Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Chase Adolphson]

If there is a 7 card 7/2. Otherwise, 6/3.

[Jack Rudd]

It also might depend on just which 7-cost card is available. Forge and Expand are normally weaker than King's Court, but they're considerably stronger as turn 1 buys.

[Chase Adolphson]

If forge is in the game and you get 7/2, your third turn could be play forge, trash 3 estates and 1 curse and get a gold.

[GendoIkari]

Surely 3/3, 1/5, and 2/4 should be options as well?

[Chase Adolphson]

If there's baker prince moat and pooka, and you get the 7/2, you get a prince and a moat, and then if you get both if them on turn three, then you get a starting hand size of 7 every turn.

[humcalc216]

If there's baker prince moat and pooka, and you get the 7/2, you get a prince and a moat, and then if you get both if them on turn three, then you get a starting hand size of 7 every turn.

I had a game the other day with Prince, Baker, and Pooka.  I opened 7/2.  I chose not to open Prince because Ironworks/Tunnel/Mill/Donate was more important.  But I thought long and hard, knowing the opportunity might never come up again.

[Chase Adolphson]

I was just looking at the poll and I saw that 5/4 is winning. Why does everybody like 5/4 so much? I also noticed that I'm the only one that voted for 7/2. Opening with a 7 card is really good.

[samath]

7-cost cards are pretty rare, though. My main frustration with the 7-2 is that there's often a 5-cost card I'd love to open with, but then that means I'm playing the Cursed Gold as essentially Cursed Copper. That's totally the right move given the board, but it still means I'd prefer to have 6-3 or 5-4 and the chance to get a better card on my other initial turn.

[michaeljb]

I was just looking at the poll and I saw that 5/4 is winning. Why does everybody like 5/4 so much? I also noticed that I'm the only one that voted for 7/2. Opening with a 7 card is really good.

There are only 4 kingdom cards, and not that many at . If you opened / on every Cursed Gold board, you'd spend a decent amount of those hands buying a er anyway, and you're a lot more likely to be locked out of other decent options on your second hand with than you are with .

[faust]

Surely 3/3, 1/5, and 2/4 should be options as well?

It definitely matters where your Cursed Gold is. If not playing the Cursed Gold, I think 3/3 is best - 1/5 allows you to open a power $5, but you can still do that with 3/3 if you play the Cursed Gold if you really need it.

[Cave-o-sapien]

Given that it's often correct to not use the Cursed Gold, I vote for 6/3 so you have the 3/3 option.

[Awaclus]

Getting the Curse on the first shuffle is super bad.

To illustrate the point, if you play Cursed Gold to reach for Ill-Gotten Gains, you junk both players with a Curse and you also get a glorified Copper, which is basically just worse than not doing anything at all. Or if you play CG to reach for Lab, that's also worse than not doing anything at all because if you play the Lab and draw a Curse, that's the same as not having either card, but if you have the Curse in hand and Lab misses the shuffle, that's worse. Granted, IGG and Lab aren't exactly power cards to open with anyway, but sometimes you're pretty happy to open them on a regular 5/2 when there's nothing more important on the board.

So, if skipping your turn is better than reaching for Lab or IGG, buying something useful for $3 is probably better than reaching for any $5.

[O]

There's a 5$ thats very frequently worth grabbing the curse for on Cursed Gold boards in every game.

[faust]

Getting the Curse on the first shuffle is super bad.

To illustrate the point, if you play Cursed Gold to reach for Ill-Gotten Gains, you junk both players with a Curse and you also get a glorified Copper, which is basically just worse than not doing anything at all. Or if you play CG to reach for Lab, that's also worse than not doing anything at all because if you play the Lab and draw a Curse, that's the same as not having either card, but if you have the Curse in hand and Lab misses the shuffle, that's worse. Granted, IGG and Lab aren't exactly power cards to open with anyway, but sometimes you're pretty happy to open them on a regular 5/2 when there's nothing more important on the board.

So, if skipping your turn is better than reaching for Lab or IGG, buying something useful for $3 is probably better than reaching for any $5.

This ignores that there is always a decent $5 opening available on Cursed Gold boards: Pooka.

[4est]

There's a 5$ thats very frequently worth grabbing the curse for on Cursed Gold boards in every game.

