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[AdamH]

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScf1l3OO1HN80cYXR9T-Jz4jbOBjgK9DsnXQ8AITsVQHwSitA/viewform?usp=sf_link

Rate each Dominion card (or card-shaped-object) on a scale from 0-10, with 10 being the most powerful. The cost of the card, not just the effect, should be taken into account for your score. I have a few suggestions:

1. Your name is "required," you can put anything there though -- I'd prefer some username that I can recognize so that I can make sure submissions are unique. If you troll me, I reserve the right to not count your input :-P

2. You can pick and choose which cards you rate -- feel free to leave some cards blank if you don't want to rate them for whatever reason.

3. You may use whatever criteria you like for your ratings.

This may be helpful for looking up what cards do: http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Allies

This form will accept responses until March 23-24ish, 2022. After that, I'll collect the data and write up a post similar to the ones I did for the last three expansions:
http://adamhorton.com/flog/dominion-nocturne-first-impressions/
http://adamhorton.com/flog/dominion-renaissance-first-impressions/
https://adamhorton.com/flog/dominion-menagerie-expansion-first-impressions/

[BraydonM]

Rate each Dominion card (or card-shaped-object) on a scale from 0-10, with 10 being the most powerful. The cost of the card, not just the effect, should be taken into account for your score. (...) You may use whatever criteria you like for your ratings.

While Tier lists are always somewhat arbitrary the thing about this is that both a 0-10 scale and the word "powerful" are entirely subjective. What is a cards power? Does it refer to its use in an ideal situation? The floor when it is least useful? An average situation for the card? I would guess people filling these out have disagreed substantially on what power was or some didn't understand the cards because many have scores covering a full 1-10 range.

Sleigh was previously rated as one of the lowest but I've definitely won games off slay including a recent Soothsayer + Sleigh opening where I was able to put the gold gained from Soothe into my hand using sleighs reaction. No other 2 cost could have performed anywhere near as well as sleigh did in that game.

I would say if we wanted to define a relevant power metric I think the best definition would be that "the more often a player will buy a card in optimal play the more powerful it is." If you only look at ideal situations cards like Inventor and Groom are going to be the best in the game while good cards like Bauble will rate lower even though I probably buy a similar amount of Bauble and Groom since I usually use Groom as a 1 of in most boards and Bauble as a 2 of. The fact that boards such as groom + island exist raises the average times I buy groom though as I will attempt to take as many as I can get on that kind of board. This measure would average those situations out though and probably provide the most useful indication of "power" in my opinion.

As for a 1 to 10 scale I suppose you could conclude that 1 is the least powerful card and 10 the most in all of Dominion. If 1 indicated no use it would of course not describe any card.

[trivialknot]

@BraydonM,

Adam used to include guidelines for what the scores 0-10 mean, see this forum thread.  It's still arbitrary of course, but if the guidelines help, I'm sure Adam wouldn't mind anybody using them.

[Commodore Chuckles]

Are we rating the cards relative to each other or relative to all other official cards? I don't think any would be a 0 or 10 if the latter case is the scale we're using.

[Awaclus]

I would say if we wanted to define a relevant power metric I think the best definition would be that "the more often a player will buy a card in optimal play the more powerful it is." If you only look at ideal situations cards like Inventor and Groom are going to be the best in the game while good cards like Bauble will rate lower even though I probably buy a similar amount of Bauble and Groom since I usually use Groom as a 1 of in most boards and Bauble as a 2 of. The fact that boards such as groom + island exist raises the average times I buy groom though as I will attempt to take as many as I can get on that kind of board. This measure would average those situations out though and probably provide the most useful indication of "power" in my opinion.

As it turns out, we have in fact wanted to define a relevant power metric and we ultimately didn't come up with anything satisfactory, but we did establish a lot of reasons why various proposals (including this one) don't match with most players' intuitive understanding of what it means for a card to be powerful.

I guess something along the lines of "across thousands of games, how much would your rating suffer if you made all decisions as though the card didn't exist" is not unreasonably far from what most people mean when they talk about card power levels, but even that definition has problems.

