Great to see the rest of the $2 card rankings published!! Thanks Qvist! I had Chapel, Hamlet, and Pawn in the same spots, but my other ranks were a little inverted...overall pretty pleased with the rankings.
My biggest surprise was seeing Hamlet slip to 4th. I still had it at #2. Certainly Fools Gold can sometimes be very powerful, but as Qvist says, you really need to play a pretty dedicated FG game and forego buying other valuable cards. There seems to me too many games where this does not work well, whereas I almost always find Hamlet useful for either the +2 actions, the extra buy, or even just the discard ability (Tunnel etc.). Hamlet just seems to me to be a far more versatile card than Fools Gold. Same applies to Stonemason - I rated it a couple places higher at #6, but my perception of its weakness in mid-game makes me pause on rating it in the top 3-5 cards... But Stonemason is still relatively new to me, and it took me a few games before I fully realized the power it has, so perhaps with more play...
Glad to see Candlestick Maker rated fairly high! One of my very favorite $2 cards, but I feared I was being overly influenced by how much I enjoy playing it when I ranked it #8...turns out lot of others like it as much or more...
But what I love most about this whole exercise is that the lists and the comments from the more experienced players really make me think and reconsider how I use the cards! When a card gets a higher rank than I expect, I will be more likely to buy more of them and try it out in future games.
Great comments everyone!