Royal Galley + Groundskeeper
umm what is annoying about a +1 card/Action an +1vp bonus on the second turn?
For the first turn, it's set aside and not in play.
ah i see. I was thinking the second turn
Which is the correct way to think about it. Not the best option out there as you only have your Keeper in play every other turn ... but Rg is very good at setting up megaturns where you can bank massive points piling down the estates or even the duchies.
Crossroads + Ways. If you play your first Crossroads as a Way, you don't get +3 Actions from any of your Crossroads.
Sure, but for a lot Xroads decks you want to have extra Xroads to be sure to get the actions (e.g. for something like Bridge troll) and then you can use the others for something better (e.g. Xroads/Btroll/Mole needs to play exactly one Xroads, and then just cycles through the deck off the other Xroads until you get to the Btrolls). In any event, there are exceedingly few Ways that you will want to play before gaining the +3 Actions if you want them. E.g. Seal, Monkey, and Ox are not going to be your first Xroads play, let alone Butterfly or Horse.
Xroads is actually extremely strong with just about all the Ways and definitely better than Xroads alone. Having options on $2 cards makes them wildly better pretty much regardless of what the option is.
Distant Shores is a terrible card when Black Cat is also in the kingdom
This is rarely true. If Distant shores is good you either have a green tolerant deck (e.g. Shepherd) or, more commonly, good enough trashing to deal with incoming estates. Adding a few curses on top may well be trivial to burn off (e.g. Count, Chapel, Forge, Sauna, Donate). Likewise games with other cursers often mean that few curses are left to toss with Black cats. The draw for your opponent is annoying, but a deck that supports a lot of Bcats is likely one where they are going to draw through regardless of if you gain an estate or buy a province.
And even if the trashing is not there, Dshores is net neutral on deck quality one shuffle after you play it. Often, game is winding down as you buy it and there are likely to be few curses left regardless. Yes, if you lack curse trashing (e.g. Spice merchant) if can be hard. But if you would gamble on a duchy, you should likely gamble on a Dshore.
The real brutal attack here is Rabble. Even if you are green tolerant, you will have a lot of hands with 3 estates and no enabler.