on: November 02, 2011, 02:08:01 pm »
0

The +coins is important. If one player opens with an island then the trade route often becomes a better choice for the opponent.
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #38 on: November 02, 2011, 03:06:24 pm »
+1

Note: all these are for 2 player
Top above 5
1.King's Court
2.Goons
3.Grand Market
4.Peddler
5.Hoard

Bottom above 5
1.Adventurer
2.Forge
3.Expand
4.Farmland
5.Bank

Top 5 Attacks
1.Witch
2.Mountebank
3.Minion
4.Margrave
5.Ghost Ship
I want to note that Ghost Ship moves ahead of Margrave when there isn't something combo-y possible; it's very good there, better than gold for your first couple actually

Top 5 non-attacks
1.Wharf
2.Hunting Party
3.Tactician
4.Ill Gotten Gains
5.Stables
Note: IGG and stables aren't stable here, I don't have a great feel for them. But man, Wharf is still the best, and Hunting party is insane.

Bottom 5s
1.Outpost
2.Saboteur
3.Counting House
4.Contraband
5.Mine
Yeah, I'm going to get killed for Outpost. And it's not always useless. But I don't see it.

Top 4s
1.Sea Hag
2.JoaT
3.Monument
4.Militia
5.Smithy
I think tournament is pretty overrated, Monument very very underrated. And Caravan extremely overrated, though not bad.

Bottom 4s
1.Scout
2.Thief
3.Talisman
4.Treasure Map
5.Noble Brigand
Scout is terrible, by the way, even with it getting a good deal better with Hinterlands.

Top 3s
1.Ambassador
2.Fishing Village
3.Masquerade
4.Swindler
5.Warehouse
I'm quite sure of the top 4 here, 5th is much less clear. Actually Hinterlands has a lot of ambassador counters too.

Bottom 3s
1.Develop
2.Chancellor
3.Woodcutter
4.Black Market
5.Trade Route
I always find that black market is tough as a terminal, as usually there's SOMETHING good on the board, rather than going fishing for some one of few things in the BM.

Top 2s
1.Chapel
2.Hamlet
3.Courtyard
4.Lighthouse
5.Pawn
Wow, I'm actually surprised lighthouse is this low. It's routinely better than silver (basically if there's almost any attack or anything benefitting from non-replacing non-terminals), but it just doesn't have the star power of hamlet or courtyard (which, incidentally, is often better than smithy).

Bottom 2s
1.Secret Chamber
2.Moat
3.Herbalist
4.Cellar
5.Pearl Diver
No comments here really.

I want to say that I may have missed something, just jotting these down in about a half hour. I also look at worst very simply: How often is it that this is the card I want to buy. If I never want it, it's terrible. That doesn't mean it's necessarily terrible once I have it, just that, given the opportunity, cost, how often is it worth it? Best is a bit more tricky, because it has to be a combination of wanting it often and having it really shine as the centrepiece of a deck.

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #39 on: November 02, 2011, 03:08:53 pm »
0

Sorry for the double post, but:
Walled Village comes oh-so-close to making bottom of the 4s. And Governor I think actually should bump Mine as a bad 5. It just seems terrible to me.
Edit: Gahhh! And Coppersmith must be worse than noble brigand.
« Last Edit: November 02, 2011, 03:14:13 pm by WanderingWinder »
Logged

Copernicus

  • Baron
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 50
  • Respect: +31
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #40 on: November 02, 2011, 03:52:46 pm »
0

@ WanderingWinder-

I think Remake has to be on the top $4 list.  I also like Menagerie more than Warehouse, although both are rather strong.  Or you could just cheat and say Silver.  :)

I think Ill-Gotten Gains needs to be moved to an attack, since it looks like an attack and acts like an attack.  There's a lot of competition for the final two cards in the top $5 list, which prettyy much comes down to what bonus the player wants with their +1 card/+1 action.
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #41 on: November 02, 2011, 04:01:08 pm »
0

@ WanderingWinder-

I think Remake has to be on the top $4 list.  I also like Menagerie more than Warehouse, although both are rather strong.  Or you could just cheat and say Silver.  :)

I think Ill-Gotten Gains needs to be moved to an attack, since it looks like an attack and acts like an attack.  There's a lot of competition for the final two cards in the top $5 list, which prettyy much comes down to what bonus the player wants with their +1 card/+1 action.
You're definitely right on remake; I meant to put it at number 4, ahead of militia. IGG I maintain as a non-attack because, strictly speaking, it isn't one. You can't moat it. You can't lighthouse it. So, it's sorta similar to how peddler costs more than 5, even though it usually doesn't by the time you get it.

rspeer

  • Witch
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 469
  • Respect: +877
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #42 on: November 02, 2011, 06:50:45 pm »
0

DoubleJack beats Sea Hag even more easily than it beats Witch. 75-25 against one hag + big money, 64-36 against two hags + big money.

There might be a problem with Geronimoos simulator, also concerning JoaT. Or was this yours?

Definitely mine.

Of course there are lots of reasons not to trust a simulator blindly, one of which is that they sometimes have bugs. But the nearly complete dominance of JoAT can be confirmed with both simulators, against a variety of strategies, and also by actually playing the game that way.
Logged

guided

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 940
  • Respect: +94
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #43 on: November 02, 2011, 07:00:18 pm »
0

To say Outpost is usually not good is to speak truth. However, "usually" in this case means "about 3/4 to 4/5 of the time", and the other 1/5 to 1/4 of the time it is stupendously good. It isn't even in the same zip code as the ballpark Counting House and Saboteur play in, either in terms of frequency of usefulness or degree of usefulness when it is useful.
Logged

DG

  • Governor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4074
  • Respect: +2624
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #44 on: November 02, 2011, 07:56:57 pm »
0

I think a lot of cards on these lists are debatable now. There seems to be more variety of play within hinterlands kingdoms and a lot of situational cards have more situations. I suspect there needs to be more time for the dust to settle before any lists are produced.
Logged

Fangz

  • Apprentice
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 260
  • Respect: +13
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #45 on: November 02, 2011, 09:20:42 pm »
0

Note: all these are for 2 player
Top above 5
1.King's Court
2.Goons
3.Grand Market
4.Peddler
5.Hoard

Bottom above 5
1.Adventurer
2.Forge
3.Expand
4.Farmland
5.Bank

Pretty much agreed. I'd say that expand and forge are more useful than farmland most of the time, but it's close.

Quote
Top 5 Attacks
1.Witch
2.Mountebank
3.Minion
4.Margrave
5.Ghost Ship
I want to note that Ghost Ship moves ahead of Margrave when there isn't something combo-y possible; it's very good there, better than gold for your first couple actually

No jester? I'd have jester at $5 instead of ghost ship. I mean, ghost ship is more annoying, but jester seems more useful and there are fewer counters.

Quote
Top 5 non-attacks
1.Wharf
2.Hunting Party
3.Tactician
4.Ill Gotten Gains
5.Stables
Note: IGG and stables aren't stable here, I don't have a great feel for them. But man, Wharf is still the best, and Hunting party is insane.

I don't really get the love for your #4 and #5. Stables has generally failed to impress me - being often weaker than laboratory - and IGG seems narrow strategically (if its main use is for trashing into something else, then it's not that good a card :p). Vault as a strategy unto itself should still be on this list.

Quote
Bottom 5s
1.Outpost
2.Saboteur
3.Counting House
4.Contraband
5.Mine
Yeah, I'm going to get killed for Outpost. And it's not always useless. But I don't see it.
It's crazy to have outpost be the worst card. Mandarin should be on this list, though it's probably better than counting house.

I hear what you said about governor, but governor's problem comes from being misplayed. It's actually quite strong as a gold gainer/non-terminal remodel in the late game.

Quote
Top 4s
1.Sea Hag
2.JoaT
3.Monument
4.Militia
5.Smithy
I think tournament is pretty overrated, Monument very very underrated. And Caravan extremely overrated, though not bad.

Remake ought to be on this list, probably above monument.

Quote
Bottom 4s
1.Scout
2.Thief
3.Talisman
4.Treasure Map
5.Noble Brigand
Scout is terrible, by the way, even with it getting a good deal better with Hinterlands.

Coppersmith should be on this. I'd put Traders also on this but some people might complain.

Quote
Top 3s
1.Ambassador
2.Fishing Village
3.Masquerade
4.Swindler
5.Warehouse
I'm quite sure of the top 4 here, 5th is much less clear. Actually Hinterlands has a lot of ambassador counters too.
Is Swindler that good? It's too variable IMHO. Steward is more generally useful IMHO.

Quote
Bottom 3s
1.Develop
2.Chancellor
3.Woodcutter
4.Black Market
5.Trade Route
I always find that black market is tough as a terminal, as usually there's SOMETHING good on the board, rather than going fishing for some one of few things in the BM.
I don't get the hate for develop some people have. It's a nice, albeit situational card. It sucks as an estate/copper trasher, but the times where there's useful $5-3 cards are more common than people think. I'd put oracle on this list.

Quote
Top 2s
1.Chapel
2.Hamlet
3.Courtyard
4.Lighthouse
5.Pawn
Wow, I'm actually surprised lighthouse is this low. It's routinely better than silver (basically if there's almost any attack or anything benefitting from non-replacing non-terminals), but it just doesn't have the star power of hamlet or courtyard (which, incidentally, is often better than smithy).

Bottom 2s
1.Secret Chamber
2.Moat
3.Herbalist
4.Cellar
5.Pearl Diver
No comments here really.

I want to say that I may have missed something, just jotting these down in about a half hour. I also look at worst very simply: How often is it that this is the card I want to buy. If I never want it, it's terrible. That doesn't mean it's necessarily terrible once I have it, just that, given the opportunity, cost, how often is it worth it? Best is a bit more tricky, because it has to be a combination of wanting it often and having it really shine as the centrepiece of a deck.
Now that's an interesting criteria. By that criteria, herbalist is at least useful *sometimes* (as the only source of +buy). Pearl diver should be the top of this list, because I've never, ever looked at a board and said 'ah, pearl diver is what I need here'.
« Last Edit: November 02, 2011, 09:23:28 pm by Fangz »
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #46 on: November 02, 2011, 09:34:47 pm »
0

To say Outpost is usually not good is to speak truth. However, "usually" in this case means "about 3/4 to 4/5 of the time", and the other 1/5 to 1/4 of the time it is stupendously good. It isn't even in the same zip code as the ballpark Counting House and Saboteur play in, either in terms of frequency of usefulness or degree of usefulness when it is useful.

That's fine. I disagree with you on both points for sure, but you know, they are all terrible (I definitely think outpost isn't worth it 20% of the time FWIW), so it's not a huge deal.

Copernicus

  • Baron
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 50
  • Respect: +31
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #47 on: November 02, 2011, 09:46:34 pm »
0

I don't get the hate for develop some people have. It's a nice, albeit situational card. It sucks as an estate/copper trasher, but the times where there's useful $5-3 cards are more common than people think. I'd put oracle on this list.

The problems with Develop-
 * Unlike a lot of the trash for +1/2 benefit, it's not good in multiples.  If I draw two Remodels, I get a Gold.  Two Remakes gives me a $5 card.  Two Upgrades gives me a gold.  Two Develops... and I get an Estate and a $4?
 * It needs to rely on the rest of the board to have good combos.  I'm sure someone has done a Develop/Mountebank/King's Court board, but most of the time it's turning an average $4 card into a $5 card and a silver.  Which isn't bad, but it kind of wastes the $4 card and I'm stuck with trying to do something with my other 3 cards.
 * A lot of times when I buy a bad trasher (Lookout, Trade Routes) early on, my goal is to have a slim deck with some cool combo going.  In that instance, the bad trasher can still give some benefit even late in the game.  But Develop takes my skinny deck and starts fattening it up if I try to use it.

It has its uses.  I'm sure someone has looked at a board and declared "Develop is the key to my plan!" and been right.  But for a general purpose best/worst list of "Am I thinking about getting this card when it shows up?", it easily fits under the not good.
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #48 on: November 02, 2011, 09:55:19 pm »
0

No jester? I'd have jester at $5 instead of ghost ship. I mean, ghost ship is more annoying, but jester seems more useful and there are fewer counters.
Jester is almost never stellar, as it's really hard to set it up it gaining you a really nice card. Ghost ship is monstrously powerful in big money decks.

Quote
I don't really get the love for your #4 and #5. Stables has generally failed to impress me - being often weaker than laboratory - and IGG seems narrow strategically (if its main use is for trashing into something else, then it's not that good a card :p). Vault as a strategy unto itself should still be on this list.
Yeah, I've actually been pretty unimpressed with stables too, but then, I think that's because we're expecting it to do more than we should. IGG, on the other hand, is more of a strategy unto itself than vault is. It also works better with more other cards. If vault didn't have the opponent benefit, I'd think it was close. But IGG/Duchy rush is just really powerful. So I'm really unsure with stables, and my gut tells me it shouldn't be up there, but... well, I guess I might stick venture there.

Quote
It's crazy to have outpost be the worst card. Mandarin should be on this list, though it's probably better than counting house.
I definitely disagree with you on both points, and while outpost might not be the absolute worst (I do think it is, but I'm not totally sure), I really don't think it's crazy to put it there. Man, tell me where you guys are really wanting these outpost decks.
Quote
I hear what you said about governor, but governor's problem comes from being misplayed. It's actually quite strong as a gold gainer/non-terminal remodel in the late game.
Man, I don't like any of the three parts of Governor. Gain a gold, give a silver is good but sorta slow, and not all that strong anyway. The remodel seems like it might actually be stronger for the opponent fairly often. And man, giving the opponent a lab is huge, even if you get two yourself.

Quote
Remake ought to be on this list, probably above monument.
As I said above, I'd put it above militia. But BELOW monument. Man, Monument is really good.
Quote
Coppersmith should be on this. I'd put Traders also on this but some people might complain.
Again, noted above that I'd put Coppersmith on this. Traders by itself is a decent-not-great card. As a counter to ambassador and every curser, it's super useful though, and it has some nice other interactions too (mostly with alternate VP things). So it's probably not USUALLY worth it, but sorta close, and often very good. So I definitely don't think it's close to the bottom. There are some pretty terrible 4s.
Quote
Is Swindler that good? It's too variable IMHO. Steward is more generally useful IMHO.
It may be the highest variance card in the game, but it's really strong too. It will hit one to two coppers early really often. And it can hit an important 3 or 4 or 5 (or even 6, sometimes province into peddler) and turn it into something useless pretty often.
Steward is nice, but actually pretty often I don't want to spend my terminal on it. Every new set that comes out, I seem less and less impressed by it. But yes, steward is good.

Quote
I don't get the hate for develop some people have. It's a nice, albeit situational card. It sucks as an estate/copper trasher, but the times where there's useful $5-3 cards are more common than people think. I'd put oracle on this list.
But you have to get the develop WITH the 4 cost card that's not worthless, and man, that's a lot of setup for your enormous tempo loss. Is it the worst 3 in the game? I'm not THAT confident in it, but I'm pretty sure it's pretty bad.

Quote
Now that's an interesting criteria. By that criteria, herbalist is at least useful *sometimes* (as the only source of +buy). Pearl diver should be the top of this list, because I've never, ever looked at a board and said 'ah, pearl diver is what I need here'.
Herbalist is useful sometimes, but where you're that hurting for buys is not that often. Pearl diver should NOT be at the top of the list, because, well, it's effect on cycling is actually pretty decent. Man, if I'm not having terminal draw, I actually like pearl diver fairly well.

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #49 on: November 02, 2011, 10:35:46 pm »
0

Top 5 Attacks
1.Witch
2.Mountebank
3.Minion
4.Margrave
5.Ghost Ship
I want to note that Ghost Ship moves ahead of Margrave when there isn't something combo-y possible; it's very good there, better than gold for your first couple actually
What happened to Torturer?  I'll grant that it is worse than Margrave and GS as a single terminal on a board with no Villages, but Torturer-Village is just so strong.

Top 5 non-attacks
1.Wharf
2.Hunting Party
3.Tactician
4.Ill Gotten Gains
5.Stables
Note: IGG and stables aren't stable here, I don't have a great feel for them. But man, Wharf is still the best, and Hunting party is insane.
I am shocked, SHOCKED that you put IGG and Stables up there.  You may even be right about IGG.

Bottom 5s
1.Outpost
2.Saboteur
3.Counting House
4.Contraband
5.Mine
Yeah, I'm going to get killed for Outpost. And it's not always useless. But I don't see it.
My opinion of Outpost is pretty much halfway between you and Guided; it's pretty bad 80% of the time but too useful when it's good to deserve a spot here.  You're probably expecting me to say "but where's Explorer!?" and I still think it belongs somewhere on this list, but Hinterlands is really bringing Silver back and I won a game against Theory earlier today opening Explorer, so I'm coming around to it being better than Sab at least, maybe even one or two others.  Still don't think Contraband and Mine belong; in particular I think the boards where Contraband is a good buy are much more frequent than Cache boards.

Top 4s
1.Sea Hag
2.JoaT
3.Monument
4.Militia
5.Smithy
I think tournament is pretty overrated, Monument very very underrated. And Caravan extremely overrated, though not bad.
I actually agree that Monument is underrated and it's one of like eight cards I could see filling the last two spots.  But man, Tournament is the one card you are just absolutely out to lunch on- it really is that good.

Bottom 4s
1.Scout
2.Thief
3.Talisman
4.Treasure Map
5.Noble Brigand
Scout is terrible, by the way, even with it getting a good deal better with Hinterlands.
Can't argue much here, though try to tell me that Walled Village just misses this list and I'll come up with a half-dozen worse 4s above and beyond these five.

Top 3s
1.Ambassador
2.Fishing Village
3.Masquerade
4.Swindler
5.Warehouse
I'm quite sure of the top 4 here, 5th is much less clear. Actually Hinterlands has a lot of ambassador counters too.
Menagerie, man.  Granted, I specialize in Menagerie games like you specialize in Gardens.  But Menagerie is underrated if anything, it's that powerful.

Bottom 3s
1.Develop
2.Chancellor
3.Woodcutter
4.Black Market
5.Trade Route
I always find that black market is tough as a terminal, as usually there's SOMETHING good on the board, rather than going fishing for some one of few things in the BM.
I go back and forth on Black Market: it feels like it should be awful, and the stats say it is, but I win with it a lot so I'd rather put in something like Smugglers or Workshop or even Great Hall.

Top 2s
1.Chapel
2.Hamlet
3.Courtyard
4.Lighthouse
5.Pawn
Wow, I'm actually surprised lighthouse is this low. It's routinely better than silver (basically if there's almost any attack or anything benefitting from non-replacing non-terminals), but it just doesn't have the star power of hamlet or courtyard (which, incidentally, is often better than smithy).

Bottom 2s
1.Secret Chamber
2.Moat
3.Herbalist
4.Cellar
5.Pearl Diver
No comments here really.
I'm more or less in agreement with these; may find room for Crossroads or bump Herbalist to #4 or #5, but generally this is my thinking too.


Man, I don't like any of the three parts of Governor. Gain a gold, give a silver is good but sorta slow, and not all that strong anyway. The remodel seems like it might actually be stronger for the opponent fairly often. And man, giving the opponent a lab is huge, even if you get two yourself.
Governor is pretty good but easily misplayed.  My thinking is that buying just one or two, and using it alternately to gain Gold and/or to give your engine a little double-Lab "pop" when it needs it, is probably the best way to play Governor.  The remodel choice is definitely the worst of the bunch.  Giving your opponents one extra card in hand is really not so bad; chaining a bunch of Governors is likely to end in tears though.

Again, noted above that I'd put Coppersmith on this. Traders by itself is a decent-not-great card. As a counter to ambassador and every curser, it's super useful though, and it has some nice other interactions too (mostly with alternate VP things). So it's probably not USUALLY worth it, but sorta close, and often very good. So I definitely don't think it's close to the bottom. There are some pretty terrible 4s.
I actually like Traders more than you'd expect- best in Hinterlands-heavy setups, great with Stables, doesn't play well with Colonies of course.  Coppersmith, too: it's not worth buying often at all, but it's the centerpiece of nearly every deck it's a part of, and there are so many bad $4s that I'm not sure there's room for it in the bottom 5.  Heck, even if you think it's worse than Bureaucrat and Talisman I still don't think there's room for it in the bottom 5.
« Last Edit: November 02, 2011, 10:50:10 pm by chwhite »
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

rinkworks

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1316
  • Respect: +937
    • View Profile
    • RinkWorks
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #50 on: November 02, 2011, 11:14:08 pm »
+1

What is this "Traders" card people keep talking about?  There is no such card.
Logged

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #51 on: November 02, 2011, 11:44:51 pm »
+1

What is this "Traders" card people keep talking about?  There is no such card.

It's part of the new expansion, along with Stable and Developer and Haggle.
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

dondon151

  • 2012 US Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2522
  • Respect: +1856
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #52 on: November 02, 2011, 11:52:57 pm »
0

I think what rinkworks is trying to say is that the card does not naturally have the plural form of the noun in its name.
Logged

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #53 on: November 02, 2011, 11:58:49 pm »
+1

I think what rinkworks is trying to say is that the card does not naturally have the plural form of the noun in its name.

Read my post a little more carefully. :P
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

guided

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 940
  • Respect: +94
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #54 on: November 03, 2011, 12:03:37 am »
0

The 20%-25% case is where Outpost begins to approach giving you twice as many endgame turns as your opponents (assuming they think Outpost is the worst $5 card and fail to get in on the action). The 10-15% case is where it straight up gives you full double turns, and you will certainly win if you're the only one playing Outpost. I doubt Counting House's value exceeds that of Duchy at any opportunity to acquire a $5 even once in anything like 10% of games, and it's essentially never as good as the good cases for Outpost. Saboteur is almost as situational (and underwhelming when useful) as Counting House except that it has some bigger upside in a KC deck. Anyone who thinks Outpost is the worst $5 card simply doesn't know how to play Outpost.

Simple examples: Most Outpost/Wharf boards containing a Village variant will overwhelmingly favor playing Outpost. Any board that allows for a halfway decent, nearly full-cycling double-Tactician engine (which is a pretty high percentage of Tactician boards) too. This is by no means an exhaustive list.
Logged

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #55 on: November 03, 2011, 12:12:53 am »
0

The 20%-25% case is where Outpost begins to approach giving you twice as many endgame turns as your opponents (assuming they think Outpost is the worst $5 card and fail to get in on the action). The 10-15% case is where it straight up gives you full double turns, and you will certainly win if you're the only one playing Outpost. I doubt Counting House's value exceeds that of Duchy at any opportunity to acquire a $5 even once in anything like 10% of games, and it's essentially never as good as the good cases for Outpost. Saboteur is almost as situational (and underwhelming when useful) as Counting House except that it has some bigger upside in a KC deck. Anyone who thinks Outpost is the worst $5 card simply doesn't know how to play Outpost.

Simple examples: Most Outpost/Wharf boards containing a Village variant will overwhelmingly favor playing Outpost. Any board that allows for a halfway decent, nearly full-cycling double-Tactician engine (which is a pretty high percentage of Tactician boards) too. This is by no means an exhaustive list.

Saboteur's upside is also decent in Minion matches, and there is one case where Counting House has as much utility as a best-case Outpost buy: notrash Mountebank games.  I do agree that Outpost is better than these two cards, certainly.
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

papaHav

  • Navigator
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 76
  • Respect: +24
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #56 on: November 03, 2011, 01:40:55 am »
0

Just to clean up the debate a little

Ultra powerful cards when used well:
Outpost, Mint, Bank, Forge, Venture, all the ?VP (vineyard...), all the +VP (bishop...)

Weak cards even when used well:
Mine, Mandarin, Harvest, Cache, Governor, Explorer, Transmute, Adventurer etc.

"best" and "worst" looks at other factors.
Not just powerful, but broadly useful (caravan), "luckbox factor" (treasure map), takes a long time to play (pawn, forge), people play it badly (village), whether there is unfair impact to 2nd player (cutpurse)... etc.

Raw crushing$$$power is just one factor that clearly belongs to enabled bank/outpost.
Logged

dondon151

  • 2012 US Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2522
  • Respect: +1856
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #57 on: November 03, 2011, 04:20:27 am »
0

Read my post a little more carefully. :P

Ah, yes. I totally autocompleted those words in my head.
Logged

guided

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 940
  • Respect: +94
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #58 on: November 03, 2011, 08:10:03 am »
0

Saboteur's upside is also decent in Minion matches, and there is one case where Counting House has as much utility as a best-case Outpost buy: notrash Mountebank games.
Fair points, though I've never personally used or seen the Counting House counter to Mountebank.
Logged

ackack

  • Explorer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 302
  • Respect: +19
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #59 on: November 03, 2011, 08:44:42 am »
0

I agree that it's ridiculous to claim Outpost is the worst $5. What I'm guessing is that, as WW often says, he specializes in Big Moneyish games. And there I can see Outpost being genuinely bad most of the time, giving you 4 and 3 card hands that may be good for Duchies but bad for straight Province running. But there are plenty of engines that love Outpost (decks that can get multiple plays of Wharf, multi-Tactician decks, Minion decks, City decks, other sorts of draw decks with Scheme), and when it's good it's really good. Explorer, Counting House and Stash are all clearly worse in my opinion, and there are several cards (Cache, Mandarin, Saboteur, Contraband) that you can make good arguments for being worse. Basically I doubt Outpost should be on the list at all.
Logged

Davio

  • 2012 Dutch Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4787
  • Respect: +3412
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #60 on: November 03, 2011, 09:47:44 am »
+1

I don't think a discussion like this is useful at all for two reasons:

1. All cards are situational. You can't just say that X is horrible per se, because there will be always be that niche setup in which it shines. On the other hand there are probably plenty of games in which you don't need any of the so called "top 5 cards". And what if you play a game with all of those top 5 cards, will the #1 still be the best card for that setup or will the #5 be the best?

2. It promotes tunnel vision. It leads new players to think these cards are good just because they are in the top 5, not making them look further about their actual effects. Dominion is such a complex game, because there are 10+, not just 5, cards in the supply and the dominant strategy may be anything from BMU to the grand daddy Fairgrounds deck with a few copies of everything and the entire Black Market deck.

Of course there are cards which are usually better than others. A Colony is (usually) better than an Estate and a Grand Market is almost always better than a plain Market. Splitting the cards into groups of same cost doesn't help much either; that's because everything from $2-$4 is basically in the same group and everything $5+ makes up the other group.

Assembling a top 5 is also way too static, because of the situational nature of the cards. You can't just blindly buy these cards and expect to win every game.
Logged

BSG: Cagprezimal Adama
Mage Knight: Arythea

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #61 on: November 03, 2011, 10:03:46 am »
+1

I don't think a discussion like this is useful at all for two reasons:
Great! Ignore it then.

Quote
1. All cards are situational. You can't just say that X is horrible per se, because there will be always be that niche setup in which it shines. On the other hand there are probably plenty of games in which you don't need any of the so called "top 5 cards". And what if you play a game with all of those top 5 cards, will the #1 still be the best card for that setup or will the #5 be the best?

2. It promotes tunnel vision. It leads new players to think these cards are good just because they are in the top 5, not making them look further about their actual effects. Dominion is such a complex game, because there are 10+, not just 5, cards in the supply and the dominant strategy may be anything from BMU to the grand daddy Fairgrounds deck with a few copies of everything and the entire Black Market deck.

Of course there are cards which are usually better than others. A Colony is (usually) better than an Estate and a Grand Market is almost always better than a plain Market. Splitting the cards into groups of same cost doesn't help much either; that's because everything from $2-$4 is basically in the same group and everything $5+ makes up the other group.

Assembling a top 5 is also way too static, because of the situational nature of the cards. You can't just blindly buy these cards and expect to win every game.

Agree with basically everything you're saying (well, except that everything 2-4 is the same and everything 5+ is the same, which isn't right, though even there, you've got a lot of logic behind you, you're just going too far). But these aren't supposed to be be-all and end-all lists! These are supposed to be "This card is USUALLY better than this other card" lists.

greatexpectations

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1097
  • Respect: +1067
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #62 on: November 03, 2011, 10:08:40 am »
+5

a friendly reminder to all of the disclaimer theory put on the blog posts that started this discussion:

---
Disclaimer: Dominion does a really great job of balancing its Kingdom cards. Pretty much every card has some situations where it shines, and some situations where it doesn’t. Nevertheless, some cards just end up being flat-out better than others, either because they are more useful more often, or just ridiculously good when they are useful. Don’t expect this list to be very scientific.
---
Logged
momomoto: ...I looked at the tableau and went "Mountebank? That's for jerks."
rrenaud: Jerks win.

