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[eHalcyon]

Pillage- probably not!
Admittedly, you don't buy Urchin for Urchin.

  Dammit, all I was trying to say was that HT is good against Junkers too.

I don't think anyone was claiming otherwise. 

[Dingan]

Is it just me, or is Horse Traders a relatively-uninteresting card?  It seems like most of the discussion above revolves around

• It's a good counter to discarding attacks
• It's good for hitting $5 on T3/4
• If you draw some junk, that junk is not as useless as it normally is because it's something to discard with Ht
• Its +buy is nice

But these things are basically pretty obvious, and we generally agree on them.  This is unlike recent CotW's, such as P-Stone, Smugglers, Steward, etc.  Those cards are much more situational, harder to master, easier to screw up, and usually require more in-game decisions.

[DG]

Is it just me, or is Horse Traders a relatively-uninteresting card? 

No not at all. You can do a lot of different things with horse traders and it is quite clever in the way that it defends against so many different attacks. Horse traders can suit almost every sort of deck and it can certainly be very powerful when you can play a four cost card for +3 coins and a buy, particularly when discarding two cards is no obstacle or even an advantage. The card is not new though and some specific strategies, such as duke/horse traders, have been discussed at length in other threads.

[Dingan]

Is it just me, or is Horse Traders a relatively-uninteresting card? 

No not at all. You can do a lot of different things with horse traders and it is quite clever in the way that it defends against so many different attacks. Horse traders can suit almost every sort of deck and it can certainly be very powerful when you can play a four cost card for +3 coins and a buy, particularly when discarding two cards is no obstacle or even an advantage. The card is not new though and some specific strategies, such as duke/horse traders, have been discussed at length in other threads.

Well that's basically what I said/meant:

it defends against so many different attacks

• It's a good counter to discarding attacks

specific strategies, such as duke/horse traders, have been discussed

• If you draw some junk, that junk is not as useless as it normally is because it's something to discard with Ht

What I meant by "relatively-uninteresting" is not that it's boring, or doesn't have neat interactions.  I meant that it's usefulness is relatively agreed upon.  That is, the things it gives you are basically easy to realize and utilize.  This contrasts to something like Smugglers because Smugglers' effectiveness is much more debatable, and has much more complicated 'niche' uses cases.

I would be interested in knowing what other specific strategies besides Duke/Ht have been discussed?  Especially ones that don't involve acquiring junk (to discard) as one of their primary components.  The only obvious interaction I can think of off-hand is a KC-Ht type situation where you have actually discarded all of your cards already.  Or maybe (less realistic) some sort of Golem-Tactician-Ht interaction.

[swedenman]

It's a pretty versatile card. It's great in slogs and early in engine games before you've cleared out all of your Coppers and Estates. Even once you have a really dense deck, HT can still be really good if you can overdraw your deck; just discard your good cards and then draw them right back, a la Vault. Probably my favorite game I've played with this card was in a Double Tac deck with Hamlet, Menagerie, and Horse Traders. I was playing with my friend who was new to the game and it was just plain silly.

[Ghacob]

Is it just me, or is Horse Traders a relatively-uninteresting card?  It seems like most of the discussion above revolves around

• It's a good counter to discarding attacks
• It's good for hitting $5 on T3/4
• If you draw some junk, that junk is not as useless as it normally is because it's something to discard with Ht
• Its +buy is nice

But these things are basically pretty obvious, and we generally agree on them.  This is unlike recent CotW's, such as P-Stone, Smugglers, Steward, etc.  Those cards are much more situational, harder to master, easier to screw up, and usually require more in-game decisions.

You could just as easily make lists of obvious, generally agreed upon statements for other cards too, it's not too difficult

Steward:

• It's a good opener to trash cards with
• After your deck is slim, you can draw cards or take coins
• Its versatility is nice

Smugglers:

• It's good for getting cards you want if you and your opponent are mirroring
• You don't want it if your opponent is buying cards you don't want

You could even argue that these cards are simpler as there are less things to think about.

[convolucid]

Is it just me, or is Horse Traders a relatively-uninteresting card? 

Maybe it comes off as boring because its effects could be described as normalizing:
-It gets you to five on the first shuffle, almost always.
-It makes many attacks behave as though they never happened

But the way it does these things is pretty interesting:
-it's not Moat, but is effective against almost every attack
-the atomic power of +$ vs -cards is generally unfavorable, but you can play the system in many cases
-what percentage of the power budget of the card is devoted to the reaction, in general?

