 | #16 =0 Adventurer (Base) Weighted Average: 4.7% ▲2.7pp / Unweighted Average: 8.0% / Median: 0% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 16.9%
Again it was pretty clear, Adventurer is still the worst card in this list although it was voted slightly better. It was voted last 83 times and 5 times above average. It has the fifth lowest deviatio in this list.
By all means Adventurer is no bad card. But all $6+ cards have the problem competing with Gold. And Adventurer is only superior to Gold in decks without Copper and even $5 cards like Harvest or Merchant Ship (can) give you $4 easily. The filter effect is nice and finds still 2 treasure cards if you are already heavily greening what is especially good with Platinum. But the same does Venture (you see the name sililarity?) without spending an action and for one coin less. So, most of the time, Adventurer is just overpriced, but can be nice in a chapelled deck with no better alternatives.
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 | #15 =0 Farmland (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 17.0% ▲2.6pp / Unweighted Average: 17.1% / Median: 13.3% ▲5.6pp / Standard Deviation: 15.3%
Farmland is also slightly better, but still second last as well. It was voted last 14 times and 3 times above average. It has the fourth lowest deviation in this list.
Farmland is definitely no power card, but still should be considered as a good buy in a handful of situations. At first it seems weak as it is more expensive and gives less VP than a Duchy. But the on-buy remodel effect can be very handy. You really have to calculate the benefits. If you have $7, you can remodel a Copper into an Estate, but then it would be better to buy a Duchy for the same VP. For $8 you could buy a Province directly, but if you're behind and there are only few Provinces left, just remodel a Silver into a Duchy for 5VP. For $9 Farmland is like an extra buy, if you remodel a Gold into a Province for 8VP total. In the middle game you even may prefer Farmland over Duchy, because with a Farmland in hand you only need $6 and a Farmland in hand to get a Province. Then Farmland is like a pseudo Harem as the remodel effect is like the +2$ Harem gives you. Especially nice is Farmland in cursing games. For $6 and a Curse in hand, Farmland is worth 4VP. There are even more nice situations like getting 2 victory cards in Silk Road games or trashing a Potion to get a Gold.
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 | #14 ▼1 Expand (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 23.0% ▼11.2pp / Unweighted Average: 27.7% / Median: 20.0% ▼6.7pp / Standard Deviation: 21.8%
Expand was voted significantly worse which means that it lost one rank. It was voted last 3 times, but 17 times above average.
Expand is a mix between Remodel and Mine, but is another card that has the drawback of being expensive. So if you want to trash treasure cards in the late game for victory cards, Remodel manages that too for $3 less. If you want trash treasure cards for better treasure cards, Mine does it even better for $2 less. Its best use is to trash victory cards for better ones or $5 cost actions into Provinces. And expanding Peddlers into Colonies may be its strongest combo.
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 | #13 ▲1 Harem (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 29.1% ▲0.2pp / Unweighted Average: 30.6% / Median: 26.7% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 20.9%
Harem has basically the same average value, but is still one rank better than last year. It was voted last 3 times and 22 times above average. It was even voted first twice!
Like all cards in this list, Harem is by far no bad card, but it's another card that's not really game dominating. Especially in Big Money games where you rarely need more than 2 Golds you can easily pick up Harems in the mid-game if you still fall short for Provinces. This gives you -1VP in comparism to Duchies, but you will see this Harem still 2-3 times to make it worth a buy and give you enough money to win the Provinces split or make the 2VP difference to win this game. Harem is also good in Silk Road games and in combination with Hoard (don't buy Gold, just buy a Hoard and Harems), Mine (mine early Silvers into Harems) and Mints (extra money and VP is nice). In Colony games, Harem is really ignorable because neither Silver nor 2VP are worth a buy.
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 | #12 =0 Forge (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 37.4% ▲3.1pp / Unweighted Average: 39.4% / Median: 33.3% ▲6.6pp / Standard Deviation: 22.5%
Forge is slightly better than before, but still on the same rank. It was voted last twice, but just like Harem voted first twice as well. It has the fourth highest deviation in this list.