Empathy

  • Moneylender
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 151
  • Respect: +40
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #63 on: November 03, 2011, 10:24:03 am »
0

Saboteur's upside is also decent in Minion matches, and there is one case where Counting House has as much utility as a best-case Outpost buy: notrash Mountebank games.
Fair points, though I've never personally used or seen the Counting House counter to Mountebank.

http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111010-040301-7f6bdd3f.html

Near identical mirror match. The only difference is that I jumped into the counting house craze 3-4 turns earlier rather than go for (Top5) Jester. Granted, apothecary was a mitigating factor.

On a somewhat unrelated topic, warehouse (somewhat trivially) makes for a very good counting house enabler: http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111007-064649-39b8e0f5.html
In this game, he had the counting houses but not enough warehouses to fuel and control his deck reshuffle. Though cellar is in some ways better: it enables to control exactly when to trigger the reshuffle and can be opened on T1.
Logged

DG

  • Governor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4074
  • Respect: +2624
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #64 on: November 03, 2011, 10:29:23 am »
0

Quote
Fair points, though I've never personally used or seen the Counting House counter to Mountebank.
I've actually used counting house to counter sea hags. Yes think on that for a moment. I remodelled curses into coppers and used them to feed apothecaries and counting houses.
Logged

guided

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 940
  • Respect: +94
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #65 on: November 03, 2011, 11:18:28 am »
+1

To be clear, I'm not doubting that Counting House can help with Mountebank games, I've just never seen it myself ;)

My personal favorite Counting House synergy is actually with Goons in the absence of Villages.
Logged

AJD

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3292
  • Shuffle iT Username: AJD
  • Respect: +4434
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #66 on: November 03, 2011, 01:32:13 pm »
0

My personal favorite Counting House synergy is actually with Goons in the absence of Villages.

I agree with this! Counting House has also served me well as a partner to Cache (with Haven to finesse timing a bit).
Logged

mDuo13

  • Baron
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 53
  • Respect: +22
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #67 on: November 03, 2011, 08:58:07 pm »
0

I'm inclined to say that Cache is underrated, although I haven't played all that many games where I wanted to buy it, the few times I did, I felt like it helped substantially. I'm pretty sure it's better than Counting House. It's definitely not better than IGG.

One thing I feel like hasn't been discussed is when to buy a card that costs less than you have. There are definitely times when, given $5, I'd rather take a $4 card. One of the nice things about Cache is that it's not a terrible buy at any given time. It helps your buying power pretty well, and it fuels things like Stables and Spice Merchant quite nicely. And yes, it's pretty slick in a Gardens deck.

I haven't yet figured out how to use Jack of All Trades properly, I guess. I've been able to do just fine without it in most boards. It's certainly pretty OK most of the time, but I feel like (as its name implies) it's not especially good at any of the things it does. Not being able to trash Coppers is a pretty big drawback.

I agree with most of the OP's sentiments, though. Tunnel is pretty nuts a lot of the time. (Incidentally, Oracle goes pretty well with Tunnel). Develop is awful almost every time. Tournament needs to be on the best list because it dominates games far too often -- even Colony games. Trader is AWESOME. The mere fear of Trader can stop Curse-givers in their tracks ("what if my Mountebank gives him double-Silver instead? Maybe I shouldn't play it at all!"), and that's not to talk about

Another thing that would be interesting to discuss would be cards' early-game / mid-game / late-game potential. Obviously Menagerie is terrible early game and amazing late-game. Less obviously, Swindler gets a lot less good late-game when it's as likely to swap your opponent's Province for another Province than it is to turn their Copper into a Curse. Saboteur is an obnoxious card because it's worse than zero-sum for the game as a whole and it's also very luck-based... but that's exactly why it gives you chance of staging a comeback when the relatively-similar Swindler is as likely to accelerate your demise.
Logged

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #68 on: November 17, 2011, 02:33:26 am »
0

I realize I'm a couple weeks late to the party, but I wanted to chip in my 2 cents. I didn't make "worst" lists since the criteria are a bit too nebulous, but here are my "best" lists:

Top $6+ cards:
1. Grand Market
2. Goons
3. KC - it can be totally insane, but is a trap much more often than the 2 higher cards
4. Hoard
5. Peddler
6. Nobles - it’s not good if you don’t have villages, but if you do, you definitely want to race these down. It’s okay that you’ll get later provinces when you have extra points and a deck that is less likely to stall

Top $5 attacks:
1. Witch - Less disruptive than MB when there is trashing, better without
2. Mountebank
3. Torturer - alone, weaker than below attacks, but oh so strong with any kind of village
4. Minion - great in 2-player, but needs a lot of support in more players
5. Ghost ship - less dependent on support than other attacks, as it's good in big money decks, but unless you can play them practically every turn, you run a big risk of actually helping your opponents
6. Margrave - not a great attack, but very good benefits to yourself

1&2 are interchangeable, as are 3-5.

Top $5 non-attacks:
1. Ill-gotten gains - it's really a cursing attack, of course it's the best “non-attack”!
2. hunting party - stupid strong with a wide array of cards
3. wharf
4. venture - gets the edge over most other options since it's not an action so it always works, plus it’s totally green-immune
5. tactician - not so sure about this one. when i first read it, i thought it was the best card ever, but unless you’re doing some perpetual tactician strat, it has some trouble with end game, when you can’t afford to take zero for a turn
6. stables - better than lab in untrashed decks, which makes it simply easier to get a stables deck going

There is a huge drop between 1-3 and the rest, which are somewhat interchangeable, along with probably apprentice, lab, vault, embassy, and upgrade (which although not strategy-defining is just so generally good all the time).

While $5 cards can be valued based on how useful they are as a cornerstone of your strategy, $4 cards will rarely be cornerstones. Thus the $4 cards get ranked based on how important it is for you to be aware of their presence.

Top $4 cards:
1. Jack of all trades - puts a real timer on the game, and makes attacks much less worthwhile
2. Sea Hag
3. Young Witch - also a cursing attack. yes there is a bane, but most of the time the bane won’t be good enough to want it over just getting your own young witch
4. Tournament - not always the best card, but one that can definitely change the game a lot
5. Remake - great opener for almost any strategy
6. Salvager - even if you don't agree it's a great opening (which it is), you have to agree that it can have a major effect on accelerating the end-game

Top $3 cards:
1. Masquerade - one of the best openings, good for BM as well as transitions into draw strategies, overall more versatile than ambassador
2. Ambassador
3. Fishing village
4. Warehouse - combos with absolutely everything: cards you need to play often (attacks), cards you need to draw together (treasure map), cards for which you need to play a lot of actions (conspirator), large handsizes (apothecary), you name it
5. Steward - really strong opening when you are going for a slim deck
6. Lookout - non-terminal trashing from outside your hand is really underrated.

The top 4 are well above the rest, but can be re-ordered. I'm pretty set on masquerade being #1, but the other 3 could be shuffled a bit. The 5-6 spots could really be anything out of the listed ones and swindler, menagerie (which is more situational, but gets super-strong), and loan (again non-terminal trashing from outside your hand = good).

Top $2 cards:
1. Chapel
2. Hamlet
3. Courtyard
4. Lighthouse
5. Fool's gold - needs +buy and trashing or drawing, but like minion or warehouse, you simply can't let your opponent get too many, or it gets out of control
6. Crossroads - not always better than cellar, but with a greater chance of being absolutely nuts

The top 4 hardly need any explanation. It's hard to know how high to put fool's gold and crossroads because they are new, but it sure seems like they are really good. If not, the spots can go to pawn and haven, maybe cellar or native village or even embargo (just because it has the ability to change the direction of the game).
« Last Edit: November 17, 2011, 02:35:30 am by HiveMindEmulator »
Logged

ehunt

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1528
  • Shuffle iT Username: ehunt
  • Respect: +1856
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #69 on: November 17, 2011, 12:40:02 pm »
0

For the record, I do not think the governor is in the bottom five 5s.
Logged

Jorbles

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1468
  • Respect: +531
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #70 on: November 17, 2011, 05:13:38 pm »
0

For the record, I do not think the governor is in the bottom five 5s.

I'd agree with that. And to back that up I'd offer these stats from Council Room's Popular Buys:
Win Rate with 1.01 ± 0.01
Win Rate without 0.98 ± 0.02

It's a little tricky to use Governor properly, but the benefits to you still greatly outweigh the benefits to your opponents. The gain Gold ability and the trash for Remodel are greatly better for you than they are for your opponents.
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #71 on: November 17, 2011, 05:24:04 pm »
0

For the record, I do not think the governor is in the bottom five 5s.

I'd agree with that. And to back that up I'd offer these stats from Council Room's Popular Buys:
Win Rate with 1.01 ± 0.01
Win Rate without 0.98 ± 0.02

It's a little tricky to use Governor properly, but the benefits to you still greatly outweigh the benefits to your opponents. The gain Gold ability and the trash for Remodel are greatly better for you than they are for your opponents.
Each of the abilities is better for you than your opponents, with the possible exception of... the trashing one, where often you'd want to use it to turn estate into silver or copper/curse into nothing. It's not that it's really all that terrible, it's more just... not that great. It's gotta be worse than say jester, which while being a quite decent card, isn't really anything spectacular.
And so if it's not in your bottom 5... what is?

rrenaud

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 991
  • Uncivilized Barbarian of Statistics
  • Respect: +1197
    • View Profile
    • CouncilRoom
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #72 on: November 17, 2011, 05:29:17 pm »
0

Maybe I am too much of an engine whore, but if you are going for a more combo/chainy deck than your opponent, +2 cards for you and +1 cards for them helps you a lot more than it helps them.
Logged

Rabid

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 840
  • Shuffle iT Username: Rabid
  • Respect: +643
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #73 on: November 17, 2011, 05:59:21 pm »
0

I think a useful thing about governor is using several of them on the last turn of the game for +3 cards, then your opponent doesn't get to use their benefit at all.
Logged
Twitch
1 Day Cup #1:Ednever

ChaosRed

  • Duke
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 387
  • Respect: +13
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #74 on: November 17, 2011, 06:04:28 pm »
0

Is there a place for Noble Brigand and Nomad Camp on the worst card lists? Nomad Camp's singular purpose seems to advance your 3$ draw on turn 2 into a 5$ draw. After that's you just paid four bucks for a Woodcutter. Noble Brigand just seems really weak to me.

And is there a place for Tunnel on the best card list? Man, I love that card! It might be my favorite 3$ card.

I am asking, because I am in no position to judge, just seems to me these cards might deserve mention.
Logged

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #75 on: November 17, 2011, 07:18:34 pm »
0

Is there a place for Noble Brigand and Nomad Camp on the worst card lists? Nomad Camp's singular purpose seems to advance your 3$ draw on turn 2 into a 5$ draw. After that's you just paid four bucks for a Woodcutter. Noble Brigand just seems really weak to me.

And is there a place for Tunnel on the best card list? Man, I love that card! It might be my favorite 3$ card.

I am asking, because I am in no position to judge, just seems to me these cards might deserve mention.

I certainly think Noble Brigand belongs on the Worst list; basically all the Treasure-stealers (Thief, Noble Brigand, Pirate Ship) are really horrible and deserve a Bottom 5 spot.  This means that there really isn't room for Nomad Camp; it's unexciting and weak, but so many $4 cards are.  And I sometimes buy it later in the game when I'm building an engine that wants +Buy, and I'm ready to start greening... now.

I think the competition is stiff for Tunnel to make it on the Best list, but it is a really cool card that very often dominates a board, and even when it doesn't the cost to points ratio is nice.  It would have to kick out stuff like Warehouse and Steward, but if I was making this list I might just do that.  (I'm assuming that the top 4 are Ambassador, Masquerade, Menagerie, and Fishing Village, and I don't see any other card coming close to those).
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

MasterAir

  • Alchemist
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 39
  • Respect: +8
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #76 on: November 18, 2011, 04:49:37 am »
0

I agree with the sentiment that tunnel belongs on the Best $3 list.

There are very few boards when you can afford to not buy it, when there are no enablers it's really obvious.  Even when there are no enablers it's a really good consolation prize, making estates all but worthless (not that hard, but true none the less).  Gaining gold is a really strong power, it might be competitive even if it had no VPs associated with it.
Logged

MasterAir

  • Alchemist
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 39
  • Respect: +8
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #77 on: November 18, 2011, 04:56:41 am »
0

I also think treasure stealers, are considered even weaker than they actually are on these forums, because most of us play a lot of 2 player games on isotropic.  In a 4 player game, they're (approximately 3 times) stronger.  In a 2 player game you can almost definitely ignore treasure stealing, in a 4 player game it's sometimes worth thinking about.

All treasure stealers should, in my opinion, have a "you may trash" where they in fact say "trash".
Logged

Geronimoo

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1059
  • Respect: +868
    • View Profile
    • Geronimoo's Dominion Simulator
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #78 on: November 18, 2011, 05:31:40 am »
0

Noble Brigand is vastly underrated!! In a few cases it's really really good. I would have liked to keep this info to myself, but the times it comes up are quite few (I've had only one game where it applied).

If the board is very much about money (Smithy, Witch) and your opponent opens with a Silver, buying a Noble Brigand will make your second player disadvantage disappear. In the Smithy case, you can even expect to beat him! Yes, going second and yes with Noble Brigand!!! In the Witch case you'll be about even with the Witch player instead of getting crushed (you should of course go for Witch yourself after the Noble Brigand).

People's gaming instincts are so often wrong. They know Thief is bad, they see a card that does about the same thing, so they assume it's also bad.
Logged

Lekkit

  • 2011 Swedish Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1253
  • Shuffle iT Username: Lekkit
  • Respect: +674
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #79 on: November 18, 2011, 05:37:16 am »
0

I find that Thief is generally bad unless my opponent has a LOT of good treasures and not a lot of bad treasures (generally this will mean that you have already lost, though) or if I want to go for a Gardens/P-stone-monstrosity. Noble Brigand is good in the endgame the same way that Thief is, however you don't have to wait for the reshuffle to get the effect of it, and he actually does something when you play him (other than stealing). The copper giving can sometimes be good to. However I don't think it's one of the best cards in the game.
Logged

DStu

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2627
  • Respect: +1490
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #80 on: November 18, 2011, 05:40:06 am »
0

If the board is very much about money (Smithy, Witch) and your opponent opens with a Silver, buying a Noble Brigand will make your second player disadvantage disappear. In the Smithy case, you can even expect to beat him! Yes, going second and yes with Noble Brigand!!! In the Witch case you'll be about even with the Witch player instead of getting crushed (you should of course go for Witch yourself after the Noble Brigand).

Bot or it didn't happen:
Code: [Select]
<player name="Noble Brigand" author="Computer" description="This bot has been generated by the computer without any optimization. XXXXIt just buys a single Action card and money">
 <type name="Bot"/>
 <type name="TwoPlayer"/>
 <type name="UserCreated"/>
 <type name="SingleCard"/>
 <type name="Generated"/>
 <type name="Province"/>
 <type name="BigMoney"/>
   <buy name="Province"/>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="5.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Noble_Brigand">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Noble_Brigand"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="1.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Smithy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardTypeInDeck" attribute="Treasure"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="12.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
</player>
(nonoptimized) beats Smithy from second position...
Logged

ftl

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2056
  • Shuffle iT Username: ftl
  • Respect: +1345
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #81 on: November 18, 2011, 05:54:03 am »
0

Ha! I had a game where I opened NB as second player, and did well, and I thought I'd just gotten lucky.

I don't play much on iso anymore, but I'll remember that for when it comes up.
Logged

Jorbles

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1468
  • Respect: +531
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #82 on: November 18, 2011, 11:36:36 am »
0

For the record, I do not think the governor is in the bottom five 5s.

I'd agree with that. And to back that up I'd offer these stats from Council Room's Popular Buys:
Win Rate with 1.01 ± 0.01
Win Rate without 0.98 ± 0.02

It's a little tricky to use Governor properly, but the benefits to you still greatly outweigh the benefits to your opponents. The gain Gold ability and the trash for Remodel are greatly better for you than they are for your opponents.
Each of the abilities is better for you than your opponents, with the possible exception of... the trashing one, where often you'd want to use it to turn estate into silver or copper/curse into nothing. It's not that it's really all that terrible, it's more just... not that great. It's gotta be worse than say jester, which while being a quite decent card, isn't really anything spectacular.
And so if it's not in your bottom 5... what is?

Cache, Stash, Mandarin, Explorer, Counting House (not necessarily in that order)
Logged

rspeer

  • Witch
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 469
  • Respect: +877
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #83 on: November 18, 2011, 02:27:44 pm »
0

Cache is pretty awesome in the right situations, and by that I probably mean Gardens games.

The only game I've ever gotten to play against tat, I bought Cache/Gardens/Duchess to beat him. Instead of the usual post-Gardens stall, I had a deck that could occasionally hit $8, and in fact I bought a province the four times it did.

I'm sure tat was planning to do something interesting with his Walled Village, but he seemed caught by surprise that I got so ahead in score and suddenly he had to be rushing for victory points.

Here it is as a Dominiate strategy that beats the crap out of Big Money:
Code: [Select]
{
  name: 'Cache-Gardens-Duchess'
  author: 'rspeer'
  requires: ["Cache", "Gardens", "Duchess"]
  gainPriority: (state, my) -> [
    "Province" if my.getTotalMoney() > 15
    "Duchy" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 5
    "Cache" if my.countInDeck("Cache") <= my.countInDeck("Gardens")
    "Gardens"
    "Silver"
    "Duchess"
    "Estate" if state.gainsToEndGame() <= 5
    "Copper"
  ]
}
Logged

Jorbles

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1468
  • Respect: +531
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #84 on: November 18, 2011, 04:49:34 pm »
0

Cache is pretty awesome in the right situations, and by that I probably mean Gardens games.

I'm not going to deny that all of the card in Dominion are good in some situations. I mean remember rrenaud's use of the Explorer in this old gem he played against theory?

All Dominion cards have their uses at the right time, but I'd say Cache is one of those cards that buying usually benefits your opponent more than it benefits you.
Logged

pooka

  • Coppersmith
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 49
  • Respect: +1
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #85 on: November 21, 2011, 02:11:09 am »
0

As player still finding my level, I'd say ranking cards by cost requires a list longer than 5, and it would be more useful to rank them base on what they do.  Hand attacks vs. deck attacks, fat deck strategy vs. thin deck strategy, + buy cards, trash for gain vs. trash for strategy. 

To me, remake is weak for the same reason Forge is weak.  You have to have the right combination of cards to benefit from it due to the "exactly" clause, and with remake you have to have 2 cards fitting that description.  Forge and remake shine for me as trash for strategy, even though they feel like trash for benefit.  Develop is kind of the opposite, it's a trasher that fattens the deck -- or in theory should, if you are basing play on the text of the card.  I'm in that exciting part of my career where you learn to ignore the behavior the card text suggests.  Like Herbalist is rotten if you assume it's for cycling potion, but it's great if you've got Bank or some other kingdom treasure out.  Kingdom treasures would be another separate list to me. 

And Farmland?  I love it.  It rocks any 2p Province game because of the potential to Farmland a Farmland, or a gold, or a grand Market if need be in the endgame.  It beats any of the victory hybrids without actually being a victory hybrid.

Does my love of Highway reflect some kind of profound Freudian immaturity?  I've read the thread pretty fast but I don't think it's been mentioned.
Logged
Just for today... level 14

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #86 on: November 21, 2011, 02:33:19 am »
0

As player still finding my level, I'd say ranking cards by cost requires a list longer than 5, and it would be more useful to rank them base on what they do.  Hand attacks vs. deck attacks, fat deck strategy vs. thin deck strategy, + buy cards, trash for gain vs. trash for strategy. 
I agree these lists aren't the most directly useful thing in the world, but they're still kind of fun, and the justifications can at least give you something to think about that might improve your game.

Quote
To me, remake is weak for the same reason Forge is weak.  You have to have the right combination of cards to benefit from it due to the "exactly" clause, and with remake you have to have 2 cards fitting that description. 
You don't need anything specific to make remake good. It's good at trashing coppers and estates, both of which are in high supply at the start of the game.

Quote
And Farmland?  I love it.  It rocks any 2p Province game because of the potential to Farmland a Farmland, or a gold, or a grand Market if need be in the endgame.  It beats any of the victory hybrids without actually being a victory hybrid.
I agree. It's pretty comparable to harem, since with $6+harem or $6+farmland, you net a province. I don't think it's quite been figured out yet when to start buying farmlands, but I suspect it's actually pretty early given the right circumstances.

Quote
Does my love of Highway reflect some kind of profound Freudian immaturity?  I've read the thread pretty fast but I don't think it's been mentioned.
While highway is nice, there is a lot of really stiff competition at the $5 pricepoint, with cards that can carry your strategy with only minor support from a couple of cheap cards. Highway appears to require just a little bit more than other cards...
Logged

JambalayaHut

  • Pawn
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2
  • Respect: 0
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #87 on: November 21, 2011, 08:07:07 pm »
0

Tunnel is pretty useful in a province game without attacks. In my experience, tunnel loses a lot of its power in colony games because of the relience on platinums and the development of longer action chains. Your deck becomes large enough that you end up drawing tunnel dead, or end up with $10 or something like that with too many golds.
Logged

pooka

  • Coppersmith
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 49
  • Respect: +1
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #88 on: November 21, 2011, 11:43:30 pm »
0

I've rarely realized more than a couple of golds from tunnel in any game where I didn't buy so many I was kicking myself.  For the turns and dead handspace they take (in an average board i.e. not Inn, Margrave or Embarssy which it was designed for) I don't think Tunnel is better than Cache as a moneymaker.  Tunnel has a decent VP/$ ratio for a green race, though, if buys are plentiful. 
Logged
Just for today... level 14

jotheonah

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 989
  • Respect: +949
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #89 on: November 22, 2011, 12:16:19 am »
0

I'm coming around on Cache.  A gold at 5 can be really good in, for instance a Grand Market race, and if those two coppers are, for instance, fueling a Spice Merchant engine, then OK. (Granted I'm not going to try to make a Spice Merchant engine if there's any more viable method.)

Also, excellent counter to Noble Brigand.  If you have Caches instead of Gold, that player who's spamming NB has nothing on you.  And if he's flooding your deck with copper anyway you're not going to notice two more.

And in a Gardens game? Three money cards in one buy?

It's highly situational, and there are many, many games where I will ignore it and wait to hit 6 for the Gold, but it's not by any means a terrible card.

As for Noble Brigand itself, speaking as a player who plays mostly 3-player, it's a pretty mean card and here's why.  In a Pirate Ship fest, I will buy no money and rely on virtual money in order to cripple the opponents PSs. I do the same thing in the rare event of an aggressive Thief player.  But that defense is useless against NB. If I have no money, it floods my deck with coppers, which is like a cursing attack that never ends.
Logged
"I know old meta, and joth is useless day 1 but awesome town day 3 and on." --Teproc

He/him

popsofctown

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5477
  • Respect: +2860
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #90 on: November 22, 2011, 12:49:44 am »
+1

Can we make that a Bank race instead of a Grand Market race?

Grand Market reads Cache as "3$, when you gain this gain two curses"
Logged

jotheonah

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 989
  • Respect: +949
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #91 on: November 22, 2011, 12:53:18 am »
0

You're right. GM is a really bad example.
Logged
"I know old meta, and joth is useless day 1 but awesome town day 3 and on." --Teproc

He/him

pooka

  • Coppersmith
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 49
  • Respect: +1
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #92 on: November 22, 2011, 01:06:46 am »
0

I tried opening Sea Hag today and got my hiney kicked by minion and cutpurse.  That was pretty depressing. 
Logged
Just for today... level 14

theory

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3603
  • Respect: +6121
    • View Profile
    • Dominion Strategy
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #93 on: December 06, 2011, 12:19:49 pm »
+1

I'm going to start posting updated 2011 versions of these each week, though it shouldn't take the place of the Monday articles.  The Worst $2 Cards will appear this Friday.

So this is your last chance to get in your input!  The list this time is going to have less of the "cards that are annoying to play against" and be a more serious attempt at ranking the cards.
Logged

Fangz

  • Apprentice
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 260
  • Respect: +13
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #94 on: December 06, 2011, 01:53:26 pm »
0

The discussion hasn't mentioned the power of the governor for the gain gold/trash gold and gain a province power. I really feel like the card deserves to be a runner up for best $5 card.
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #95 on: December 06, 2011, 03:42:56 pm »
0

The discussion hasn't mentioned the power of the governor for the gain gold/trash gold and gain a province power. I really feel like the card deserves to be a runner up for best $5 card.
Wow, I disagree. With more play I don't think it deserves bottom 5 status, but I still think it's closer to the bottom than the top.

I also want to say that with more play, IGG deserves a spot quite high up on the non-attack 5s (#2?), and develop is pretty dreadful.

Robz888

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2644
  • Shuffle iT Username: Robz888
  • Respect: +3388
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #96 on: December 06, 2011, 04:15:44 pm »
0

I'm going to start posting updated 2011 versions of these each week, though it shouldn't take the place of the Monday articles.  The Worst $2 Cards will appear this Friday.

So this is your last chance to get in your input!  The list this time is going to have less of the "cards that are annoying to play against" and be a more serious attempt at ranking the cards.
In that case, here's how I'd rank the Worst $2 Cards:

Honorable Mention: Cellar
5: Herbalist
4: Moat
3: Pearl Diver
2: Duchess
1: Secret Chamber

For me, it's close between Secret Chamber and Duchess. Hinterland's other $2 cards, Fool's Gold and Crossroads, just miss the Honorable Mention slot.
Logged
I have been forced to accept that lackluster play is a town tell for you.

Geronimoo

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1059
  • Respect: +868
    • View Profile
    • Geronimoo's Dominion Simulator
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #97 on: December 06, 2011, 04:19:36 pm »
0

While I agree the worst/best lists are a great help for beginning players who really don't have a clue, they can actually hurt a more experienced player if he doesn't realise every card will have its moments. Context is very important.
Logged

jsh357

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2577
  • Shuffle iT Username: jsh357
  • Respect: +4340
    • View Profile
    • JSH Gaming: Original games
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #98 on: December 06, 2011, 04:31:10 pm »
0

I'm going to start posting updated 2011 versions of these each week, though it shouldn't take the place of the Monday articles.  The Worst $2 Cards will appear this Friday.

So this is your last chance to get in your input!  The list this time is going to have less of the "cards that are annoying to play against" and be a more serious attempt at ranking the cards.

I would disagree with Secret Chamber being the worst if solely because of its money-gaining power in draw engines.  Duchess is definitely a harder card to play effectively (I have yet to play it effectively to be honest)  Otherwise, I agree with your list mostly but I'd put Native Village as the Honorable Mention, since in my experience that card's proven to be a trap unless you have highly specific uses for it.  Admittedly I might be overrating Cellar cause I love Tunnels to death.  I would probably rank it above Embargo, Fool's Gold and maybe Pawn on the right board.

Really though, most of the "bad" $2 cards are just the situational ones.  Hard to deny that Moat is awesome when you're playing a 4-player Mountebank game or something.
Logged
Join the Dominion community Discord channel! Chat in text and voice; enter dumb tournaments; spy on top players!

https://discord.gg/2rDpJ4N

DG

  • Governor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4074
  • Respect: +2624
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #99 on: December 06, 2011, 07:01:40 pm »
0

I think the cards look more balanced than ever before. Hinterlands gives new options for cards perceived as being weak.
Logged

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #100 on: December 06, 2011, 10:24:14 pm »
+1

In that case, here's how I'd rank the Worst $2 Cards:

Honorable Mention: Cellar
5: Herbalist
4: Moat
3: Pearl Diver
2: Duchess
1: Secret Chamber

For me, it's close between Secret Chamber and Duchess. Hinterland's other $2 cards, Fool's Gold and Crossroads, just miss the Honorable Mention slot.
I'm pretty sure duchess is the worst. Secret chamber has situations in which it's really good (scrying pool decks, double tactician decks). I don't know of any situation in which duchess is more than "ok". At first, I was going to complain that cellar shouldn't be near the bottom, but I guess there are only 12 $2 cards, so "honorable mention" just means "average". Crossroads missing the honorable mention slot means it's up for honorable mention for the "best" list :)
 
Logged

olneyce

  • 2011 DS Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 245
  • Respect: +210
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #101 on: December 06, 2011, 11:33:56 pm »
+2

One useful heuristic for the $2s might be to think about balancing three components: 1) how often they are an important component  of a good deck 2) how often they are a tolerable compensation for not getting enough money to buy something better and 3) how often they are actively damaging.

