Capitalism + Mandarin/Mint
In Capitalism, all your Monuments are Plunder. Mandarins love Plunder, while Mints prefer to trash it.
I am not sure I follow you.
Capitalism/Mint allows you to get expensive cards (e.g. $5/6) from playing a single action. Terminal $6 gainer? You mean like Artisan without the top deck penalty? Totally worth it.
Mandarin/Capitalism? Okay so say I use something like Haven or Gear to make a hand of 3 Sacred groves/Silver/Copper. I then buy Mandarin (topping deck them all) and having $8 left for province. Or do 5 Groves for colony. Each turn I top deck all the Groves after buying a Mandarin. There are many, many potential Golden Decks with Capitalism/Mandarin. Things like Haggler/Mandarin or Courtier/Mandarin become easy Golden Decks with Capitalism.
Why exactly do you think these things are bad?
Pretty sure he's talking about the on-gain abilities. When you buy Mint, you trash all your good actions.
Yes, not being a complete idiot, I understand that. How is that worse synergy than with Plat or Bank?
Has anyone ever cared that buying Mint made them trash all their Plats or Banks? I mean seriously, I cannot think of a single game where I thought I would totally buy Mint if only these expensive and high utility treasures weren't on the board.
With Capitalism it is even worse. I can play a few of the "good actions" ... just before I trip Capitalism. At most I have one turn with a dead Mint, but I can still trash coppers, use Mint as "gain a power $5", and win.
And particularly for Mandarin, again how is top decking actions bad? I have the option of spending $5 and top decking all my Bazaars? You mean I get 100% chance of hitting all my villages and zero chance of whiffing for a shuffle? Yeah, real terrible "on gain" effect. I have a dozen odd setups to make a Golden Mandarin deck. Or another fun option, gain Mandarin, gain Villa, replay all your action coins (or do it off Story or Bm).
It is like the silliness with Nights and Wandering minstrel. Yes there is a blindingly obvious negative to mixing the cards if you play poorly and just look at one interaction. But if you play well, they work amazingly well together. If Capitalism is worth buying, it is a minority of boards where Mint is not also worth buying. Mandarin is far more likely to be worth buying on Capitalism boards, particularly for the interaction between the on-gain effect and the action-treasures.
I mean seriously if Mint/Mandarin don't synergize with Capitalism and good +$ actions ... what exactly do we think they synergize with?