| #26 City (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 24.57 / Median: 23 / Mode: 22 / Standard Deviation: 9.2 Highest Rank(s): #2 (1x), #9 (1x), #12 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #36 (2x), #41 (1x), #42 (1x)
After a 1.4 gap the next card in this list is City. It has some really high rankings with one second place and also two times below #40. So it has the second highest deviation in this list so far and is #7 in the deviation ranking of this list.
City is highly dependant from the board. That may explain the high deviation. On many boards you just spend $5 for a mediocre $3 Village. But with Cursers where the Curses are likely going out, this can be very strong. When activated, a Level 2 City is already a combined Laboratory and Village, so basically a ~$6 card. A Level 3 City is a combined Laboratory, Market and Village and would normally cost ~9$. In non-cursing games this is often a trap card. If one player goes for Cities to run this pile out, he's just buying Villages and doesn't build up his economy. Then you do much better not buying any City and try to end the game as fast as you can. In longer lasting games (especially Colony games) Cities are much stronger, but you really have to consider, if you really want so many Villages. In 3+ player games any pile can deplete faster and Cities are therefore much stronger. And if you have won the City Split and have Level 3 Cities, you have to just be sure that you don't lose on a 3-pile ending.
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| #25 Highway (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 24.34 / Median: 23 / Mode: 28 / Standard Deviation: 8.4 Highest Rank(s): #4 (1x), #6 (1x), #10 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #33 (2x), #34 (2x)
Highway has two outliers in the upper regions, but none in the lower regions, making it the card with the "best worst rank" so far. The unweighted average has it on #22, new players seem to overrate it.
Highway is highly dependant for supporter cards to make it useful. One vanilla Highway is really bad and even worse than Market or Treasury, it's just a Peddler, so basically only worth $4. It seems similar to Bridge, but in fact it isn't. You can use it as a cantrip Bridge, but most of the times this isn't worth it, because you need +Buy and either need a small deck to play multiples or big drawing power what also means you need villages. So that is really slow. The only real combo is Highway/Market in a small deck. But you can do things with Highway what would be very difficult with Bridge. It combos nice with Remodel/Farmland/Expand, so you can replace Coppers with Provinces. It can combo also with other trash-for-benefit cards, but most of the times they "anti-synergize". Its best use may to use it with cards with fixed cost in the card text like Saboteur, Smugglers, Feast, Ironworks, Horn of Plenty, etc to gain (or trash) Provinces with these cards. As Highway is good in small decks, Highway/Chapel is a #56 opening.
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| #24 Cartographer (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 23.73 / Median: 23 / Mode: 21 / Standard Deviation: 9.3 Highest Rank(s): #7 (1x), #10 (1x), #12 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #35 (3x), #40 (1x), #44 (1x)
Cartographer is the next Hinterlands card with the second highest deviation so far and #5 overall. It has two pretty low outliers.
Cartographer is useful in all decks (maybe except Big Money decks). It reminds of Navigator, but hasn't the problems of being terminal and you can choose for each card separately to discard or to put back. It also draws a card, although you often wish to top-deck first and draw afterwards. Basically it is a 4 times more powerful Spy (except the attack). You can also compare it to Warehouse. While Warehouse only makes this turn better, you can use Cartographer to either prepare your next turn (mitigating draw luck) or to prepare the cards you want to draw with either a second Cartographer or any other card that draws cards. So it combos very nice with many cards, especially cards that draw and are non-terminal, like Wishing Well and most importantly Scrying Pool and is also not bad against strong top-decking attacks like Ghost Ship or Rabble (although you draw one card first). With all the good points, Cartographer is still no good card for itself, it's just an addition to your deck and makes your engine stronger and more stable and is nearly never a dominating card on the board.
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| #23 Haggler (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 22.77 / Median: 22 / Mode: 28 / Standard Deviation: 7.0 Highest Rank(s): #8 (1x), #13 (1x), #14 (2x) / Lowest Rank(s): #33 (2x), #37 (1x)
Haggler is the third Hinterlands card in a row and has a very low deviation for a card ranked here, it has only 4 ranks below #30. Taking the unweighted average into account, it would rank on #21.
Haggler is very good for building up engines with multiple components. It adds the Border Village effect to any card you wish and also gives $2, so you can be pretty sure to get two good cards if you play Haggler. And in the middle to end game you can use it as a pseudo Hoard to get a Gold for a Province or even a Platinum on Colony boards. With Haggler you don't necessarily need +Buys early, you even have to beware that you don't use your additional buy for a low-cost card, so you have to get an additional Copper. It is a good starter for any good engine, for example Hunting Party, so you can get one more Hunting Party for every bought Province.
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| #22 Rabble (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 22.50 / Median: 22.5 / Mode: 19 / Standard Deviation: 8.8 Highest Rank(s): #9 (2x), #13 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #39 (1x), #40 (1x), #43 (1x)
Rabble is the second worst $5 attack. It was below #40 once and below #30 8 times. Newer players seem not to appreciate it: It would rank on #25 taking the unweighted average into account.
