I don't think I ever expanded upon why I think Swamp could cost $1.
If you take the effect of Swamp+Wisp you basically get "+2 Actions look at the top card and draw it if it costs $2 or less." which is weaker than Village. Of course it's different than this for a bunch of reasons, but I don't think they make the effect worth $3.
Imp is similar, $4 for Imp+Necropolis seems much more reasonable than $5.
The only worry here I think is Ghost, maybe $6 is too cheap for Ghost+Necro? I'm not sure.
Also should probably mention that $1 for Necropolis seems reasonable. I guess the only potential worry there is having such a cheap non-terminal card, but it's still a stop-card, so shouldn't be a problem?
I think Swamp is a perfectly buyable card as-is, but could maybe get away with being $1?
I should address this too actually
"Gain mid-turn, draw into it and play" assumes a pretty well-running draw engine that can afford to play gainers mid-turn.
As a draw engine is hard to build without decent trashing I would put this into the "better trashers" category.
Why would you want to buy Dismantle or Gallows in such a draw engine? To downgrade cards and gain a Gold or to just gain a Gold.
You are totally right that in a smoothly running engine the downgrading is a good thing and those extra Coppers don't matter.
My argument is that tempo matters and the only reason to go for Dismantle/Gallows in the opening is to kickstart your economy via some Golds, preferrably without Coppers.
I am obviously convinced that my argument is right but I can see that Dismantle is better in a running engine because of its Develop tricks. So my question is, do you think that it can make sense to buy Dismantle in the middle of the game, when it would, as you seem to argue, be strongest (when you wanna get rid of a dead Potion, dead Sea Hag or all those Silvers from Lucky Coin and get some sweet 3s or 2s)?
Wouldn't it perhaps not just be better to use whatever stuff enabled the engine in the first place, gainers or cards with extra Buys (hence my Woodcutter comparison when you use Dismantle on Gold), to get what engine pieces you want? Because it is the dowgrading that matters, massive Gold is rarely what you want in an engine.
I think for the most part the first paragraph is reasonable enough. I think I disagree on a few specific things, but this is supposed to be about Asper's cards not Dismantle so I don't really want to get into those things.
All I was really trying to say is that Dismantle does a bunch of things that Gallows can't, so saying that Gallows is better doesn't really make sense. You seem to agree now that Dismantle can be better in an engine so I guess that's all I was trying to say.
To address the questions in the second paragraph, yes I think it can make sense to buy Dismantle after the open, although I'd note that Dismantle at its best when you want to open with it and when it's good late too, when Dismantle is good later as well as in the opening it could make sense to open Dismantle over Gallows, even though you'd rather have Gallows on turn 3 and not gain the Copper. The second question is just one of those depends on the board questions, sometimes Dismantle is good and sometimes it isn't. Also I disagree about Gold not being what you want in an engine, buying Gold is inefficient sure, but gaining Gold through other cards effects can be the best way to add payload.