[AdamH]

Are we rating the cards relative to each other or relative to all other official cards? I don't think any would be a 0 or 10 if the latter case is the scale we're using.

You're rating the cards relative to the numbers 0 and 10. Whatever you use beyond that is entirely up to you.

In my experience, even if you try to define what "good" or "powerful" means, people are going to use whatever criteria they want. That plus as Awaclus said, there are serious issues with trying to come up with a definition that holds up and is beneficial.

These ratings are mostly for fun, but can serve as a starting point for a discussion about actual Dominion cards instead of numbers if that's something people want to do.

[ehunt]

Was fun to fill this out. Big spoiler that I suspect will be consensus. I was struck by the lack of power cards in the expansion. There's a lot of cards that are quite situational, although the built-in combos mean that you will wind up going for them more if you play with more cards from this expansion.

[AdamH]

I was struck by the lack of power cards in the expansion. There's a lot of cards that are quite situational, although the built-in combos mean that you will wind up going for them more if you play with more cards from this expansion.

When I did my screamin' hott takes on the podcast I noticed that I didn't have any 10/10 ratings -- several well-deserved 9/10 cards but no tens. You could make an argument that some of the Allies could be 10/10 but like, what does that even mean?

My opinion is that power level isn't something that's super important in terms of design, but there are some things you need to be careful of when it comes to very powerful cards, especially powerful payload cards.

[Commodore Chuckles]

I gave two cards a 10:

Specialist: Seriously, this is just great. Gain a copy of a card while also playing it? When wouldn't you want this? And it's also a "village", so you'll very likely be able to play all those cards you're gaining.
Wizards: Mostly because of how hard to ignore they are. You're gonna need some sort of trasher to deal with the Curses from Sorcerer, and hey, it turns out the top card of the pile is a trasher. And a pretty good trasher too, given that it's non-terminal and that it's not so hard to trash more than one card per turn with it. Oh, and it also gives you control over the rest of pile. Basically if you don't open with it, it means you're okay with your opponent having that control and being able to lock you out of getting it later.

[BraydonM]

I was struck by the lack of power cards in the expansion. There's a lot of cards that are quite situational, although the built-in combos mean that you will wind up going for them more if you play with more cards from this expansion.

When I did my screamin' hott takes on the podcast I noticed that I didn't have any 10/10 ratings -- several well-deserved 9/10 cards but no tens. You could make an argument that some of the Allies could be 10/10 but like, what does that even mean?

My opinion is that power level isn't something that's super important in terms of design, but there are some things you need to be careful of when it comes to very powerful cards, especially powerful payload cards.

I would argue that Peaceful Cult with the right Liaison is better than Donate so there's that. There are a fair amount of times when Underling is simply not something you can pass on and still win. Also Warlord in Clash is basically a universal engine killer so that's power/

[AdamH]

I gave two cards a 10

My criteria for giving something a 10/10 goes like this:

The card warps the strategic and/or tactical landscape, causing most games to revolve around it. Ignoring or misusing the card will almost always result in a clear loss

Of course your definition may be different but that's what I use. I gave lots of 9/10 ratings (including Specialist at least, which I think is an extremely strong card, whatever that means) but I didn't see anything that fit that description. But hey I could be wrong...

[ehunt]

I gave two cards a 10

It's already clear that i undervalued Specialist .
The funniest card to rank was Gang of Pickpockets, which I gave a 0/10.

[BraydonM]

I gave two cards a 10

My criteria for giving something a 10/10 goes like this:

The card warps the strategic and/or tactical landscape, causing most games to revolve around it. Ignoring or misusing the card will almost always result in a clear loss

Of course your definition may be different but that's what I use. I gave lots of 9/10 ratings (including Specialist at least, which I think is an extremely strong card, whatever that means) but I didn't see anything that fit that description. But hey I could be wrong...