Forge is really hard to evaluate because it heavily depends from the cards on the board. Forge is like a much better Chapel because you can quickly trash many cards out of your deck and get an additional benefit, but has 3 big drawbacks. 1.) It's too expensive. If you get to $7 you mostly can't heavily trash anymore because you have too many cards in hand you want to keep. But with cards on the board that can give you $7 early like Baron, Apothecary or Tactician, Forge is really strong. 2.) Forge needs big hand sizes to be really worth it (comparing to other trash-for-benefit cards). Cards like Apothecary or Tactician accomplish this too, but if you have good draw engines, a Forge may also worth a buy to trash a few cards for a late Province. But with discarding attacks Forge is weak. 3.) The term "exactly" and the obligatory gain makes Forge swingy. With a Forge in hand heavy calculating goes on. If you just want to get rid of cards like Coppers or Estates you often have to gain at least a Copper or an Estate or another card you basically don't want. Only if you manage to reach $10 where no card exists you get rid of those. And if you want to forge a Province you often draw the wrong cards (e.g. only treasure cards). Summary: You have to really consider if Forge is a trap or worth a buy, like in Torturer engines where you can simply take all Curses in hand to forge them right away.
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 | #11 ▼1 Bank (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 40.7% ▼3.6pp / Unweighted Average: 42.2% / Median: 40.0% ▼6.7pp / Standard Deviation: 22.6%
Bank is one rank worse than last year. It was voted last twice and 17 times above 70%. It has the third highest deviation in this list.
Bank's value really depends from the board. Bank is dependant from big hand sizes and +Buy. On an average board, especially Big Money games, Bank is mostly worse than Gold. While 3 Golds allow you to buy a Province, 3 Banks don't. So it can really be a trap card. But with a drawer it can be also better than Gold (e.g. 4 Copper + Bank instead of 4 Copper + Gold). And with the addition of +Buy it can get incredibly powerful. Margrave/Wharf Big Money with Bank is great. And in combination with Tactician or Apothecary+Herbalist (or another +Buy) Bank is really powerful. In Colony games Platinum is still stronger in almost every situation, but still Bank is no bad card in Colony games and just depends of above mentioned scenarios.
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 | #10 ▼2 Hunting Grounds (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 49.2% ▼0.2pp / Unweighted Average: 49.3% / Median: 53.3% ▲6.6pp / Standard Deviation: 21.1%
Hunting Grounds has basically the same average value, but still lost 2 ranks. It was voted last twice and first twice. It is the first card of a group of cards that are very close together. It's one rank higher in the unweighted list.
Hunting Grounds is the best drawer of the game without any disadvantage or condition. It's simple, but does well what it should do, drawing a lot of cards. It's solid in Big Money but for $6 it competes directly with Gold and mostly you draw way more than you need for a Province and as you only have one buy, I rather have Wharf for Big Money strategies. But in engines, drawing 4 cards is great and even with weak trashing you can build a pretty decent engine with it. And with good trashing this is even better as you will easily draw your whole deck with it. The on-trash ability is also neat. You mostly want Duchies over Estates, but getting Estates might help to 3-pile faster. In Silk Road or Gardens games where 3 Estates sound very good, Hunting Grounds is mostly just too expensive to be worth it. Getting a late extra Duchy when you try to catch up with your mega engine is pretty cool. Tricks like buying a Farmland to trash a Hunting Grounds for a Province and a Duchy for 11VP total or just use any trash-for-benefit card on it is a great extra.
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 | #9 =0 Hoard (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 50.2% ▲1.7pp / Unweighted Average: 49.5% / Median: 46.7% ▼6.6pp / Standard Deviation: 22.0%
Hoard stays where it was. It was voted last twice and first twice as well. It has the fifth highest deviation in this list and would be one rank higher in the unweighted list.
Hoard is really good if you play it right. If you use it to buy a Victory card every time you have it in hand, just to get a Gold, this is maybe not the right play because then your money average approximates to ~1.5$ what isn't enough for a Province and is even worse in Colony games. But you want to green eventually, right? Then adding Golds while greening is really good. Your deck doesn't clog up too much and you may keep buying Provinces or at least Duchies until the end of the game. So if you pick up a Hoard after your first Gold in Big Money games you can go green pretty early. Hoard is also good if you use the free Gold for trash-for-benefit cards, especially Apprentice. Just trash a Gold with Apprentice, buy a Province with a Hoard in hand to get another Gold and do the same in the next turns over and over. Hoard works also nice with dual-type victory cards especially Harem.
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 | #8 ▲3 Fairgrounds (Cornucopia) Weighted Average: 51.8% ▲14.1pp / Unweighted Average: 47.7% / Median: 46.7% ▲13.4pp / Standard Deviation: 27.4%
Fairgrounds made a big jump of 3 ranks and over 14pp. With 7 last ranks and 2 first ranks it has by far the highest deviation in this list and would be 2 ranks lower in the unweighted list.