I'm still not totally sold on taking a Curse to open Pooka.  I've had it work out a few times, but usually Pooka just doesn't work if you're opening with another Action, and with the Curse and only six initial trash targets (since you can't trash Cursed Gold), it can be tricky to line up with Coppers.  Pooka can trigger unfortunate shuffles, and it loses its utility rapidly as you start buying other things.  It's a great card to open with on paper, but it just hasn't come through often enough for me in practice.

What I'm really trying to say is I have no idea how to play Pooka. 

[Awaclus]

Getting the Curse on the first shuffle is super bad.

To illustrate the point, if you play Cursed Gold to reach for Ill-Gotten Gains, you junk both players with a Curse and you also get a glorified Copper, which is basically just worse than not doing anything at all. Or if you play CG to reach for Lab, that's also worse than not doing anything at all because if you play the Lab and draw a Curse, that's the same as not having either card, but if you have the Curse in hand and Lab misses the shuffle, that's worse. Granted, IGG and Lab aren't exactly power cards to open with anyway, but sometimes you're pretty happy to open them on a regular 5/2 when there's nothing more important on the board.

So, if skipping your turn is better than reaching for Lab or IGG, buying something useful for $3 is probably better than reaching for any $5.

This ignores that there is always a decent $5 opening available on Cursed Gold boards: Pooka.

No, I said buying something useful for $3 is probably better than reaching for any $5, which includes Pooka (one of the strongest $5s).

[Kirian]

Getting the Curse on the first shuffle is super bad.

To illustrate the point, if you play Cursed Gold to reach for Ill-Gotten Gains, you junk both players with a Curse and you also get a glorified Copper, which is basically just worse than not doing anything at all. Or if you play CG to reach for Lab, that's also worse than not doing anything at all because if you play the Lab and draw a Curse, that's the same as not having either card, but if you have the Curse in hand and Lab misses the shuffle, that's worse. Granted, IGG and Lab aren't exactly power cards to open with anyway, but sometimes you're pretty happy to open them on a regular 5/2 when there's nothing more important on the board.

So, if skipping your turn is better than reaching for Lab or IGG, buying something useful for $3 is probably better than reaching for any $5.

What about reaching for a power $6?  Artisan with spammable $5s on the board, Border Village for a $5, Hireling or Altar?

[Awaclus]

Getting the Curse on the first shuffle is super bad.

To illustrate the point, if you play Cursed Gold to reach for Ill-Gotten Gains, you junk both players with a Curse and you also get a glorified Copper, which is basically just worse than not doing anything at all. Or if you play CG to reach for Lab, that's also worse than not doing anything at all because if you play the Lab and draw a Curse, that's the same as not having either card, but if you have the Curse in hand and Lab misses the shuffle, that's worse. Granted, IGG and Lab aren't exactly power cards to open with anyway, but sometimes you're pretty happy to open them on a regular 5/2 when there's nothing more important on the board.

So, if skipping your turn is better than reaching for Lab or IGG, buying something useful for $3 is probably better than reaching for any $5.

What about reaching for a power $6?  Artisan with spammable $5s on the board, Border Village for a $5, Hireling or Altar?

Hireling is actually a really inefficient card that you should avoid in most games regardless of Cursed Gold, and Border Village doesn't make much of a difference until later. For Altar and Artisan, it's not so obvious. Powerful (and spammable) $5s is one factor that makes them more attractive, nonterminal cycling/trashing or Gear for $3 is another.

[terminalCopper]

It‘s true that the difference between the card you can gain using CG and the one you can afford without has to be really huge to compensate for the curse. That being said, the single most relevant situation is when you can grab a good trasher with CG, but not without it.

[Commodore Chuckles]

There's a 5$ thats very frequently worth grabbing the curse for on Cursed Gold boards in every game.

I'm still not totally sold on taking a Curse to open Pooka.  I've had it work out a few times, but usually Pooka just doesn't work if you're opening with another Action, and with the Curse and only six initial trash targets (since you can't trash Cursed Gold), it can be tricky to line up with Coppers.  Pooka can trigger unfortunate shuffles, and it loses its utility rapidly as you start buying other things.  It's a great card to open with on paper, but it just hasn't come through often enough for me in practice.

What I'm really trying to say is I have no idea how to play Pooka.

The Cursed Gold is a trap. You should almost never open Pooka. You'll just draw all your other early buys dead. The amount of $ you actually draw will also disappoint more often than not, due to the aforementioned dead draws as well as the fact that you're trashing your treasures while keeping your dead cards (4 of them thanks to the Curse.)

