| #82 =0 Pirate Ship (Seaside)Weighted Average: | 3.9% | Unweighted Average: | 6.1% | Median: | 2.5% | Standard Deviation: | 8.4% |
Pirate Ship is the new worst card of this list due to the removal of first edition cards (Scout, Thief, and Feast if you want to feel nostalgic). And it's a clear last place with not much disagreement. Let's just say that there are very few boards for 2-player games in which you want to get them. Getting Coppers trashed is just too useful for the opponent. |
| #81 =0 Bureaucrat (Base)Weighted Average: | 7.0% | Unweighted Average: | 9.8% | Median: | 3.7% | Standard Deviation: | 12.5% |
Bureaucrat stays on the same second-to-last position as the last year which is not a surprise: adding a stop card onto the deck, a very weak attack that mostly does nothing if your opponent has a good deck, no immediate bonus. It was voted last 7 times and once above average. |
| #80 =0 Navigator (Seaside)Weighted Average: | 7.3% | Unweighted Average: | 10.5% | Median: | 7.4% | Standard Deviation: | 16.0% |
Sometimes Navigator's effect can be nice (if reordering is useful). But often it won't do enough to be worth getting it with a terminal silver. |
| #79 ▼2 Noble Brigand (Hinterlands)Weighted Average: | 8.8% | Unweighted Average: | 11.4% | Median: | 7.4% | Standard Deviation: | 13.1% |
Noble Brigand is a new Thief. It fell 2 ranks since the previous year. The more alt treasures there exists the more useless Noble Brigand gets, given that people now hesitate to buy Silver if either Charm or Relic is on table. Noble Brigand was voted last 6 times and once above average. |
| #78 =0 Treasure Map (Seaside)Weighted Average: | 9.6% | Unweighted Average: | 10.8% | Median: | 8.6% | Standard Deviation: | 10.0% |
Treasure Map has been consistently near the bottom for some years now. Sometimes Treasure Map can be useful to add Golds to your engine, if there's no virtual coin. But then you really want to draw them in the same turn to prevent a hand that "just" buys 1 Province on the next turn. |
| #77 ▼13 Ritual (Empires)Weighted Average: | 13.3% | Unweighted Average: | 17.8% | Median: | 11.1% | Standard Deviation: | 20.5% |
Here’s to the first huge loser in the list: Ritual. As time goes people get more and more disappointed in Ritual that requires adding a Curse to your deck for 10 points maximum (if you trashed the Colony). If you have no way of trashing the Curse, it’s bad. If there are strong cursing attacks on board, it’s bad. All in all, Ritual is a niche card-shaped thing, which is rarely useful. It was voted last once, but there is also one vote putting it into top 10. |
| #76 ▼5 Feodum (Dark Ages)Weighted Average: | 13.8% | Unweighted Average: | 16.0% | Median: | 8.6% | Standard Deviation: | 16.0% |
Feodum has lost some ranks again. It's mostly only useful when there's some strong silver gainer as a strategy of its own (in particular with Masterpiece). Otherwise the typical deck doesn't have many silvers such that it's often not better than Estate. |
| #75 =0 Taxman (Guilds)Weighted Average: | 15.1% | Unweighted Average: | 18.4% | Median: | 12.4% | Standard Deviation: | 18.2% |
The younger brother of Bureaucrat, Taxman. It stays on the same position as in the last year unlike Tax and was voted last once. Taxman is a very mediocre attack, it takes money from you on this turn, adding a stopcard for the second and it’s not guaranteed that your opponent will discard a card. Taxman can be used for attacking opponent by trashing e.g. Gold -> Gold and drawing it back, but it requires a lot for performing this “combo”. |
| #74 ▲2 Talisman (Prosperity)Weighted Average: | 17.1% | Unweighted Average: | 17.4% | Median: | 16.1% | Standard Deviation: | 11.2% |
Talisman can shine when there are cards costing up to 4 that you want many of - or if there's cost reduction. On the usual board, you want to get trashers first and get to 5, such that opening Talisman is not very helpful. Later on, you forego a 4-cost by buying Talisman first, such that it's questionable whether getting Talisman pays off. |
| #73 ▲6 Rocks (Empires)Weighted Average: | 19.0% | Unweighted Average: | 20.7% | Median: | 10.0% | Standard Deviation: | 22.4% |
Rocks is a winner in the list going up 6 places. If you get to the Rocks, they rock! Catapulting Rocks is effectively +$2, opponent discards to 3 and gains a Curse, which is quite strong for $3 card, but the problem is that it is a card people rarely see in 2-player games because no one really needs 2-3 Catapults in deck, especially when there is another trasher. Rocks was voted 6 times above average. |
| #72 =0 Death Cart (Dark Ages)Weighted Average: | 19.1% | Unweighted Average: | 25.4% | Median: | 14.8% | Standard Deviation: | 19.9% |
Death Cart is good for spiking coins, if you need that early, but often it can be ignored. It can be useful for cleaning up the deck after getting junked by Cultists. |
