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[AdamH]

link to poll

Give your first impressions on the new Plunder cards by rating them on a scale of 0-10 in terms of "power level" -- this poll will be open for about a week and then I'll compile the results and write a blog post reporting the results and maybe some of my opinions as well.

[trivialknot]

I haven't played with Plunder yet.  Hope you're accepting complete guesses.

[allanfieldhouse]

I haven't played with Plunder yet.  Hope you're accepting complete guesses.

If you haven't played with Plunder yet...just don't fill out the form. Seems pretty simple.

[AdamH]

The point of this is to get peoples' first impressions on the cards. If that means it's a complete guess upon reading the card one time then that's what it means. In a few months I'll do another poll, which will go into the composite stats, but I'll also write another blog post/do another podcast maybe on how things have changed after people have had some time to play with the cards.

So in my book, complete guesses are totally welcome. Don't let the upvotes dissuade you. There is so much noise and subjectivity in card ratings that a little bit of experience with the cards tends to have much less of an effect. And in the cases where it does, your complete guesses are welcome in this particular poll more than normal. The stats from the first impressions aren't included in the overall stats I keep for card power levels.

[Honkeyfresh]

Rating traits on a power rating seems kind of useless, since they re so card dependent

[GendoIkari]

Rating traits on a power rating seems kind of useless, since they re so card dependent

Technically the same can be said of a lot if not all kingdom cards, though. Might be even more true with traits than others cards, but either way you have to determine for yourself when filling out the survey "how likely" is it that the card/trait will be strong in a given kingdom.

[AdamH]

I personally didn't rate the traits because I couldn't think of a super consistent way in my mind to do it. A similar thing with Allies. The poll states that you can pick and choose what you rate and what you don't (I didn't rate Tournament and Black Market because they've been on my banlist since I started playing so I don't have enough experience with the cards).

But there's no harm in putting them on the poll, letting people select a number, and putting those numbers in my spreadsheet. I don't intend to make any comments or conclusions from those numbers, but some people will be happy that those numbers are there so I put them in the poll.

[Honkeyfresh]

I personally didn't rate the traits because I couldn't think of a super consistent way in my mind to do it. A similar thing with Allies. The poll states that you can pick and choose what you rate and what you don't (I didn't rate Tournament and Black Market because they've been on my banlist since I started playing so I don't have enough experience with the cards).

But there's no harm in putting them on the poll, letting people select a number, and putting those numbers in my spreadsheet. I don't intend to make any comments or conclusions from those numbers, but some people will be happy that those numbers are there so I put them in the poll.

I basically went with how excited or non-plussed do I feel when I see the trait on the board.

One thing I was surprised to see a few games back was that you can also have 2 traits in the same game.  Not sure if or how this would affect voting, but I found it interesting.

[AdamH]

The blog post is up!

https://adamhorton.com/flog/dominion-plunder-expansion-card-power-levels-first-impressions/

[Chappy77]

I agree that Rope's power level probably is more mid than we think, but it is really nice that it is a good card on almost every board.  It's in my deck frequently, which makes me like it more.

[AdamH]

I agree that Rope's power level probably is more mid than we think, but it is really nice that it is a good card on almost every board.  It's in my deck frequently, which makes me like it more.

Sure, and there's no consistent way to rate cards based on which of these things you care about more. It's part of why rating cards is hard and why the data gathered from card ratings needs to be used extremely carefully. But this isn't the place to rant about that.

[segura]

I think that the rating of Rope is correct. It is a partly delayed Market that trashes so as a non-delayed Action it would have to cost $6 (strictly better than Market as well as Junk Dealer). Being a Treasure instead of an Action and drawing next turn instead of this turn are significant drawbacks but it is nonetheless a powerhouse.
It also does two essential things for your engine which is rare in one card (Saunavanto comes to mind).

[Awaclus]

Drawing next turn instead of this turn is a significant upside.

[Honkeyfresh]

Drawing next turn instead of this turn is a significant upside.

I agree.  Starting a hand with 6 gives so many more options and often I find myself trashing the drawn card. 

It is interesting that you rated Silver Mine higher than anyone, as 7 was it's max rating.  I personally the SM is kind of blah and probably should only cost 4, though on some boards with good alt treasures it works well. I mean it's a silver usually for 5?  That said in games with unusual treasures that excel with many treasures (HOP, bank, pendant) I think it could play well.

I was surprised to see Pendant marked so low.

[Imrahil3]

I think segura was comparing Rope to Market, not generically saying that Rope would be better if it drew the card now. Rope drawing a card now can draw Actions dead; Market drawing a card now does not. A Market that drew a card next turn would be markedly worse.