Pooka can be pretty good, but only if you buy it later after you have solid +action support.

[Awaclus]

That being said, the single most relevant situation is when you can grab a good trasher with CG, but not without it.

I don't think that's good enough. If you grab economy that lets you buy the trasher on the second shuffle without CG, you're delaying the trashing by one shuffle. If you grab a Curse, that makes it effectively so that you're delaying the trashing by one shuffle too, except you won't have the aforementioned economy in your deck.

Pooka can be pretty good, but only if you buy it later after you have solid +action support.

Well, that's not true either. You should have Pooka before you have "solid +action support", because the main advantage of Pooka is that it makes you go through your deck super fast and that's actually a big deal and you want it as early as you can within reason (i.e. without putting a Curse into your deck t1). If you draw some of your Action cards dead, that's fine.

[Commodore Chuckles]

Pooka can be pretty good, but only if you buy it later after you have solid +action support.

Well, that's not true either. You should have Pooka before you have "solid +action support", because the main advantage of Pooka is that it makes you go through your deck super fast and that's actually a big deal and you want it as early as you can within reason (i.e. without putting a Curse into your deck t1). If you draw some of your Action cards dead, that's fine.

What.

Drawing your action cards dead is, in fact, super bad. And the whole point of going through your deck fast is so that you can play your buys earlier... which you can't, because you're drawing them dead.

[O]

If you draw an action dead, but drew a bunch of cards, trashed a copper, and set yourself up for a reshuffle at the end of the turn anyways -- IE played pooka on turn 3 -- drawing the action dead really isn't that awful then.

It's pretty kingdom dependent frankly on whether the first shuffle pooka is worth it. Certainly if you have no method of trashing the curse I would say it's almost always not.

[crj]

Surely, when deciding whether or not to play Cursed Gold,  how strong the available trashing is matters at least as much as what expensive power cards are available?

I used Cursed Gold to open Wharf/Monastery last night; the Curse was a brief and minor inconvenience.

[markusin]

It seems only natural that, on everything but the most money-back boards, you would spend Cursed Gold to open with any general purpose trasher that trashes one or more cards per shuffle, for example Upgrade, Sentry, and Remake. Gaining the Curse slows down your thinning by one card, but so does not getting the trasher before the first reshuffle. Trashing two cards with Sentry or Remake before the second reshuffle already more than offsets the Curse. Consider that you have less starting Copper economy with Cursed Gold, so there is a higher chance that you won't be able to afford the trasher even before the second reshuffle (without spending Cursed Gold).

A similar principle applies when using Cursed Gold to open with a guaranteed junker. Opening Silver/Witch (with Cursed Gold)/Silver/Silver against an opening of Silver/Silver/Witch/Silver leaves both decks at about the same state by the second reshuffle, but the big difference is that the player who spend Cursed Gold to open Witch before the first reshuffle is guaranteed to have a Witch in their deck by the second reshuffle with only one curse in deck, whereas opening Silver/Silver leaves room to miss $5 without needing to spend Cursed Gold during the second shuffle, ending up with two curses by the end of the second reshuffle unless the other player had Witch drawn on Turn 5.

Trashers that only trash your treasure economy source like Pooka and Spice Merchant are a harder sell for using Cursed Gold in the opening. You have to be aware that you with be losing more and more of your economy each turn, and it's pretty slow to replace Copper with a Silver or a similar stop card that results in your deck not getting any thinner. Getting more cantrip +$1 while cycling is kinda cool, but trashing a Copper with say Pooka to get one of those is not going to increase your deck's total spending power, so you probably want to be trashing more than one card per shuffle or even turn or else getting a net increase in your total spending power.

Any card that does a good job of bootstrapping your deck's economy quickly, including through remodeling Cursed Gold, should be strongly considered for an opening Cursed Gold use, even if there is no Curse/Estate trashing (Pooka is always there for treasure trashing), because you are going to have a sucky economy for longer than usual if you don't spend the Cursed Gold that replaced a Copper. Artisan comes to mind as a good opening with Cursed Gold when the cards it gains are stackable.

Any card that provides both trashing and economy should be seriously considered to open with using Cursed Gold. Upgrade, Trading Post, Altar, Forge, and Remake all fit this bill.

[Chase Adolphson]

Getting the Curse on the first shuffle is super bad.

