By my personal preference. If I like having it on the table, it gets a high rating. Starting with number 8:
8.
Dominion- Lots of staples here, but unfortunately, most of the set is dominated by Big Money and far too many cards are huge duds. I would miss the staple vanilla cards, but the set really doesn't stand up very well on its own, particularly with the level of analysis that this board has provided. Mechanically great, but outmoded-- practically by design.
Love:
SmithyHate:
Adventurer7.
Alchemy- I have nothing against the mechanic and am not one to spit on it by virtue of how few cards in this odd theme there are, but a number of cards are extremely swingy and fiddly so I look down on the entire set. I enjoy the level of strategic commitment required for many of the cards in this set. It makes for some really interesting analysis of some boards since the strategies using them diverge from the norm. This really could have stood being expanded to a full set to milk all the flavor out of it and I would have loved it-- in fact, I want to love it even as it is, but it is just too lacking.
Love:
ApprenticeHate:
Familiar6.
Guilds- The new mechanic is very effective and doesn't lead to the boring certainty I feared at the outset. I am very disappointed in the Attacks in this set, being swingy and lackluster. The off-theme cards are particularly offending in this set due to it being small. Really, the biggest disappointment is easily that the set is not bigger than it is because the mechanics in it could definitely gone a lot further.
Love:
DoctorHate:
Soothsayer5.
Cornucopia- The cards that are so loathed in this expansion are fun to play with (and while one in particular can be swingy, I don't think it is as bad as most people make it out to be) and the theme as a whole encourages interesting deck composition. That particular one card strategy gets pretty old pretty fast, but otherwise the rest of the set is fun to play with. I'm rarely unhappy for a game to be generated with these cards.
Love:
Horn of PlentyHate:
Jester4.
Intrigue- I like the alternate VP and Village-type in this set particularly, but a lot of the set still seems rough around the edges. It always felt as though most Kingdom cards either dominates games or are completely negligible. At the same time, the set has a lot of really cool cards that I struggle to imagine Dominion without. Even better that Base cards are included.
Love:
BaronHate:
Pawn3.
Dark Ages- Really wish some of the themes were carried further and some of those cards piles were used more. Despite being the most flavorful and professional in appearance, a lot of the cards were actually pretty mediocre, but when a card stands out here it is an excessively memorable card. In some ways, this set feels like a loose cannon with the amount of stuff in it, yet it somehow manages to hold together just enough to make a great expansion.
Love:
GraverobberHate:
Armory2.
Seaside- Wow the theme of this one is awesome and surprisingly consistent-- maybe because the mechanic stands out so much from almost every other mechanic in the game. The attacks are a bit on the powerful side, but are incredibly memorable so I forgive that. So many people have heaped so much praise on to this one, that I can't really add more to it. This is simply a great expansion.
Love:
EmbargoHate:
WharfHey look, I put last place second up so that you can wonder what it is for a second!9.
Prosperity- The more I play with it, the less I like it. Very few things in the set feel cohesive. Expensive cards often lead to swingier games that are decided by luck just as often as skill. I love the Reaction card of this set and might miss a few others, but otherwise would be perfectly happy without this expansion.
Love:
WatchtowerHate:
Platinum1.
Hinterlands- Lots of in set combos, lots of cards with very kingdom dependent power levels that very rarely feel particularly out of hand. The theme is also pretty good, even if it sometimes feels somewhat tacked-on, flavor wise. Often, this set makes me feel clever for playing the cards right, especially with its in-theme cards. What's more, most of the cards are always useful somewhere, and even the generally powerful ones require some amount of the finese.
Love:
Border VillageAnd to be honest, I really don't dislike any cards from this set all that much.
As a Goko freeloader (I'm not going to pay for a service that disconnects 20% of the time and makes me look bad for it), I've been playing a disproportionately high amount of base only games, and it most definitely seems to be the worst set.
I have to say, as a Goko freeloader (who doesn't actually play Goko, but has before), playing with only one set many times in a row always makes me feel rather jaded against that set.