By that definition I'd argue Clash is 10/10. While the individual pieces wouldn't be universally good there isn't a realistic situation I can think of where you don't want cards from clash. This is because Archer excels on any board where Warlord doesn't and battle plan is worth taking if you're going to use either of them. Warlord hoses engines incredibly well to the point where it completely warps any would be engine board it's seen on. At its base it is essentially Den of Sin but with the slight downside of being a non-terminal action instead of a night, but then you strap on an attack that can stop even Governor from being desirable in large numbers. The only case where that might not be worth getting is on a very low power board, such as a treasure board where a player would never want to play more than 2 of an action in a turn, but in that situation Archer is extremely powerful. Targeted discard with +2 is more effective than Militia against a treasure deck as you will be able to take a gold almost any time the opponent could buy a province.

Of course there are counters the most glaring of which is knights as knights may simply trash anything in clash but that's probably the only single card that beats Warlord and you will likely want Battle Plans for your Knights deck.

There are of course possible situations where even Donate is not worth taking. For example if you have Importer with Peaceful Cult and Bounty Hunter you'd be able to trash a 3 coin starting hand and buy a Bounty Hunter leaving you with just 1 estate to exile for coins and 4 copper to exile one of which also pays out. Now obviously that is insanely unlikely but it just shows it's possible to find a board where anything isn't a guaranteed take.

The other things that have this kind of power are Ally + Liaison combinations which can be hard to evaluate but it's worth noting no Liaison on its own is a card without an ally. An ally is part of a Liaison in the same way Ruins are a part of Cultist. The difference is Allies are designed to be swapped out leading to a possible 207 effects for the 9 Liaisons. Island Folk and Underling certainly meets the criteria for 10/10 power as does Peaceful Cult with several Liaisons. Usually though they're thought of as individual pieces even though they are each essentially half a card since looking at it as 207 cards is far to exhausting.
 

[NoMoreFun]

Rating Allies could probably be done in terms of how strong they are with Importer and Underling. All the other Liaisons are arguably cards you'd buy sometimes even if the Ally sucked, but Underling doesn't really have any other purpose, and you don't need to buy an Importer for 21 of the 23 Allies.

Gang of Pickpockets can be compared to the other Allies in terms of how badly you want Favors when it's on the board.

[BraydonM]

Rating Allies could probably be done in terms of how strong they are with Importer and Underling. All the other Liaisons are arguably cards you'd buy sometimes even if the Ally sucked, but Underling doesn't really have any other purpose, and you don't need to buy an Importer for 21 of the 23 Allies.

Gang of Pickpockets can be compared to the other Allies in terms of how badly you want Favors when it's on the board.

While it may be tempting to evaluate Allies with respect to Underling as it is the most spammable card it doesn't provide an accurate picture of how useful some allies are. For instance Fellowship of Scribes isn't inherently useful with underling and you probably need a non-terminal card that will drop you to 4 in hand to make use of it at all. However with Student it allows you to draw the Student after playing letting you trash any amount of coppers in your hand plus one other card!


Similarly Plateau Shepherds is best when seen With Bauble and Decent with Sycophant but not great with other liaisons.

[Commodore Chuckles]

I rate all cards by: How ignorable is it? This gives a good gauge for Gang of Pickpockets as well as "bad" Landmarks like Wolf Den.

[AdamH]

Data has been collected and my blog post is up, go check it out!

https://adamhorton.com/flog/dominion-allies-first-impressions-results/

[Commodore Chuckles]

Things that didn't surprise me

Specialist being the highest-rated non-ally: This is just a great card. It's rare that you wouldn't want it.

Town having the lowest variance and the highest minimum: This is the sort of card that you can tell right away is good. It's useful for $ in the beginning and then becomes an important engine piece later on.

Forts having the highest variance of the non-allies: I suspect there will continue to be a lot of arguments about how good Tent is and when to go for it.

Swap having such a high variance: This seems like its usefulness depends heavily on the kingdom. I gave it a 0, not because it's completely useless but because I was only doing an inter-set comparison and this definitely seemed like the weakest card relative to its cost. It's basically a cross between Advance and Transmogrify, but it lacks the main thing that makes those two useful: the fact that they're "always there when you need them". With Swap you have to collide with a good target when you play it, which can be difficult. If you're relying on Swap to save your engine in case it duds, it seems like it would be better just to buy more villages, especially since villages are usually cheaper than Swap.

Underling having the second-lowest variance: Yeah, I mean it's okay. What else is there to say, really?