To illustrate the point, if you play Cursed Gold to reach for Ill-Gotten Gains, you junk both players with a Curse and you also get a glorified Copper, which is basically just worse than not doing anything at all. Or if you play CG to reach for Lab, that's also worse than not doing anything at all because if you play the Lab and draw a Curse, that's the same as not having either card, but if you have the Curse in hand and Lab misses the shuffle, that's worse. Granted, IGG and Lab aren't exactly power cards to open with anyway, but sometimes you're pretty happy to open them on a regular 5/2 when there's nothing more important on the board.

So, if skipping your turn is better than reaching for Lab or IGG, buying something useful for $3 is probably better than reaching for any $5.

What about reaching for a power $6?  Artisan with spammable $5s on the board, Border Village for a $5, Hireling or Altar?

Hireling is actually a really inefficient card that you should avoid in most games regardless of Cursed Gold, and Border Village doesn't make much of a difference until later. For Altar and Artisan, it's not so obvious. Powerful (and spammable) $5s is one factor that makes them more attractive, nonterminal cycling/trashing or Gear for $3 is another.

Hireling would be one of the strongest cursed gold openings.

[ConMan]

Getting the Curse on the first shuffle is super bad.

To illustrate the point, if you play Cursed Gold to reach for Ill-Gotten Gains, you junk both players with a Curse and you also get a glorified Copper, which is basically just worse than not doing anything at all. Or if you play CG to reach for Lab, that's also worse than not doing anything at all because if you play the Lab and draw a Curse, that's the same as not having either card, but if you have the Curse in hand and Lab misses the shuffle, that's worse. Granted, IGG and Lab aren't exactly power cards to open with anyway, but sometimes you're pretty happy to open them on a regular 5/2 when there's nothing more important on the board.

So, if skipping your turn is better than reaching for Lab or IGG, buying something useful for $3 is probably better than reaching for any $5.

What about reaching for a power $6?  Artisan with spammable $5s on the board, Border Village for a $5, Hireling or Altar?

Hireling is actually a really inefficient card that you should avoid in most games regardless of Cursed Gold, and Border Village doesn't make much of a difference until later. For Altar and Artisan, it's not so obvious. Powerful (and spammable) $5s is one factor that makes them more attractive, nonterminal cycling/trashing or Gear for $3 is another.

Hireling would be one of the strongest cursed gold openings.

Probably not that strong, especially in the absence of trashing. Assuming that you haven't got an engine going, then once per shuffle the Hireling's extra card draw is exactly cancelled out by the junk card in your deck (and if you never play the Cursed Gold again, you technically have two junk cards in your deck, so you can raise that to twice per shuffle).

[O]

Getting the Curse on the first shuffle is super bad.

To illustrate the point, if you play Cursed Gold to reach for Ill-Gotten Gains, you junk both players with a Curse and you also get a glorified Copper, which is basically just worse than not doing anything at all. Or if you play CG to reach for Lab, that's also worse than not doing anything at all because if you play the Lab and draw a Curse, that's the same as not having either card, but if you have the Curse in hand and Lab misses the shuffle, that's worse. Granted, IGG and Lab aren't exactly power cards to open with anyway, but sometimes you're pretty happy to open them on a regular 5/2 when there's nothing more important on the board.

So, if skipping your turn is better than reaching for Lab or IGG, buying something useful for $3 is probably better than reaching for any $5.

What about reaching for a power $6?  Artisan with spammable $5s on the board, Border Village for a $5, Hireling or Altar?

Hireling is actually a really inefficient card that you should avoid in most games regardless of Cursed Gold, and Border Village doesn't make much of a difference until later. For Altar and Artisan, it's not so obvious. Powerful (and spammable) $5s is one factor that makes them more attractive, nonterminal cycling/trashing or Gear for $3 is another.

Hireling would be one of the strongest cursed gold openings.

Probably not that strong, especially in the absence of trashing. Assuming that you haven't got an engine going, then once per shuffle the Hireling's extra card draw is exactly cancelled out by the junk card in your deck (and if you never play the Cursed Gold again, you technically have two junk cards in your deck, so you can raise that to twice per shuffle).

The cursed gold is in your deck regardless.

[weesh]

Hireling would be one of the strongest cursed gold openings.