There are plenty of circumstances where I’d prefer nothing over Secret Chamber, Duchess, Moat, or Herbalist.  OTOH, Pearl Diver doesn’t really ever contribute something uniquely useful.  It’s a cantrip, sure, but plenty of other cards are, too, while also providing other value. 

The reason why Duchess is the worst $2 is because it fails on all these tests. One of the defining features of Dominion is that every card shines in some specific circumstance.  Except for Duchess.  I can’t think of a circumstance where it’s an important card.  And it often does active damage, to the point where I usually refuse it even when I can get it for free.

Crossroads definitely is a cut above the other cards mentioned here because it can play a really important role in some decks (especially if there are green action cards or if it’s the only +action on the board), it is a decent supplement a lot of other times (especially if you can combine it with other drawing cards so that you can get some extra actions and play it once you’ve drawn your green), and isn’t actively damaging too often.  Really it’s only a clear ‘don’t purchase’ if there’s good trashing to clear out all your green and another source of actions.  It certainly doesn’t compare with the really good $2 cards, but it’s not one of the worst.
Logged

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #102 on: December 07, 2011, 12:04:18 am »
0

One useful heuristic for the $2s might be to think about balancing three components: 1) how often they are an important component  of a good deck 2) how often they are a tolerable compensation for not getting enough money to buy something better and 3) how often they are actively damaging.

There are plenty of circumstances where I’d prefer nothing over Secret Chamber, Duchess, Moat, or Herbalist.  OTOH, Pearl Diver doesn’t really ever contribute something uniquely useful.  It’s a cantrip, sure, but plenty of other cards are, too, while also providing other value. 

The reason why Duchess is the worst $2 is because it fails on all these tests. One of the defining features of Dominion is that every card shines in some specific circumstance.  Except for Duchess.  I can’t think of a circumstance where it’s an important card.  And it often does active damage, to the point where I usually refuse it even when I can get it for free.

Crossroads definitely is a cut above the other cards mentioned here because it can play a really important role in some decks (especially if there are green action cards or if it’s the only +action on the board), it is a decent supplement a lot of other times (especially if you can combine it with other drawing cards so that you can get some extra actions and play it once you’ve drawn your green), and isn’t actively damaging too often.  Really it’s only a clear ‘don’t purchase’ if there’s good trashing to clear out all your green and another source of actions.  It certainly doesn’t compare with the really good $2 cards, but it’s not one of the worst.

The closest thing Duchess has to a circumstance where it "shines" is as part of a 5/2 opening with Lab or Hunting Party; I imagine it might be a good companion to Dukes as well but I've never seen that strategy pursued in an actual game.

I really like your heuristic, by the way.
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #103 on: December 07, 2011, 12:11:43 am »
0

While I agree the worst/best lists are a great help for beginning players who really don't have a clue, they can actually hurt a more experienced player if he doesn't realise every card will have its moments. Context is very important.

Oh, of course, that's why we have the disclaimer, and I agree they're more useful for beginning and intermediate players.  These sorts of articles are fun to write anyway, and the discussion that comes out of them can be quite valuable at all levels.
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

jotheonah

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 989
  • Respect: +949
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #104 on: December 07, 2011, 01:12:39 am »
0

Duchess really improves a Duke strategy. It's like getting a free (albeit terminal) silver with every Duchy, and also a chance to get another green card off your deck. I have seen it in a game. It was really strong.

But just like it's weird to count Peddler as an $8, it's odd to count Duchess as a $2. Because I don't think I've ever actually bought one. Just gained them to balance out the gumming-up factor of my greening.

Also, despite Rinkworks's well-argued critique, I could see Crossroads making the best list. When it's good, it's really good. (Except for my annoying tendency to draw a hand of four green cards and no crossroads followed by a hand of all four Crossroads and no green cards). But combo'd with Scout, almost any action-victory card, baron, or vault it can turn into a must-buy.
Logged
"I know old meta, and joth is useless day 1 but awesome town day 3 and on." --Teproc

He/him

rinkworks

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1316
  • Respect: +937
    • View Profile
    • RinkWorks
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #105 on: December 07, 2011, 09:41:13 am »
0

Despite my article, I'm a fan of Crossroads too.  I think I took a negative slant just to counterbalance the initial feeling, right after Donald's preview of the card, that it was super strong, when in fact it's a trap a lot of the time.  But you're right -- when it's good, it's really really good.

As an aside, it's also a whole lot of fun to try to make work, just because there are so many interesting combo possibilities.
Logged

Qvist

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2400
  • Shuffle iT Username: Qvist
  • Respect: +4085
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #106 on: December 07, 2011, 11:37:12 am »
0

I count 16 $2 cards.

My ranking
Chapel - On most boards a must buy to get rid of your start cards fast
Courtyard - The best "deck-thinner" for its price. And if you draw a dead action card, just put it back. Great. Also mostly a must-buy.
Hamlet - one of the best villages available, and you can even have a +buy
Cellar - Maybe it shouldn't be so high, but I mostly buy 1-2, if there are no other "deck-thinner" available.
Crossroads - It's great to have at least one on boards with many good terminals to use +3 Actions, and it's great in the end to draw new cards for going green, so on most games it's useful.
Haven - It's great for equalizing draw luck.
Pawn - Similar to Hamlet, but benefit isn't that great. At least it can be a non-terminal copper.
Fool's Gold - Either it's so good, or so bad. So I leave it in the middle. You have really to know what you're doing if you buy this.
Lighthouse - Comparable to Pawn, but not that flexible. Of course great in 3+player games.
Moat - +2 cards is not that great, but on boards with a lot of attacks, especially in 3+games, it's one of the most important cards. You block 3 curses and draw your silver to get your Province. I can't understand all the haters. Yes, mostly there are better counters to Attacks, but not everybody plays only 2-player games.
Embargo - If you have the rare case that your opponent has a different strategy and you know it early on, then it's great. But mostly a one-shot silver if you don't have the luck to get to $3.
Native Village - This is also very board-dependant. The biggest problem is that you need a Spy or draw your whole deck and discard a card to know what you draw on your mat. On most boards this isn't possible. So you only get your +2 Actions.
Herbalist - I agree, that's not a great card. But it's useful like Scheme is useful. Just put your Potion or Gold back on the deck. It can guarantee a next turn Province buy.
Secret Chamber - I don't like it. It's a bad Vault and heavily depends on the Attacks in the supply. I think it's worse than Moat.
Pearl Diver - It doesn't hurt, but the benefit is minmal
Duchess - The uses are rare, e.g. a VP rush with Duchies and Dukes, all other times it's useless.

Edit: Forgot Embargo
« Last Edit: December 07, 2011, 11:40:01 am by Qvist »
Logged

AJD

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3292
  • Shuffle iT Username: AJD
  • Respect: +4434
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #107 on: December 07, 2011, 12:01:22 pm »
0

My ranking
Chapel - On most boards a must buy to get rid of your start cards fast
Courtyard - The best "deck-thinner" for its price.

I think I'm not sure what you mean by "deck-thinner"?
Logged

rinkworks

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1316
  • Respect: +937
    • View Profile
    • RinkWorks
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #108 on: December 07, 2011, 01:40:03 pm »
0

Native Village - This is also very board-dependant. The biggest problem is that you need a Spy or draw your whole deck and discard a card to know what you draw on your mat. On most boards this isn't possible. So you only get your +2 Actions.

Do you mean that unless you know what the next card is, you never put it on the mat?  Seems to me like a really bad idea.  You get more out of the card if you always put a card there (unless you've got cards to take off) than if you never do.  Then you can eventually have a big turn (without sacrificing the current turn much or at all, as Tactician does), and you cycle through your deck a little faster in the meantime.  Sure, this occasionally means possibly delaying the play of an important card, and sometimes it's not worth taking that risk.  But I find those situations to be much less frequent.
Logged

guided

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 940
  • Respect: +94
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #109 on: December 07, 2011, 02:05:47 pm »
0

Blind drawing to the NV mat is the typical use case for NV, and it can be quite strong. The main thing that limits NV's usefulness on many boards is that you usually need lots of them, and you really don't want to overpay for them, so you need some ready source of +Buy early in the game. Then you also need some reason to want an NV-based engine of course.
Logged

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #110 on: December 07, 2011, 02:08:18 pm »
0

One useful heuristic for the $2s might be to think about balancing three components: 1) how often they are an important component  of a good deck 2) how often they are a tolerable compensation for not getting enough money to buy something better and 3) how often they are actively damaging.

I guess I would probably define the worst card as the card that you lose the least by vowing to ignore, i.e.
worst cards = argmin_X P(best strategy includes X)*(P(win using best strategy)-P(win using best strategy which does not involve X))

I don't think the fact that a card can damage your deck should be considered, since you are never *forced* to buy it. That's more of an issue of poor play than a card being bad. And I think that's a problem with some of the old lists. Cards are considered bad because people "over-buy" them. But you can't blame the card for that. Putting hoard in a list of "worst" $6+ cards because it's bad in colony games seems wrong.
Logged

jotheonah

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 989
  • Respect: +949
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #111 on: December 07, 2011, 02:18:14 pm »
0

It's sort of hard to win in a multiplayer game if you're the only one who didn't buy a Hoard. Unless you have some other gold-garnering strategy (Tunnels, Treasure Maps)
Logged
"I know old meta, and joth is useless day 1 but awesome town day 3 and on." --Teproc

He/him

jomini

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1060
  • Respect: +766
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #112 on: December 07, 2011, 02:50:57 pm »
0

One useful heuristic for the $2s might be to think about balancing three components: 1) how often they are an important component  of a good deck 2) how often they are a tolerable compensation for not getting enough money to buy something better and 3) how often they are actively damaging.

There are plenty of circumstances where I’d prefer nothing over Secret Chamber, Duchess, Moat, or Herbalist.  OTOH, Pearl Diver doesn’t really ever contribute something uniquely useful.  It’s a cantrip, sure, but plenty of other cards are, too, while also providing other value. 

The reason why Duchess is the worst $2 is because it fails on all these tests. One of the defining features of Dominion is that every card shines in some specific circumstance.  Except for Duchess.  I can’t think of a circumstance where it’s an important card.  And it often does active damage, to the point where I usually refuse it even when I can get it for free.

Crossroads definitely is a cut above the other cards mentioned here because it can play a really important role in some decks (especially if there are green action cards or if it’s the only +action on the board), it is a decent supplement a lot of other times (especially if you can combine it with other drawing cards so that you can get some extra actions and play it once you’ve drawn your green), and isn’t actively damaging too often.  Really it’s only a clear ‘don’t purchase’ if there’s good trashing to clear out all your green and another source of actions.  It certainly doesn’t compare with the really good $2 cards, but it’s not one of the worst.

The closest thing Duchess has to a circumstance where it "shines" is as part of a 5/2 opening with Lab or Hunting Party; I imagine it might be a good companion to Dukes as well but I've never seen that strategy pursued in an actual game.

I really like your heuristic, by the way.

The real place where duchess "shines" is off a 5/2 mint opening. Getting quick silver and quick gold is worth having a crappy terminal silver you may only play a few times. Sure, secret chamber and embargo might be better, but duchess fits that role when it is rather critical and gives you better odds of having a strong turn 4

Duchess's real value is, of course, in its alternate gain condition. Pile depleting the duchies/duchesses makes for a really quick way to end the game. I think this is strongest with something like silk road. If your opponent doesn't go for silk road/duchies then you can pile deplete on just the duchies & silk roads. Likewise having traders in hand can turn drop the terminal from this terminal silver and make it an even better freebie. I haven't tried it yet, but I'd be curios to see what would happen if you went duchy hunting with traders using duchesses. It should be quick and painless to get up to 5 coin on average and not too hard to have small number of hands crest 8.
Logged

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #113 on: December 07, 2011, 05:15:08 pm »
0

Duchess's real value is, of course, in its alternate gain condition. Pile depleting the duchies/duchesses makes for a really quick way to end the game.
The problem with this is that most people here play mostly 2-player where the duchy pile is smaller than the duchess pile, so you actually have to *buy* a few duchesses to deplete the pile.
Logged

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #114 on: December 07, 2011, 05:47:41 pm »
0

The real place where duchess "shines" is off a 5/2 mint opening. Getting quick silver and quick gold is worth having a crappy terminal silver you may only play a few times. Sure, secret chamber and embargo might be better, but duchess fits that role when it is rather critical and gives you better odds of having a strong turn 4

I can imagine Duchess being about as good as Embargo and SC for Mint openings; but even those two are just okay.  Of course, Fool's Gold is the real blockbuster for a Mint opening.
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

Robz888

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2644
  • Shuffle iT Username: Robz888
  • Respect: +3388
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #115 on: December 07, 2011, 05:51:14 pm »
0

I count 16 $2 cards.

My ranking
Chapel - On most boards a must buy to get rid of your start cards fast
Courtyard - The best "deck-thinner" for its price. And if you draw a dead action card, just put it back. Great. Also mostly a must-buy.
Hamlet - one of the best villages available, and you can even have a +buy
Cellar - Maybe it shouldn't be so high, but I mostly buy 1-2, if there are no other "deck-thinner" available.
Crossroads - It's great to have at least one on boards with many good terminals to use +3 Actions, and it's great in the end to draw new cards for going green, so on most games it's useful.
Haven - It's great for equalizing draw luck.
Pawn - Similar to Hamlet, but benefit isn't that great. At least it can be a non-terminal copper.
Fool's Gold - Either it's so good, or so bad. So I leave it in the middle. You have really to know what you're doing if you buy this.
Lighthouse - Comparable to Pawn, but not that flexible. Of course great in 3+player games.
Moat - +2 cards is not that great, but on boards with a lot of attacks, especially in 3+games, it's one of the most important cards. You block 3 curses and draw your silver to get your Province. I can't understand all the haters. Yes, mostly there are better counters to Attacks, but not everybody plays only 2-player games.
Embargo - If you have the rare case that your opponent has a different strategy and you know it early on, then it's great. But mostly a one-shot silver if you don't have the luck to get to $3.
Native Village - This is also very board-dependant. The biggest problem is that you need a Spy or draw your whole deck and discard a card to know what you draw on your mat. On most boards this isn't possible. So you only get your +2 Actions.
Herbalist - I agree, that's not a great card. But it's useful like Scheme is useful. Just put your Potion or Gold back on the deck. It can guarantee a next turn Province buy.
Secret Chamber - I don't like it. It's a bad Vault and heavily depends on the Attacks in the supply. I think it's worse than Moat.
Pearl Diver - It doesn't hurt, but the benefit is minmal
Duchess - The uses are rare, e.g. a VP rush with Duchies and Dukes, all other times it's useless.

Edit: Forgot Embargo
Duchess, though, is a card you can obtain for free, and the situation where you obtain it for free (buying a Duchy) isn't an uncommon event. Granted, you don't start buying Duchies until the second half of the game. Just by a hair, I would say Secret Chamber is worse. If I were doing a full ranking of the $2s:

1:Chapel
2: Hamlet
3: Courtyard: These 3 cards are much, much better than the other $2s. They are useful in many situations, and they help plenty.
4: Lighthouse
5: Haven This is a tough choice, but a couple Havens really manage your deck properly at all stages of the game.
6: Pawn I like to think of this as a cheap source of buy that can be non-terminal or yield $1 as need be. Still, so much worse than Hamlet.
7: Crossroads
8: Native Village
9: Fool's Gold Along with the previous 3, Fool's Gold shines some of the time, and is awful some of the time. I find these $2's okay--not bad, not great.
10: Embargo
11: Cellar It mostly does what Crossroads does, just less well.
12: Herbalist
13: Moat
14: Pearl Diver Barely better than not having a Pearl Diver.
15: Duchess
16: Secret Chamber Eh, perhaps these last two should be switched. But I have a hard time ranking Duchess, which can be gained for free, as worse than Secret Chamber, which is a waste of a valuable buy, probably in the all-important early stages of the game.
Logged
I have been forced to accept that lackluster play is a town tell for you.

tlloyd

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 404
  • Respect: +84
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #116 on: December 07, 2011, 06:07:16 pm »
0

Blind drawing to the NV mat is the typical use case for NV, and it can be quite strong. The main thing that limits NV's usefulness on many boards is that you usually need lots of them, and you really don't want to overpay for them, so you need some ready source of +Buy early in the game. Then you also need some reason to want an NV-based engine of course.

I never seem to make this work, as my NVs invariably set aside other NVs. Is there a right number of these to avoid this problem, or is more always better?
Logged

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #117 on: December 07, 2011, 06:25:46 pm »
0

OK, I'll play. My full rankings:

1. chapel
2. hamlet
3. courtyard
4. lighthouse
I don't think you can really argue with the top 4, though you might switch hamlet and courtyard, because courtyard BM is so nutso good...
5. fool's gold
6. native village
7. crossroads
These cards get up here because they can really turn insane. Often you don't want them, but in the right situation, they are dominant.
8. haven
Re-organizing your cards can be quite useful, but haven doesn't really ever get to the point of being game-breaking.
9. embargo
If nothing else, you can't ignore that it might have an impact, and have to have an adaptable strategy.
10. pawn
11. cellar
these cards are all usually not bad, but not ever really great.
12. herbalist
despite being this low, it's good a reasonable amount of the time if you need a +buy and/or have a spare action. returning a gold or plat to your deck is a pretty strong ability.
13. moat
14. secret chamber
poor reactions. This is all the 2-player games talking... Moat is probably to 10 in 3-player and top 7 in 4-player, and it can fall anywhere in-between depending on how much you play games of each size...
15. pearl diver
16. duchess
pearl diver often doesn't do anything, but at least you buy it sometimes, which is more than you can say for duchess.

I have a hard time ranking Duchess, which can be gained for free, as worse than Secret Chamber, which is a waste of a valuable buy, probably in the all-important early stages of the game.
You can also waste a buy on a mid-game chapel, but that doesn't make chapel bad...
« Last Edit: December 07, 2011, 06:28:38 pm by HiveMindEmulator »
Logged

Qvist

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2400
  • Shuffle iT Username: Qvist
  • Respect: +4085
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #118 on: December 07, 2011, 06:32:41 pm »
0

My ranking
Chapel - On most boards a must buy to get rid of your start cards fast
Courtyard - The best "deck-thinner" for its price.

I think I'm not sure what you mean by "deck-thinner"?

Ok, maybe this is just my term, but I used it that often that I thought it is well-known.
If you have a big deck, these card make your deck seemingly thinner by getting your best cards in hand more often.
I don't know how you call those cards, "Cycler" maybe.

Native Village - This is also very board-dependant. The biggest problem is that you need a Spy or draw your whole deck and discard a card to know what you draw on your mat. On most boards this isn't possible. So you only get your +2 Actions.

Do you mean that unless you know what the next card is, you never put it on the mat?  Seems to me like a really bad idea.  You get more out of the card if you always put a card there (unless you've got cards to take off) than if you never do.  Then you can eventually have a big turn (without sacrificing the current turn much or at all, as Tactician does), and you cycle through your deck a little faster in the meantime.  Sure, this occasionally means possibly delaying the play of an important card, and sometimes it's not worth taking that risk.  But I find those situations to be much less frequent.

Maybe I just can't play that card. If I use the mat for pseudo-trashing, to put the junk there, I got no luck, putting my newly buyed card there and I use it for mega-turns, it was mostly too slow.
« Last Edit: December 07, 2011, 06:34:52 pm by Qvist »
Logged

mischiefmaker

  • Golem
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 185
  • Respect: +108
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #119 on: December 07, 2011, 07:37:38 pm »
0

The real place where duchess "shines" is off a 5/2 mint opening. Getting quick silver and quick gold is worth having a crappy terminal silver you may only play a few times. Sure, secret chamber and embargo might be better, but duchess fits that role when it is rather critical and gives you better odds of having a strong turn 4

I can imagine Duchess being about as good as Embargo and SC for Mint openings; but even those two are just okay.  Of course, Fool's Gold is the real blockbuster for a Mint opening.
Simulator says:

Mint/Duchess/BM averages 16.3 turns and loses to a 4/3 BM 38-52; wins 57-34 if both have a 5/2 start.
Mint/Embargo/BM averages 16.8 turns and loses to a 4/3 BM 34-56; wins 54-35 if both have a 5/2 start.*
Mint/Secret Chamber/BM averages 17.4 turns and loses to a 4/3 BM 31-61; wins 50-41 if both have a 5/2 start.

Mint/Fool's Gold, on the other hand, averages 13.2 and crushes BM 92-5 (97-2 if both are 5/2).

*I think this is probably the best of the three strategies, though, since either the simulator does not know how to play Embargo correctly, or I do not know how to tell it to play Embargo differently, or both. In my sample games the bot Embargoes Curse, whereas a good human player would likely Embargo Gold or Silver.
Logged

AJD

  • Cartographer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3292
  • Shuffle iT Username: AJD
  • Respect: +4434
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #120 on: December 07, 2011, 07:43:42 pm »
0

My ranking
Chapel - On most boards a must buy to get rid of your start cards fast
Courtyard - The best "deck-thinner" for its price.

I think I'm not sure what you mean by "deck-thinner"?

Ok, maybe this is just my term, but I used it that often that I thought it is well-known.
If you have a big deck, these card make your deck seemingly thinner by getting your best cards in hand more often.
I don't know how you call those cards, "Cycler" maybe.

Maybe "Cycler", but that's usually used for cards like Cellar and Warehouse. "Deck-thinner" usually means 'trasher'—so it's obviously Chapel that's the best deck-thinner for its price. I think what Courtyard is is basically just "terminal draw".
Logged

guided

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 940
  • Respect: +94
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #121 on: December 07, 2011, 09:09:19 pm »
0

I never seem to make this work, as my NVs invariably set aside other NVs. Is there a right number of these to avoid this problem, or is more always better?
It happens. It's fine. Yes, more is generally better.
Logged

brokoli

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1119
  • Respect: +786
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #122 on: December 08, 2011, 03:02:26 am »
0

Why does everyone hate the secret chamber ? Its a reaction card definitely better than moat.

My ranking :

1. Chapel
2. Hamlet : excellent village, nice combo engine (library, menagerie...)
3. Crossroads : excellent card with baron, island, and others.
4. Lighthouse : best protection.
5. Haven
6. Fool's gold
7. Embargo
8. Courtyard : nice, but terminal. I prefer the haven.
9. Pawn : often bought.
10. Native village : good, but destroyed by hamlet.
11. Cellar : usually good.
12. Secret Chamber : good reaction against sea hag / pirate ship / margrave / ... and nice non-reaction.
13. Herbalist : sometimes good, but often ignored.
14. Pearl Diver : like pawn, often bought, and not so bad.
15. Duchess
16. Moat
« Last Edit: December 08, 2011, 03:12:02 am by brokoli »
Logged

Reyk

  • Young Witch
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 146
  • Respect: +24
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #123 on: December 08, 2011, 07:48:32 am »
0

How does the Secret Chamber-Tactician combo work?

Not really well actually. It does work with some Lab support, but it's still very slow to set up and not really reliable once you have a bunch of green cards in your deck.

Tactician-Vault, however, is rather strong.

I had some interesting interactions going on here:
http://councilroom.com/game?game_id=game-20111206-095535-3ea1673b.html

Yes, Tactician/Secret Chamber is slow, but there where not that many alternatives. The Pirate Ship (while probably a bad buy against Spice Merchant/Secret Chamber) is threat to BM (maybe you can still try BM, as it's not easy to stack the ships, but there isn't much action support for BM). Another Threat to BM might be an opponent only bying Faigrounds, but that's difficult too here without Action Providers and so many dead cards.

Originally I had the idea to bring Fairgrounds to 15 cards and than work with 6$ (7) from double Tactician. That's why I misplayed turn 10 discarding the Haven to Secret Chamber. But alternately buying Fairgrounds (with 10 cards)/Province (which I changed plans into only then) doesn't seem so bad either on this board. So you play Haven one turn, set aside Spice Merchant if possible and buy Faigrounds/Copper (for the Merchant). Then Province the other turn. The Merchant to some degree and the Scheme mitigate the greening effect.

I made further mistakes due to some miscounting buying the Curse in turn 19 when it was not likely at all that I could go to 15 cards.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2011, 07:50:34 am by Reyk »
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #124 on: December 08, 2011, 08:21:10 am »
0

Why does everyone hate the secret chamber ? Its a reaction card definitely better than moat.

My ranking :

1. Chapel
2. Hamlet : excellent village, nice combo engine (library, menagerie...)
3. Crossroads : excellent card with baron, island, and others.
4. Lighthouse : best protection.
5. Haven
6. Fool's gold
7. Embargo
8. Courtyard : nice, but terminal. I prefer the haven.
9. Pawn : often bought.
10. Native village : good, but destroyed by hamlet.
11. Cellar : usually good.
12. Secret Chamber : good reaction against sea hag / pirate ship / margrave / ... and nice non-reaction.
13. Herbalist : sometimes good, but often ignored.
14. Pearl Diver : like pawn, often bought, and not so bad.
15. Duchess
16. Moat
Why in the world is it better than moat? It's reaction is much weaker, and quite frankly its main ability is usually weaker, too.
Here's my order:
1. Chapel
2. Courtyard
3. Lighthouse
4. Hamlet
While quite strong, I think hamlet is pretty overrated. Having said that... I don't have any major qualms putting it over lighthouse, I just don't quite.
5. Pawn
You know, I think this is quite underrated. Works wonders with all kinds of cards (KC, any kind of spying from you OR your opponent, and in a lot of situations you can use it for card+money, which ain't bad at all)
6. Native village
Huge power when you need a mega-turn. Not bad in the general case either, just you need to be patient about taking stuff off the mat.
7. Crossroads
Not great all that often, but can be mega-powerful when it is. Also often good as a one-off in action-starved decks.
8. Moat
9. Haven
10. Embargo
11. Fool's Gold
12. Cellar
13. Pearl Diver
14. Herbalist
15. Secret Chamber
16. Duchess

Of course all have their moments, and actually I think Pearl Diver itself is pretty underrated too. The issue it has is that it's just never really awesome.

Voltgloss

  • Conspirator
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 224
  • Respect: +596
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #125 on: December 08, 2011, 10:17:49 am »
0

Might Pearl Diver work well with Chancellor?  With Chancellor in your deck, you're hoping to draw your best cards early, then Chancellor midway through, so you can discard your deck and get back to those best cards more quickly.  The last thing you want is for your best cards to be shuffled below the Chancellor.  Pearl Diver helps mitigate that risk.

The idea works in reverse too, with Counting House.  You want Counting House to be one of the last things you draw.  By using Pearl Divers to move other stuff to the top of your deck, you're effectively pushing the Counting House down further into your deck.  (Of course if your Pearl Diver finds Counting House, you smile, leave it there, and make a mental note to count your draws carefully so picking up the Counting House doesn't trigger the reshuffle.)

And while we're on the subject of Native Villages...

Native Village - This is also very board-dependant. The biggest problem is that you need a Spy or draw your whole deck and discard a card to know what you draw on your mat. On most boards this isn't possible. So you only get your +2 Actions.

...Pearl Diver can help with this issue as well.

Nothing outstanding, certainly, but Pearl Diver does have a unique effect that can subtly improve shuffle luck for cards that are heavily impacted by such luck.
Logged

rrenaud

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 991
  • Uncivilized Barbarian of Statistics
  • Respect: +1197
    • View Profile
    • CouncilRoom
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #126 on: December 08, 2011, 11:08:17 am »
+1

Might Pearl Diver work well with Chancellor? 

Yes.  Chancellor helps you lose.  Pearl diver will help you lose faster :P
Logged

Fangz

  • Apprentice
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 260
  • Respect: +13
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #127 on: December 08, 2011, 11:11:09 am »
0

I'd go...