Things that did surprise me

Clashes having such a high variance: They had a high overall rating, which I agree with. But I guess a bunch of people disagreed, though?

Royal Galley doing so well: I don't know, I haven't been that impressed with this. I feel the fact that you have to wait till next turn to play the card again takes a lot of wind out of your engine. That could just be psychological, though. I acknowledge that getting draw at the start of your turn can be really really good, but having to set the card aside can also make it miss a shuffle.

[LastFootnote]

You mean it can make Royal Galley itself miss a shuffle? That’s true. But the set-aside card gets played on both turns, so I don’t think it can meaningfully “miss a shuffle”.

[Commodore Chuckles]

You mean it can make Royal Galley itself miss a shuffle? That’s true. But the set-aside card gets played on both turns, so I don’t think it can meaningfully “miss a shuffle”.

I meant that it misses a shuffle compared to what happens if you play it with Throne Room.

[Awaclus]

You mean it can make Royal Galley itself miss a shuffle? That’s true. But the set-aside card gets played on both turns, so I don’t think it can meaningfully “miss a shuffle”.

If you take another turn before reshuffling, the set-aside card gets played twice per shuffle. If you don't, it gets played once per shuffle.

[Wizard_Amul]

You mean it can make Royal Galley itself miss a shuffle? That’s true. But the set-aside card gets played on both turns, so I don’t think it can meaningfully “miss a shuffle”.

If you take another turn before reshuffling, the set-aside card gets played twice per shuffle. If you don't, it gets played once per shuffle.

The general point holds true in certain cases, though...if you can play your deck every turn, Throne Room plays a card twice every shuffle whereas Royal Galley can only play a card once every shuffle. Like you said, though, Royal Galley starts to look a lot better if you're not drawing your deck every turn. Royal Galley also has other advantages--the +1 card now, the reliability boost at the start of next turn, and two fewer cards in your deck next turn (Royal Galley and the set aside card).

[Awaclus]

The general point holds true in certain cases, though...if you can play your deck every turn, Throne Room plays a card twice every shuffle whereas Royal Galley can only play a card once every shuffle. Like you said, though, Royal Galley starts to look a lot better if you're not drawing your deck every turn. Royal Galley also has other advantages--the +1 card now, the reliability boost at the start of next turn, and two fewer cards in your deck next turn (Royal Galley and the set aside card).

Most of the time, it's better to think of it as a Caravan whose next-turn effect is a Lost City instead of a Lab. It's not at all similar to Throne Room.

[Wizard_Amul]

The general point holds true in certain cases, though...if you can play your deck every turn, Throne Room plays a card twice every shuffle whereas Royal Galley can only play a card once every shuffle. Like you said, though, Royal Galley starts to look a lot better if you're not drawing your deck every turn. Royal Galley also has other advantages--the +1 card now, the reliability boost at the start of next turn, and two fewer cards in your deck next turn (Royal Galley and the set aside card).

Most of the time, it's better to think of it as a Caravan whose next-turn effect is a Lost City instead of a Lab. It's not at all similar to Throne Room.

Hmm, I somewhat agree with that. It is pretty different from Throne Room, and maybe Caravan is generally a better comparison, at least when you get the effect off as intended--one notable difference where I think Throne Room is a closer comparison is that both Royal Galley and Throne Room require you to have another action in your hand to get the effect, whereas Caravan doesn't. That's less of an issue with Royal Galley because of the +1 card, but it's still an issue.

[BraydonM]

Not sure what could justify Townsfolk as a 9 because the best case of colliding blacksmith and elder is like colliding festival and library but without the buy. Townsfolk is pretty low power and works on boards that don’t have any particularly good combos and that’s about it.

Galleria is sometimes good but it takes a lot of things going right for me to want it. The fact that is only procs when you buy a 3-4 and you need multiple to be able to buy multiple of any other type means it’s usually worse than 3 coins and a buy which shows you it’s generally worse than sacred grove. Horse combos of course can make it a lot better but again most games don’t have horses. I had a lot of fun with it and forts on a populate board where it was insanely powerful but every card has its place to shine and that’s not happening a lot.