I'm willing to say that almost every card I ranked above Border Village on this list I would prefer to have in my deck over village+fiver.
Border Village + Torturer >> Hunting Grounds
Border Village is great with any Smithy+ card, but is especially great with Torturer. Kind of like Lost Arts, now that I think on it (no, the comparison isn't perfect).
Come on, man...
Of course this vastly depends on your deck and the fiver
I can think of 55 decks where I would want a HG instead of BV+Torturer, it depends on so much that singular examples are hardly worth talking about, which is why I'm trying not to use them. This whole thing is subjective in nature and yeah there's value in putting everybody's subjective thoughts into one big blob and looking at it -- that's why these card lists are so good. On the other hand, if everyone out there is playing Pirate Ship because it's so OP and DXV is saying "you guys, it's not that good" and winning by not buying Pirate Ship, then maybe people should think about it a little bit. Why is there this fundamental disagreement here? Maybe Pirate Ship is good and we're doing it wrong, who knows?
I don't think I'm overestimating the effect in case 1. It's a Village for $1 and no buy. That is ridiculous.
This is, like, exactly the same thing as Port, isn't it? People seem to think Port is better than I do. Hmh.
Similar, but Border Village has three advantages and one disadvantage over Port.
+ Border Village is flexible. It can gain (almost) any action card in the game or a Duchy. Port gains Port=Village.
+ Border Village gains on-gain. Port gains on-buy. There are a lot of ways to gain that don't include buying - especially at 4-cost.
+ Border Village costs more: works better with trash for benefit.
- Port costs less: easier to get villages in deck early. 3 -> 4 coins is a smaller jump than 5 -> 6 coins
Both are great cards, but I think Border Village is more powerful - independent of cost.
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You've made a very compelling argument for why Border Village is better than Port. And I agree with you, Border Village is totally better than Port. I don't think anyone would disagree with you. I brought this up because I'm trying to think of why people are rating BV so much higher than I think it should be -- what is the disconnect in our thinking that results in such a huge difference?
I should point out that all four of these things are really, really minor. I think in particular the TfB argument is given way too much credence. But none of this really pertains to how good BV is compared to other $6 cards.