One Rabble may even worse than a Fortune Teller, as it can't guarantee to hit. It's not a very good opener, especially with good trashers, but gets stronger and stronger in the late game. Rabble is stronger the more you play in one turn. If you build up a (Village-Smithy-like) engine and need good drawing power, Rabble is the way to go, because if your opponent goes green too early, he gets bad hands pretty soon and you may crush him. Your Rabbles can hit him even stronger than any other discarding attack, because he has at best only 2 good cards in hand. But beware of Farming Village, which is a very effective counter. And if you don't need the drawing power, you can skip over Rabble, because one Rabble isn't that strong per se.
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| #21 Festival (Base) Weighted Average: 21.98 / Median: 20 / Mode: 30 / Standard Deviation: 7.7 Highest Rank(s): #6 (1x), #7 (1x), #11 (3x) / Lowest Rank(s): #30 (4x), #41 (1x)
Festival has a big outlier in the lower ranks, being the only rank below #30. #30 itself was voted 4 times, the most voted rank. Newer players overrate it, the unweighted average has it listed at #18.
Festival is a simple card and is like a combined Village and (Grand) Market without the draw. The lack of draw is really the only downside of this card. Still it is good in any engine, giving the money and actions you need and if you have "draw up to ..." cards like Watchtower or Library, it's really great. In any Non-Big-Money game Festival is strictly superior to Silver.
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| #20 Bazaar (Seaside) Weighted Average: 21.84 / Median: 21.5 / Mode: 19 / Standard Deviation: 7.7 Highest Rank(s): #5 (1x), #10 (1x), #13 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #36 (1x), #38 (2x)
Bazaar was voted 3 times below #30, but still has the same deviation as Festival. It also has a very high rank with being #5 once.
Bazaar is similar to Festival's use. You buy it if you are building an engine, because you need additional money and +2 Actions. But you get +1 card instead of +1$ and +1 Buy. It really depends on your engine which of those two is better. Not much more to say for me here, as it is a fearly simple card. Uncommon for a Village, Bazaar has a very high opening with Bazaar/Chapel on #25.
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| #19 Jester (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 21.60 / Median: 22.5 / Mode: 26 / Standard Deviation: 8.3 Highest Rank(s): #6 (1x), #9 (1x), #12 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #35 (1x), #37 (1x), #42 (1x)
Jester is the third worst attack of all $5 cards. It was voted 5 times below #30, but has also 2 ranks above #10. Newer players heavily seem to underrate it. The unweighted ranking has it at #23.
Jester is a very swingy attack. You can deal out Curses, you can spam Coppers. If your opponent and you are going for the same strategy, you can get very good cards from your Jester. If not, you have a really hard decision if you want that action card in your deck or give your opponent another free card. If you have a good running engine with any spying attack (like Scrying Pool), Jester is very good. In 3+ player games Jester is even stronger, because you can gain multiple good cards per turn. In all other cases you have to rely on your luck to hit the right cards.
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| #18 Upgrade (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 20.51 / Median: 21 / Mode: 28 / Standard Deviation: 8.5 Highest Rank(s): #6 (1x), #9 (1x), #10 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #32 (1x), #37 (1x), #46 (1x)
Upgrade has a really big outlier on the third last position. It was 3 times below #30 and twice above #10.
Non-terminal trashers or trash-for-benefit-cards are really strong. No surprise that Upgrade costs $5 so you can't open with it most of the times. With Upgrade you can trash your Coppers and Curses or turning your Estates into Silver without spending an action and keep playing all your other valuable action cards. This may also its best use. Spamming Upgrades and upgrading all other cards slowly to better cards seems nice, but is very slow. But Upgrading an Upgrade into an early Grand Market can be very strong. I like to add, that Upgrade is indeed a cantrip, that doesn't hurt your deck early on. But like Lookout, if you have a deck with a high quality density later on, this may be a dead card in your hand, when you don't want to trash a card from your hand. It's still no surprise Upgrade has some very high ranked openings, the best being Upgrade/Chapel on #18.
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| #17 Venture (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 20.08 / Median: 18.5 / Mode: 18 / Standard Deviation: 9.5 Highest Rank(s): #2 (1x), #5 (1x), #10 (1x) / Lowest Rank(s): #32 (1x), #41 (1x), #42 (1x)
Venture has the third highest deviation of the $5 cards, having two big outliers on each side. It is the best middle-ranked card before the next gap to the good $5 cards.
Venture is very similar to the "+1 Card, +1 Action, +$1, +Bonus" cards like Market, Treasury or Highway. It draws a card, gives $1 and doesn't cost an action. What is the +Bonus of Venture? Being a Treasure Card, it can't be drawn dead. And it has a Filter effect finding another Treasure Card. So you're guaranteed $2 when playing a Venture, making it another "Strictly Superior to Silver $5 Treasure Card". The filter effect allows you to go green earlier, because you can discard the green cards with Ventures. This effect reminds of Adventurer (and the name of course). While an Adventurer in a Copper-free deck gets you to at least $4 and Venture only to $3, Venture is still superior, because it's $1 cheaper and doesn't cost an action and is therefore chainable. Ventures are great if you have multiples and as few other Treasure Cards as possible. If you manage that, they are even superior to Gold. I like to add, that the multiple Ventures stacking effect is no additional bonus, just the result of the two above mentioned bonuses (Multiple Markets in a thin deck would have the same effect).
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