Montebank is a card so awesome everyone thinks its obvious: buy one asap, probably several. However, if you look at the wiki site, there is obvious evidence that people DO NOT understand Montebank as well as they think:
"The fact that the attack can be blocked by discarding a Curse leads Mountebank to be more of a self-limiting card than other straight-up cursers like Witch, Sea Hag, or Familiar. It also, however, makes it more of a swingy card. This has several interesting effects and interactions. A 5/2 opening is not quite as an overwhelming advantage with Mountebank as with Witch, although it still provides an advantage--this is because a lead in cursing is more likely to equalize after both players get Mountebanks and play them slightly. It is also not as advantageous to buy multiple Mountebanks as it is to buy multiple copies of other cursers."
This paragraph is utterly false. Three things about mountebank games:
- Two pieces of junk is devastating - so first person to mountebank often wins, and 5/2 is nigh unbeatable.
- In most cases it is even MORE important than with witch to play mountebank often.
- The games are SO slow because of so much junk, and you aren't guaranteed for curses to run out.
With witch, if you buy two witches and your opponent buys three, they might only beat you 6/4 on the split at best. But with mountebank, the game crawls forward after each person gets hit about twice. But at this point there are still 12+ pieces of junk to hand out! Even if you only hit every other time, or every third time, its STILL worth it to play it often. If you can play mountebank multiple times a turn, its even better. But even without villages, I rarely want less than three Mountebanks, unless I have some way to play them more often, like with HP.
You really need to play for the long game with Mountebank because the game is so slow.
I also think that people don't realize that Mountebank is SO powerful, it often makes sense to play into defenses: ambassador, lighthouse, etc. Not all of the time of course, but way more than other cursers, because when it hits, its so devastating.
So I don't have time for full article, but I'd be interested in if anyone has any other thoughts .