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).