I thought about writing an article on this, but I'm not really qualified.
A few very powerful cards you ignore at your peril are Chapel, Ambassador and Masquerade. (Obviously you don't always want to trash, but much of the time you do)
Every now and then you end up with more than one of the three cards in the Kingdom. I'm usually at a loss on which to open with. The answer, as always is "it depends on the rest of the Kingdom."
I'd love to start a discussion on what that "depends" means.
Here are my initial thoughts:
(1) When trashing a lot is paramount (i.e., Some sort of Conspirator chain, or something with Villages and Bridges without significant draw)
Open Chapel+ Masquerade and trash double and fast
(2) When Cursers are present
Open Ambassador. Ignore the cursers and fire it back at the other player
(3) When you want to go some variation on Big Money
Open Masquerade and ignore the other two
(4) If you aren't sure
The default I think is Ambassador?
Here are the conditional Stats from CouncilRoom:
http://councilroom.com/supply_win?targets=Cards%3E%3D3&interaction=Actions%3E%3D2%26%26Cost%3C%3D4&nested=false&unconditional=trueIt may be difficult to make conclusions from this as most of the time with two good players they will both be gaining one or more of these cards, so the results may be unbalanced by new players. But here's what the list says:
1- Masquerade
2- Ambassador
3- Ambassador if Masquerade is present
4- Chapel
5- Masquerade if Chapel is present
6- Masquerade if Chapel AND Ambassador are present
7- Ambassador if Chapel is present
8- Chapel if Masquerade is present
9- Chapel if Masquerade AND Ambassador are present
10- Chapel if Ambassador is present
11- Chapel if Masquerade is present
12- Ambassador if Chapel AND Masquerade are present
13- Masquerade if Ambassador is present
So that means the ranking based on what is present are:
Two Cards:
Chapel+Ambassador: Ambassador
Chapel+Masq: Masq
Amb+Masq: Amb
Three Cards:
Chapel+Amb+Masq: Masq (second option Chapel)
Which means that Amb > Masq > Chapel (I think I could have guessed that), but if all three are present at the same time then Masq > Chapel > Amb
Thoughts?
Ed