[ehunt]

I love this card, but don't forget: it's terminal. So the combos with Minion and/or Menagerie will absolutely require an investment in villages. The combos with Watchtower and Library are probably not worth it, unless there's something like Fishing Village or Squire/Hamlet (with Hamlet/Horse Traders, watch out for overdiscarding).

[ipofanes]

... Double Tac deck with Hamlet, Menagerie, and Horse Traders. I was playing with my friend who was new to the game and it was just plain silly.

Did he become hooked? Sounds more like a deterrent to a beginner to me.

[swedenman]

... Double Tac deck with Hamlet, Menagerie, and Horse Traders. I was playing with my friend who was new to the game and it was just plain silly.

Did he become hooked? Sounds more like a deterrent to a beginner to me.

This particular friend of mine plays a lot of card games and video games competitively and would rather I stomp him into the ground than sandbag him. He and I still play a good amount.

[c4master]

Concerning the reaction effect:

Imagine a card like Council Room or Soothsayer with the drawback of your opponent getting a free card. How much better would those cards be without the drawback?

Well, as for Council Room, that card would be ridiculously strong. This is because it's often used in engines where you play multiple copies of it per turn. So this would be like denying 2-3 extra cards. Even if you play a discard attack later, it would still be a big deal to chose 5 out of 7 instead of 3 out of 5.
Soothsayer would be very strong, but not game-breaking, I think. It would basically change it into the best curser for big money (or even slogs) and still very good for engines (you might Remodel/Stonemason those golds later). Would it be at the correct price point? I don't really think so. It would probably be worth paying $6 for.

So, what does that mean? A Horse Trader in your hand changes any 1 attack (per turn) in the discribed way. It hands to you (at least) 20% more cards to begin your turn with. The biggest drawback of this is probably the "once per turn and Horse Trader" part. Given, that your opponent(s) play more than one attack per turn, HT reaction is still very good, because it's more likely to pair your HT with an actual attack, but it also only defends against ONE attack per turn. I feel like this bonus is pretty nice and totally not ignorable.

However, the action part is still better, since one extra card is just the card you would have drawn if you did not buy a HT at all. Without any use for HT itself, this would be not good at all.

The best thing about HT is, that it's reaction part actually helps it's action part a lot:
HT+Silver+xyz >= $5,
HT+Gold+xyz >= $6
Getting an extra card raises the odds of pairing Silver + HT or Gold+ HT.

[dondon151]

The best thing about HT is, that it's reaction part actually helps it's action part a lot:
HT+Silver+xyz >= $5,
HT+Gold+xyz >= $6
Getting an extra card raises the odds of pairing Silver + HT or Gold+ HT.

This isn't actually a huge consideration since usually xyz contains some number of Copper.

[Gherald]

One copper in "xyz" will help you reach or in the same scenarios, so that's nice.

But usually at least one of the remaining two "xyz" is a copper. If you discard only one non-copper with HT, it's the equivalent of a terminal silver which also discarded a junk card for + and gave a buy. Nothing glorious, but as we know often something you want 1 of in your deck, if only for the buy and possibly the reaction

[jomini]

I love this card, but don't forget: it's terminal. So the combos with Minion and/or Menagerie will absolutely require an investment in villages. The combos with Watchtower and Library are probably not worth it, unless there's something like Fishing Village or Squire/Hamlet (with Hamlet/Horse Traders, watch out for overdiscarding).

Combos with Lib and Wt are very much worth it. Htr is one of those rare cards that can remove stop cards from Lib/Wt hands without putting them on deck top to draw again, or gaining more draw from them (which is already really cheap if you are drawing >4 cards per action). You can sustain a Wt engine a lot longer if you are using Htr for payload (just discard engine components to redraw later if you hit it early). If your deck needs to be workable with say 8 Fairgrounds & some duchies in it, Htr goes a long way towards keeping it humming past the stop cards and generating cash.

Yes it isn't as rock solid as a Festival/Lib setup, but then few things are and there often a lot of ways to build sub-$5 engines that don't work with more expensive options.

People very often overlook the value of controlled discarding. Yes the majority of games that ability isn't worth it, but when it is, you'd pay a lot for it.