Copper, Silver, Gold, Estate, Duchy, Province and Fairgrounds and you have already 7 different cards. With 3 more cards, every Fairgrounds is already worth more than a Duchy. Especially in cursing and Potion games, this is easy to accomplish. This is still making it a mediocre card. But in games where you have many cantrips and a good source of buy, Fairgrounds can be really strong. Just buy 15 of the 19 different cards and every Fairgrounds is worth 6VP like a Province and this for $2 less. And with Black Market on the board it is even easier to get 15 or even 20 different cards and may be the board determining combo. With Dark Ages Fairgrounds got a huge boost. With Shelters you need 2 unique cards less and in games with Looters you might have to ignore them because the Ruins might only pump your opponents' Fairgrounds. Also, Knights offer a lot of uniques and Spoils or Mercenary from extra piles are also extra uniques you might want.
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 | #7 ▼2 Peddler (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 52.6% ▼6.1pp / Unweighted Average: 52.2% / Median: 53.3% ▼6.7pp / Standard Deviation: 20.8%
Peddler is two ranks and 6pp worse and was voted once each on the first and on the last rank. It would be one rank higher in the unweighted list.
Peddler basically doesn't belong in this list, because you almost never spend $8 for a Peddler as its effect is only worth ~$4. So if you spend $6 or $8 for a Peddler, this was mostly a waste. But in games with many +Buys like Grand Markets, Worker's Villages, Market Squares or Pawns and Hamlets, you can easily pick up Peddlers for $0 or $2. Getting many Peddlers in one turn can be a pretty big boost to your econony. Peddlers are also good in combination with duration cards as they count for price reduction in both turns. But it is in this list and it is so high in this list because it really shines in combination with trash-for-benefit cards and then its cost shows to advantage, e.g. - like above mentioned - expanding it into a Colony. As it is the only card for $8, its also worth mentioning how it works with Swindler. As long as there are still Peddlers left, there is the danger that it get swindled. But when the Peddlers are gone, you have a great defense against Swindler. Another quick note: Beware of three-piling in Peddler games with +Buy.
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 | #6 ▲1 Nobles (Intrigue) Weighted Average: 53.9% ▲3.7pp / Unweighted Average: 53.7% / Median: 53.3% ▲6.6pp / Standard Deviation: 19.6%
Nobles is one rank better, but still has one vote on the last rank. It would be one rank higher in the unweighted list.
Nobles is often a trap card. Yes, Nobles is a self working combo when you use it for +2 Actions and +3 Cards alternating. But 2 Nobles still give you only a +1 Card Bonus what one Laboratory gives you too. So a Big Money player is going to outrace a "Nobles-Engine" player, it's just to slow. But still there are many occassions where Nobles are nice. As long as you don't use Nobles as your main village an engine player can incorporate Nobles as a good drawer while picking up some points and not fall so far behind to a Big Money Player. Yeah, getting points while still building your engine can be huge for an engine player as he may need 1-2 Provinces less to catch up in the end. And if there are other cards that let you get Nobles faster, like Quarry it makes them even stronger. However, in Colony games the 2VP from Nobles are often ignorable or at least less important.
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 | #5 ▲1 Altar (Dark Ages) Weighted Average: 54.8% ▲0.3pp / Unweighted Average: 51.2% / Median: 53.3% ▼6.7pp / Standard Deviation: 24.1%
Altar is one rank better, but its average value is basically the same. With 3 last ranks and one first rank it has the second highest deviation in this list. It would be 2 ranks lower in the unweighted list.
$5 cards are key cards in Dominion. And the ability to trash cards independent from cost and turn them into key $5 cards is really big, especially for any sort of engine. An early $6 on an engine board with Altar is really strong. Also, you have the ability to use it later in the game to gain Duchies, something you shouldn't underestimate. It also comboes well with cost reduction like Highway (which you can get from Altar) to even gain Provinces with it. Of course it highly depends on the board. If there are no good expensive cards to get in masses, then Altar isn't that interesting, but you might get one only for the Duchy gain ability which is also less useful in Colony games of course.
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 | #4 =0 Border Village (Hinterlands) Weighted Average: 69.8% ▲1.9pp / Unweighted Average: 68.8% / Median: 73.3% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 20.5%
We're making a big jump of 15pp and Border Village is still on #4 while having a slightly better average value. It was voted twice last and 5 times first. It was voted 19 times below average.