1. Chapel
2. Hamlet
3. Courtyard
4. Lighthouse
5. Haven
6. Pawn
7. Native village
8. Crossroads
9. Cellar
10. Embargo
11. Fool's Gold
12. Pearl Diver
13. Herbalist
14. Moat
15. Secret Chamber
16. Duchess

A lot of these is quite dependent on number of players, though. With 3 players, moat will be quite a lot higher, and probably fool's gold will be dead last.
Logged

jotheonah

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 989
  • Respect: +949
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #128 on: December 08, 2011, 04:37:58 pm »
0

I only ever buy Woodcutter for the +buy, and I'd buy Herbalist over Woodcutter (even with the cost difference). In the kind of deck where I'm desperate enough for +buy that I'm getting it from a terminal (or where I have so many extra actions that the terminal doesn't matter) the ability to reuse my money is probably better than the extra $1.

Add in how smoothly it an enables an alchemist chain and I don't see how you can put it in the bottom five (not that I'd put it in the top 5 either).
Logged
"I know old meta, and joth is useless day 1 but awesome town day 3 and on." --Teproc

He/him

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #129 on: December 08, 2011, 05:23:39 pm »
0

I only ever buy Woodcutter for the +buy, and I'd buy Herbalist over Woodcutter (even with the cost difference). In the kind of deck where I'm desperate enough for +buy that I'm getting it from a terminal (or where I have so many extra actions that the terminal doesn't matter) the ability to reuse my money is probably better than the extra $1.

Add in how smoothly it an enables an alchemist chain and I don't see how you can put it in the bottom five (not that I'd put it in the top 5 either).
I agree that it's not a bad card, and I do like it, but when you sit down to actually make the list, it's hard to find 5 cards to go below it. What's your bottom 5?
Logged

jotheonah

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 989
  • Respect: +949
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #130 on: December 08, 2011, 05:55:29 pm »
0

I'd buy Herbalist over Cellar and Embargo in most cases and over Pearl Diver, Secret Chamber, and Duchess almost always.
Logged
"I know old meta, and joth is useless day 1 but awesome town day 3 and on." --Teproc

He/him

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #131 on: December 08, 2011, 11:18:08 pm »
0

Ah why the hell not:

1. Chapel Duh.
2. Hamlet Semi-duh.
3. Courtyard Better than Hamlet in BM games (and fantastic in BM plus a couple more terminals than usual games), but not really stackable, and if Hamlet is around there's probably something better than BM anyway.
4. Lighthouse Dominates Silver whenever Attacks are an issue, which is pretty often.
5. Pawn Great support for a lot of engines: it can be disappearing cash, or +Buy in a pinch, or if all else fails a cantrip.
6. Crossroads Most of the time it's merely a Cellar variant that supports early greening better and doesn't work on Coppers.  But sometimes it's nutso.
7. Native Village Worse than Village for most purposes, but better for a lot of megaturn strategies and (much more rarely) as a pseudo-trasher.  Like so many of the $2s, best if you can get a lot of them.
8. Haven A little more useful than Crossroads and NV most of the time, but almost never a linchpin like those two can be.  Nos. 6 through 8 are basically even.
9. Embargo Can often really kill an opponent's strategy (Minions and the lone Potion card are particularly hilarious targets), and if you have +Action and +Buy it can store your excess cash for later.  Important more for how it shapes an overall board than for its immediate benefit.
10. Fool's Gold Two thirds of the time, only fools buy this. The other third of the time it's beaucoup cash on the cheap, which still isn't always the best strategy.  Needs both buy/gain and strong draw/trashing.  Makes opening Mint awesome.
11. Cellar A lot worse than Crossroads and Warehouse in most situations, but still a useful effect to have in your deck when you can't get rid of junk.
12. Herbalist It's a marginally better value than Woodcutter in the "cheap +Buy" category, and topdecking treasure is sometimes really important as well (c.f. Alchemists).  Usually not something you want in your deck, but a bit better than its reputation.
13. Pearl Diver I'd be willing to buy PD at least twice as often as the cards below it.  Its effect is one of the most marginal in all of Dominion, but there are plenty of situations where you really do need a mass of cheap cantrips (Peddler, Conspirator, Goons, Scrying Pool), and making sure your best cards don't miss the reshuffle isn't a horrible side-effect!
14. Moat This is probably my lack of multiplayer experience talking, but even when attacks are on the board Moat usually isn't worth it.
15. Secret Chamber The Reaction is nearly useless (Swindler is the only case where it ever seems to make a difference- most other deck inspection attacks are too puny to matter), and its above-line effect is usually just as bad.  It does have some very occasional combo power as a poor man's Vault, which keeps it out of the bottom spot.  Before I discovered Isotropic I was convinced this was the worst card in Dominion.
16. Duchess I guess it's sometimes alright as an opening with Lab, or as Duke support.  But terminal Silver with a side effect that helps your opponent just as much as you is usually not worth it at any price.  Which is why they have to give it away for free.
« Last Edit: December 08, 2011, 11:36:18 pm by chwhite »
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

Tejayes

  • Golem
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 176
  • Respect: +132
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #132 on: December 09, 2011, 12:06:27 am »
0

If it helps any, here are a few lists of the $2 cards as determined by CouncilRoom.com data (I took off the margin of error, though):

WIN RATE WITH

1: Chapel (1.01)
2 (tie): Crossroads/Hamlet (1.00)
4: Haven (0.99)
5 (tie): Courtyard/Lighthouse/Pawn (0.98)
8 (tie): Cellar/Embargo/Fool's Gold/Pearl Diver (0.97)
12: Native Village (0.96)
13 (tie): Duchess/Moat (0.93)
15: Herbalist (0.91)
16: Secret Chamber (0.88)

WIN RATE WITHOUT

1: Chapel (0.94)
2 (tie): Hamlet/Haven (1.01)
4 (tie): Courtyard/Crossroads/Embargo (1.02)
7 (tie): Cellar/Lighthouse/Pawn/Pearl Diver (1.05)
11 (tie): Duchess/Fool's Gold/Native Village (1.06)
14 (tie): Herbalist/Moat/Secret Chamber (1.07)

DIFFERENCE (Win Rate With minus Win Rate Without)

1: Chapel (+0.07)
2: Hamlet (-0.01)
3 (tie): Crossroads/Haven (-0.02)
5: Courtyard (-0.04)
6: Embargo (-0.05)
7 (tie): Lighthouse/Pawn (-0.07)
9 (tie): Cellar/Pearl Diver (-0.08)
11: Fool's Gold (-0.09)
12: Native Village (-0.10)
13: Duchess (-0.13)
14: Moat (-0.14)
15: Herbalist (-0.16)
16: Secret Chamber (-0.19)
« Last Edit: December 09, 2011, 01:10:54 am by Tejayes »
Logged

rinkworks

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1316
  • Respect: +937
    • View Profile
    • RinkWorks
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #133 on: December 09, 2011, 11:22:19 am »
0

I think Duchess is somewhat underrated.  The spy effect, since it helps all players equally*, can be discounted entirely, making the card equivalent, powerwise, to a terminal Silver that does nothing else.  A Silver that eats an action but costs $1 less seems like a perfectly fine trade.  Maybe you usually don't need it, but if you have a spare $2 buy and are building a deck that can take another terminal, why not?  The thing about a lot of terminal Silvers is that it's very often the Silver part, not the actual bonus, that is most helpful.

Now consider that Duchess is the only $2 card that yields +$2 free and clear (Embargo is a one-shot; Secret Chamber requires discards), and we see that Duchess has a niche all its own.  This is a big deal with a 5/2 opening, as you normally want to build your economy as fast as possible.  You don't usually get to have an economy-boosting card with the $2 opening turn.

Now throw in the fact that you can pick up one for free with a Duchy -- that you don't even need a spare $2 and a buy to get one -- and the effective cost is even less than its price tag.  That is, the bar Duchess should have to clear is even lower than the bar for other $2 cards.

Does this make Duchess a great card?  No.  But I just can't see it being the worst or second-worst $2 card, as seems to be the general consensus here.

*Given decks of equal composition.  But actually Duchess' spy effect can be more useful in some decks than in others.  You can work this to your advantage if you know how to recognize when it's better for you than your opponents.  So in reality, Duchess' power level is situationally stronger than a terminal Silver that does nothing else.
Logged

Fabian

  • 2012 Swedish Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 666
  • Respect: +542
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #134 on: December 09, 2011, 11:27:35 am »
0

A terminal Silver is a horrible horrible card. You sometimes want it (for free, mind you) in the late game with bad decks just because you're desperate, but in the early and midgame, it's extremely rare that you want this in your deck imo. I think it's far and away the worst $2 card by basically any metric.

That said, I did buy it for (close to) the first time the other day, on a 5/2 opening with no terminal actions I was planning on buying that game (might have been Lab/Duchess or something). So I guess there's a time for everything.
Logged

rinkworks

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1316
  • Respect: +937
    • View Profile
    • RinkWorks
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #135 on: December 09, 2011, 12:03:37 pm »
0

A terminal Silver is a horrible horrible card.

+$2 is stronger than every other combination of 2 vanilla bonuses.  +2 Cards is situationally stronger, but not as a rule of thumb.  Contrast Torturer with Mandarin to see how much less +X Cards is valued compared to +$X.  That makes Duchess better than Moat in the absence of attacks.  And considering that Moat is almost always a mistake in 2p games even with attacks, Duchess is better than Moat then, too.

Herbalist is much worse, outside of a couple of rare combos, Alchemist perhaps being the only greatly significant one.  It's a terminal Copper, for heaven's sake.  A terminal Silver is twice as good, unless you can always make use of the +Buy and/or treasure-return, which is way more situational than just getting raw money will ever be.

Pearl Diver?  It does no harm to your deck, which is a defense that should be meaningless to any player who has any idea what they're doing.  A level 10+ player will get further using Duchess in the situations where it is useful than he or she ever will using Pearl Diver in the situations where Pearl Diver is useful.
Logged

Fabian

  • 2012 Swedish Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 666
  • Respect: +542
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #136 on: December 09, 2011, 01:32:08 pm »
0

Don't know what you mean by the Torturer vs Mandarin example, I don't get what comparing one of the worst $5 cards with one of the best $5 cards (and obviously this has little to do with the cards vs coin, but the secondary effects) is supposed to be saying.

I don't mean to sound harsh, but most of the arguments you bring up are either statements that mean nothing by themselves ($2 may or may not be the strongest combination of "2 vanilla bonuses", but then again there's a reason no other cards in the game are just "2 vanilla bonuses") or just misinformed. Saying "Herbalist is much worse except for the two good things about it" and "Moat is much worse except for the primary effect of it" is just pointless. Yes, remove +buy and the ability to reuse Gold/Platinum/Hoard/whatever and Herbalist is obviously a lot worse than Duchess, but what does that even mean? Yes, Moat is often (maybe even "almost always") a mistake in 2p games even with attacks, but Duchess is probably a bigger mistake, more often. Again, pointing out that Moat (one of the weaker cards in the game) is horrible doesn't make Duchess less horrible. What makes Duchess worse than other bad $2 cards is that there are (very very close to) no situations where you want it (talking primarily about the early/mid game, see above post for comment on endgames). Moat and Herbalist, you rarely want, but when you do, they actually provide something of value.

Pearl Diver is sort of a pet hate card of mine, so we're kinda in agreement I guess. That said, a card that (given it's in your deck already) 2% of the time is helpful, 5-20% of the time is harmful, and 78-93% of the time is pointless, is much much better than a card which is harmful 20-50% (edit: this is kind of a stupid way of evaluating things I'll admit, since cards don't magically pop into a deck without consideration, so don't be too hard on me for using those numbers) of the time (given it's in your deck).

On the vast majority of boards, you prefer opening $5 card/nothing with a 5/2 split rather than $5 card/Duchess. The same is true with Moat, Pearl Diver, Herbalist, and more cards, but it's true less often of those cards, and those cards are much less bad (or "better" sometimes, even), than Duchess (basically) ever is.
« Last Edit: December 09, 2011, 01:35:23 pm by Fabian »
Logged

rinkworks

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1316
  • Respect: +937
    • View Profile
    • RinkWorks
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #137 on: December 09, 2011, 02:29:53 pm »
0

Don't know what you mean by the Torturer vs Mandarin example, I don't get what comparing one of the worst $5 cards with one of the best $5 cards (and obviously this has little to do with the cards vs coin, but the secondary effects) is supposed to be saying.

Just that at the same price point, one card offers +3 Cards and one offers +$3, so we might look to what else the cards do to even the scales a little.  Torturer offers a brutal attack.  Mandarin offers a pretty weak benefit that is often a drawback.  Never mind these two specific cards -- just in general, it does seem that +$ is more likely to boost the price of a card than an equal amount of +Cards will.  If you find that argument flawed, I won't press it -- it was a tangent anyway.

The point I was trying to make in that post (and failing, I guess) was that a "terminal Silver" is far from a "terrible, terrible card."  It would be at $3 or higher, of course, as then Silver would be a better choice.  But at a $2 price point, it's not.

Quote
Saying "Herbalist is much worse except for the two good things about it" and "Moat is much worse except for the primary effect of it" is just pointless.

If we are to consider degree of situationality as a factor in judging a card's strength in general terms -- and indeed we must, or surely Chancellor and Stash would be among the strongest of all cards, simply because they're very strong when they turn up together -- then I believe my point is valid.  The situations in which Herbalist and Moat are not terrible cards are relatively few, because you have to have very specific needs to get good use out of them (for Herbalist: a need for +Buy, no better source of +Buy, and a use for returning treasure; for Moat, the presence of strong attacks and probably playing with 3 or more players).

But the situations in which an uncomplicated boon of coins to spend are much, much, MUCH more common.  Short of actual victory points, like what Monument gives you, coins are the MOST general resource.  The other things cards can do are merely different ways to get or use those coins.

Duchess' terminality is really the only big drawback.  And I admit that usually there will be a preferable terminal to obtain.  But if you can get a terminal Silver on the short end of a 5/2 opening (or with a spare buy, or for FREE with a Duchy) and spare yourself the opportunity cost of obtaining a more expensive terminal later, that might very well be enough to tip the scales in Duchess' favor.  Or maybe you have the extra actions, in which case adding a terminal isn't a big deal.

Again, note that I'm not saying I think Duchess is a great card so much as that there are several $2 cards I consider worse.  Tejayes' stats, by the way, bear me out.  Clearly we disagree, though, and that's okay.
« Last Edit: December 09, 2011, 02:37:27 pm by rinkworks »
Logged

Fabian

  • 2012 Swedish Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 666
  • Respect: +542
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #138 on: December 09, 2011, 02:39:12 pm »
0

And because of how those cards are designed to "even it out", one is among the strongest $5 cards and one is among the weakest. This has (close to) nothing to do with the card vs coin effect, and (almost) everything to do with the rest of the card. If you hypothetically redesigned Torturer and Mandarin to be of an even power level, clearly the secondary effects of them would be very different indeed, and how that would look exactly is anyone's guess.

As for the rest of your post, I agree it's fine that we agree to disagree that a terminal Silver is a terrible terrible card. Just like with your last post, I disagree with close to everything in your second paragraph, but it doesn't matter. I will admit it's at least feasible that you'd open Duchess as your one terminal action on a 5/2 board where your "preferred" terminal is a 3/4 card, but the opportunity cost of picking it up later for the cost of a Silver/Caravan/whatever is too great (in theory), but I would guess that probably happens once every 5000 games.
Logged

dondon151

  • 2012 US Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2522
  • Respect: +1856
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #139 on: December 09, 2011, 02:54:47 pm »
0

To add on to rinkworks's argument, a terminal +3 cards is worth $4; a terminal +$3 is worth around $5, and Gold is worth $6.

I think the main consideration taken between costing terminal +cards and terminal +$ is that it's much easier to draw other cards dead with terminal +cards. Once you start tacking +actions onto these cards, then +cards is worth more than +$.
Logged

Fabian

  • 2012 Swedish Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 666
  • Respect: +542
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #140 on: December 09, 2011, 03:02:21 pm »
0

The thing is it's close to pointless talking about what an effect "is worth", other than for fun. A terminal +$3 is probably worth 5.5 (and would be horrible at that price of course) or something (surely Mandarin isn't a fair representation as it comes with one small and one big to huge drawback to it), and yet Duchess is terrible at a terminal +$2 despite "only" costing $2. Obviously this doesn't make much sense when comparing to Gold vs Silver for instance, but it's just not an interesting comparison without context. With context added, Duchess is a card you almost never want in your deck, because you can always do better, either by getting Silver or by getting nothing or by getting something that's actually good (perhaps Herbalist on a rare'ish occasion!)
« Last Edit: December 09, 2011, 03:04:51 pm by Fabian »
Logged

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #141 on: December 09, 2011, 04:09:04 pm »
0

Pearl Diver is sort of a pet hate card of mine, so we're kinda in agreement I guess. That said, a card that (given it's in your deck already) 2% of the time is helpful, 5-20% of the time is harmful, and 78-93% of the time is pointless, is much much better than a card which is harmful 20-50% (edit: this is kind of a stupid way of evaluating things I'll admit, since cards don't magically pop into a deck without consideration, so don't be too hard on me for using those numbers) of the time (given it's in your deck).

On the vast majority of boards, you prefer opening $5 card/nothing with a 5/2 split rather than $5 card/Duchess. The same is true with Moat, Pearl Diver, Herbalist, and more cards, but it's true less often of those cards, and those cards are much less bad (or "better" sometimes, even), than Duchess (basically) ever is.

I'll open $5/Pearl Diver over $5/nothing the vast majority of the time; PD is really only harmful if you're planning on making terminal draw a big component of your deck, and if you open with a $5 that's unlikely to be the case.  Moat, Herbalist, SC, and Duchess are all cards I'll decline to buy on the $5/$2 split with regularity, but not Pearl Diver.

Also it's helpful much more than 2 percent of the time; though it's never really that helpful of course.
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

Fabian

  • 2012 Swedish Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 666
  • Respect: +542
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #142 on: December 09, 2011, 04:16:52 pm »
0

"I'll open $5/Pearl Diver over $5/nothing the vast majority of the time; PD is really only harmful if you're planning on making terminal draw any sort of component of your deck,"

I'll agree this far :) and I'd probably open the same given that there wasn't any terminal drawers, and there weren't any better $2's.
Logged

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #143 on: December 09, 2011, 04:46:11 pm »
0

"I'll open $5/Pearl Diver over $5/nothing the vast majority of the time; PD is really only harmful if you're planning on making terminal draw any sort of component of your deck,"

I'll agree this far :) and I'd probably open the same given that there wasn't any terminal drawers, and there weren't any better $2's.

If terminal draw is mixed in with lots of Villages and cantrips, then PD doesn't hurt.  I'd gladly buy some with my spare $2s in a Worker's Village/Rabble engine, for instance.
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

DStu

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2627
  • Respect: +1490
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #144 on: December 12, 2011, 03:42:04 am »
0

I think like you don't rate Peddler like how it was if it cost $8, you can't rate Duchess as if it cost $2. Of course, the effect of Duchess is much weaker, you can't pull of all these nice tricks you can pull of with Peddler (perhaps only KC it for $6 when there is no alternative for money...), and it will never* be an important part of any engine. But which $2 is**?
When you play BM-ish, a free terminal Silver when you are in the middle of the greening-stage, and the game seems to drag out a little longer (why else would you buy this Duchy?) is 'nice'. Yeah, you won't buy it for $2, but you also don't buy a Peddler for $8.

*for suitable definition of "never".
** Yes, I know NV/Bridge...
Logged

olneyce

  • 2011 DS Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 245
  • Respect: +210
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #145 on: December 12, 2011, 04:44:30 am »
0

and it will never* be an important part of any engine. But which $2 is**?
Well, Chapel. 

And Hamlet.  Haven to a lesser extent.  Crossroads can be.  Native Village certainly, and not just with Bridges.  And while Courtyard and Fool's Gold aren't key parts of engines per se, they are fantastic enablers for Big Money, or variants.  Which is it's own kind of engine.  Even Pawns are pretty great for running a Hunting Party engine (providing +buy and spammable money).  The other +action cards certainly fit within engines and can be useful parts for getting Conspirators or Peddlers off the ground.  Lighthouse is also a very important card in games with attacks. 

The point is that Duchess doesn't just not enable any engines.  It's that Duchess actively damages most engines.

If you're taking a $2 terminal, it better do something pretty useful.  Because there are much better terminals in the upper ranks. So you have Herbalist, which serves a specific but potentially crucial function.  And at least offers a +buy, which is potentially something unique on the board.  Moat obviously is all about the reaction, not about the action-function.  The same is true to a lesser extent with Secret Chamber, which does deal well with at least a few attacks, and has a moderately useful effect in some engines.

All of which is to say that Duchess is so clearly the most useless of the $2 cards, and by such a large margin, that you're probably right in saying that we shouldn't think of it as a $2 card at all.
Logged

olneyce

  • 2011 DS Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 245
  • Respect: +210
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #146 on: December 12, 2011, 04:53:49 am »
0

To put this another way, here are the cards that are gained more often than they are bought: Curse, the Prizes, Copper, and Duchess.  So, cards that CAN'T be bought, cards that Mountebanks dish out as punishment, and Duchess.

So, games with Duchess in them might be thought of as 9-pile boards, with an additional random stack that you could purchase for $2 if you really wanted to.
Logged

Jimmmmm

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1762
  • Shuffle iT Username: Jimmmmm
  • Respect: +2017
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #147 on: December 12, 2011, 09:27:21 am »
0

To put this another way, here are the cards that are gained more often than they are bought: Curse, the Prizes, Copper, and Duchess.  So, cards that CAN'T be bought, cards that Mountebanks dish out as punishment, and Duchess.

Workshop, Ironworks, Remodel? I'm really not sure tbh, but I'd say these would at least be fairly close.
Logged

Thisisnotasmile

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1493
  • Respect: +676
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #148 on: December 12, 2011, 09:43:28 am »
+1

Logged

Jimmmmm

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1762
  • Shuffle iT Username: Jimmmmm
  • Respect: +2017
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #149 on: December 12, 2011, 05:23:00 pm »
0

http://councilroom.com/popular_buys

Olneyce is correct.

Right, we have stats for that. ;)

Of course, technically all cards are gained more often than bought since cards bought is a subset of cards gained (with the exception of Trader).
Logged

tlloyd

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 404
  • Respect: +84
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #150 on: December 12, 2011, 06:29:13 pm »
0

I think the real reason Duchess is the worst $2* is that it is almost never going to be needed. Moat may generally be a mistake, but I've played games where it made the difference (either for its reaction or when no other draw was available in an action-rich game). Pearl Diver has a miniscule effect most of the time, but sometimes you really need cantrips. Duchess primarily provides coin, but guess what -- so does Silver! A terminal silver has to provide some significant benefit to be better than silver, almost regardless of its cost. It's not that +$2 is not a good deal for $0, it's that there is always a source of coin that is a better deal -- even for $3 more.
Logged

Jimmmmm

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1762
  • Shuffle iT Username: Jimmmmm
  • Respect: +2017
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #151 on: December 12, 2011, 06:36:57 pm »
0

Speaking of Moat, I just came across this in a game and I guess it seems obvious now. Moat is an excellent counter to the Council Room/Militia Combo. I played two Council Rooms then gleefully played a Militia... only to be Moated. I had naturally ignored Moat and my opponent said he bought it by accident.

Anyway, compared to normal Militia usage, you're much more likely to be able to use your Moat reaction, and when you do it will help you a lot more.
Logged

jomini

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1060
  • Respect: +766
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #152 on: December 13, 2011, 05:28:39 pm »
0

I think like you don't rate Peddler like how it was if it cost $8, you can't rate Duchess as if it cost $2. Of course, the effect of Duchess is much weaker, you can't pull of all these nice tricks you can pull of with Peddler (perhaps only KC it for $6 when there is no alternative for money...), and it will never* be an important part of any engine. But which $2 is**?
When you play BM-ish, a free terminal Silver when you are in the middle of the greening-stage, and the game seems to drag out a little longer (why else would you buy this Duchy?) is 'nice'. Yeah, you won't buy it for $2, but you also don't buy a Peddler for $8.

*for suitable definition of "never".
** Yes, I know NV/Bridge...

Massively important:
**Crossroads/scout (+actions & huge draws)
**Crossroads/nobles
**Hamlet/limited draw (Library, Watchtower, Jack) (discard useless cards to draw better ones)
**Hamlet/Tunnel/draw (Council room, smithy, envoy, etc.) (discard the tunnels & + actions to get more draw)
**Fools gold/draw (council room)
**Fools gold/mint

Can be important:
**Herbalist/Alchemist (ensure never ending potion draws)
**Pawn/limited draw (discardable coin & +buy)
**Haven/limited draw (remove cards for more drawing power)

And that is leaving out things like NV abuse beyond bridges (e.g. cartographer abuse to bury all the dross in the mat).
Logged

jotheonah

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 989
  • Respect: +949
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #153 on: December 13, 2011, 06:13:26 pm »
0

Haven is a like a consolation prize village. "Oh, I can't let you play both your clashing terminals, but why don't you save one for next time?"
Logged
"I know old meta, and joth is useless day 1 but awesome town day 3 and on." --Teproc

He/him

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #154 on: December 13, 2011, 06:30:52 pm »
0

^I think haven is a little more than that. It's like a (really) weak version of tactician -- you give up a good card out of this turn in order to make next turn really strong. And in general, one weak turn and one strong one is generally better than two mediocre ones.
Logged

Razzishi

  • Conspirator
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 216
  • Shuffle iT Username: Eye Urn
  • Respect: +120
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #155 on: December 13, 2011, 09:59:51 pm »
0

^I think haven is a little more than that. It's like a (really) weak version of tactician -- you give up a good card out of this turn in order to make next turn really strong. And in general, one weak turn and one strong one is generally better than two mediocre ones.

Or the opposite: moving a Gold out of your $11 hand to make it more likely to hit $8 in your next hand.
Logged
Stop reading my signature.

jotheonah

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 989
  • Respect: +949
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #156 on: December 13, 2011, 10:54:28 pm »
0

Perhaps I should have written "I tend to use Haven as..."  Because you're right, there are other uses for it. I think Haven is a good $2 because it's not really a weaker version of something else. It's its own unique thing.
Logged
"I know old meta, and joth is useless day 1 but awesome town day 3 and on." --Teproc

He/him

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #157 on: December 14, 2011, 01:20:04 am »
0

What I dislike about most of these lists is that there's sort of a base assumption that you're playing with every single card in your kingdom.  Sure, Venture is "strictly" better than Adventurer, but if Adventurer is in your kingdom and Venture isn't, then your plan might use Adventurer, and if you can draw two Golds with it, maybe use it with a Throne Room, you can totally kick ass with it.  The same can go for any number of cards.  How good a card might be is highly, highly dependent on what else is on the table, and it's very unlikely you'll ever have a setup where you have cards that are "strictly" better than one another, like Remodel and Expand, or Secret Chamber and Vault.  So be nice to these cards.

Sorry if this is off-topic - I'm going by the first post.  This got bumped up to the top, and I'm not reading 7 pages of posts just to get caught up.
Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

Jimmmmm

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1762
  • Shuffle iT Username: Jimmmmm
  • Respect: +2017
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #158 on: December 14, 2011, 01:50:50 am »
+1

Sure, Venture is "strictly" better than Adventurer

No it's not. No Action can ever be strictly better than a Treasure, and vice-versa. Venture is generally better, but I'd usually rather have an Adventurer if I have a bunch of spare actions. It's just that Adventurer has to compete with Gold to be bought and your other Actions to be played.

I don't think Adventurer is as bad as people say. Of course, it's best when you can get rid of all your Copper, and if you can it's worth at least $4. Compare that to Harvest which maxes out at $4 and is otherwise quite similar (money-giving terminal). Of course, Venture gives at least $3 in this situation, which is clearly not strictly better.

Having said all that, I strongly agree with your overall point. I've never liked the reasoning behind Cellar being 4th on the original "Worst $2 Cards" list, which was basically that Warehouse is better. If a cheap card came out which allowed you to trash more than four cards, would that make Chapel one of the worst cards? Of course not.
Logged

Qvist

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2400
  • Shuffle iT Username: Qvist
  • Respect: +4085
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #159 on: December 14, 2011, 03:29:58 am »
0

I've never liked the reasoning behind Cellar being 4th on the original "Worst $2 Cards" list, which was basically that Warehouse is better. If a cheap card came out which allowed you to trash more than four cards, would that make Chapel one of the worst cards? Of course not.

