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[chwhite]

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).

[MasterAir]

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.

[MasterAir]

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".

[Geronimoo]

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.

[Lekkit]

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.

[DStu]

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...

[ftl]

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.

[Jorbles]

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)

[rspeer]

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"
  ]
}


[Jorbles]

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.

[pooka]

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.

[HiveMindEmulator]

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.

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.

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.

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...

[JambalayaHut]

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.

[pooka]

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. 

[jotheonah]

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.

[popsofctown]

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"

[jotheonah]

You're right. GM is a really bad example.

[pooka]

I tried opening Sea Hag today and got my hiney kicked by minion and cutpurse.  That was pretty depressing. 

[theory]

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.

[Fangz]

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.

[WanderingWinder]

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]

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.

[Geronimoo]

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.

[jsh357]

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.

[DG]

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