| #13 Artisan (Base) Weighted Average: 63.53% / Unweighted Average: 60.37% (14) / Median: 65.63% / Standard Deviation: 17.66%
Bryan: Artisan is an interesting gainer. It is new this year in an update to the base dominion set. Instead of gaining to the discard, it gains to your hand, at the cost of topdecking a card. In engine, this often means you can use the exact card you need immediately. In slower decks bound on terminals, this often means you can use the card you want next turn. This is quite a strong gainer, but in my opinion the upside of artisan is worse than the upside on altar. tracer: Compared to Altar, I would say this is more different than worse (part of that is because Artisan is actually a gainer). Artisan itself is a welcome change from any of the removed cards just for being useful and goes well beyond that.
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| #14 ▲2 Altar (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 59.74% ▲7.72pp / Unweighted Average: 60.98% (13) / Median: 62.50% ▲10.89pp / Standard Deviation: 16.46%
tracer: Altar’s rise is appropriate: it trashes bad cards and gains good ones; what more could a person want? Clearly a good card, its position this low on the 6 cost list shows just how strong many of the others are, even if I think it should be a bit higher. Bryan: Altar is my favorite of the $6 workshops!
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| #15 ▼1 Hunting Grounds (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 54.66% ▼1.62pp / Unweighted Average: 56.01% (15) / Median: 56.25% ▼1.81pp / Standard Deviation: 16.14%
Bryan: This card is fairly simple. For terminal draw, hunting grounds is a bit overpriced and can take too long to set up. The cute trash text on it is very rarely relevant. Watch out for HG+lurker boards, though. This card is overrated for me. tracer: While drawing cards is always nice, $6 is a lot and +4 cards usually makes it so that you end up overdrawing by 5-10 cards just to stay consistent. While certainly an occasionally necessary card, it is uncommon that one would not rather be doing something else to draw.
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| #16 ▼1 Peddler (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 47.38% ▼5.12pp / Unweighted Average: 43.06% (21) / Median: 43.75% ▼11.11pp / Standard Deviation: 20.61%
tracer: One of the stranger cards for this list just because it doesn’t really belong, Peddler had both a first place and a last place vote. Most often bought in large quantity when costing $0, shoving handfuls into one’s deck is usually effective, and so a rating close to the middle seems fine. Bryan: Additionally, it often gives engine something beneficial to buy on turns where it doesn't find any payload. It has many opportunities to shine, but sometimes is left untouched.
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| #17 =0 Hireling (Adventures) Weighted Average: 46.84% ▼3.93pp / Unweighted Average: 49.49% (16) / Median: 46.88% ▼4.73pp / Standard Deviation: 15.20%
Bryan: The community opinion did not change at all on this card. It opens up the opportunity of powerful consistency of being able to have a 6 card hand for the rest of the game. tracer: I think Hireling ended up underrated, if only slightly. The main thing constraining Hireling is time: if the game is going to be long, Hireling is going to be one of the best cards on the board.
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| #18 ▲2 Nobles (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 46.32% ▼0.22pp / Unweighted Average: 44.93% (18`) / Median: 43.75% ▲1.81pp / Standard Deviation: 17.53%
tracer: While being able to be either a village or draw, Nobles is expensive for either and poor at the former. However, as village or draw, it is often essential and with only 8 in the pile, this split can create a significant deck lead along with the points lead, which may contribute to its higher ranking. Bryan: The versatility of nobles combined with offering a few points often mean that players can pick up nobles for a slight point lead before committing to greening.
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| #19 ▲2 Training (Adventures) Weighted Average: 43.85% ▼0.22pp / Unweighted Average: 44.35% (19) / Median: 43.75% ▲1.81pp / Standard Deviation: 17.53%
Bryan: Training is by far the weakest of the action token events. It can sometimes be used in cantrip spam decks as a payload, or bought as payload better than gold in engines sometimes. tracer: Training seems fine where it is. It is regularly better than the first Gold buy but is rarely the focus of a strategy.
