But I guess maybe we should come up with a community definition of "strictly better" that is useful to use, so that we can be consistent in discussions.
But that's the rub - there aren't any Dominion cards that are "strictly better" as that term is typically used. So, to a large extent, this is us being hyper-technical terminology nerds for the sake of being hyper-technical terminology nerds.
It's useful when critiquing fan cards. For instance, I remember a card in WW's expansion:
Something Village
$2 - Action
+2 Actions
+$1At the time, we debated whether that was balanced at $2 (conclusion: it was), but now it would be useful to say that it's strictly inferior to Squire and should therefore probably cost $1 (now that
that precedent's set!) or get a buff. Is it
strictly strictly superior to Squire? Well no, because there are always Cornucopia cards that can make a deck prefer one of each, and maybe you want to trash it later and not bog your deck down with a Fortune Teller, I don't know. But those observations don't help WW fix his card.
You're right, though -- no official Dominion card has a strictly better effect as another at the same price, even when you discount edge case puzzles. Noble Brigand and Hunting Party come closest, but not quite.