Ironworks, Messenger, Pirate Ship, Plaza, Scout, Catacombs, Horn of Plenty, Merchant Ship, Vault, Altar
I've been mostly away from the Forums for the past year, so apologies if there's been some paradigm shift and the expert opinion on Scout has shifted. But
in my day it was considered the very worst card in all of Dominion. I have gone years without buying it at all.
Well, last night I finally had a game where I acquired a Scout--two Scouts, in fact. And I'm convinced it was the right move. Scout helped my deck! Take a look at the log:
https://dominion-game-logs.s3.amazonaws.com/game_logs/20160913/log.0.1473731690423.txtSo, this is obviously a Horn of Plenty game: we have villages and we have draw. What we don't have is terrific trashing: all we have for that is Altar. I opened Silver / Messenger-Ironworks with the intention of grabbing as many Plazas as possible. My first $6 was an Altar, and it was pretty much Plazas, Horns, and Catacombs after that.
Of course, we quickly ran out of Plazas, which left my Ironworks with nothing to gain, except... Scout. Scout! It's an extra card for the Horns, so that's good. And the re-arrangement effect was useful, because this is sort of a wobbly engine consisting of a major component that doesn't draw anything--the Horns--and I really need my Plazas to find Catacombs. Scout helped. Not a lot, mind you. But in this one, rare case, it was better than nothing.