Yes, that's my thought too. I don't get all the bashing against Cellar. It's a very good card that I buy mostly. It can equalize shuffling luck which is very important in Dominion. Of course Warehouse is better. Because of that Warehouse is more expensive.

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #160 on: December 14, 2011, 04:28:39 am »
0

I've never liked the reasoning behind Cellar being 4th on the original "Worst $2 Cards" list, which was basically that Warehouse is better. If a cheap card came out which allowed you to trash more than four cards, would that make Chapel one of the worst cards? Of course not.

Yes, that's my thought too. I don't get all the bashing against Cellar. It's a very good card that I buy mostly. It can equalize shuffling luck which is very important in Dominion. Of course Warehouse is better. Because of that Warehouse is more expensive.


I do sort of agree that we shouldn't argue "Cellar sucks because a more expensive card [Warehouse] fills its niche better"; that's a bit like saying Caravan is bad because you'd rather have a Lab: no, Caravan's still a good card.  It's not quite like saying that, because in practice the gap between $2 and $3 is smaller than the gap between $4 and $5, so the comparison is somewhat more relevant.

However!  I also do think Cellar is pretty weak, and would still find room for it on the Worst List.  Most of the time, I'd rather build a deck that just doesn't need a Cellar effect: trash my junk, or go BMesque and buy more Silver/Gold instead, or any of a whole host of other approaches.  And, even in many of the cases where sifting is useful, Cellar doesn't provide the quality of sifting necessary for it to be worth a buy: in particular, Menagerie decks are boosted by a Warehouse that can selectively discard duplicates after you draw, but Cellar can't do that consistently.  Basically, the benefit that Cellar provides is one that, very often, I just don't want to waste a buy on, and if I do want to/have to spend a buy on it then chances are I don't have a deck I'm very happy with!
« Last Edit: December 14, 2011, 01:26:28 pm by chwhite »
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

DStu

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2627
  • Respect: +1490
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #161 on: December 14, 2011, 05:06:30 am »
0

I think Cellar is a difficult topic. It has some uses, and there are not many cards that do what it does, Warehouse, Inn a little, Young Witch misses the action. But in many deck it hurts, even when there is no great trashing.  But there are also some decks where it is really great support. Like maybe also Warehouse, but there are not so many alternatives here than say for Herbalists +buy.
I had a Wharf/Cellar without Villages game starting 5/2 some time ago, and this is a deck where it really shines. You can buy it with $2 in T2, you accelerate the deck, but already have your $5 so you don't need anything to boost you buying power, you don't want to trash, you can take care for the reshuffle because you decide how many cards you draw, you have the buy to pick up more, you have large handsizes, you really start greening fastly, so there are targets for Cellar.
Logged

theory

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3603
  • Respect: +6121
    • View Profile
    • Dominion Strategy
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #162 on: December 14, 2011, 07:33:50 am »
0

As I said somewhere in the blog comments, it's very, very difficult to justify buying a card at $2 when a $3 card does it so much better.  Each card fulfills some predestined role, but if you ever find yourself in the exact situation that a card is designed for, and you still wouldn't take it, then I'd consider it weak.

Of course, you will buy Cellar, and you will end up needing it, but that's just because no card in Dominion is that bad! When every card is good in some way, you need to find ways in which they "suck".  Being severely out-classed by a similarly-priced card is a pretty clear-cut way that it sucks.  Caravan is outclassed by Lab, but the price difference is bigger, and Caravan isn't really that much worse.  OTOH, the badness of Adventurer is just exemplified with Venture.  I do buy Adventurer, and I love the card, but in every situation that I would buy Adventurer, I would buy Venture instead if it's available.  That, to me, is about as weak as Dominion cards get.
Logged

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #163 on: December 14, 2011, 01:42:38 pm »
+1

As I said somewhere in the blog comments, it's very, very difficult to justify buying a card at $2 when a $3 card does it so much better.  Each card fulfills some predestined role, but if you ever find yourself in the exact situation that a card is designed for, and you still wouldn't take it, then I'd consider it weak.

Of course, you will buy Cellar, and you will end up needing it, but that's just because no card in Dominion is that bad! When every card is good in some way, you need to find ways in which they "suck".  Being severely out-classed by a similarly-priced card is a pretty clear-cut way that it sucks.  Caravan is outclassed by Lab, but the price difference is bigger, and Caravan isn't really that much worse.  OTOH, the badness of Adventurer is just exemplified with Venture.  I do buy Adventurer, and I love the card, but in every situation that I would buy Adventurer, I would buy Venture instead if it's available.  That, to me, is about as weak as Dominion cards get.

While I recognize that some cards you would never buy no matter what else is on the board (and I can't think of any off the top of my head), and there would be some I would reluctantly get because nothing else on the board does what it does (I'm looking at you, Loan), but most cards' merit is heavily dependent on what else is out there.  Given that it seems most people in this forum go by the random selection method of choosing cards, why are these "best to worst" lists so prevalent?  You're only dealing with 10 cards at a time, and usually you don't have a say in what those 10 are.  So the whole process seems silly.  To me, the mark of a good Dominion player is one who can make a good strategy based off of whatever's on hand.  Maybe that would be more constructive - have like a weekly 10 random cards where we discuss how to build a strategy around said cards.  Or if we must go with a theme of "best and worst," perhaps restrict it to "worst" being "I would not buy this card EVER (or maybe sometimes, just very rarely)" and "best" being "if this is on the board, spam it or die."  Or as another idea - see who can build a working strategy around a "worst" card.
Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

olneyce

  • 2011 DS Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 245
  • Respect: +210
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #164 on: December 14, 2011, 01:53:03 pm »
+3

This is like saying 'it's stupid to make a list of your 10 favorite albums of 2011, because you can only listen to one of them at a time!'

Making lists is fun.  The effort to explain what makes one card better than another forces a more thorough consideration of a card's strengths and weaknesses.  And debate over the lists produces a lot of valuable insight into how other people value cards, or extract uses from them that you might not see.

If you don't like the lists, don't participate in the conversation.  I don't see the problem here.
Logged

rinkworks

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1316
  • Respect: +937
    • View Profile
    • RinkWorks
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #165 on: December 14, 2011, 02:33:27 pm »
0

I think the real reason Duchess is the worst $2* is that it is almost never going to be needed. Duchess primarily provides coin, but guess what -- so does Silver!

Gold outclasses Silver in every way, but that doesn't make Silver a bad card.  When you need money and only have $3-$5 to spend, you buy Silver.  True, the difference between $3 and $6 is a lot larger than the difference between $2 and $3.  But $2 hands happen, most notably with 5/2 openings and extra buys.  If you're on a 5/2 opening, you may need the economy boost that Duchess gives you NOW, rather than waiting a reshuffle for a chance to buy a Silver.  Timing is everything in Dominion.

I appreciate what you're saying.  Somewhat unusually for $2 cards, Duchess doesn't really offer anything that other cards don't also give you.  But that's just one metric by which a card's value, or lack thereof, may be measured -- and IMHO, not a very important one, or Laboratory would be one of the bad $5's.  At least the alternatives to Duchess are above its own cost tier.

To clarify, I'd still probably rank Duchess approximately 4th on the Worst $2's list.  I just continue to be baffled that anyone would consider Herbalist or Secret Chamber better, especially when Duchess' Duchy rule should break any ties in its favor.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2011, 02:36:35 pm by rinkworks »
Logged

dondon151

  • 2012 US Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2522
  • Respect: +1856
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #166 on: December 14, 2011, 02:36:09 pm »
+1

I, also, don't understand the arguments against making "best of" lists. As a beginner Dominion player myself at one point I was making a whole lot of buying mistakes until I peeked at some of the "best of" lists here. I suppose only from further playing experience have I really appreciated the fact that all cards have their niche somewhere, but at least in my opinion, it's better to tell a less experienced player to not buy (for example) Adventurer because it's a rather bad card instead of telling him that every card has its niche and have that being misinterpreted to mean that he should buy whatever he wants.

Additionally, if you consider all the kingdoms in which a card may exist, some cards are going to perform better on average than others. That's certainly a criterion for the list - an impractical one, but valid nonetheless.
Logged

Donald X.

  • Dominion Designer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 6357
  • Respect: +25672
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #167 on: December 14, 2011, 02:55:56 pm »
+4

This is like saying 'it's stupid to make a list of your 10 favorite albums of 2011, because you can only listen to one of them at a time!'
Instead, the problem is that years ending in 1 are low points of their decades. Okay I don't have many data points here. 1971 was a fine year - 1976 was the low point of the 70s. But 1981 was the worst year for music in the 80s, 1991 for the 90s, and 2001 for the oughts. So, 2011, I wasn't expecting much, and man, not a great year.

I can't really rate 1961 or 1951 - I just don't know the 50s or the early 60s that well. 1961 is bound to suck compared to 1964-1969, but I mean, let's not be hasty. I liked 1941 but I don't know the end of the 40s that well, and well there was the war, how fair is it really to compare those years. 1931 was fine, I don't know what the weak year of the 30s is, I would have to study it. Music gradually got slower in the 30s, so 1931 was probably not the low point, but who knows. 1921 has the problem of, amplification came into its own in 1925, so any music you hear from earlier is just drastically lower in audio quality. 1926-1929 just blow away 1920-1925. And then prior to 1921 my knowledge of wax cylinders is almost entirely confined to Billy Murray recordings, and even those only go back to 1903.

But uh still, in modern times, that 1 is a killer. I'll make a list for 2011 anyway, but I won't like it.
Logged

theory

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3603
  • Respect: +6121
    • View Profile
    • Dominion Strategy
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #168 on: December 14, 2011, 02:59:24 pm »
0

Yeah -- these lists do promote strategy in a way (it's a pretty convenient way to give 1-paragraph summaries of cards), but in the end, it's mostly for fun.  I don't know if anyone ever used to read Flux's Decahedron columns for Diablo II, but I took a lot of inspiration from his hilarious lists (e.g., Best/Worst Item Sets, Best/Worst Uniques).
Logged

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #169 on: December 14, 2011, 03:23:47 pm »
0

This is like saying 'it's stupid to make a list of your 10 favorite albums of 2011, because you can only listen to one of them at a time!'

There's a difference between favorite and best.  I could most definitely make lists of my favorite cards - there are definitely cards that I personally enjoy playing.  But that's not what we're doing here, is it?  And I have nothing against rating cards to discuss strategy and help out noobsters - but when we start hearing sentences like "But with the advent of Warehouse, Cellar’s main selling point is now that it’s slightly cheaper, and honestly, you’re almost never going to need a Cellar but unable to afford the Warehouse." (which is taken directly from the original Five Worst $2 cards list), I am irked.  If Cellar and Warehouse are both in the same setup, then sure, you'll go for Warehouse.  But how likely is that to happen?  If Cellar is there, and Warehouse isn't, you'll go for the Cellar, particularly in lieu of cheap mass trashers like Chapel and Steward.
Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

olneyce

  • 2011 DS Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 245
  • Respect: +210
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #170 on: December 14, 2011, 03:39:18 pm »
0

And I have nothing against rating cards to discuss strategy and help out noobsters - but when we start hearing sentences like "But with the advent of Warehouse, Cellar’s main selling point is now that it’s slightly cheaper, and honestly, you’re almost never going to need a Cellar but unable to afford the Warehouse." (which is taken directly from the original Five Worst $2 cards list), I am irked.
I don't know what to tell you then.  Stop reading the thread if it annoys you.  Other people like it and find the exercise to be useful - and are able to recognize that judgments of 'best' can be useful in spite of their subjective nature.

???
Logged

olneyce

  • 2011 DS Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 245
  • Respect: +210
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #171 on: December 14, 2011, 03:39:31 pm »
0

But uh still, in modern times, that 1 is a killer. I'll make a list for 2011 anyway, but I won't like it.
Hard to argue with this.  I write a music blog, and have been making end of the year lists since 2005.  They're usually 25 or 30 albums.  This year I'm struggling to find 15 I can heartily endorse.  It's been a bummer of a year musically.
Logged

theory

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3603
  • Respect: +6121
    • View Profile
    • Dominion Strategy
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #172 on: December 14, 2011, 03:53:52 pm »
0

And I have nothing against rating cards to discuss strategy and help out noobsters - but when we start hearing sentences like "But with the advent of Warehouse, Cellar’s main selling point is now that it’s slightly cheaper, and honestly, you’re almost never going to need a Cellar but unable to afford the Warehouse." (which is taken directly from the original Five Worst $2 cards list), I am irked.  If Cellar and Warehouse are both in the same setup, then sure, you'll go for Warehouse.  But how likely is that to happen?  If Cellar is there, and Warehouse isn't, you'll go for the Cellar, particularly in lieu of cheap mass trashers like Chapel and Steward.
But it's true, isn't it?  Cellar is fine, it's great, you'll buy it often, but isn't it a whole lot weaker than Warehouse?

I suppose you can take issue with anyone rating a card objectively bad just because a better card exists.  For instance, Throne Room and Lab are obviously not bad even though KC and Hunting Party are superior usually.  But Cellar happens to be a combination of:

1) Not much price difference
2) Not really that great an ability
3) An ability that is considerably stronger in its superior form

So it's not just that Warehouse is better, but the card itself is not so great.  It's not "worst" material on its own, but it's close, and so the fact that there's a massively better card pushes it over the edge.

Apologies if all of this didn't come through in my too-short post.
Logged

Robz888

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2644
  • Shuffle iT Username: Robz888
  • Respect: +3388
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #173 on: December 14, 2011, 05:04:52 pm »
0

If Cellar and Warehouse are both in the same setup, then sure, you'll go for Warehouse.  But how likely is that to happen?  If Cellar is there, and Warehouse isn't, you'll go for the Cellar, particularly in lieu of cheap mass trashers like Chapel and Steward.
I don't think that's true. There are situations where I would have bought Warehouse if it were available, but don't want Cellar (which is available) because the relative benefit isn't so great. Think of Hoard and Explorer. If Hoard is available, a Gold-acquiring early Victory-buying strategy looks great. Now, if Explorer is available but no Hoard, I will usually pursue some other strategy. It's true that Hoard and Explorer rarely face-off against each other, but Hoard is so much better than Explorer, you usually don't even want Explorer in lieu of Hoard. That was my understanding of what theory was saying about Warehouse and Cellar.

I would also mention Crossroads as a card that mostly does what Cellar does, but better. Victory cards are typically what you want to Cellar out of your hand anyway, and Crossroads lets you do that without actually getting rid of any cards, making them easier to stack (and unless you intend to play lots and lots of Crossroads, Crossroads' initial +3 actions are helpful). That said, Crossroads still isn't a great $2 (I would call it middle of the road). So Cellar more than deserves its spot on the Worst $2s list.
Logged
I have been forced to accept that lackluster play is a town tell for you.

Qvist

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2400
  • Shuffle iT Username: Qvist
  • Respect: +4085
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #174 on: December 14, 2011, 05:50:32 pm »
0

What is better: A hand with a Cellar and 4 Curses or a Crossroads with 4 Curses?
Or: Opening 5/2 Mountebank/Crossroads. Turn 3 and you draw a Crossroads with 4 Coppers! You wish it were a Cellar!
In short: You can't really compare Crossroads and Cellar. I like Cellar and think it's a good card to add in you deck. Others may disagree.

As theory's disclaimer says: Every card shines in different situations, but some cards shine more often than other cards.
To know which card is mostly a better card is a very valuable information to get a better player and one part to success.
(Another part would be how the board must look like that a card shines or cannot shine)

But how do you get the list of the best cards?
One attempt might be to analyze and evaluate statisics to get to a conlusion. For that we have councilroom.com
The other possibility are simulators.
The third one is experience. Experience of each player differs and the best (in my opinion) is to compile a list of as much players as possible => condensed experience

I like Cellar, but if 10 other players disagree, the possibility is high, that I'm wrong. Of course the majority isn't always right but the probability rises.
Because of that I initiated this other thread to compile a list of the best cards (and one list of the favourite cards to force everyone to differentiate between these two factors, as I find myself mixing these two factors far too often). Maybe we can learn something from this list. dondon151 said these lists were helpful for him/her. Maybe a complete list isn't only helpful for newbies, maybe also for all of us.

tlloyd

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 404
  • Respect: +84
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #175 on: December 14, 2011, 05:57:14 pm »
+1

The problem with Theory's rationale is that he slips from comparing the $2s to comparing the cyclers/sifters. If we're doing comparisons among cards with similar effects (which have popped up recently and are probably more meaningful strategy-wise), then certainly Cellar should drop in relative value given the advent of Warehouse. But if we are ranking cards with a given price, it makes no sense for a new $3 to change the relative merits of the $2s. Of course $3 and $2 are not significantly different prices in most situations (I'm looking at you, Duchess-Rinkworks! ;)), but that just reinforces the fact that these lists are for fun and shouldn't be taken too seriously.
Logged

Fabian

  • 2012 Swedish Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 666
  • Respect: +542
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #176 on: December 14, 2011, 06:33:13 pm »
0

FWIW I think the "Cellar is bad because Warehouse exists" argument is completely nonsensical. I've read theory's posts on it multiple times, and I just can't figure it out. Cellar is bad because Cellar is bad, not because Warehouse is better than Cellar. If a $5 treasure called Diamond was printed tomorrow that gave +3 coin but only appeared in 2% of matches, Gold wouldn't become a bad card. It would be pretty damn bad in almost all of those 2% of matches where Diamond appeared of course, but that's kinda obvious.

The idea that a card's strength would be measured by what another card, which will affect Cellar once every x hundred games (or however often two cards appear in the same game), does, kinda blows my mind.
Logged

theory

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3603
  • Respect: +6121
    • View Profile
    • Dominion Strategy
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #177 on: December 14, 2011, 06:41:20 pm »
0

But Diamond wouldn't be balanced.  If you accept that every card has a role, and you're looking for the weakest cards (defined as the cards worst at fulfilling their roles), then it seems that if there's a significantly better card in the same role that isn't super strong, then that's pretty good evidence that the original card can't be average or good.

Thief is bad on its own, but the fact that Noble Brigand isn't overpowered is further evidence that Thief is bad, since if Thief is good then a superior version of Thief should logically be a little too strong.  Compare to Lab/Hunting Party: you can't use this argument because Hunting Party really is supremely good, so the fact that Lab is slightly worse than HP does not necessarily mean that Lab is bad.  Whereas Warehouse is not overpowered by any means, it's just average-to-good, so if Cellar is considerably worse than an average-to-good card that does exactly what Cellar does, well, that's pretty solid evidence that it's weak.
Logged

Fabian

  • 2012 Swedish Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 666
  • Respect: +542
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #178 on: December 14, 2011, 07:11:09 pm »
0

Well I guess we're just arguing in circles now. I think your way of evaluating a card makes no sense. Especially so when you introduce arbitrary "well this comparison doesn't count because that card would be really good and Warehouse is only kinda-good-but-not-better-than-top5-of-$3-costing-cards" type stuff. I don't accept that "every card has a role, and I'm looking for the weakest cards defined as the cards worst at fulfilling their roles". I'm going with "I'm looking for the weakest cards". Again, Cellar is bad because Cellar is bad, not because Warehouse is good. Gold is good because Gold is good, not because Diamond would be better so that makes it worse, or something.

But even so, if I accept that I'm looking for a the cards that are worst at fulfilling their roles, it still just doesn't say anything meaningful. Yeah, Cellar is worse than Warehouse, and under these premises, that is indeed "pretty solid evidence that it's weak". But so what? I'm not looking for pointers on what seems weak, I'm looking to rank cards from weakest to non-weakest. What does it mean that there's evidence that Cellar is weak compared to Warehouse? How does that compare to how weak Duchess is compared to Silver? Why aren't I comparing how weak Cellar is compared to Duchess?
« Last Edit: December 14, 2011, 07:13:44 pm by Fabian »
Logged

theory

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3603
  • Respect: +6121
    • View Profile
    • Dominion Strategy
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #179 on: December 14, 2011, 07:27:26 pm »
0

Well, because the two do very different things.  So when you compare them, you're implicitly comparing how they perform each of their roles, rather than some other metric.  Like, Lab is really bad at performing Cellar's role, but a better card because it does the "job" it's supposed to do with, let's say, an A-.  Whereas Cellar is maybe a D in its category?  So I think of "The Five Worst $X Cards" as looking for the cards that cost X and that are F or D in its role.

And yeah, assigning these grades in a category is arbitrary, but you look for telltale signs.  One way to tell is to look at similar cards in the same category.  If you think (as I do) that Warehouse is maybe a B, B+ in the same category, and you also think that Warehouse is much better, then you have no choice but to consider Cellar a C-, D card.


Of course, not everyone thinks of these lists in the same way.  This just happens to be how I compare cards that do very different things.
Logged

Fabian

  • 2012 Swedish Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 666
  • Respect: +542
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #180 on: December 14, 2011, 07:32:16 pm »
0

Well fair enough. I still don't see how this is useful at all, since Gold would be a D card at fulfilling Diamond's role, but is still clearly a better card than Walled Village, which might be a a C at fulfilling Village's role. Or any other of countless examples.

Like, I think your way of evaluating cards would make some sense if you made a "top 5 Warehouse-type cards", but since we're comparing $2 cards in this example, not Warehouse-type cards, I don't see any upside to it, only confusion and misevaluations.

And yes, Duchess and Cellar do indeed do very different things. Isn't that why we're trying to decide which is better instead of saying "these cards do the exact same things"?
Logged

papaHav

  • Navigator
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 76
  • Respect: +24
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #181 on: December 14, 2011, 07:50:14 pm »
0

Diamond would definitely make gold underpowered.

To say "cellar is bad" doesnt mean anything on its own. It has to be worse than other cards available in the game.
The only way to compare the merit of a card is with other cards that exist.
Logged

theory

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3603
  • Respect: +6121
    • View Profile
    • Dominion Strategy
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #182 on: December 14, 2011, 07:52:54 pm »
0

Well, Gold's not a "D" at its role.  Its role is to make money, and it does that really, really well.  So it's an A. 

Walled Village, what is it supposed to do?  Give you +Actions, help an engine.  How does it do that?  Well, C.  It's pretty average.  Doesn't hurt you, but doesn't help you like Worker's Village or Fishing Village or Border Village.  Is it bad enough to be on a Worst $4's?  Probably not, because cards like Thief are a D/D- at its role (to get money into your deck and hurt your opponent's deck; the first of which it's merely ineffective at, and the second of which it's actively counterproductive).
Logged

Fabian

  • 2012 Swedish Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 666
  • Respect: +542
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #183 on: December 14, 2011, 08:00:12 pm »
0

papaHav, Gold would be underpowered in the games where Diamond appeared. Clearly it wouldn't make Gold underpowered in general though, right? That's my point.

And yes, clearly you need to compare cards to something.. like Duchess? And the other $2 cards? When making a "worst $2 cards" list?

And theory, I understand we disagree and all and that's cool, but calling Gold an A when Diamond is around is clearly very silly.
Logged

DG

  • Governor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4074
  • Respect: +2624
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #184 on: December 14, 2011, 08:13:23 pm »
0

Since it is pertinent, I'll repeat what I posted on the Dominion Strategy site.

"I’d say that cost is too important to ignore. Cheap deck components should be cheap. You can’t get cheaper than cellars. Walled villages and farming villages are often too expensive to pursue strategies that villages or native villages can support. Monuments and militias are not weak just because goons exist. I think the reason the cellar is in the worst 5 list is because by the nature of lists, ‘something has to be’. Used at the right time the cellar, moat, and secret chamber can be decisive game winning cards. Those times are just less frequent than for the hamlet."

The cellar is a balanced 2 cost card. Here's a surprising thought though. If it cost 3 then I bet people would only buy it when they needed it, and once they only bought it when they needed it the card would look a lot better!
Logged

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #185 on: December 14, 2011, 09:50:43 pm »
0

Diamond would definitely make gold underpowered.

To say "cellar is bad" doesnt mean anything on its own. It has to be worse than other cards available in the game.
The only way to compare the merit of a card is with other cards that exist.

Available in the game that you're CURRENTLY PLAYING, which I think a lot of you are forgetting.  If there are cards that are "better" than Cellar in your current setup, then yes, Cellar is bad.  But if Cellar is the only thing that does what it does, it can be essential in certain setups.  For example, the first game setup.  It takes far too long to use Remodel and Mine to trash away useless garbage - it's much easier to Cellar it away - which also helps you draw more cards to coincide with your Smithy.  I was playing this setup the other day (admittedly with a first-time player) but with Market, Cellar, Village, Smithy and Mine, I had Gold pouring out of my ass and was eventually able to buy two or three Provinces every turn.  Without the Cellar, that would have dwindled down to one Province.  And again, since most of you play with a random selection of cards, your focus should be on what immediately is better than what, what you should be early game, what mid-game, what late game, and not "hey, is this card better or worse than some card that isn't even in this setup?"  From what I gather, no one ever picks and chooses what cards to play with on isotropic - in fact, this seems to be frowned upon.  So if you're not picking "best" cards, how can you value these cards merely based on something doing its job "better"?  Determine the worth of a card on its own, not compared to whatever else is out there.
Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

theory

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3603
  • Respect: +6121
    • View Profile
    • Dominion Strategy
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #186 on: December 14, 2011, 09:55:00 pm »
0

That's very true, but if you aggregate every possible random setup, you'd realize that Mountebank is a "good" card in X% of them, and Thief is a "good" card in Y% of them, where X >>>> Y.  Identifying the "best" and "worst" cards is an exercise in finding which cards have the highest X and lowest Y.

Alternatively, you can consider that if you buy Mountebank on a random board, on average, your win probability changes by X (where X is positive), whereas if you buy Thief on a random board, on average, your win probability changes by Y (where Y is negative).  Call this X or Y the "win probability delta".  So we try to identify the cards that on aggregate have the most positive and least positive win probability delta across all boards.


(this is such an rrenaud post)
Logged

jotheonah

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 989
  • Respect: +949
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #187 on: December 14, 2011, 10:02:07 pm »
0

On the other hand, such a metric could just as easily reflect a card's being hard to play well as its being bad. A good card that's often played poorly would rate as a weak card in that system, and only super-easy-win cards rate as strong.
Logged
"I know old meta, and joth is useless day 1 but awesome town day 3 and on." --Teproc

He/him

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #188 on: December 14, 2011, 10:04:21 pm »
0

That's very true, but if you aggregate every possible random setup, you'd realize that Mountebank is a "good" card in X% of them, and Thief is a "good" card in Y% of them, where X >>>> Y.  Identifying the "best" and "worst" cards is an exercise in finding which cards have the highest X and lowest Y.

Alternatively, you can consider that if you buy Mountebank on a random board, on average, your win probability changes by X (where X is positive), whereas if you buy Thief on a random board, on average, your win probability changes by Y (where Y is negative).  Call this X or Y the "win probability delta".  So we try to identify the cards that on aggregate have the most positive and least positive win probability delta across all boards.


(this is such an rrenaud post)

And that's totally fine.  I am for this.  This is a good way of rating cards.  Though Thief could still be effective if played correctly.  If your opponent has heard how sucky Thief is, they'll avoid it, but if you go for it (provided there are +2 Actions available), it will make them hesitant to get Treasures, diminishing their buying power, and forcing them to buy Actions with + Coins.  In the meantime, you're using their money to buy Victory cards.  It all depends, really.  Ooo I was playing with a rather silly person the other day - Pirate Ship was on the board, but he was buying Golds and Silvers... he was severely regretting that when my four Pirate Ships were at +$5 and I was getting multiple Provinces.
Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #189 on: December 14, 2011, 10:04:48 pm »
0

On the other hand, such a metric could just as easily reflect a card's being hard to play well as its being bad. A good card that's often played poorly would rate as a weak card in that system, and only super-easy-win cards rate as strong.

Also this.  Yes.
Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #190 on: December 14, 2011, 10:49:35 pm »
0

Alternatively, you can consider that if you buy Mountebank on a random board, on average, your win probability changes by X (where X is positive), whereas if you buy Thief on a random board, on average, your win probability changes by Y (where Y is negative).  Call this X or Y the "win probability delta".  So we try to identify the cards that on aggregate have the most positive and least positive win probability delta across all boards.