Probably not that strong, especially in the absence of trashing. Assuming that you haven't got an engine going, then once per shuffle the Hireling's extra card draw is exactly cancelled out by the junk card in your deck (and if you never play the Cursed Gold again, you technically have two junk cards in your deck, so you can raise that to twice per shuffle).

Let's assume there is trashing. 
Is the hireling still weak?  In the early phases of the game, the hireling will draw you ~2 cards per shuffle, and there is still only 1 curse per shuffle.  and hireling will increase the odds of a quick collision of your trasher with the junk cards, and not require an action to do so like terminal draw would.  Depending on the kingdom, seems like that could be a strong option.  What am I missing?

[Awaclus]

Certainly if you have no method of trashing the curse I would say it's almost always not.

And if you do have a method of trashing the Curse, you want two of those methods in your deck before the second shuffle so you can get rid of your Estates.

What.

Drawing your action cards dead is, in fact, super bad. And the whole point of going through your deck fast is so that you can play your buys earlier... which you can't, because you're drawing them dead.

That's not how it works. This is just the same thing as Tribute — it isn't an attack because the odds and negative effects of skipping a good card are cancelled out by the odds and benefits of skipping bad cards and getting to the good cards faster. The fact that you're cycling your deck though does make you draw your good cards (most importantly the Pooka itself) more often and so does trashing Coppers.

Hireling would be one of the strongest cursed gold openings.

It would be if it was a good card at all in the first place, but it isn't.

[pacovf]

What.

Drawing your action cards dead is, in fact, super bad. And the whole point of going through your deck fast is so that you can play your buys earlier... which you can't, because you're drawing them dead.

That's not how it works. This is just the same thing as Tribute — it isn't an attack because the odds and negative effects of skipping a good card are cancelled out by the odds and benefits of skipping bad cards and getting to the good cards faster. The fact that you're cycling your deck though does make you draw your good cards (most importantly the Pooka itself) more often and so does trashing Coppers.

It only makes you draw your Pooka more often because you are guaranteed to not draw it dead (and still, you would have to consider the increased chance of it missing the shuffle). You won't be playing any other card more often, assuming you are using Pooka for dead draw. Well, technically cards you buy will be shuffled into your deck sooner, but the frequency with which you will see them won't increase past that.

[Awaclus]

Well, technically cards you buy will be shuffled into your deck sooner

Exactly.

[pacovf]

Ok. But then say you are seeing your good cards sooner, not more often.

[ackmondual]

7-cost cards are pretty rare, though. My main frustration with the 7-2 is that there's often a 5-cost card I'd love to open with, but then that means I'm playing the Cursed Gold as essentially Cursed Copper. That's totally the right move given the board, but it still means I'd prefer to have 6-3 or 5-4 and the chance to get a better card on my other initial turn.

Inheritance FTW 

[ConMan]

The cursed gold is in your deck regardless.

That much is true, but that doesn't mean that buying the Hireling is going to be a great option. If you ignore the CG that turn and use your coins to buy Silver, you can use that towards buying the Hireling on the next shuffle, which will be of similar overall utility to doing it the other way around, but won't cost you a point. And that's assuming that Silver/Hireling is the best you can do on the board, in which case heaven help you.

[Chris is me]

Hireling kind of sucks for all the reasons mentioned, but I do want to add that Hireling gets MUCH better the earlier you play it. Playing it by the second shuffle is a lot better than playing it before the 4th or 5th.

[weesh]

The cursed gold is in your deck regardless.

That much is true, but that doesn't mean that buying the Hireling is going to be a great option. If you ignore the CG that turn and use your coins to buy Silver, you can use that towards buying the Hireling on the next shuffle, which will be of similar overall utility to doing it the other way around, but won't cost you a point. And that's assuming that Silver/Hireling is the best you can do on the board, in which case heaven help you.

Case 0: There's no decent trasher. Hireling/Silver/Curse seems good to me. Without trashing, it going to be a long time before you are reliably cycling through your whole deck, and hireling draws at least 2 cards per shuffle, giving value well in excess of the lost value due to the curse.  You want it ASAP, because silver/silver isn't going to get you to 6$ before you can get value out of the Hireling

Case 1: There's a reasonable trasher (sifter?) at 3$ or less.
Case 1a: the trasher is terminal. I can see being underwhelmed by hireling/trasher.
Case 1b: the trasher is non-terminal. hireling/trasher/curse seems way stronger than silver/trasher.  Because neither silver/silver, nor silver/trasher are going to get you to 6$ very fast if you are intent on treating cursed gold as dead.