For every good engine Border Village is excellent. Especially if you have $6 and there are strong terminal $5 cards on the board and you want the $5 card anyway, you get a Village for free. Do this a few times and you basically are guaranteed to have a Village in each hand. The uses are similar to when you want many Fishing Villages. Border Village + Torturer is maybe one of the strongest combos. Still this is in strong competition with Gold. It's really a trap in cases where you want a money based strategy. Especially with the first $6 you often rather buy a Gold than a Border Village in most cases. Border Village is also very good on boards with trash-for-benefit cards because for every $6 you have you can buy a Border Village and the trash-for-benefit card. Later you can trash the Border Village for 4VP with Bishop, 6 cards with Apprentice, 6$ with Salvager or remodel it into a Province, etc. Border Village + Graverobber is also a great combo because you never run out of fodder for Graverobbers.
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 | #3 =0 Grand Market (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 81.6% ▼3.1pp / Unweighted Average: 80.4% / Median: 86.7% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 15.0%
Now another big jump of nearly 12pp. Grand Market is still #3 and was only voted twice below average and four times on the first rank. It has the third lowest deviation in this list.
Grand Market is basically a $8-$9 card and is the dominating card on many boards. Often it's basically a race to get the first Grand Market faster. And with the first Grand Market you can easily buy more of them. You achieve that at best with Vault or any other Source of virtual coins like Baron or Horse Traders and of course with Gold. Grand Markets are very powerful, but still there are situations where it's just too slow to pick them up because of its restriction and is really a trap card. Other strategies are just quicker. They are great in nearly all decks, but Grand Markets really shine in thin decks where you can chain them. Then they are even better than Platinum! The same applies in combination with King's Court. But in Colony games with heavy cursing or other thick decks, Platinum is still the stronger card.
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 | #2 =0 Goons (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 91.7% ▼1.9pp / Unweighted Average: 90.7% / Median: 93.3% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 11.9%
Another jump of ~10pp and we're now in the Top 2. Goons is second again with only 2 votes below average and 7 votes below 70%. It was voted first 35 times and is the card with the lowest deviation in this list.
Goons is a strong and board dominating card nearly every time. Yes, it gets quadratically (n^2+n) better the more Goons you can play per turn, so it gets big profit from good drawing engines, but is still great if played alone because of the discarding attack. It's also the only attack card that is so strong that it needs to cost more than $5. So you have a Militia that nets you VP for cards you would have bought either way, great! In the later game you can pick additional VP for Coppers (and with a Watchtower in hand you can even immediately trash them). And if you have those needed actions and set up a really nice engine with Goons and manage to play 3 or more Goons per turn, it is so insane powerful: You can achieve easily 100 or more points. Also a Goons engine has more time for setup as you don't necessarily need to buy Provinces/Colonies. For clarification: King's Court + Goons doesn't triple the VP gaining effect, but you still get the extra money and buys you can use for more VP, so it isn't a so bad combo after all (especially if you have another King's Court and a Masquerade in hand  )
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 | #1 =0 King's Court (Prosperity) Weighted Average: 93.2% ▼4.3pp / Unweighted Average: 92.1% / Median: 100% =0pp / Standard Deviation: 13.4%
King's Court is still the strongest card in this list even though it lost over 4pp. It has the second lowest deviation in this list with no vote below 40% and 11 votes below 70%. It was voted first 68 times.
Just like Goons and Grand Market, when King's Court is on the board, there's nearly every time a race who gets it first with cards like Tactician, Baron or Apothecary. Throne Room does nothing for itself and just doubles the action, but still is often skippable - tripling an action seems like no big difference, but it is a huge boost. If you triple a Curser the game is basically over; if you triple a card drawer like Wharf it's really crazy; and with Possession or Saboteur it could get really mad. With King's Court you also need no Village, just triple a Cantrip for a huge benefit, especially if it's Scheme. And with King's Courting a King's Court it gets even crazier... Maybe only on Province boards that are already very quick without King's Court or have only terminal non-curse-givers you may skip it. PS: For everyone who has the same problems as I, calculating the actions you may play three times: For every King's Court you play on a King's Court you can play 2 more actions three times - or if you prefer a formula: 2n-1
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Topic: The Dominion Cards Lists 2014 Edition: $6+ cards (Read 31828 times)