(this is such an rrenaud post)
I kind of get the argument about "there exist better cards at different prices" argument. The existence of venture doesn't *make* adventurer bad, it's just *evidence* that it's bad (because as a game designer you can make one at a similar cost without it being overpowered)...
However, I don't agree with the definition of "good" and "bad" in this post. You don't buy cards on a "random board". A card should be "good" if you *want* to buy it more, not if it helps if you randomly buy it. Similarly "bad" cards should be cards you can most easily get away without buying, not cards that hurt you more if you randomly buy them. If you only buy random cards, you lose out on the effectiveness of cards in combos, because by executing these combos, you are more often purchasing cards with other cards they go well with, rather than with "random" other cards.
Logged

timchen

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 704
  • Shuffle iT Username: allfail
  • Respect: +234
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #191 on: December 14, 2011, 11:30:41 pm »
0

I think combining Fabian and Theory makes a pretty solid point. A card is bad is just because it is intrinsically bad (at its price). Nevertheless, comparing similar cards can give us hints on whether a card is bad or not.

On the other hand, I actually have never realized how bad cellar is in a BM game. In the simulator it seems BM+cellar cannot win against BMU. Does the play rule have something to do with that?

From another thread now we know that in a BM-ish setup Fool's gold is actually better than silver and gold. How does that change the place of it on the list?
Logged

tlloyd

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 404
  • Respect: +84
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #192 on: December 15, 2011, 02:11:09 am »
0

you're looking for the weakest cards (defined as the cards worst at fulfilling their roles)

Theory, I take it you agree with my critique then? You are actually evaluating the relative value of cards with similar functions in a list that purports to be evaluating the relative value of cards with identical cost.

Quote
So I think of "The Five Worst $X Cards" as looking for the cards that cost X and that are F or D in its role.

Obviously you can think whatever you want, but your thinking here is ... flawed. A crappy trasher can be stronger than an equally-priced and moderately effective deck inspector if trashing is much more valuable than deck inspection. Let's put it this way: each card's value is a product of the value of the role it plays (draw, trashing, cycling, sifting, actions, etc.) and how effectively it fills that role (fishing village provides +actions better than other cards that serve that same purpose). If you want to rank the $2 cards, you need to calculate this for each card and then rank them. What you are describing is actually a two-step process: rank the cards by function, then group them by price while trying to keep each card near the same rank it had in the by-function list. That is just nonsense.

If you decide that Cellar has some rank relative to the other $2 cards based on how often you want to sift/cycle and how well Cellar does that, and then Warehouse comes along and serves the same purpose but does it better, how could that possibly affect the ranking of Cellar vis-a-vis the other $2 cards? Compare: on average, Witch is a better card than Counting House, using whatever metric we're using for these comparisons. Now I invent a card called Cheap-Witch which does exactly the same thing but only costs $4. Given that Cheap-Witch is strictly superior to Witch, you will never buy a Witch, right? So now Counting House is better than Witch, right? Of course not.

The only way I can think to save your argument here is to say what we're really talking about is how frequently you will want to buy a card. Cellar is better than Moat, but since Warehouse fills the same role as Cellar and is better than Cellar, you'll actually buy Moat more often than Cellar. But that's pretty weak reasoning given how rarely Cellar, Warehouse and Moat will show up in the same kingdom.
« Last Edit: December 15, 2011, 02:26:51 am by tlloyd »
Logged

Fabian

  • 2012 Swedish Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 666
  • Respect: +542
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #193 on: December 15, 2011, 06:53:14 am »
0

fwiw, I think theory's last post describes a much more reasonable way of ranking cards (though it would still have problems since you don't buy cards at random in any/all setups, especially for engine type decks, as HiveMind points out, etc), but it has nothing to do with the original theory method of grading all trashers relative to each other, then grading all village type cards relative to each other, then grading all XYZ etc, and whichever cards get the lowest grade in their respective category goes on the "worst $2 list", which I and many others have pointed out is basically ... flawed.

Edit: Or put another way, Cellar's win probability delta isn't negative/crap because Warehouse does Cellar's job better, its win probability delta is negative/crap because the card is crap (most of the time etc)

Or put yet another way, Warehouse being printed did (close to) nothing to affect Cellar's win probability delta.
« Last Edit: December 15, 2011, 06:55:53 am by Fabian »
Logged

theory

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3603
  • Respect: +6121
    • View Profile
    • Dominion Strategy
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #194 on: December 15, 2011, 07:07:11 am »
0

If you decide that Cellar has some rank relative to the other $2 cards based on how often you want to sift/cycle and how well Cellar does that, and then Warehouse comes along and serves the same purpose but does it better, how could that possibly affect the ranking of Cellar vis-a-vis the other $2 cards? Compare: on average, Witch is a better card than Counting House, using whatever metric we're using for these comparisons. Now I invent a card called Cheap-Witch which does exactly the same thing but only costs $4. Given that Cheap-Witch is strictly superior to Witch, you will never buy a Witch, right? So now Counting House is better than Witch, right? Of course not.
Real-world example: I want to buy a 22" monitor.  I see one on sale for $200.  I don't really know if that's a good deal or not, but I have a gut feeling that it isn't.  I search Google and find 23" monitors that are otherwise identical and on sale for $150.  That is pretty good evidence to me that the 22" for $200 is a bad deal -- even if the 23" monitors are temporarily out of stock.  It could be that the 23" monitor people are insane and wildly underpricing their stuff, but I assume market pressures keep them in line.  (Market pressures in the analogy being Donald X.'s sense of design.)

On the flip side, if I see 23" monitors on sale for $100, that's pretty awesome.  When I then see a 24" monitor for $50, which I instinctively know is an unbelievable deal, that isn't proof that the 23" for $100 a bad deal.


So back to Cellar/Warehouse.  Warehouse is not causing Cellar to be "The Worst", any more than the 23" for $150 "causes" the 22" for $200 to be a bad deal, because 22" for $200 really is just inherently bad even if all the 23" are sold out right now.  But to an uninformed consumer, it's good evidence that Cellar can't be very good, because even when Cellar is a lot better, it's still not overpowered. 
Logged

theory

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3603
  • Respect: +6121
    • View Profile
    • Dominion Strategy
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #195 on: December 15, 2011, 07:12:48 am »
0

As for the win prob delta vs role grades as far as choosing cards: I don't know what I'm actually doing in my mind.  I have a suspicion that in the end, all of these metrics come out with the same answers.
Logged

DStu

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2627
  • Respect: +1490
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #196 on: December 15, 2011, 07:29:45 am »
0

But what is strange with all your example is how
Quote
In base Dominion, this was an absolutely critical card for Laboratory and Village/Smithy chains
can be inherently bad.

I think we should not take this too seriously. There are situations where the Cellar is a great help, but there are more situations where it is not. Pearl Diver usually does not harm, and has gotten some support by the expensions, and get's some bonus for being #1 last time. Cellar has not improved, and it's just the $2 list, there are not so many $2s, and it's just the #4. That does not mean that it's always an error to buy it. What's left? PD, Duchess, are above, Duchess being a special case. Haven, Pawn you can place above Cellar. XR is the better Cellar in many scenarios where you would really want a Cellar. FG was just elected overpowered by the simulators. BM-Courtyard is strong. Lighthouse is the strongest defendence and has some combos. I don't have to defend Hamlet here. Native Village has some really strong megaturns, Embargo ok maybe.
Logged

Fabian

  • 2012 Swedish Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 666
  • Respect: +542
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #197 on: December 15, 2011, 07:36:26 am »
0

Why are you assuming any of us are uninformed consumers? Your monitor example works a lot better if all of us are computer monitor experts. Put a bunch of beginners in charge of ranking the worst $2 cards, and sure... kinda... maybe.

After your very scientific ("such an rreanud post") last reply, it was surprising to get back to something like "I dunno I guess both work and are kinda the same", which seems very much like the opposite.
Logged

tlloyd

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 404
  • Respect: +84
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #198 on: December 15, 2011, 09:56:31 am »
+1

Warehouse is not causing Cellar to be "The Worst", any more than the 23" for $150 "causes" the 22" for $200 to be a bad deal, because 22" for $200 really is just inherently bad even if all the 23" are sold out right now.  But to an uninformed consumer, it's good evidence that Cellar can't be very good, because even when Cellar is a lot better, it's still not overpowered.

What this seems to ignore is the fact that you are not actually assigning each card some grade on the scale of Terrible to Amazing. You are ranking the cards relative to each other! (i.e., "better/worse" not "good/bad"). If Cellar is better than Moat, and then Warehouse is better than Cellar, that cannot possibly change the fact that Cellar is better than Moat. It certainly means that Cellar is weaker relative to Warehouse. It may also lead you to believe that Cellar is a weaker card in absolute terms. But since you already know that Cellar is better than Moat, then Moat must be weaker in absolute terms as well.

Maybe a counter-example will help illustrate: assume Minion is better than Lab. Now Horse Traders comes out. Horse Traders actually changes the value of Minion in absolute terms. Even though we won't often have Minion and Horse Trader in the same kingdom, it at least makes sense that the existence of cards like Horse Traders would change our valuation of Minion, not relative only to Horse Traders but relative to everything. It is thus a plausible argument that the creation of Horse Traders (a $4 card) could change the ranking of Minion and Lab ($5 cards) relative to each other.

But Warehouse doesn't change what Cellar does or how effectively it does it. Warehouse is simply better than Cellar (usually) at doing pretty much the same thing Cellar does. That may suggest Cellar is underpowered, but cannot logically change the valuation of Cellar relative to the other already-existing $2 cards.
Logged

rinkworks

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1316
  • Respect: +937
    • View Profile
    • RinkWorks
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #199 on: December 15, 2011, 10:34:16 am »
+1

I wanna know why Estate didn't make the cut.  Surely Estate is one of the 5 Worst $2 cards!  :-)
Logged

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #200 on: December 15, 2011, 11:16:45 am »
0

Real-world example: I want to buy a 22" monitor.  I see one on sale for $200.  I don't really know if that's a good deal or not, but I have a gut feeling that it isn't.  I search Google and find 23" monitors that are otherwise identical and on sale for $150.  That is pretty good evidence to me that the 22" for $200 is a bad deal -- even if the 23" monitors are temporarily out of stock.  It could be that the 23" monitor people are insane and wildly underpricing their stuff, but I assume market pressures keep them in line.  (Market pressures in the analogy being Donald X.'s sense of design.)

On the flip side, if I see 23" monitors on sale for $100, that's pretty awesome.  When I then see a 24" monitor for $50, which I instinctively know is an unbelievable deal, that isn't proof that the 23" for $100 a bad deal.


So back to Cellar/Warehouse.  Warehouse is not causing Cellar to be "The Worst", any more than the 23" for $150 "causes" the 22" for $200 to be a bad deal, because 22" for $200 really is just inherently bad even if all the 23" are sold out right now.  But to an uninformed consumer, it's good evidence that Cellar can't be very good, because even when Cellar is a lot better, it's still not overpowered.

This isn't the real world.  :)  There's no going to Best Buy to see if you can get a better deal.  You're stuck with the 10 kingdom cards you have.  So whatever else might be out there isn't relevant.
Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #201 on: December 15, 2011, 11:17:36 am »
0

Well, unless there's Black Market.
Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

mnavratil

  • Conspirator
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 216
  • Respect: +83
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #202 on: December 15, 2011, 11:58:15 am »
+1

Saying all cards power is board dependent, although partially true, goes totally counter to the spirit of these lists.

For a new player it is extremely helpful to know which cards to look for and which cards you can safely ignore MOST OF THE TIME. I think these lists in particular helped me to go from novice to intermediate play for this reason.

Once you become better, sure, things get a lot less black-and-white; but who cares at that point? If you are good enough to argue over the intracacies of when a card is good, you are probably good enough to ignore the Best/worst lists.

As I stated before, I like to view these lists as a good way for beginners to avoid some of the pitfalls of cards, as well as capitalize on the power of others.
For instance, before these posts, I thought ambassador was a terrible card.
Logged

theory

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3603
  • Respect: +6121
    • View Profile
    • Dominion Strategy
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #203 on: December 15, 2011, 11:59:13 am »
0

This isn't the real world.  :)  There's no going to Best Buy to see if you can get a better deal.  You're stuck with the 10 kingdom cards you have.  So whatever else might be out there isn't relevant.
I'm not sure how to explain this to you again.  If you can't wrap your mind around the fact that a Dominion card can simultaneously be very good in some setups and yet very bad overall, then I'm afraid you should probably just stop reading the blog on Fridays for a couple months.
Logged

Fabian

  • 2012 Swedish Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 666
  • Respect: +542
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #204 on: December 15, 2011, 12:09:20 pm »
0

That's kinda harsh theory, seeing as how werothegreat is right.

Does it worry you that, as far as I can tell, no one in this thread agrees with your way of evaluating a card's strength? Speaking of "hints" or indicators, isn't that a hint that your way might just not be good?
Logged

jotheonah

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 989
  • Respect: +949
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #205 on: December 15, 2011, 12:10:18 pm »
0

The difference between Warehouse and Cellar itself is illustrative. Both leave you with one less card but hopefully up to 4 better cards. Warehouse lets you make the decision about which card is "better" after the fact, which means you don't have to agonize over playing it. If I have a hand that's  "Cellar, Copper, Silver, Silver, Silver" and there's a good $7 out like King's Court or Bank, and you know you have a few Golds left in your deck but also some Green, you have a lot of decisions to make and then you gamble on whether to keep $7 or go for $8 but risk having $6 or even $4. Warehouse's only advantage is that it avoids those situations. but Warehouse is so much better.

So what that tells us about Cellar is that those situations are really bad. It's really bad to have a card take up space in your hand only to give you a CHANCE at improving the other four. Because even when it comes up and you need it and you play it, it doesn't always help you. Meanwhile when it comes up and you don't need it it might as well be an Estate. And sometimes when you need it it doesn't come up.  Cellar is a band-aid for a situation you never should have been in in the first place, and it's a really swingy ineffectual band-aid. Warehouse doesn't change that and, in fact, suffers from the same problems, but does point out, by contrast, just how bad Cellar is.

Though of course, a well-timed Cellar buy in the right Kingdom is still better than no Cellar.
Logged
"I know old meta, and joth is useless day 1 but awesome town day 3 and on." --Teproc

He/him

DG

  • Governor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4074
  • Respect: +2624
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #206 on: December 15, 2011, 12:20:34 pm »
0

Quote
So what that tells us about Cellar is that those situations are really bad. It's really bad to have a card take up space in your hand only to give you a CHANCE at improving the other four
Perhaps you need to be more selective about when you buy your cellars. As soon as you have a card taking up space in your hand with the chance to improve the other eight cards it looks a bargain at cost 2.
Logged

olneyce

  • 2011 DS Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 245
  • Respect: +210
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #207 on: December 15, 2011, 12:24:58 pm »
0

That's kinda harsh theory, seeing as how werothegreat is right.

Does it worry you that, as far as I can tell, no one in this thread agrees with your way of evaluating a card's strength? Speaking of "hints" or indicators, isn't that a hint that your way might just not be good?
There are two separate conversations.  Werothegreat keeps intruding on the one about HOW to rate the cards by insisting that the cards shouldn't be rated at all.  Which is just totally unhelpful.  Again, it's not to say that you should be obliged to rank the cards; it's just to say that the willful ignorance about why other people might want to do this is annoying.

On the conversation about Cellar in particular, I think it's clear that theory has agreed about the awkwardness of the original phrasing.  He has ceded quite a bit of ground, and is basically agreeing with the original critique that was made--that Warehouse existing doesn't MAKE Cellar worth less, but just indicates its weakness.  I don't really see why there is still an argument here, actually.
Logged

Fabian

  • 2012 Swedish Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 666
  • Respect: +542
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #208 on: December 15, 2011, 12:33:36 pm »
0

You might be right about the werothegreat thing.

The other thing.. I guess we're reading different threads :)
Logged

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #209 on: December 15, 2011, 12:36:05 pm »
0

That's kinda harsh theory, seeing as how werothegreat is right.

Does it worry you that, as far as I can tell, no one in this thread agrees with your way of evaluating a card's strength? Speaking of "hints" or indicators, isn't that a hint that your way might just not be good?
There are two separate conversations.  Werothegreat keeps intruding on the one about HOW to rate the cards by insisting that the cards shouldn't be rated at all.  Which is just totally unhelpful.  Again, it's not to say that you should be obliged to rank the cards; it's just to say that the willful ignorance about why other people might want to do this is annoying.

On the conversation about Cellar in particular, I think it's clear that theory has agreed about the awkwardness of the original phrasing.  He has ceded quite a bit of ground, and is basically agreeing with the original critique that was made--that Warehouse existing doesn't MAKE Cellar worth less, but just indicates its weakness.  I don't really see why there is still an argument here, actually.

I have nothing against rating cards.  What I take issue with is the methodology.

You want a real-world example?  Here's one:

You go into a pie-shop.  They have cherry pie, apple pie, pumpkin pie, and pecan pie.  By your totally objective system ( ;) ) you know that apple pie is the best pie, and fittingly, it costs more, and so on down the line.  Cherry pie is pretty good, and you like what it adds to your palate, but it's on the cheap side.  But there's another pie-shop 100 miles away that you went to once that had the most amazing cherry pie.  Something with the spices or whatever, and it was a little more expensive.  But while you recognize that that pie was superior to the cherry pie currently facing you, that cherry pie is 100 miles away, so it doesn't matter.  You don't have the money today to get the apple pie, but you do have enough for the cherry pie.    Do you skip over this cherry pie because you know it's "worse" than the one 100 miles away?  Or do you pick up a slice because you're in the mood for cherry pie, even if it might be sub-par?  Pecan pie is the same price, but you hate pecans, so in this instance, you know that cherry pie is the one to go with for your price range.  So do you take the "worse" cherry pie, or do you go without?
Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

tlloyd

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 404
  • Respect: +84
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #210 on: December 15, 2011, 12:41:18 pm »
0

Quote
So what that tells us about Cellar is that those situations are really bad. It's really bad to have a card take up space in your hand only to give you a CHANCE at improving the other four
Perhaps you need to be more selective about when you buy your cellars. As soon as you have a card taking up space in your hand with the chance to improve the other eight cards it looks a bargain at cost 2.

This is right on. Cellar is probably not worth buying if you are using it as you would your opponent's vault (trading two cards for one). But if you've got a decent engine going, Cellar helps in three ways: it makes your engine more resilient to cursing attacks, it mitigates the chance of an unlucky draw that stalls your engine, and it allows you to sustain momentum longer while greening (or put differently, it allows you to green earlier). Cellar can also help cycle your deck, help you find and play key cards more frequently, and help bring key combos together. Warehouse does all of these things, and generally better, so it costs more. But given sufficiently large hand sizes, Cellar can outstrip Warehouse.

In all, Cellar is generally a weak card that can help occasionally when used correctly and isn't too damaging even when you buy it for no clear purpose. Sounds about right for $2. My only objection is to the argument that the existence of a better $3 card somehow changes the ranking of the $2 cards.
Logged

jotheonah

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 989
  • Respect: +949
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #211 on: December 15, 2011, 12:49:49 pm »
0

In all, Cellar is generally a weak card that can help occasionally when used correctly and isn't too damaging even when you buy it for no clear purpose.

In general, I'm willing to eat my words here. You all have opened my eyes about buying Cellar as a late-game engine card rather then as a poor man's Chapel. But I'll stick on this point - it's really bad when you buy it willy-nilly. I think that's probably what gives it such a bad rap.
Logged
"I know old meta, and joth is useless day 1 but awesome town day 3 and on." --Teproc

He/him

olneyce

  • 2011 DS Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 245
  • Respect: +210
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #212 on: December 15, 2011, 12:52:19 pm »
0

I have nothing against rating cards.  What I take issue with is the methodology.

Your original statement was:
"Given that it seems most people in this forum go by the random selection method of choosing cards, why are these "best to worst" lists so prevalent?  You're only dealing with 10 cards at a time, and usually you don't have a say in what those 10 are.  So the whole process seems silly."

If all you're NOW saying is that Cellar should be judged according to all the boards it could potentially be on, rather than against Warehouse, then fine.  I have no problem with that.  I personally have it right in the middle of the $2 cards for all the reasons discussed here.

But YOU were the one who brought up this 'there are only the 10 cards on the board' thing as if it were a reason to not rank cards at all.
Logged

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #213 on: December 15, 2011, 01:09:26 pm »
0

I have nothing against rating cards.  What I take issue with is the methodology.

Your original statement was:
"Given that it seems most people in this forum go by the random selection method of choosing cards, why are these "best to worst" lists so prevalent?  You're only dealing with 10 cards at a time, and usually you don't have a say in what those 10 are.  So the whole process seems silly."

If all you're NOW saying is that Cellar should be judged according to all the boards it could potentially be on, rather than against Warehouse, then fine.  I have no problem with that.  I personally have it right in the middle of the $2 cards for all the reasons discussed here.

But YOU were the one who brought up this 'there are only the 10 cards on the board' thing as if it were a reason to not rank cards at all.

Touche.  I still agree with what I first said, but I also agree with what I'm saying now.  If that makes any sense.
Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

theory

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3603
  • Respect: +6121
    • View Profile
    • Dominion Strategy
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #214 on: December 15, 2011, 01:33:02 pm »
0

I think the best lesson to be drawn from all of this is that I should rephrase how I wrote up Cellar, namely, why it's bad on its own, and refer to Warehouse only as supportive evidence that Cellar is a poor card.

Does this wording satisfy everyone?

Quote
Cellar is a card to buy only if its superior alternatives (Warehouse, Crossroads, Vault) are not available.  The fact that you discard before drawing makes it considerably worse than Warehouse, and giving up a potential Silver for a chance at redrawing up to 4 other cards in your hand is just not worth it.  It's nice in very big draw decks, because it keeps your engine flowing, but it implicitly depends on bad cards in your hand (and not just in your deck) in order to truly succeed.  Against hand-discard attacks in particular, it completely collapses and leaves you with unpalatable options all around.

Nevertheless, unlike the cards above it, Cellar still sees quite a bit of use in 2-player games.  You'll wish it was a Warehouse instead, but in big draw decks, and towards the end of the game, you'll grudgingly take the Cellar nevertheless.
Logged

tlloyd

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 404
  • Respect: +84
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #215 on: December 15, 2011, 01:45:03 pm »
0

I think the best lesson to be drawn from all of this is that I should rephrase how I wrote up Cellar, namely, why it's bad on its own, and refer to Warehouse only as supportive evidence that Cellar is a poor card.

Does this wording satisfy everyone?

Quote
Cellar is a card to buy only if its superior alternatives (Warehouse, Crossroads, Vault) are not available.  The fact that you discard before drawing makes it considerably worse than Warehouse, and giving up a potential Silver for a chance at redrawing up to 4 other cards in your hand is just not worth it.  It's nice in very big draw decks, because it keeps your engine flowing, but it implicitly depends on bad cards in your hand (and not just in your deck) in order to truly succeed.  Against hand-discard attacks in particular, it completely collapses and leaves you with unpalatable options all around.

Nevertheless, unlike the cards above it, Cellar still sees quite a bit of use in 2-player games.  You'll wish it was a Warehouse instead, but in big draw decks, and towards the end of the game, you'll grudgingly take the Cellar nevertheless.

I agree with all of this. Cellar is stronger than Crossroads against Curses, but is still inferior on average.
Logged

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #216 on: December 15, 2011, 01:52:33 pm »
0

I think the best lesson to be drawn from all of this is that I should rephrase how I wrote up Cellar, namely, why it's bad on its own, and refer to Warehouse only as supportive evidence that Cellar is a poor card.

Does this wording satisfy everyone?

Quote
Cellar is a card to buy only if its superior alternatives (Warehouse, Crossroads, Vault) are not available.  The fact that you discard before drawing makes it considerably worse than Warehouse, and giving up a potential Silver for a chance at redrawing up to 4 other cards in your hand is just not worth it.  It's nice in very big draw decks, because it keeps your engine flowing, but it implicitly depends on bad cards in your hand (and not just in your deck) in order to truly succeed.  Against hand-discard attacks in particular, it completely collapses and leaves you with unpalatable options all around.

Nevertheless, unlike the cards above it, Cellar still sees quite a bit of use in 2-player games.  You'll wish it was a Warehouse instead, but in big draw decks, and towards the end of the game, you'll grudgingly take the Cellar nevertheless.

Very much.  :)
Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

theorel

  • Spy
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 86
  • Shuffle iT Username: theorel
  • Respect: +57
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #217 on: December 15, 2011, 02:01:36 pm »
+1


Maybe a counter-example will help illustrate: assume Minion is better than Lab. Now Horse Traders comes out. Horse Traders actually changes the value of Minion in absolute terms. Even though we won't often have Minion and Horse Trader in the same kingdom, it at least makes sense that the existence of cards like Horse Traders would change our valuation of Minion, not relative only to Horse Traders but relative to everything. It is thus a plausible argument that the creation of Horse Traders (a $4 card) could change the ranking of Minion and Lab ($5 cards) relative to each other.


I randomly thought this post was very instructive.
Here tlloyd notes that "Horse Traders actually changes the value of Minion in absolute terms."  It does so because, when Horse Traders is on the board, Minion becomes weaker, where weaker means that it's a worse buy.

If this is in fact true, then the existence of Warehouse does decrease the value of cellar in absolute terms.  This is because in just as frequent a situation (i.e. where Warehouse and Cellar are both available) Cellar is a weaker card.  It's weaker because in those situations Warehouse is also available.  Thus the very existence of Warehouse actually does decrease the absolute value of Cellar, the same way the existence of Hunting Party actually does decrease the absolute value of Lab.  I'll also note that the hypothetical diamond card would decrease the value of Gold...it wouldn't make Gold a bad card, because Gold is a very good card.  It would just make it slightly worse, which would still be very good.

This happens because we play with cards in sets of 10, therefore every time new cards are created, it changes the value of other cards.  How many times have people noted that Hinterlands has "made several previously underpowered cards stronger"?  This happens because the situations in which those cards are useful have become more (or less) frequent.

So, Warehouse did make Cellar a worse card, because we are considering all possible boards and some of those boards do have Cellar and Warehouse.  If Seaside did not have Warehouse, then there would be more situations where Cellar would be useful.

Anyways, I'm just trying to say, that Theory's old wording was fine.  His new wording I think is better, because it's broader, but to argue that Warehouse had no impact on the absolute value of Cellar is just silly, maybe a small impact, but it did have an impact.

All of this happens because the only meaningful way to rank cards in Dominion is to rank them across all possible layouts. 

While there's no formula or anything going on, it's just based on experience and feelings.  based on the paragraphs, and various explanations given by others there seem to be a couple factors which go into ranking the cards.
1. How often do I want to purchase the card (this is equal to how often is the card worth the opportunity cost to purchase which is very similar to how often will this card help my deck)
2. How much help does it give me when I get it

The second piece above is easy to understand, and I think most people agree.

The first piece above seems to generate lots of misunderstanding...people saying for instance "you can't judge a card based on how bad it would be in your deck...you shouldn't be purchasing it in that case".  Well, how do I determine if I should purchase a card?  If it would actively harm my deck, then I shouldn't buy it.  That means that it isn't a good card (of course when I say "me" I mean someone who's very good at the game, who could make these judgments)
Logged

mischiefmaker

  • Golem
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 185
  • Respect: +108
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #218 on: December 15, 2011, 02:11:32 pm »
0

theory, is it worth mentioning rinkworks' excellent Crossroads analysis as a point in favor of why Cellar is weak? That is, Cellar's value implicitly depends on drawing it with bad cards in your hand, as your new writeup mentions. But the more likely you are to draw it with bad cards in hand, the more likely you are to have bad cards in your deck, which you then draw.


Logged

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #219 on: December 15, 2011, 02:30:30 pm »
0

^I don't think the arguments about crossroads hold for cellar. Crossroads requires you to have victory cards, which have to be useless. Cellar doesn't really rely on you having "bad" cards in your deck. It's really at its best when you're not using it to chuck bad cards, but to get cards that are more useful in your current hand. For example, if you're going for some variety of village/smithy, but draw a hand of [cellar, smithy, smithy, smithy, copper], you'll gladly discard a couple smithies to try to find a village so you can get your chain going.
Logged

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #220 on: December 15, 2011, 03:01:43 pm »
0

^I don't think the arguments about crossroads hold for cellar. Crossroads requires you to have victory cards, which have to be useless. Cellar doesn't really rely on you having "bad" cards in your deck. It's really at its best when you're not using it to chuck bad cards, but to get cards that are more useful in your current hand. For example, if you're going for some variety of village/smithy, but draw a hand of [cellar, smithy, smithy, smithy, copper], you'll gladly discard a couple smithies to try to find a village so you can get your chain going.