Case 2: There's a trasher at 4-6$.
Case 2a: if the trasher is strong, trasher/silver/curse is probably better than hireling/silver/curse
Case 2b: if the trasher is slow but reasonable, trasher/silver/curse feels bad, but hireling/silver/curse will probably be worse.  Even silver/silver beats those.

So basically, hireling is going to be satisfying if there is no good trasher at all, or if there is a good cheap non-terminal trasher like forager.
There might be as many as 10 cards that make the hireling good, and maybe 16 good trashers that are better than hireling, and maybe a handful of other non-trashers that make up for adding a curse to your deck.

The default case 0 is that hireling is good and reasonable!
How many exceptions are there?
maybe there are 20 trashers that support the trasher/silver and trasher/silver/curse openings...
maybe there are 15 (spitball!) non-trashing 4+$ cards that are worth the curse MORE than hireling is. 
How often is one of those 35 cards, out of about 300, in a kingdom where only 8 kingdom cards are up for grabs after pooka/hireling?

odds of none of the 35: (265/300 * 264/299 * 263/298 .... ) = 36.6%
So more than a third of the time that hireling/pooka are together, hireling will be strongly viable on a 6/3 split.

Alright, what did I fuck up?

[Chase Adolphson]

Certainly if you have no method of trashing the curse I would say it's almost always not.

And if you do have a method of trashing the Curse, you want two of those methods in your deck before the second shuffle so you can get rid of your Estates.

What.

Drawing your action cards dead is, in fact, super bad. And the whole point of going through your deck fast is so that you can play your buys earlier... which you can't, because you're drawing them dead.

That's not how it works. This is just the same thing as Tribute — it isn't an attack because the odds and negative effects of skipping a good card are cancelled out by the odds and benefits of skipping bad cards and getting to the good cards faster. The fact that you're cycling your deck though does make you draw your good cards (most importantly the Pooka itself) more often and so does trashing Coppers.

Hireling would be one of the strongest cursed gold openings.

It would be if it was a good card at all in the first place, but it isn't.

WHAT!!!!!!!! Hireling is awesome

[Awaclus]

Certainly if you have no method of trashing the curse I would say it's almost always not.

And if you do have a method of trashing the Curse, you want two of those methods in your deck before the second shuffle so you can get rid of your Estates.

What.

Drawing your action cards dead is, in fact, super bad. And the whole point of going through your deck fast is so that you can play your buys earlier... which you can't, because you're drawing them dead.

That's not how it works. This is just the same thing as Tribute — it isn't an attack because the odds and negative effects of skipping a good card are cancelled out by the odds and benefits of skipping bad cards and getting to the good cards faster. The fact that you're cycling your deck though does make you draw your good cards (most importantly the Pooka itself) more often and so does trashing Coppers.

Hireling would be one of the strongest cursed gold openings.

It would be if it was a good card at all in the first place, but it isn't.

WHAT!!!!!!!! Hireling is awesome

No it's not, it's a slow Lab that costs $6.

[jomini]

7-cost cards are pretty rare, though. My main frustration with the 7-2 is that there's often a 5-cost card I'd love to open with, but then that means I'm playing the Cursed Gold as essentially Cursed Copper. That's totally the right move given the board, but it still means I'd prefer to have 6-3 or 5-4 and the chance to get a better card on my other initial turn.

Inheritance FTW 

Inheritance is terribly overpowered at the start. Take Trade as a baseline - killing two estates for $3s is costed at $5 + something for aligning your junk with $5.  A 7/2 here is trading netting three $4 and trashing 2 junk cards. Every time this has come up my opponent has gotten the $7 and this basically a gift of around three free turns - particularly as half the time they will also get killer T2s. For example Ironmonger lets you open $7/8, Caravan lets you open $7/5/9 (needs a useful terminal silver $5), and even Pawn lets you hit $7/6 and cycle through all but two cards. There are extremely few cases where $7/2 Inheritance opening is worth less than three free turns. I do not think there is a generally more powerful opening in the game (edge cases like Ball (Lurker x2) -> Donate -> Possession being stronger but being exceedingly rare).

[Cave-o-sapien]

No it's not, it's a slow Lab that costs $6.

It's still slow and expensive (which makes it slower), but it's a Lab that you're guaranteed to draw every turn.

It certainly doesn't compare very favorably to Den of Sin.