Ergo, Rope is worse than Market in regards to draw, as it is delayed.

[Awaclus]

A Market that drew a card next turn would be markedly worse.

And the point is that this is not true, it would be markedly better (as long as it didn't also have the Duration type). The reason why Duration draw is not automatically stronger than regular draw is that Durations stay in play so they're effectively only half of whatever effect they give — you need to buy two of them to play one every turn. Getting the draw at the start of your turn, however, is so strong that it makes up for that -50% nerf in some cases (e.g. Stowaway is way better than Moat and you ideally want enough Barges to play at least one for the delayed draw every turn) and makes Highwayman which avoids having that nerf, albeit in an inconvenient way, a very strong $5 even though subsequent ones after the first one don't do anything special beyond being delayed Smithies.

[NoMoreFun]

I didn't get around to voting, but it's interesting how weak people are ranking Fortune Hunter.

It's very often at least a Terminal Gold and it has a few other tricks up its sleeve. It's also likely to come up in people's experiences in "extra plunder" games, giving it more Treasures to interact with. That's setting it up to be seen as very strong, and I thought Terminal Gold was already considered too good for $4. So it's very interesting that even in first impressions something similar to it in power isn't really impressing anybody.

I wonder how strong a Terminal Gold actually is.

[segura]

While terminal draw is indeed slightly better if it is delayed due to consistency increase, we have enough experience from Horses (the most clear cut example is Paddock) to know that non-terminal draw is better if it is immediate. The game has only around 15-18 turns on average, or perhaps less, so a benefit arriving one turn later (or never) matters a lot.

As Imrahil pointed out, the benchmark are Actions, i.e. an imaginary Market that voluntarily trashes.

[segura]

I didn't get around to voting, but it's interesting how weak people are ranking Fortune Hunter.

It's very often at least a Terminal Gold and it has a few other tricks up its sleeve. It's also likely to come up in people's experiences in "extra plunder" games, giving it more Treasures to interact with. That's setting it up to be seen as very strong, and I thought Terminal Gold was already considered too good for $4. So it's very interesting that even in first impressions something similar to it in power isn't really impressing anybody.

I wonder how strong a Terminal Gold actually is.

I think it is a simple matter. LastFootnote has argued that Adventurer is a $2, i.e. digging for Treasure is not better than drawing. So Fortune Hunter is similar to +2 Coins, +1 Card which is weaker than Smithy. Smithy is a strong $4, so Fortune Hunter is a weak $4.

[Jack Rudd]

I wonder how strong a Terminal Gold actually is.

Well, strictly worse than Treasurer, so it couldn't be priced at $5 or higher. Could well be in the sour spot where it's too strong at $4 and too weak at $5.

[segura]

I wonder how strong a Terminal Gold actually is.

Well, strictly worse than Treasurer, so it couldn't be priced at $5 or higher. Could well be in the sour spot where it's too strong at $4 and too weak at $5.

Well, Fortune Hunter and Gladiator indicate that a terminal Gold (something that is weaker than Smithy as pointed out above) is more of a $3.5 than a $4.5.

[NoMoreFun]

I wonder how strong a Terminal Gold actually is.

Well, strictly worse than Treasurer, so it couldn't be priced at $5 or higher. Could well be in the sour spot where it's too strong at $4 and too weak at $5.

That's what I thought, but now I'm less sure. I think we would have said the same thing about +3 Cards if Smithy didn't exist.

[Honkeyfresh]

I wonder how strong a Terminal Gold actually is.

Well, strictly worse than Treasurer, so it couldn't be priced at $5 or higher. Could well be in the sour spot where it's too strong at $4 and too weak at $5.

same with Charlatan and Legionary.
I think 4$ would be a fine valuation. Maybe call it the axeman in honor of the deprecated Woodcutter

[trivialknot]

We finally got our copy of Plunder.  We've been playing the recommended sets--mostly because it bypasses the difficulty of biasing our randomizer app towards Plunder.  Somehow we ended up playing every single recommended set that included Frigate.  I'm sure everyone already knew this, but Frigate sure seems powerful, particularly against Pickaxe and Crucible.

[segura]

I'm sure everyone already knew this, but Frigate sure seems powerful, particularly against Pickaxe and Crucible.

No. Frigate is good against draw and neither of the cards you mentioned draws.
Actually Pickaxing your stuff into Loot seems like one of the best counters against Frigate. If you cannot build that draw engine, you pack as much power as you can into your stop cards.