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| #20 ▲4 Forge (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 43.04% ▲10.72pp / Unweighted Average: 47.83% (17) / Median: 43.75% ▲11.49pp / Standard Deviation: 23.76%
tracer: The other big riser of this list (with Pathfinding), Forge is a very effective trasher, though is prohibitively expensive and so is often only used as a last resort. For this reason, the rise seems unjustified since one would most often rather use something else for the same purpose. Bryan: Forge’s rise seems appropriate. Players have been a bit better at managing to activate it as a mid-game trasher.
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| #21 ▼2 Royal Blacksmith (Empires) Weighted Average: 42.84% ▼3.86pp / Unweighted Average: 43.36% (20) / Median: 41.94% ▼4.73pp / Standard Deviation: 14.93%
Bryan: The same logic applies here as on hunting grounds. This card is a bit awkwardly priced. The debt cost is good for picking up early, but RB does not truly shine unless most coppers have been trashed out of your deck. tracer: To follow my own same logic on Hunting Grounds, anything over +3 cards for terminal draw is a bit awkward, and this discards Copper for even more awkwardness. If you need draw though, it draws.
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| #22 ▼4 Fairgrounds (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 37.62% ▼11.31pp / Unweighted Average: 35.76% (23) / Median: 37.5% ▼4.44pp / Standard Deviation: 16.29%
tracer: Falling more than any card except for Grand Market, Fairgrounds may be suffering from the abundance of points that came with Empires, though it can still directly substitute for Province in many decks. Bryan: The community’s declining rating of fairgrounds makes sense. All too often, decks rely on only a few cards to win, or are extremely efficient. So in many games, fairgrounds isn’t cost efficient.
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| #23 ▼1 Castles (Empires) Weighted Average: 33.68% ▼6.70pp / Unweighted Average: 33.41% (24) / Median: 28.13% ▼13.81pp / Standard Deviation: 24.23%
Bryan: Castles can sometimes be useful as an alternate source of VP, or be used when stalling out the game. In general, they are weaker than buying provinces, so they tend to be bought by the player who has developed a stronger deck more slowly. Many of the early castles are early game noob traps. Overall, castles are fairly weak, and are slowly trending downwards. tracer: A point pool for the desperate, Castles usually only end up being good because your opponent went after them and revealed some of the nicer ones for you. Getting the whole pile is nice but unrealistic.
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| #24 ▼1 Prince (Promo) Weighted Average: 33.15% ▲0.60pp / Unweighted Average: 37.56% (22) / Median: 31.25% ▼2.08pp / Standard Deviation: 22.10%
tracer: With a high cost and a need to line it up with a card, Prince buys are often only good once one has a consistent engine, and at that point the effect is no longer needed. This card could certainly be lower, and to me the loss of ranking is nice to see. Bryan: Prince is very hard to set up. It takes hitting $8, redrawinging it while connecting with the right target, and then using up most of a turn to use. I expect this card to continue to drop.
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| #25 ▲2 Expand (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 27.96% ▲1.49pp / Unweighted Average: 30.19% (26) / Median: 25.00% ▲2.42pp / Standard Deviation: 19.30%
Bryan: Expand is often known as big-remake (or bad remake). I personally think the remake effect is fairly strong, and would rate expand slightly higher than forge, but still fairly low. tracer: Expand is better than any fair ranking of it would lead one to believe as it gives a fair amount of control, particularly over the Province pile. However, like many of the cards lower on this list, it has a high price for what it does, even if what it does is great.
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| #26 ▼1 Bank (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 27.43% ▼1.16pp / Unweighted Average: 31.76% (25) / Median: 25.00% ▼0.81pp / Standard Deviation: 21.39%
tracer: Bank is a great addition to any engine with multiple buys which has treasure as a large part of its payload, which is somewhat common. While I think it should be higher for this reason, it is held back by not influencing boards like some of the higher cards, instead being a very powerful but situational addition. Bryan: Bank can be an efficient payload for engine, and be a nice treasure to gain off cards like tragic hero. But in many situations it is not a huge replacement over the default gold, or better specialized cards.
