Wow. Whole lotta disagreement going on. To a certain extent this is unavoidable; the mid-level $4s and $5s are very subjective, and I'd expect the split between engine players and money players to be particularly pronounced here. But, man, there are a lot of cards I didn't expect to see yet, and a lot of cards that really should have been in this group.
I had five cards here ranked at #16 or higher: Spice Merchant (16), Cutpurse (15), Moneylender (14), Island (13), Conspirator (11).
The five cards we have yet to see which I ranked lower: Worker's Village (17), Gardens (19), Silk Road (20), Envoy (21), Smithy (23).
Worker's Village, Gardens, and Silk Road I have no complaints about. I'm pretty sure WV will be at the bottom of the top group, almost exactly where I had it. Gardens and Silk Road I fully understand why people rank higher; with everyone learning from WW's videos and grasping the power of alt-VP, I knew that my ranking was going to be lower than average and I'm okay with that. Just want to emphasize that Gardens/SR really does need support- sometimes it changes the game, but sometimes it doesn't, believe it or not.
Envoy and Smithy, OTOH, absolutely deserve the lower ranks I gave them. Envoy-BM and Smithy-BM are supposed to be great for Big Money, but actually in the grand scheme of things they're pretty mediocre BM strategies, and they're also pretty bad sources of +Card for engines, too: usually you want non-terminal draw, or draw that attacks, or other benefits that these cards just don't give. You can use these cards, but whether you go engine or BM there is likely a better option out there. I buy both of them less than 40 percent of the time, and that's not too little at all.
As for the cards I like more than most: Spice Merchant/Moneylender is the old engine vs. Big Money divide again. A list that had these two cards in this group, and Gardens/SR in the higher group, is one I'd have precious little complaint about. But I do think it's quite silly that Spice Merchant is so far lower than Moneylender. It's a worse card on average, but just barely.
Cutpurse is to Militia as Spice Merchant is to Moneylender. Very similar, and worse but only barely. The gap should be lower. Eh, maybe I overrated it. Ranking Island at #2 is madness, but I definitely remember that Island/Silver was a way better opening than many people gave credit for, and any source of VP that gets out of the way is great in my book. Conspirator, okay sometimes there isn't support, but when that support is around, and I think it usually is, Conspirator is just too good. Yes, I would like the functional equivalent of Grand Market for $4 (since there's only so much +Buy you can use)!
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Other little things: I had Farming and Mining Village more or less swapped. I have become less and less impressed with Mining Village's bonus as time goes on: popping it early is not something I like to do- if I need the economy I'd rather just go with Silver, if I need the engine I'm not going to give up +Action sources easily. And popping it at the end is more often than not overkill. I find Farming Village's defensive/fishing capabilities more useful more often, especially with copper trashing or deck-inspection attacks.
Horse Traders and Throne Room are overrated here, I'll try to explain why in another post.