| #71 ▲2 Nomad Camp (Hinterlands)Weighted Average: | 19.5% | Unweighted Average: | 22.1% | Median: | 19.8% | Standard Deviation: | 15.2% |
Nomad Camp went 2 places up compared to the last year. Nomad Camp is a situational card and you are not always happy it goes onto your deck, because it is still a stop card. But it is still a good Woodcutter variant that everyone will buy here or there. |
| #70 ▼5 Silk Road (Hinterlands)Weighted Average: | 20.2% | Unweighted Average: | 22.8% | Median: | 18.5% | Standard Deviation: | 17.4% |
Silk Road has lost another 5 ranks and has been losing consistently since being in the top third in 2013. There are few boards on which you really want to rush them. Most often it's something you get while greening when you can't afford Duchy. |
| #69 ▼1 Trader (Hinterlands)Weighted Average: | 21.9% | Unweighted Average: | 25.2% | Median: | 19.8% | Standard Deviation: | 18.7% |
Trader lost one position since the last year. It is still a perfectly average card that can REALLY shine in a tie with Feodum, Cache, Treasure Trove, etc. The problem of Trader is that it still gives you Silver and you are not always happy to have it in your deck. Trader was voted above average 3 times. |
| #68 ▲6 Rats (Dark Ages)Weighted Average: | 22.3% | Unweighted Average: | 25.0% | Median: | 19.8% | Standard Deviation: | 19.7% |
Rats has gained another 6 ranks, although adding and replacing cards has moved it further down in the list. When there's some trash for benefit, they're often worth getting. Don't buy them, if they're the only trasher. Sometimes it's possible to win a game by eating the rest of your deck and piling out Rats as the third pile. |
| #67 Bard (Nocturne)Weighted Average: | 24.6% | Unweighted Average: | 24.1% | Median: | 18.5% | Standard Deviation: | 16.5% |
And here goes the first Nocturne card in the set. Bard is 12 cards in 1 and as it is perfectly fine with almost every Boon it gives, the biggest problem of Bard is the randomness. Bard was voted 3 times above average. |
| #66 ▲2 Island (Seaside)Weighted Average: | 25.3% | Unweighted Average: | 29.4% | Median: | 24.7% | Standard Deviation: | 19.2% |
Island stays about where it was. Most of the times there's better ways to get rid of your bad cards, as Island can usually only remove one card from your deck. The VP lead you could get from having Islands is quickly overcome by someone who gets to more Provinces faster. |
| #65 ▼3 Gardens (Base)Weighted Average: | 27.5% | Unweighted Average: | 31.2% | Median: | 22.2% | Standard Deviation: | 25.7% |
Gardens fell 3 places since the last year, as I think mostly due to appearance of much more ways to alt-VP and more good quality trashing. Though Gardens still has its niche, and was voted 9 times above average. |
| #64 ▲2 Miser (Adventures)Weighted Average: | 28.4% | Unweighted Average: | 33.1% | Median: | 23.5% | Standard Deviation: | 23.8% |
Miser stays about where it was. It is relatively slow and often there's a better trasher. If not, and if there's everything else for an engine it can be worth going for as "trasher" and payload. It also suffers from making it difficult to buy cards early on - therefore it plays quite nicely with Alms. |
| #63 ▼3 Baron (Intrigue)Weighted Average: | 28.7% | Unweighted Average: | 32.7% | Median: | 29.4% | Standard Deviation: | 19.8% |
Baron lost 3 positions compared to the last year. Baron is a good payload card, but it requires 1 or more Estates in your deck, and given the overall trend of more good, strong trashing, it is not always justified to leave an Estate. It is still a good opener to early spike an expensive card and was voted 4 times above average. |
| #62 ▲7 Messenger (Adventures)Weighted Average: | 29.1% | Unweighted Average: | 29.2% | Median: | 23.5% | Standard Deviation: | 16.5% |
Messenger has gained quite a few ranks relative to the old cards, bringing it close to Scavenger. It's different functions make it often worth to get at least one: the on-buy effect can be useful to distribute a card that you need more or get to play earlier, a card that only you get because there's 1 copy left, or some junk that slows down the game or that you can handle better than your opponent. Often it's a good source of +buy that you need. And the discard effect can be quite useful, if you track your deck, and you need to worry less about triggering bad shuffles. |
| #61 ▼15 Salt the Earth (Empires)Weighted Average: | 31.2% | Unweighted Average: | 30.0% | Median: | 25.0% | Standard Deviation: | 22.6% |
One of the hugest losers of the year: Salt the Earth. As it looks quite cool to trash Victory cards from the supply and get VP for it, on practice this Event is almost never game deciding. It’s good when you have some buys and want to suddenly end the game, it comboes with Baths, but other than that it rarely shines. Salt the Earth was voted 5 times above average. |
