Want to complain about useless rankings that have no real basis in actual gameplay? This is the place for you. The cards are roughly tiered in their subcatagories where I would imagine they would be. If Witch being ranked below Artisan is just crazy, well maybe it is. They're pretty similar in dominance, so there. It's a rough estimate. And you can always convince me to move a card up or down.
A special note about Villages: You're always going to get one. You can make an argument about putting them all on A, or even freaking S. You can't build engines without Villages, period. So in order to not make this list completely stupid, I have implemented a special rule with Villages: With any given village on the board, compare it to any sort of other alternate Village on the Kingdom. If you find yourself picking it up less, then it goes lower than A. If you find yourself picking it up more than that random Village, it could very well stay where it is, or go straight to S. That's the standard I am implementing.
Finally, if you're going to complain about rankings being useless, just press Alt-Back arrow. This is a discussion about the tier lists, not on whether tier lists are good or whether ranking systems are even useful. Plenty of threads for that convo. But anyways, on to the lists.
Base SetSomeone complained about Curse being on the same section as Mine, so just think of that more as me being too lazy to make another tier, because that's exactly what happened. Besides, with the advent of Empires I have found myself buying Curse more than Mine at least.
Chapel and Sentry are pretty much some of the top trashers in the game. Some people are more down on Sentry because sometimes it whiffs, but really, try ignoring Sentry and you straight up lose. Witch for some reason has people rating it lower, just because it's not a shiny new card. Cursing is still good in 2017.
Throne Room isn't S because well, it's the spice card of Dominion. If the Kingdom is good, it will be good. If there's absolutely nothing salvagable about the Kingdom, then well Throne Room is terrible. Kingdoms trend heavily towards being strong for Throne Room. Really, you could convince me to make it S.
Oh, you probably just noticed I put Copper, Silver, Estate, and the works on this list. Well they were introduced in the Base, so there you have it. I'll try to do that with all of the Set lists, with the major exception of the Boons/Hexes and maybe the Ruins. Who needs to know those, Qvist will suit you just fine, there's not enough of those to warrant any sort of tier list.
There was some griping about Laboratory, so let me explain that one. It's a nonterminal Moat. It's not exciting, it's probably one of the worst draw cards in the game. But it still draws. It just never feels good straight up buying one. Almost like there's some efficiency lost. Maybe it's just me. It totally could be.
IntrigueMasquerade is the best overall card in Dominion besides maybe Donate. If you're not opening it, you're probably playing the Kingdom wrong. I have it rated higher than everything besides the very strongest cards, such as Donate and King's Court. It's an "ignore and lose" card. It cycles, it trashes, and it puts psychological pressure on the opponent. It's a potent weapon.
Bridge is busted. An Awaclism:
"When Bridge is on the board, build the engine or lose." I can't argue with that. Steward's strength is in its flexibility. It can trash, draw, give economy, all of that. I also really really really wanted to put Swindler into S. It warps games absolutely. But in the end, I was talked off of the cliff.
Lurker was hard to place. It could be in A, really. It's a tough one. I put it in B because people overbuy it, but that's all really. Harem also makes the worst art
and the worst rank. What a shock.
I think this will mostly be uncontroversial minus Vineyards being S maybe. Not too much to say. Maybe Golem is a bit low.
Double Lookout opening is very strong. I'm saying it now. People are going to go ballistic that I put it in S. And heck, maybe it belongs in A. But surely it's close to the top of A if so. The fact that Lookout gets a bit awkward later, that's a small price to pay for the amazing combo of trashing and cycling.
(more coming soon...)