Question: Is there any card that you would want to play every turn so badly that you'd build a Golem+Scheme+X deck?
I did put a golem-scheme deck into WanderingWinder's sim challenge, best deck using any five kingdom cards of your choice. It was competitive against a variety of excellent decks, particularly considering how bad/slow people think golems are.
I guess the hard part is: When do you buy the Potion if you need it specifically for Golem?
And what do you do on your way there? Do you fill your deck with mediocre actions?
I guess Golem is a pretty strategic card because answers to these kinds of questions are not that clear.
I mean, I like Golem and I think it's a pretty good card, it's just hard to judge its usefulness from time to time. It's one of those cards where you have this feeling that you're always losing to it when your opponent goes for it - mistakenly in your view. But when you go for it, it never seems to work out.
With regards to buying the Potion, maybe we have to ask ourselves simply this if we think about buying it: Would I buy a Curse this turn if it gives me a shot at getting King's Court next shuffle or the shuffle after that one? If the answer is yes, buying that Potion could be a good deal. Of course Potion is no Curse and Golem is no King's Court (Potion is obv better than Curse while I find Golem slightly weaker than KC, not much though). And you can use the Potion more often to buy more Golems.