| #60 ▲1 Pilgrimage (Adventures)Weighted Average: | 31.5% | Unweighted Average: | 32.7% | Median: | 29.6% | Standard Deviation: | 18.9% |
Pilgrimage stays close to where it was and it probably could be ranked even lower. In practice, you get it mid-game, if you don't hit 5 but build your deck around cards that cost more than 4. It can shine when you can't buy cards but events and when there are other cards around using the Journey token as you can either activate Pilgrimage every turn or make sure that for example Ranger is activated on your next turn. |
| #59 ▼3 Horse Traders (Cornucopia)Weighted Average: | 31.9% | Unweighted Average: | 37.0% | Median: | 34.6% | Standard Deviation: | 18.1% |
Horse Traders have lost 3 positions since the last year and landed on 59th. HT is a good card, whose reaction rarely matters and it’s always surprising to remember that it has a reaction at all. Despite having strong interaction with some new Nocturne cards (Faithful Hound, Cursed Village) community still thinks Horse Traders is quite weak. |
| #58 ▼3 Scavenger (Dark Ages)Weighted Average: | 33.4% | Unweighted Average: | 33.6% | Median: | 30.9% | Standard Deviation: | 21.2% |
Scavenger loses a few ranks. It's mainly useful to cycle through your deck faster in the beginning and to topdeck useful cards, when you don't draw your deck. Sometimes it's useful to topdeck a specific card in the middle of your turn, but overall that doesn't warrant a higher rank for Scavenger. |
| #57 ▲1 Cutpurse (Seaside)Weighted Average: | 33.9% | Unweighted Average: | 34.4% | Median: | 27.9% | Standard Deviation: | 17.6% |
Cutpurse became 1 rank better compared to the last year and ended on 57th position. Cutpurse is still quite a good opener for hitting $5 on the second shuffle and deny the same to your opponent. Even the presence of Heirlooms haven’t hurt Cutpurse’ rating mostly because your opponent still would have at least one Copper on their hand. Cutpurse was ranked 10 times above average. |
| #56 Secret Passage (Intrigue)Weighted Average: | 36.1% | Unweighted Average: | 38.4% | Median: | 32.1% | Standard Deviation: | 21.7% |
Secret Passage is the second lowest new card this year. There are some uses to it that make you pick it up mid game, if there's nothing better going on. It's useful if you care about the position of a specific card, e.g. for Herald. It provides consistency within your turn because you can get to your villages and draws early on and stash the stop cards further down in your draw pile. And it can be useful to set up your next turn. Therefore, you're usually happy to have some in your deck, but often you feel like there's more important cards to buy. |
| #55 ▲9 Armory (Dark Ages)Weighted Average: | 40.8% | Unweighted Average: | 39.3% | Median: | 35.8% | Standard Deviation: | 19.5% |
Here’s to another big winner: Armory. Armory gets better every year, but it’s the first time it got this much of a boost. The increase in amount of very good cheap cards played its part in Armory rating. And with Tracker present people realised the power of topdecking. Armory was ranked above average 10 times. |
| #54 Necromancer (Nocturne)Weighted Average: | 42.3% | Unweighted Average: | 43.2% | Median: | 40.7% | Standard Deviation: | 19.0% |
Necromancer gets its first rating in the bottom half, but I can see it rising in the next years. First, using Zombie Mason to trash is nice, if there are no strong and cheap trashers around. Zombie Apprentice or any other trash for benefits / trashing attacks are reasons for Action cards ending up in the trash. At that point, you can often build a reliable engine using the trashed cards and both players start getting Necromancers. Tragic Hero is a card that goes particularly well with Necromancer as it easily trashes itself and then provides draw, +buy and can gain (at least) Gold when you play it from the trash. |
| #53 ▼3 Duplicate (Adventures)Weighted Average: | 42.6% | Unweighted Average: | 49.6% | Median: | 43.2% | Standard Deviation: | 22.0% |
Duplicate has lost 3 ranks since the last year. Though it looks like Duplicate can be really powerful for unexpected 3-piling and gaining a lot of cool cards in one turn, the problem of playing them all is still a problem. Other than that Nocturne Cards encourage different cards strategy, so this can be a reason for Duplicate to fall a little. But still Duplicate was ranked above average 15 times and has 5 ranks more in unweighted ranking. |
| #52 Skulk (Nocturne)Weighted Average: | 42.8% | Unweighted Average: | 42.4% | Median: | 39.5% | Standard Deviation: | 20.5% |