Right.  If I have a Moat, an Estate, a Cellar, and two Silvers in my hand, I'm glad I had the Moat to protect against Attacks, but when it comes to my turn, I'm going to cellar the Moat and the Estate, rather than playing the Moat and risk drawing Actions dead.  If that were a Crossroads, it would be different - it might in fact even be better - I'd draw a card because of my Estate, then play the Moat, and still have two Actions.  But if that Estate is a Curse, you'd be mighty glad you have a Cellar.

I'm really liking this discussion.
Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #221 on: December 15, 2011, 03:05:09 pm »
0

Another thing I find interesting is that for the trashers, Chapel (restricted to four cards) is $2, whereas Forge (unrestricted) is $7, although it does give you another card in return.  Whereas Warehouse (restricted to three cards) is $1 more than Cellar (unrestricted).  Also interesting - Scheme is to Herbalist as Apprentice is to Salvager - the Cards/Actions cards are $1 more than their Money/Buy analogues.
Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

tlloyd

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 404
  • Respect: +84
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #222 on: December 15, 2011, 03:20:22 pm »
0


Maybe a counter-example will help illustrate: assume Minion is better than Lab. Now Horse Traders comes out. Horse Traders actually changes the value of Minion in absolute terms. Even though we won't often have Minion and Horse Trader in the same kingdom, it at least makes sense that the existence of cards like Horse Traders would change our valuation of Minion, not relative only to Horse Traders but relative to everything. It is thus a plausible argument that the creation of Horse Traders (a $4 card) could change the ranking of Minion and Lab ($5 cards) relative to each other.


I randomly thought this post was very instructive.
Here tlloyd notes that "Horse Traders actually changes the value of Minion in absolute terms."  It does so because, when Horse Traders is on the board, Minion becomes weaker, where weaker means that it's a worse buy.

If this is in fact true, then the existence of Warehouse does decrease the value of cellar in absolute terms.  This is because in just as frequent a situation (i.e. where Warehouse and Cellar are both available) Cellar is a weaker card.  It's weaker because in those situations Warehouse is also available.  Thus the very existence of Warehouse actually does decrease the absolute value of Cellar, the same way the existence of Hunting Party actually does decrease the absolute value of Lab.  I'll also note that the hypothetical diamond card would decrease the value of Gold...it wouldn't make Gold a bad card, because Gold is a very good card.  It would just make it slightly worse, which would still be very good.

This happens because we play with cards in sets of 10, therefore every time new cards are created, it changes the value of other cards.  How many times have people noted that Hinterlands has "made several previously underpowered cards stronger"?  This happens because the situations in which those cards are useful have become more (or less) frequent.

So, Warehouse did make Cellar a worse card, because we are considering all possible boards and some of those boards do have Cellar and Warehouse.  If Seaside did not have Warehouse, then there would be more situations where Cellar would be useful.

Anyways, I'm just trying to say, that Theory's old wording was fine.  His new wording I think is better, because it's broader, but to argue that Warehouse had no impact on the absolute value of Cellar is just silly, maybe a small impact, but it did have an impact.

Man, just when I think this silly debate is over...

To be blunt, you're wrong. And while I'm glad you read my post, I don't think you understood it. Cellar does what it does whether Warehouse is in the game or not. You may prefer Warehouse, but that speaks to relative, not absolute, value. Minion and Horse Traders are different. The value of Minion is partly based on the ability to leave your opponent with a hand of four random cards (in contrast to Militia which leaves them with three above-average cards.) But if your opponent is holding a HT, playing Minion will instead leave him with a hand of six cards. Thus, the presence of HT changes what effect Minion has. There is nothing comparable about Warehouse/Cellar.
Logged

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #223 on: December 15, 2011, 03:39:18 pm »
0


Man, just when I think this silly debate is over...

To be blunt, you're wrong. And while I'm glad you read my post, I don't think you understood it. Cellar does what it does whether Warehouse is in the game or not. You may prefer Warehouse, but that speaks to relative, not absolute, value. Minion and Horse Traders are different. The value of Minion is partly based on the ability to leave your opponent with a hand of four random cards (in contrast to Militia which leaves them with three above-average cards.) But if your opponent is holding a HT, playing Minion will instead leave him with a hand of six cards. Thus, the presence of HT changes what effect Minion has. There is nothing comparable about Warehouse/Cellar.

Right.  The existence of Platinum makes Noble Brigand weaker, but the existence of Thief doesn't make it stronger or weaker.
Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

theory

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3603
  • Respect: +6121
    • View Profile
    • Dominion Strategy
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #224 on: December 15, 2011, 03:45:16 pm »
0

How is that different?  Let's say you had Chapel, and then you had BadChapel, which only trashed up to 3.  BadChapel is probably still a super-strong $2, but when Chapel is later released, BadChapel obviously loses some absolute value because it becomes a weaker card when Chapel is also in the game.

Much like Minion becomes weaker when HT is out, BadChapel is weaker when Chapel is out.  It still does the same thing, but you will lose if you buy it and your opponent buys Chapel.

In other words, there's no such thing as "absolute" value, because the point of Dominion is to build the fastest and best possible deck.  There's an aggregate "absolute" value, but that's an average of many individual "relative" values.  BadChapel has a worse aggregate "absolute" value because its average drops every time it and Chapel are both on the board.
Logged

GendoIkari

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 9701
  • Respect: +10741
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #225 on: December 15, 2011, 04:18:20 pm »
0

How is that different?  Let's say you had Chapel, and then you had BadChapel, which only trashed up to 3.  BadChapel is probably still a super-strong $2, but when Chapel is later released, BadChapel obviously loses some absolute value because it becomes a weaker card when Chapel is also in the game.

Much like Minion becomes weaker when HT is out, BadChapel is weaker when Chapel is out.  It still does the same thing, but you will lose if you buy it and your opponent buys Chapel.

In other words, there's no such thing as "absolute" value, because the point of Dominion is to build the fastest and best possible deck.  There's an aggregate "absolute" value, but that's an average of many individual "relative" values.  BadChapel has a worse aggregate "absolute" value because its average drops every time it and Chapel are both on the board.

I'm pretty sure that Donald said that at one point Chapel did only trash up to 3, and it was quite weak.
Logged
Check out my F.DS extension for Chrome! Card links; Dominion icons, and maybe more! http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13363.0

Thread for Firefox version:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=16305.0

GendoIkari

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 9701
  • Respect: +10741
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #226 on: December 15, 2011, 04:22:43 pm »
+1

How is that different?  Let's say you had Chapel, and then you had BadChapel, which only trashed up to 3.  BadChapel is probably still a super-strong $2, but when Chapel is later released, BadChapel obviously loses some absolute value because it becomes a weaker card when Chapel is also in the game.

Much like Minion becomes weaker when HT is out, BadChapel is weaker when Chapel is out.  It still does the same thing, but you will lose if you buy it and your opponent buys Chapel.

In other words, there's no such thing as "absolute" value, because the point of Dominion is to build the fastest and best possible deck.  There's an aggregate "absolute" value, but that's an average of many individual "relative" values.  BadChapel has a worse aggregate "absolute" value because its average drops every time it and Chapel are both on the board.

This makes sense. Another way to phrase it that might help. As you said earlier, we are defining a card's goodness based on "what percentage of boards is this a smart thing to buy?" Let's say that when only the base set was around, Celler was a good buy 50% of the time that it showed up. But now, when Celler shows up, there is a 10% chance that Warehouse is also available (I don't know the real odds). So suddenly, there's a bunch of boards out there where Cellar would have been a good buy if Warehouse weren't available; but Warehouse is available. This will cause Cellar to drop from being a smart buy 50% of the time to 40% of the time, or something like that. Thus, Cellar is, as a whole, now a worse card.
Logged
Check out my F.DS extension for Chrome! Card links; Dominion icons, and maybe more! http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=13363.0

Thread for Firefox version:
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=16305.0

rrenaud

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 991
  • Uncivilized Barbarian of Statistics
  • Respect: +1197
    • View Profile
    • CouncilRoom
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #227 on: December 15, 2011, 04:33:28 pm »
+1

The high level point is that dominion cards don't exist in a vacuum.

Card A is better than B means that "the probability A will contribute to a win in a game between skilled players from a randomly drawn kingdom set is higher than for B".

Cards can synergize, counter, or substitute with other cards.  Introducing synergistic cards makes the syngerized cards better.  Introducing counters makes the countered cards worse.  Having (better) substitutes around does make the inferior substitute worse.
Logged

tlloyd

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 404
  • Respect: +84
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #228 on: December 15, 2011, 04:51:32 pm »
0

How is that different?  Let's say you had Chapel, and then you had BadChapel, which only trashed up to 3.  BadChapel is probably still a super-strong $2, but when Chapel is later released, BadChapel obviously loses some absolute value because it becomes a weaker card when Chapel is also in the game.

Much like Minion becomes weaker when HT is out, BadChapel is weaker when Chapel is out.  It still does the same thing, but you will lose if you buy it and your opponent buys Chapel.

In other words, there's no such thing as "absolute" value, because the point of Dominion is to build the fastest and best possible deck.  There's an aggregate "absolute" value, but that's an average of many individual "relative" values.  BadChapel has a worse aggregate "absolute" value because its average drops every time it and Chapel are both on the board.

Interesting example. Didn't Donald say that the earliest version of Chapel only trashed three cards and that it was significantly weaker as a result?

I get your point, because ultimately the game is a competition not to get a certain number of points, but to get more points than your opponent by the time the game ends. But that doesn't mean that the distinction between absolute and relative value is meaningless. We can productively talk about what a card contributes in absolute terms and also compare the relative value of different cards.

If I have some strategy that uses Cellar and beats your BM strategy, we could surmise that Cellar had some positive value. Then we rematch and you beat my Cellar strategy with a Warehouse strategy. Did my strategy get worse? In absolute terms no--yours just got better.

Another way to think about this is with attack cards. Sea Hag is the perfect example: what absolute value does it provide for your deck? None! It doesn't get you any closer to buying VP. But it provides great relative value by slowing the other guy down. Other attacks provide both absolute value and relative value, like Militia's coin and discard. In a world with no reaction cards, Sea Hag might be stronger than Militia, but in a world where every card has a built-in Moat reaction, Militia is clearly superior. That is how one card can affect the ranking of two other cards relative to each other.

But there is nothing like that with Warehouse and Cellar. You are trying to argue that A<B, but given B<C, B<A. That makes no sense. If Cellar was better than Moat before Warehouse, then Cellar is better than Moat still, despite Warehouse being better than Cellar.
Logged

tlloyd

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 404
  • Respect: +84
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #229 on: December 15, 2011, 04:57:45 pm »
0

The high level point is that dominion cards don't exist in a vacuum.

Assume better means "probability this card will contribute to a win in a game between skilled players from a randomly drawn kingdom set".

Cards can synergize, counter, or substitute with other cards.  Introducing synergistic cards makes the syngerized cards better.  Introducing counters makes the countered cards worse.  Having (better) substitutes around does make the inferior substitute worse.

Despite being admirably concise and clear, you are not quite addressing the key issue. Your last assertion is really just an unsupported assertion. Adding a superior substitute makes the older card worse relative to the new substitute, but not worse relative to every card in the game!
Logged

theory

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3603
  • Respect: +6121
    • View Profile
    • Dominion Strategy
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #230 on: December 15, 2011, 05:07:07 pm »
0

But there is nothing like that with Warehouse and Cellar. You are trying to argue that A<B, but given B<C, B<A. That makes no sense. If Cellar was better than Moat before Warehouse, then Cellar is better than Moat still, despite Warehouse being better than Cellar.
Let's say BadChapel is definitely better than Hamlet before Chapel comes out.  But now Chapel comes out.  Hamlet is still awesome on the same # of boards as before, but all of a sudden BadChapel is really bad on a large # of boards (i.e., every board that Chapel is on).  Shouldn't it now be worse than Hamlet, because Hamlet is "good" on all boards, and BadChapel used to be "great" on all boards but is now "great" on some boards and "awful" on other boards, and the newly lowered average brings it under Hamlet.

In fact, look at Wharf/Minion.  Minion is probably better than Wharf.  But maybe now with Horse Traders, Minion goes from great 100% of the time to 80% of the time (these are all made up percentages!), and Wharf went from great 80% of the time to great 90% of the time.  I don't actually believe these numbers, but it's definitely possible for a new card to change a card's relative ranking among other cards at its price point, because not every card is affected in the same way by the new card.
Logged

tlloyd

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 404
  • Respect: +84
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #231 on: December 15, 2011, 05:41:41 pm »
0

But there is nothing like that with Warehouse and Cellar. You are trying to argue that A<B, but given B<C, B<A. That makes no sense. If Cellar was better than Moat before Warehouse, then Cellar is better than Moat still, despite Warehouse being better than Cellar.
Let's say BadChapel is definitely better than Hamlet before Chapel comes out.  But now Chapel comes out.  Hamlet is still awesome on the same # of boards as before, but all of a sudden BadChapel is really bad on a large # of boards (i.e., every board that Chapel is on).  Shouldn't it now be worse than Hamlet, because Hamlet is "good" on all boards, and BadChapel used to be "great" on all boards but is now "great" on some boards and "awful" on other boards, and the newly lowered average brings it under Hamlet.

In fact, look at Wharf/Minion.  Minion is probably better than Wharf.  But maybe now with Horse Traders, Minion goes from great 100% of the time to 80% of the time (these are all made up percentages!), and Wharf went from great 80% of the time to great 90% of the time.  I don't actually believe these numbers, but it's definitely possible for a new card to change a card's relative ranking among other cards at its price point, because not every card is affected in the same way by the new card.

But there is a difference between those examples. HT is such an effective counter to Minion that Minion becomes counter-productive. That is not the case with Cellar. Sure, in the few games where Warehouse, Cellar and Moat are available you may buy a moat but not a cellar. But that's not nearly the same as conceding Moat to now all of a sudden be the better card.  I stand by my (usefulness of function)x(effectiveness at function) metric.

All I'm saying, and I will now be done saying it, is that you ought to decide whether to rank by price or by function and be consistent. I find the rank by function more meaningful, but enjoy the rank by price as well.
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #232 on: December 15, 2011, 06:35:13 pm »
0

New cards existing DOES effect the value of other cards. For example, Crossroads getting printed makes scout a lot better (okay, maybe not A LOT better, but better). The existence of Great Hall, Nobles, Harem makes both of those cards much better than they'd otherwise be. Ironworks made Gardens a heckuva lot stronger. Because those cards will come up sometimes with these, and they combo. Every card that gets printed affects the value of every other card. But the more cards there are, the less printing any one card makes a difference.
Of course these are all just average values, and the 'real values' that matter are determined by the actual kingdom you have. The cards have different values on different kingdoms. Hence the disclaimer. But it's still nice to know that mountebank is usually really strong, etc.
I think there are two relevant factors when weighing how good or bad a card is. 1) How often do I want to get this card? The more I want it, the better it is. 2)How much does it do for me when I get it? I may get island more than mountebank, but mountebank does much more for me when I do get it.

werothegreat

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 8172
  • Shuffle iT Username: werothegreat
  • Let me tell you a secret...
  • Respect: +9625
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #233 on: December 15, 2011, 07:02:36 pm »
0

Here's something that might shed some light: is Woodcutter bad because Festival exists?  Is it made worse because Festival exists?  Or is it just inherently bad?  This is a really cut and dried case where, given a price difference, one card really is better than another.  They're exactly the same, except one of them has +2 Actions, and thus it costs more.  These two are also in the very first set.  Would Donald X. have put them both in the same set for all to see that one literally is better than another if that meant that people would assume that Woodcutter is automatically bad simply because Festival is there?
Logged
Contrary to popular belief, I do not run the wiki all on my own.  There are plenty of other people who are actively editing.  Go bother them!

Check out this fantasy epic adventure novel I wrote, the Broken Globe!  http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Globe-Tyr-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00LR1SZAS/

Epoch

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 421
  • Respect: +38
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #234 on: December 15, 2011, 07:19:47 pm »
0

Ironworks made Gardens a heckuva lot stronger.

True.  Though this points out that almost every other card makes Gardens -- and any other card which is all-but-valueless in the absence of specific combos -- weaker.
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #235 on: December 15, 2011, 07:27:35 pm »
+1

Ironworks made Gardens a heckuva lot stronger.

True.  Though this points out that almost every other card makes Gardens -- and any other card which is all-but-valueless in the absence of specific combos -- weaker.
You keep on thinking Gardens is that weak. I buy or gain it 86% of the time I can, with a 1.25 winrate.

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #236 on: December 15, 2011, 07:29:48 pm »
0

Here's something that might shed some light: is Woodcutter bad because Festival exists?  Is it made worse because Festival exists?  Or is it just inherently bad?  This is a really cut and dried case where, given a price difference, one card really is better than another.  They're exactly the same, except one of them has +2 Actions, and thus it costs more.  These two are also in the very first set.  Would Donald X. have put them both in the same set for all to see that one literally is better than another if that meant that people would assume that Woodcutter is automatically bad simply because Festival is there?
No, Woodcutter is probably infinitesimally stronger because Festival exists (or any other village). It would be worsened for sure by a non-terminal version being printed at 2 or 3, and probably 4, though not by all that much.

greatexpectations

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1097
  • Respect: +1067
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #237 on: December 15, 2011, 07:52:45 pm »
0

You keep on thinking Gardens is that weak. I buy or gain it 86% of the time I can, with a 1.25 winrate.

i will second all of that. gardens are fantastic.
Logged
momomoto: ...I looked at the tableau and went "Mountebank? That's for jerks."
rrenaud: Jerks win.

ehunt

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1528
  • Shuffle iT Username: ehunt
  • Respect: +1856
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #238 on: December 15, 2011, 11:26:00 pm »
0

Yeah, it's one of the oldest cards in the game, but we really need a good Gardens article! It's still one of the most interesting and versatile cards in the game.
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #239 on: December 15, 2011, 11:37:13 pm »
0

Yeah, it's one of the oldest cards in the game, but we really need a good Gardens article! It's still one of the most interesting and versatile cards in the game.
This isn't good enough?

greatexpectations

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1097
  • Respect: +1067
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #240 on: December 16, 2011, 12:19:56 am »
0

This isn't good enough?

it is a good start, but there is certainly much more that we could add to it.  there have been a bunch of new garden helpers added in the recent expansions, there isn't much out there on hybrid strategies, and we can add some baseline information for garden rushes from the simulators.

and you can throw silk road into the mix for most of this too. something to add to my to-do list i guess.
Logged
momomoto: ...I looked at the tableau and went "Mountebank? That's for jerks."
rrenaud: Jerks win.

DStu

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2627
  • Respect: +1490
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #241 on: December 16, 2011, 03:39:35 am »
0

New cards existing DOES effect the value of other cards. For example, Crossroads getting printed makes scout a lot better (okay, maybe not A LOT better, but better). The existence of Great Hall, Nobles, Harem makes both of those cards much better than they'd otherwise be. Ironworks made Gardens a heckuva lot stronger.
I think the point here is that one card's effect is always very marginal. It's a card you have to/can look for when you consider the value of the card, but fully random card A occur somehow in every 15th game where card B appears. Therefore you can't say that A get significantly worse just because B exists, even if B is a complete counter/substitution for B. If there are more of them that gets important.
Logged

WanderingWinder

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5275
  • ...doesn't really matter to me
  • Respect: +4381
    • View Profile
    • WanderingWinder YouTube Page
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #242 on: December 16, 2011, 08:00:46 am »
0

New cards existing DOES effect the value of other cards. For example, Crossroads getting printed makes scout a lot better (okay, maybe not A LOT better, but better). The existence of Great Hall, Nobles, Harem makes both of those cards much better than they'd otherwise be. Ironworks made Gardens a heckuva lot stronger.
I think the point here is that one card's effect is always very marginal. It's a card you have to/can look for when you consider the value of the card, but fully random card A occur somehow in every 15th game where card B appears. Therefore you can't say that A get significantly worse just because B exists, even if B is a complete counter/substitution for B. If there are more of them that gets important.
Agreed. One new card isn't going to make up much difference, even if it's the best combo or best counter you can imagine, simply because it's not going to come up very much. A new set, on the other hand, can have a much more significant impact. For instance, I think hinterlands made both chapel and ambassador a good deal weaker, with lots of alternatives and (mostly soft) counters.

theorel

  • Spy
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 86
  • Shuffle iT Username: theorel
  • Respect: +57
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #243 on: December 16, 2011, 09:05:04 am »
+1

But there is a difference between those examples. HT is such an effective counter to Minion that Minion becomes counter-productive. That is not the case with Cellar. Sure, in the few games where Warehouse, Cellar and Moat are available you may buy a moat but not a cellar. But that's not nearly the same as conceding Moat to now all of a sudden be the better card.  I stand by my (usefulness of function)x(effectiveness at function) metric.

All I'm saying, and I will now be done saying it, is that you ought to decide whether to rank by price or by function and be consistent. I find the rank by function more meaningful, but enjoy the rank by price as well.

I'm sorry you thought I misunderstood your post.  What I was trying to point out was that the two situations are actually very similar.  As you noted: Minion goes from effective to counter-productive in the presence of Horse Traders.  Does this effect the "absolute effectiveness" of Minion? No, it effects it's value only when Horse Traders is in the supply.  Additionally, as you noted Minion becomes a bad buy, so in other words Minion's strength is lessened because you are less likely to purchase it.  The important thing is that Minion's effect hasn't changed so if it has some "strength" property which is independent of likeliness to purchase, then it actually hasn't moved.  If Horse Traders doesn't improve the effectiveness of Laboratory when you purchase it, then it's strength hasn't changed either.  So, Minion and Laboratory must compare the same way...but you argued (In my opinion correctly) that Horse Traders actually makes Minion a weaker card.  It does this because there is a situation where you would otherwise buy Minion, that you would change your mind because of the presence of another card.  (It doesn't matter that the effectiveness of Minion changed on this board...that would only matter if you purchased Minion anyways).  This is exactly the situation of Cellar and Warehouse, you are less likely to purchase Cellar if Warehouse is available...why?  Because you would rather purchase Warehouse.  So, basically it all comes down to how you rank the cards.  The argument here is that there are 2 factors that contribute to the ranking:
1. Likelihood that you will want to gain the card.  (aggregated over all possible sets of cards)
2. Effectiveness of the card when you would gain it. (aggregated over all possible sets of cards)
The two factors are related, both are effected by other cards which are available.  No single card will have great impact because they are aggregated.  Arguably there are many factors which contribute to Cellar being weaker, and Warehouse may be more useful for pointing that out.  But it is a fact that some proportion of sets of cards will see both Warehouse and Cellar, and in those sets the likelihood that you gain Cellar goes down.  So Cellar's value has gone down, relative to Moat (which isn't weakened by the presence of Warehouse).

You mentioned another interesting thing, which I'm going to run with a bit:
suppose there is a set with Cellar, and Moat.  You have $2, and Cellar and Moat are both determined to be equally useful in this set, and you want both (and actually useful...though no such set may exist currently, such a set could conceptually exist).  Additionally, suppose that one of the cards is unimportant to this situation existing.  You'll get the one which is more useful now, and get the other one later.  Now suppose you have the same set, replacing the unimportant card with Warehouse.  You have $2, I would say you get Moat, almost no question.  Sometime later you'll probably have $3 to pick up Warehouse, so you totally ignore Cellar.  Warehouse has actually in fact made Moat better than Cellar in this situation.  The relative value of the 2 cards has changed due to the presence of Warehouse.

It's marginal, yes...maybe not worth mentioning.  But if Bridge makes Native Village better, then Warehouse makes Cellar worse.  There are lots of other factors that come to play, but this is a simple easy-to-understand factor.  Card combos are frequently discussed, even though those 2 cards may never show up together.  Card counters are discussed with the same caveat.  IF these discussions have any merit, then one card superseding another has the same merit, and serves a lot of the same purpose in these ranking discussions.

Man I'm wordy, sorry about that.
« Last Edit: December 16, 2011, 09:07:17 am by theorel »
Logged

DStu

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2627
  • Respect: +1490
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #244 on: December 16, 2011, 09:14:24 am »
0

I think everybody is aware of that. I guess what is the problem is a formulation like (exaggerated)
"Card A was actually quite usefull, but than card B was introduced, and now A is crap because B is better".
Logged

theorel

  • Spy
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 86
  • Shuffle iT Username: theorel
  • Respect: +57
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #245 on: December 16, 2011, 09:31:44 am »
0

Yeah, I think the original description overstated the impact of Warehouse.  But then some of the criticisms, I think, completely tried to dismiss it.  I think it has an impact, perhaps a small one, but one that's easy to understand.  In much the same way combos are easy to understand, even if the actual exact combo of those two cards is less useful in general.  They're an easy-to-understand way to talk about strategy.
Logged

tlloyd

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 404
  • Respect: +84
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #246 on: December 16, 2011, 01:14:23 pm »
0

Okay, I swore I would be done, but I lied.  :D

Horse Traders directly blunts the value of Minion even more than Moat/Lighthouse would. One way to see this is imagine that Minion, instead of attacking when you took the discard option for yourself, actually gave your opponent +1 card. Would you still pay $5 for it? No. Because part of what you value in Minion no longer happens.

Contrast the case of Warehouse/Cellar, where Cellar continues to do exactly what it has always done. True, the opportunity cost of Cellar has gone up, but that can be true of any of the other kingdom cards. So I think if we're going to try and say something more useful than "every card has good and bad boards, it all depends," then we should probably stick to comparisons of absolute rather than relative value.

That does not rule out, by the way, consideration of combo potential. Any given combo happens only occasionally, but the more cards there are that synergize with a particular card, the higher that particular card's value will be. Obviously Gardens became stronger once Ironworks arrived. But did Workshop or Woodcutter become weaker? They are weaker than Ironworks to be sure (they also cost less), but they still do what they always did. If you want to talk of Ironworks as a counter to Workshop in Gardens games, well now we're dealing with a three-card combo - which is much less likely - and we're stretching the concept of a counter.

Ultimately the distinction I'm making may be of degree and not kind, but it is at least a significant degree. I think what really lay behind Theory's argument (and I've got nothing but respect for Theory) was "I like Warehouse more than Cellar, so now when I see Cellar I can only feel disappointed that it's not Warehouse, which makes me start to like other cards better than Cellar too."
Logged

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #247 on: December 16, 2011, 08:56:37 pm »
0

Man, people keep saying that Horse Traders is this incredible counter to Minion, its mere presence makes Minion less valuable, not worth going for on HT boards, and I just gotta say that's not true in the least.  Minions are still that strong, even with HT out.
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

Geronimoo

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1059
  • Respect: +868
    • View Profile
    • Geronimoo's Dominion Simulator
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #248 on: December 17, 2011, 05:43:53 am »
0

From simulations:

Lighthouse/Minions (+Loan) crushes BMU 8 to 2, but if you let the big money player spam Horse Traders Minions get crushed 3 to 7.

I'd conclude Horse Traders is a very strong counter against Minions.

Here are the bots if you want to verify yourself:
Code: [Select]
<player name="Lighthouse/Minion (+Loan)" author="Geronimoo" description="Loan will thin the deck so Minions clump together more often. XXXXMinions is quite a hard card to play correctly, so the simulator makes quite a few mistakes with it.XXXXSee here how the simulator handles Minion: http://dominionsimulator.wordpress.com/play-rules/intrigue/minion/">
 <type name="Bot"/>
 <type name="Combo"/>
 <type name="Attacking"/>
 <type name="Competitive"/>
 <type name="Province"/>
 <type name="TwoPlayer"/>
 <type name="UserCreated"/>
 <type name="Engine"/>
   <buy name="Province">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Minion"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="3.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Province">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Gold"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="0.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="4.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Minion"/>
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Loan">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Loan"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="1.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Lighthouse"/>
</player>

Code: [Select]
<player name="Horse Traders (spammed)" author="Geronimoo" description="The optimized Horse Traders strategy that buys no other actions.">
 <type name="Bot"/>
 <type name="Optimized"/>
 <type name="BigMoney"/>
 <type name="Province"/>
 <type name="TwoPlayer"/>
 <type name="UserCreated"/>
 <type name="SingleCard"/>
   <buy name="Province"/>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="5.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Horse_Traders">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Horse_Traders"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="countAllCardsInDeck"/>
         <extra_operation type="divideBy" attribute="4.0" />
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="6.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
</player>
Logged

Jorbles

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1468
  • Respect: +531
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #249 on: December 17, 2011, 03:57:33 pm »
0

When I see Minion and HT on the same board I usually just pick up both of them, the HTs tend to assist Minion decks as long as you only get 1 or 2 of them . They make it very easy to get to $5 and make it possible to even get to $10 and buy 2 Minions at once. If your opponent is going for Minions also they give you an edge as you also get 6 card hands, and Minions are stronger the more of them you have in your hand. How do Minion decks fare if they pick up an HT or two when they hit $4?
Logged

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #250 on: December 17, 2011, 05:20:32 pm »
0

From simulations:

Lighthouse/Minions (+Loan) crushes BMU 8 to 2, but if you let the big money player spam Horse Traders Minions get crushed 3 to 7.

