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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.