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| #27 ▼1 Hoard (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 20.59% ▼6.07pp / Unweighted Average: 20.95% (28`) / Median: 18.75% ▼7.06pp / Standard Deviation: 12.45%
Bryan: Hoard is very useful in keeping big money or slog decks with payload density to keep buying big green. It is useful when combined with remodel effects to change the gold you gain into provinces or other strong cards. It can be useful to include in engine to remove the need to pay for additional payload. Overall these uses make me think that hoard is somewhat underrated. tracer: The main problem with Hoard is that it is almost exclusively a card for an endgame mostly involving greening in which Gold is good, which at three conditions is a pretty specific situation.
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| #28 ▲2 Conquest (Empires) Weighted Average: 20.16% ▼1.37pp / Unweighted Average: 17.93% (30) / Median: 15.63% ▼3.72pp / Standard Deviation: 13.36%
tracer: Amazing in money strategies and very strong as a point source for large engines, Conquest seems like one of the larger misranks for this year. Conquest allows for huge amounts of building in a way that few other cards or events do, and Silvers with points is exactly what money wants. Bryan: I agree with tracer. Conquest is great in many situations and the community has still underrated it this year, although opinion is changing in the right direction.
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| #29 ▼1 Wedding (Empires) Weighted Average: 17.52% ▼7.79pp / Unweighted Average: 18.73% (29) / Median: 15.63% ▼10.18pp / Standard Deviation: 13.41%
Bryan: Wedding is actually a reasonable way to get gold. For total 1 Debt more than a gold, you get the convenience of spreading out the price of the gold and 1 VP. The problem is that gold is not purchased early that often. Overall wedding is a bit weak, and only really useful to rush gold early. tracer: A solid alternative to multiple Silvers early and almost always preferable to buying Gold, but both of those desires are somewhat rare.
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| #30 Raider (Nocturne) Weighted Average: 16.74% / Unweighted Average: 21.58% (27) / Median: 15.63% / Standard Deviation: 15.90%
tracer: The only Nocturne card on this list comes in near the bottom and it really could have been lower. The attack does very little against engines and while somewhat strong against money, its high price for something that might be worse than Gold in many cases makes it one of the weakest cards we have. I would not be surprised to see it fall even from here in next year’s rankings. Bryan: Another thing to mention is that it isn’t even the greatest payload in engine, because you can only use it every other turn if you’re drawing your deck. This card deserves this low rating.
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| #31 ▲1 Farmland (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 13.95% ▲0.36pp / Unweighted Average: 15.85% (31) / Median: 9.38% ▲2.93pp / Standard Deviation: 17.96%
Bryan: Farmland can be occasionally be used with a gold gainer like hoard for some success. Overall, the points it gives and the smoothing of hitting $6 instead of $8 are rarely worth it. tracer: Farmland has a variety of situations in which to use it, but even in those situations it is unimpressive.
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| #32 ▲1 Harem (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 6.38% ▼2.61 / Unweighted Average: 6.98% (32) / Median: 3.23% ▼4.18pp / Standard Deviation: 6.12%
tracer: Another card that suffers from its high price and questionable quality, Harem has a few cute interactions going for it and not much else other than being preferable to Gold quickly in most money strategies. Of course, that’s more than can be said for the last card on this list... Bryan: This card has been completely outclassed by conquest. It is hard to find a use for harem, but it occasionally gets bought late in the game for points when players miss $8.
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| #33 ▼3 Annex (Empires) Weighted Average: 1.69% ▼22.07 / Unweighted Average: 3.85% (33) / Median: 0.00% ▼19.35pp / Standard Deviation: 10.38%
Bryan: This is a card? Seriously, though, the only time I personally have used this event is on the last turn of the game for overkill wins. Paying $8 for a duchy is far more overpriced than the shuffle consistency ability attached to it. tracer: Actually it’s an event.
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