I'd conclude Horse Traders is a very strong counter against Minions.

Your explanatory note admits that the simulator doesn't play Minion very well, and the Minion deck would be further improved if you let it buy one or two Horse Traders as well.  As long as there's some other support for Minions (trashing being the most critical), the presence of Horse Traders is not a reason to avoid Minion; rather it's a reason to get both.

Also I bet you could boost the Minion win percentage by making it avoid Duchies for longer?
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

Anon79

  • Apprentice
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 264
  • Respect: +39
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #251 on: December 22, 2011, 03:15:47 am »
0

Man, people keep saying that Horse Traders is this incredible counter to Minion, its mere presence makes Minion less valuable, not worth going for on HT boards, and I just gotta say that's not true in the least.  Minions are still that strong, even with HT out.
While you may have a point, this particular game certainly isn't definitive:

Quote
--- chwhite's turn 6 ---
(...)
chwhite plays a Sea Hag.
... yaron draws and discards a Sea Hag.
... yaron gains a Curse on top of the deck.

(...)
--- chwhite's turn 8 ---
chwhite plays a Sea Hag.
... yaron draws and discards a Gold.
... yaron gains a Curse on top of the deck.

   --- yaron's turn 8 ---
   yaron plays a Sea Hag.
   ... (chwhite reshuffles.)
   ... chwhite draws and discards a Curse.
   ... chwhite gains a Curse on top of the deck.
Logged

Tejayes

  • Golem
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 176
  • Respect: +132
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #252 on: December 22, 2011, 05:22:43 pm »
+3

With the $3 lists on their way, hopefully, here's a compilation of Win Rate With/Without data from CouncilRoom.com, along with a more subjective list of overrated and underrated $3's based on percentage of games where the cards are gained.

WIN RATE WITH

1: Masquerade (1.05)
2: Ambassador (1.04)
3: Menagerie (1.03)
4: Warehouse (1.02)
5: Loan (1.01)
6 (tie): Fishing Village/Swindler (1.00)
8 (tie): Scheme/Steward (0.99)
10 (tie): Great Hall/Shanty Town/Trade Route/Tunnel/Wishing Well (0.98)
15 (tie): Lookout/Oasis/Oracle/Village (0.97)
19: Fortune Teller (0.95)
20 (tie): Black Market/Watchtower (0.94)
22: Develop (0.93)
23: Woodcutter (0.91)
24: Smugglers (0.89)
25: Chancellor (0.87)
26: Workshop (0.85)

WIN RATE WITHOUT

1: Ambassador (0.92)
2: Masquerade (0.93)
3: Menagerie (0.94)
4: Warehouse (0.97)
5: Loan (0.99)
6 (tie): Fishing Village/Swindler (1.00)
8 (tie): Oracle/Scheme/Wishing Well (1.01)
11 (tie): Chancellor/Fortune Teller/Lookout/Steward (1.02)
15: Trade Route (1.03)
16 (tie): Oasis/Tunnel/Watchtower (1.04)
19 (tie): Shanty Town/Woodcutter (1.05)
21 (tie): Develop/Great Hall/Workshop (1.06)
24: Village (1.07)
25: Smugglers (1.12)
26: Black Market (1.13)

DIFFERENCE (WRW - WRWO)

1 (tie): Ambassador/Masquerade (+0.12)
3: Menagerie (+0.09)
4: Warehouse (+0.05)
5: Loan (+0.02)
6 (tie): Fishing Village/Swindler (+0.00)
8: Scheme (-0.02)
9 (tie): Steward/Wishing Well (-0.03)
11: Oracle (-0.04)
12 (tie): Lookout/Trade Route (-0.05)
14: Tunnel (-0.06)
15 (tie): Fortune Teller/Oasis/Shanty Town (-0.07)
18: Great Hall (-0.08)
19 (tie): Village/Watchtower (-0.10)
21: Develop (-0.13)
22: Woodcutter (-0.14)
23: Chancellor (-0.15)
24: Black Market (-0.19)
25: Workshop (-0.21)
26: Smugglers (-0.23)

OVERRATED (High gain rates, low WRW-WRWO)

1: Black Market (67% gain rate, -0.19 WRW-WRWO)
2: Great Hall (79.7% gain rate, -0.08 WRW-WRWO)
3: Shanty Town (75.7% gain rate, -0.07 WRW-WRWO)

UNDERRATED (Low gain rates, relatively high WRW-WRWO)

1: Loan (41.3% gain rate, +0.02 WRW-WRWO)
2: Oracle (30.2% gain rate, -0.04 WRW-WRWO)
3: Wishing Well (34.1% gain rate, -0.03 WRW-WRWO)
Logged

theory

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3603
  • Respect: +6121
    • View Profile
    • Dominion Strategy
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #253 on: December 22, 2011, 05:34:33 pm »
0

Excellent work.  This stuff really should be displayed on CR.com directly ...

Of course the data is a little misleading, since obviously FV is "better" than Loan.  I wonder if there is some kind of data that can capture the strength of a card that is frequently a must-buy and sometimes a never-buy.
Logged

Tejayes

  • Golem
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 176
  • Respect: +132
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #254 on: December 22, 2011, 05:57:27 pm »
0

Excellent work.  This stuff really should be displayed on CR.com directly ...

Of course the data is a little misleading, since obviously FV is "better" than Loan.  I wonder if there is some kind of data that can capture the strength of a card that is frequently a must-buy and sometimes a never-buy.

My theory (no pun intended, theory) on why FV is said to be "evenly balanced" is because it's bought so freaking often that it cancels itself out. That would also explain why Chancellor is not at rock bottom -- it's bought so infrequently that WRW vs. WRWO is a bit skewed.
Logged

theory

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3603
  • Respect: +6121
    • View Profile
    • Dominion Strategy
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #255 on: December 22, 2011, 06:01:16 pm »
0

The easy solution to this -- look at only games where one person buys it and the other doesn't -- does not work, since there are many boards where FV is a trap.
Logged

Jimmmmm

  • Torturer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1762
  • Shuffle iT Username: Jimmmmm
  • Respect: +2017
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #256 on: December 22, 2011, 06:04:59 pm »
0

I guess Win Rate With etc has more to do with under- or over-rated a card is than how good it actually is.
Logged

Epoch

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 421
  • Respect: +38
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #257 on: December 22, 2011, 06:16:31 pm »
+1

My theory (no pun intended, theory) on why FV is said to be "evenly balanced" is because it's bought so freaking often that it cancels itself out. That would also explain why Chancellor is not at rock bottom -- it's bought so infrequently that WRW vs. WRWO is a bit skewed.

Well, also, it has to do with there being plenty of cards that are much worse than Chancellor, which is, at the very least, not harmful if you aren't for whatever reason worried about a terminal clash (only action or a deck that has plenty of +actions).  It's not like Mandarin or Develop or Saboteur where -- aside from all the same terminal conflicts that Chancellor also is prey to -- can be actively detrimental to your deck if bought in many or most situations.
Logged

olneyce

  • 2011 DS Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 245
  • Respect: +210
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #258 on: December 22, 2011, 08:26:21 pm »
0

I think if you combine these numbers with the "%+" number, it produces a nice approximation of 'real' card strength.  Fishing Village, for example, is bought or gained 92% of the time, while the 3s that are at the top are all below 70%.  Put those two things together and you might have a decent card quality list.

Here's the simple multiplication of the numbers (setting the +/- on a scale of 100, and multiplying by the % gained or bought):

Fishing Village (92)
Ambassador (75.8 )
Menagerie (74.7)
Great Hall (73.3)
Steward (71.7)
Shanty Town (70.4)
Village (68.3)
Tunnel (67.8 )
Scheme (65.3)
Masquerade (64.7)
Swindler (63.8 )
Warehouse (62.3)
Oasis (54.9)
Trade Route (54.7)
Black Market (54.3)
Lookout (45.4)
Smugglers (42.4)
Loan (42.1)
Develop (40.5)
Watchtower (37.2
Wishing Well (33.1)
Woodcutter (30.4)
Oracle (29)
Fortune Teller (28.8 )
Workshop (22.7)
Chancellor (11.3)

There's a few strange results - Great Hall as a spammable VP is purchased fairly often but often more as an afterthought or act of desperation, and Masquerade is so underrated that its buy % overwhelms it's high win rate - but it's pretty close.  In effect, this uses the % gained or bought as a crowd-sourced baseline, and adds in a modest modification according to the actual results.  Basically: it corrects for 'overrating' and 'underrating.'

This method seems likely to help out cards with +action or +buy, since those are often necessities but are rarely the standout parts of a deck.  But that might just be a matter of perspective - if those cards are the fuel of many good engines, then maybe they are 'better' cards than we normally give them credit for. 
Logged

Elyv

  • Moneylender
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 163
  • Respect: +15
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #259 on: December 22, 2011, 08:49:07 pm »
0

Watchtower is ridiculously low on that list, imo. Warehouse too, probably. Masquerade is insane, of course, and way too low.
Logged

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #260 on: December 22, 2011, 08:58:53 pm »
0

The problem with multiplying the numbers like that is that there is very little % variation in the win rate numbers, while there is much greater % variation in the gain numbers.
Logged

olneyce

  • 2011 DS Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 245
  • Respect: +210
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #261 on: December 22, 2011, 09:18:14 pm »
0

The problem with multiplying the numbers like that is that there is very little % variation in the win rate numbers, while there is much greater % variation in the gain numbers.
Yeah, like I said, this is really just a modified version of the crowd-sourced "percentage obtained" number.  Clearly the game is too complex for such simplistic numbers to really capture what makes a card 'good.' 

We'd have to go way deeper into when the cards are gained, how often they win when alone vs. when they have other supplementary options, how useful a card is when by itself vs. when you need more than one.  And frankly, it would be really helpful to divide the overall lists into quadrants of skill level.  If we want to know what the best card is, we really want to know what the best card is in games with good players.  I mean, Village is gained more by n00bs, but it's WORSE for them than it is for better players.  I would imagine some of the discrepancies would narrow for the best players, though it would be interesting to see whether and how.
Logged

DG

  • Governor
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4074
  • Respect: +2624
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #262 on: December 22, 2011, 09:59:37 pm »
0

I don't think there is anything unusual about those win rate graphs except for fishing village and loan. The loan is a reasonable 3 cost card but I suspect it has a high success rate because novices just don't buy it. On the other hand the rest of the cost 3 cards probably suffer badly because novices buy them randomly when they're failing to make a decent deck. It's harder to unnecessarily buy a bank than unnecessarily buy a woodcutter.

The most interesting statistic for me is the "win rate without" fishing villages (1.00). Irrespective of how strong fishing villages seem to be and how frequently they are bought, when people ignore fishing villages in a kingdom they are getting entirely average results. It's not like the chapel which is also frequently bought and players lose more often by ignoring it. I also can't believe that all players in a game ignore fishing villages in unison to make the result redundant. Perhaps too many players overload their decks with terminal actions and can't beat simpler alternatives, even with the help of fishing villages.
Logged

timchen

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 704
  • Shuffle iT Username: allfail
  • Respect: +234
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #263 on: December 23, 2011, 01:58:57 am »
0

I think it is the opposite: people think FVs are so good and just load them up, without terminals to really take advantage of it. Without effective terminals, FV is just a Lighthouse.

Or to be more specific, in a game without good drawers, an excess of FV may actually end up not doing much good. I've won quite some games by not getting *as many* FVs as my opponent. Probably only in very BM-ish games can one win without a single FV, though.

Logged

theory

  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3603
  • Respect: +6121
    • View Profile
    • Dominion Strategy
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #264 on: January 06, 2012, 10:50:58 am »
0

Here's a question I'm grappling with as I write the Worst $4's list:

Are these rankings based on how bad the cards are when you consider adding them to any random deck you're building?  Or are they based on how helpful they are when you do buy them?  Or both?

Clearly, throwing Coppersmith into a random deck is pretty awful.  But when you do buy Coppersmith and build for it, it's glorious.  Spy, on the other hand, is basically always a mediocre addition to your deck.

(Maybe multiply how good it is by how often it is likely to be good?)

My sense is that, especially since these are sort of instructional, that I should go with the former (i.e., Coppersmith is worse than Spy), and explain why they are so rarely bought in the first place.  This is also, I believe, the approach the list has mostly taken thus far.

Maybe it's time to bite the bullet and work harder at making these official.  Qvist's topic is quite good.
Logged

Thisisnotasmile

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1493
  • Respect: +676
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #265 on: January 06, 2012, 10:54:56 am »
0

You should rank the cards based on how good they are compared to Warehouse.

Edit: But seriously, I think how often you would buy a card is just as important as how useful it can potentially be in the ideal deck, so basically, yeah, multiply them together.

Alternatively, wait for Qvist to overtake you and then copy his list...
« Last Edit: January 06, 2012, 11:03:46 am by Thisisnotasmile »
Logged

rinkworks

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1316
  • Respect: +937
    • View Profile
    • RinkWorks
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #266 on: January 06, 2012, 11:04:52 am »
0

Here's a question I'm grappling with as I write the Worst $4's list:

Are these rankings based on how bad the cards are when you consider adding them to any random deck you're building?  Or are they based on how helpful they are when you do buy them?  Or both?

I think there's no way to definitively resolve this dichotomy.  No matter how you balance it out, someone is going to come along and lodge a perfectly sound objection from some other point along that continuum.

Personally, I prefer a balance, but (like Pearl Diver vs. Herbalist) Coppersmith vs. Spy features such extremes that it's tough to balance them out.  I think in that case I'd rank Coppersmith worse than Spy, but that may be because I recently tried a Coppersmith strategy with a great board for it (Tactician) and still got trounced.  Then again, I'd rank Herbalist worse than Pearl Diver, too -- so maybe that confirms that my own general feeling is to ever-so-slightly favor general purpose usefulness over niche power.  But even that is going to be a case-by-case judgment call.

Bottom line:  You're doing a great job; keep doing what you're doing.
Logged

mischiefmaker

  • Golem
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 185
  • Respect: +108
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #267 on: January 06, 2012, 12:58:43 pm »
0

I think you're doing a great job and I would recommend you not worry too terribly much about whether the lists are objective/scientific/precise -- I think the whole point of lists is to spark discussion. I mean, if there were a universally acknowledged metric and a monotonic ordering, the list wouldn't be very interesting, right? Like, nobody makes a list of "The 5 best baseball cards"*.

I also think that the answer to your question depends a little bit on your audience. If dominionstrategy.com is aimed at a small community of high-level players who are trying to refine their games, then I think it makes sense to more heavily favor "when this card is good, how good is it?"; i.e. Coppersmith > Spy. But, if it were my blog, I would be aiming at the audience of all people who play Dominion, in which case I think the metric should be something like:

(how often is this card useful) x (how good is it when it is useful) - (how often/badly does it actively harm your deck)

...in which case I would put Spy > Coppersmith since Coppersmith tends to be useful a whole lot less than Spy and can be a shiny trap card for newer players.

But like I said, you're doing a great job, and if people disagree (even vehemently), that's probably a good thing.

* Well, ok, that's not strictly true.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2012, 01:01:07 pm by mischiefmaker »
Logged

tlloyd

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 404
  • Respect: +84
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #268 on: January 06, 2012, 01:39:51 pm »
0

I agree that you've been doing a good job and shouldn't stress too much about this. That said, here's my two cents:

 I prefer comparisons among cards of similar function (i.e., trash-for-benefit cards) instead of cards of equal price, but if we're doing the latter we should certainly consider the frequency with which any given card's upside outweighs its downside and by how much.  To throw in another wrinkle, I think it's worth considering how many of a card you need in order for the card to serve its purpose. You rarely want more than one or two Tacticians, whereas one or two labs are generally helpful but not nearly so much. That should nudge Lab down and Tactician up. Same for Spy (you need lots to do much good with them) and Coppersmith (one can be enough to have an impact).
Logged

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #269 on: January 06, 2012, 01:52:00 pm »
+3

Here's a question I'm grappling with as I write the Worst $4's list:

Are these rankings based on how bad the cards are when you consider adding them to any random deck you're building?  Or are they based on how helpful they are when you do buy them?  Or both?

Clearly, throwing Coppersmith into a random deck is pretty awful.  But when you do buy Coppersmith and build for it, it's glorious.  Spy, on the other hand, is basically always a mediocre addition to your deck.

(Maybe multiply how good it is by how often it is likely to be good?)
I think I've mentioned this before, but considering adding them to "any random deck you're building" is a completely useless idea. No one reading the blog just buys random cards. "How often is it good" should mean how often do you actually actively want to add the card to your deck. You can then "multiply" (quotes because you're not really doing anything mathematical) this by how good/important it is when you do buy it. Considering randomly adding cards is going to naturally overrate cantrips and not really going to be useful.

A good heuristic I think is to ask yourself "if card X had a one-way embargo on it that only affected me and not my opponent, how much would I rage?". Rank them in order of decreasing rage.
Logged

Fabian

  • 2012 Swedish Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 666
  • Respect: +542
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #270 on: January 06, 2012, 02:13:13 pm »
0

HME has it right imo.
Logged

tlloyd

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 404
  • Respect: +84
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #271 on: January 06, 2012, 02:53:51 pm »
0

The flipside of the question "how many of this card do I want/need" is the fact that sometimes you buy cards not because they actively contribute to your strategy, but in order to deny your opponent. I personally hate Fool's Gold, but if you let your opponent buy them all they are pretty strong. Should that affect FG's ranking?
Logged

HiveMindEmulator

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2222
  • Respect: +2118
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #272 on: January 06, 2012, 02:59:58 pm »
0

The flipside of the question "how many of this card do I want/need" is the fact that sometimes you buy cards not because they actively contribute to your strategy, but in order to deny your opponent. I personally hate Fool's Gold, but if you let your opponent buy them all they are pretty strong. Should that affect FG's ranking?
I think this (how bad is it to ignore your opponent going for something) fits nicely into the one-way embargo heuristic.
Logged

Fabian

  • 2012 Swedish Champion
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 666
  • Respect: +542
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #273 on: January 06, 2012, 03:01:22 pm »
0

I would say the part that "affects FG's ranking" is that "if you let your opponent buy them all they are pretty strong". Sounds like a strong card to me -> rank appropriately.

I guess "I have to buy 4 FG to deny my opponent all 10, because they're really strong if you get all 10" is sort of just another way of saying this though? Certainly cards like FG, Gardens, Duchy (in Duke games), maybe Minion, etc, are cards you often can't ignore if the opponent goes for that strategy (given that the kingdom is favorable of course), and that in itself speaks volumes about the card's strength I think.
Logged

tlloyd

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 404
  • Respect: +84
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #274 on: January 06, 2012, 05:20:47 pm »
0

Right, but the interesting thing is how this effect differs card to card. I almost always buy a tactician if it's available, and two any time double-tactician is plausible (and often when it isn't!). But I think even in a six-player game it would be rare to see the Tactician pile emptied. Minion I also buy frequently, but a single Tactician is way better. But if you don't buy any and let your opponent get ten, that's just asking to lose. So how do we compare the cards?  Does the embargo heuristic work? Because a single curse wouldn't stop me from buying a Tactician, but it sure would stop a minion strategy in its tracks. So based on "relative rage" Minion seems stronger, when I think the opposite is true.
Logged

DStu

  • Margrave
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2627
  • Respect: +1490
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #275 on: January 06, 2012, 05:29:27 pm »
0

A good heuristic I think is to ask yourself "if card X had a one-way embargo on it that only affected me and not my opponent, how much would I rage?". Rank them in order of decreasing rage.
+2

Quote
Right, but the interesting thing is how this effect differs card to card. I almost always buy a tactician if it's available, and two any time double-tactician is plausible (and often when it isn't!). But I think even in a six-player game it would be rare to see the Tactician pile emptied. Minion I also buy frequently, but a single Tactician is way better. But if you don't buy any and let your opponent get ten, that's just asking to lose. So how do we compare the cards?  Does the embargo heuristic work? Because a single curse wouldn't stop me from buying a Tactician, but it sure would stop a minion strategy in its tracks. So based on "relative rage" Minion seems stronger, when I think the opposite is true.
I think you should not be so objective while raging comparing how much it actually harms you, just rage about how unfair it is that there is a card you really want to buy where you have to gain a Curse and your opponent does not.
Logged

Elyv

  • Moneylender
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 163
  • Respect: +15
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #276 on: January 06, 2012, 05:36:25 pm »
0

A good heuristic I think is to ask yourself "if card X had a one-way embargo on it that only affected me and not my opponent, how much would I rage?". Rank them in order of decreasing rage.
+2

Quote
Right, but the interesting thing is how this effect differs card to card. I almost always buy a tactician if it's available, and two any time double-tactician is plausible (and often when it isn't!). But I think even in a six-player game it would be rare to see the Tactician pile emptied. Minion I also buy frequently, but a single Tactician is way better. But if you don't buy any and let your opponent get ten, that's just asking to lose. So how do we compare the cards?  Does the embargo heuristic work? Because a single curse wouldn't stop me from buying a Tactician, but it sure would stop a minion strategy in its tracks. So based on "relative rage" Minion seems stronger, when I think the opposite is true.
I think you should not be so objective while raging comparing how much it actually harms you, just rage about how unfair it is that there is a card you really want to buy where you have to gain a Curse and your opponent does not.
If there is a one-way embargo on the chapel, I'm probably not going to be more than somewhat annoyed; I doubt it's much more harmful than drawing the chapel on turn 5. I think tlloyd is right, the one-way embargo doesn't work well for things that you don't want many of.
Logged

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #277 on: January 06, 2012, 05:39:30 pm »
0

I don't think "how many of these do you want" is really something that affects my rankings too much.  Sure, you'd rather have one Chapel or one Outpost and you'd rather have as many Minions or Fool's Golds as you can muster, I'd just assume that you'd be buying as many as you need.  The only case where it really makes a difference is to possibly dock the spammable cards a tiny bit on the theory that they're worse in multiplayer if you can't consistently get 5-6 of them.

As for balancing "how often you want this in your deck" versus "how crucial is it when you buy it" I'll agree with everyone that says you should weight them more or less equally.  For the best cards this isn't really so much an issue: the top of every list is going to be full of cards that you want well over 80 percent of the time AND dominate your strategy.  (Possible exception: Ill-Gotten Gains, which isn't worth buying 80 percent of the time but is so dominant when the rush is viable).  The bottom is really where we have these conflicts, between cards that are always mediocre and cards that are sometimes so bad but dominate your strategy in a sliver of games.  Ideally the very worst cards are going to be those that are both rarely worth buying AND not that useful even in favorable situations, but that sort of perfect storm is rare.  I might err slightly on the side of populating the Worst list with niche cards that can sometimes explode, but it's probably important to have a couple slots for cards which might be buyable more often, but never shine.
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.

tlloyd

  • Tactician
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 404
  • Respect: +84
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #278 on: January 06, 2012, 05:49:54 pm »
+1

My point is that we sometimes slip into comparing a Minion deck with other $5 cards, etc. Thus cards that only shine in bunches get an inflated ranking. But I understand that it is hard to maintain the line between ranking cards and ranking strategies.

I will go ahead and put out there, supplemental to the Embargo heuristic, the Black Market heuristic: how mad are you when your opponent pulls the card from BM?
« Last Edit: January 06, 2012, 05:52:32 pm by tlloyd »
Logged

mischiefmaker

  • Golem
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 185
  • Respect: +108
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #279 on: January 06, 2012, 07:21:19 pm »
0

(Possible exception: Ill-Gotten Gains, which isn't worth buying 80 percent of the time but is so dominant when the rush is viable). 
Completely off-topic: wait what? In the IGG topic, rrenaud says you can ignore it about 30% of the time and about 30% of the time it is good but not dominant. That seems closer to my experience, unless by "not worth buying" you mean "not worth buying, unless your opponent goes for them, and then maybe you need to buy a few to prevent yourself from getting all 10 curses", in which case 80% seems a little high, but not crazy (probably closer to 70%).

Quick survey of top players reveals no buy rate under 65% and no average number gained under 1.5, which seems to support that interpretation.
Logged

timchen

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 704
  • Shuffle iT Username: allfail
  • Respect: +234
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #280 on: January 07, 2012, 03:34:18 am »
0

Exact same question I have here.

Except that I cannot even really think of a situation where you'd like to block, and get away with other strategy. I just never see how this work before. And it sounds problematic. The problem is, if you are blocking by buying it and have some other engine going on, you just add another copper into your deck which is barely better than a curse, wasted your $5 buy which can instead be some other engine card, and also make the rush happen quicker. In my experience, in those games there's no such "block"; it's who executes the rush strategy better.

On the other hand, surely one can block by ignoring the IGG completely (or take one or two when he's in a good mood), by having some trasher available. It can't be 70% of the games though.
Logged

Qvist

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2400
  • Shuffle iT Username: Qvist
  • Respect: +4085
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #281 on: January 07, 2012, 07:58:28 am »
0

theory, interesting question.

In my opinion there are 3 problems in making these lists. I mentioned them also in my thread.

1.) Cards that are great openers, but less effective later in the game. Chapel, Remake and Trading Post are the main examples. And of course vice versa like Trade Route or City.
How do you rank those?

2.) Victory cards. How do you rank cards that only give VP and do have no effect (with exception of Tunnel and Farmland of course) in the game?

3.) Cards that heavily depend from the board, like Coppersmith, and are either bad or very strong.

The answer for all 3 questions is in my opinion the same: If this card is on the board, how much does this card dominate your decisions in buying? That could also mean: I fear buying X because he could buy Y. For example: X = Mountebank, Y = Trader. Here Trader is a dominating card even if you don't buy it.

But either way, make your list how YOU want as it is your list. Your list inspired me to do compile "my" list to see another side and initiate discussion. Keep it up.

ackack

  • Explorer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 302
  • Respect: +19
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #282 on: January 07, 2012, 01:46:47 pm »
+2

I think people are misreading the chwhite post. He is not saying 80% of the time IGG is not worth buying; he is saying that IGG is worth buying in less than 80% of games, contrasted with other cards that you do want to buy 80% of the time.
Logged

timchen

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 704
  • Shuffle iT Username: allfail
  • Respect: +234
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #283 on: January 07, 2012, 02:56:29 pm »
0

hmm, difference between

(isn't worth buying) 80% of the time or isn't (worth buying 80% of the time)

Seriously, which one is the correct way to read in English? I still feel it is the first one...
Logged

ackack

  • Explorer
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 302
  • Respect: +19
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #284 on: January 07, 2012, 03:37:45 pm »
0

hmm, difference between

(isn't worth buying) 80% of the time or isn't (worth buying 80% of the time)

Seriously, which one is the correct way to read in English? I still feel it is the first one...

It is a pretty ambiguous construction. In this case, my interpretation is based on the context of the rest of the post - immediately before the parenthetical he is discussing cards that he does wish to purchase more than 80% of the time.
Logged

chwhite

  • Saboteur
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1065
  • Respect: +442
    • View Profile
Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #285 on: January 07, 2012, 05:15:35 pm »
0

I think people are misreading the chwhite post. He is not saying 80% of the time IGG is not worth buying; he is saying that IGG is worth buying in less than 80% of games, contrasted with other cards that you do want to buy 80% of the time.

Yeah, that's what I meant: IGG is not worth buying 80 percent of the time.  But it is so dominating when it is worth buying that perhaps it breaks the rule that "the best cards are those which are both dominating when bought AND worth buying so often". Sorry for not being clear.
Logged
To discard or not to discard?  That is the question.
Pages: 1 2 3 ... 12 [All]
 

Page created in 0.56 seconds with 20 queries.