Intrigue:
S: Masquerade, Steward, Bridge, Upgrade
A: Torturer, Mill, Mining Village, Replace, Lurker, Patrol
B: Swindler, Conspirator, Wishing Well, Nobles, Ironworks
C: Duke, Courtyard, Trading Post, Shanty Town, Courtier, Diplomat, Minion
D: Baron, Pawn, Secret Passage
F: Harem
Again the only truly “bad” category is F, everything else is a combination of power and scope of utility.
Changes vs Seprix:
Lurker to A: Lurker isn’t frequently ignorable, and even its presence changes boards even if it’s not the focal point. The long list of strong synergies it has, combined with its flexibility, make it a really powerful card.
Wishing Well to B: I think it’s overstated the number of boards where you can get a bunch of Wishing Wells and reliably increase your hand size. Even a 50% chance at nonterminal draw is still good, but it’s not quite A level to me.
Swindler to B: This card gets overrated because of those times you remember it ruining the game for you. A solid percentage of the time it’s skippable, certainly not all or most of the time, but more than an A tier Attack normally would be.
Nobles to B: How do people not think Nobles is great? The right way to think about Nobles is that it’s a source of terminal draw, with a side effect to get you out of jams, and it gives you a points buffer so you can build longer without falling as far behind. So often this is just what the engine needs. It’s hard to call it C tier when I often buy Nobles over other 5+ terminal draw, and it pays off.
Secret Passage to D: This pains me, since I love Secret Passage, and when comboed properly it absolutely becomes essential. But when I think about other D’s, it fits right in as a limited utility card. It just doesn’t seem like it does a lot. Because it usually doesn’t. Remember, D doesn’t mean awful.
Minion: Minion is way more limited than anyone wants to admit, even though it’s cool and fun.
Gotta go, will cut this rebuttal short