Skulk is another new card with a rating a bit worse than the median card. In my experience, it is a card that you often get for some purpose but it hardly shines - it can only be crucial if you need it as the only +buy. It can also shine when you can trash Skulk for benefits. And hexing the opponent slows them down a bit and can sometimes be quite gruesome. |
| #51 Poacher (Base)Weighted Average: | 43.1% | Unweighted Average: | 42.8% | Median: | 40.7% | Standard Deviation: | 16.9% |
Poacher is a Peddler variant brought to us in the second edition of Base game. It is a simple cards which although has its uses and requires a thorough thinking on how many and when you want and whether underpowering opponent’s Poachers is worth underpowering yours. |
| #50 ▼6 Ranger (Adventures)Weighted Average: | 44.2% | Unweighted Average: | 44.2% | Median: | 44.4% | Standard Deviation: | 22.3% |
Ranger has lost quite a few ranks and I could see it a bit higher. It provides draw and + buy for your engine. Although it draws only 2.5 cards on average, this doesn't have to be a disadvantage: the important thing is to have it activated for the first play of your turns. Then, your turns can be quite consistent, whereas having to play 2 Villages and 2 Rangers before kicking off is tough. |
| #49 =0 Remodel (Base)Weighted Average: | 46.6% | Unweighted Average: | 50.1% | Median: | 48.2% | Standard Deviation: | 21.9% |
After gaining ranks in the last three years it seems that Remodel has found its spot. Although with the addition of a couple of Gold gainers in Nocturne should get this card higher than it is, so we will see. |
| #48 ▼15 Monument (Prosperity)Weighted Average: | 47.0% | Unweighted Average: | 52.0% | Median: | 48.2% | Standard Deviation: | 19.2% |
5 years ago, Monument was ranked in the top 10, last year it was still in the top third of cards. Adding Empires probably made it less important and contributed to the decline. I can see it rising a bit again next year when people play more with Nocturne. But then the weighted average is significantly lower than the unweighted one, so I might be wrong. Its importantness depends on the availability of Alt-VP. In the absence of those, the points that get accumulated by having 1-2 Monuments can be crucial in the end. Sometimes the whole strategy revolves around playing many Monuments. |
| #47 ▼7 Bishop (Prosperity)Weighted Average: | 48.5% | Unweighted Average: | 57.8% | Median: | 51.9% | Standard Deviation: | 23.1% |
Bishop is again big loser of the year, losing 7 ranks. Mostly the presence of a lot more ways to get VP is a reason why Bishop keeps falling lower and lower. Still Bishop has quite a number of combos, not the least of them being Donate. |
| #46 ▲7 Walled Village (Promo)Weighted Average: | 48.9% | Unweighted Average: | 43.7% | Median: | 45.7% | Standard Deviation: | 18.6% |
Walled Village gained another 7 ranks, but it is still the worst Village on this list. Early on in the game, its effect can be nice, but most of the times it's "only" a normal Village. |
| #45 Conclave (Nocturne)Weighted Average: | 49.3% | Unweighted Average: | 55.5% | Median: | 53.1% | Standard Deviation: | 20.4% |
Another Nocturne card and anti-terminal, Conclave. Conclave is one of the cards presented in Nocturne that requires a lot of thinking about how many and when to buy. It can be an OP Village or a terminal silver depending on situation. And Conclave obviously shines the most in Black Market games. Conclave was rated first once. |
| #44 ▲5 Mission (Adventures)Weighted Average: | 50.3% | Unweighted Average: | 42.3% | Median: | 35.8% | Standard Deviation: | 28.3% |
Mission gained a few ranks and it is significantly better ranked among better players. It also has the highest standard deviation of all cards. I think it is indeed hard to judge because it shines on some boards when you can do useful things with your deck on a Mission turn (trashing, attacking, upgrading travellers, setting up durations, buying events,...). But often it's better to just buy some other card instead. |
| #43 ▲11 Engineer (Empires)Weighted Average: | 51.4% | Unweighted Average: | 46.8% | Median: | 43.4% | Standard Deviation: | 19.3% |
A big winner of the year, Engineer! Gaining cards up to $4 gets better and better and Engineer is the second card after Armory to prove this. Considering the ability to trash itself, Engineer is a must-have in a lot of decks. |
| #42 Cemetery (Nocturne)Weighted Average: | 52.4% | Unweighted Average: | 54.2% | Median: | 51.9% | Standard Deviation: | 22.6% |
Cemetery gets its first ranking as the best card of the bottom half. It's nice that it allows you to effectively trash 3 cards (and thereby to sometimes get a Ghost), but the problem early on is that you need to afford it and still have enough junk in your hand. Therefore, it goes well with workshop variants and larger hand-size. I can see it rising in the next years. |