Alright, now let's investigate the Finalists in a few different kingdoms. Randomly generated with 9 official cards (excluding 1st edition removals) and up to 2 landscapes.
Kingdom 1Merchant Camp, Enchantress, Acting Troupe, Landing Party, Recruiter, Haunted Woods, Guild Master, Cursed Village, Crown, Fellowship of Scribes, Way of the Chameleon, Fountain.
A lot of good things here, but no gainers or +Buy is a big limitation. In particular Fountain is shut down, especially if you trash Coppers with Recruiter. So this will probably be a Province rush using Recruiter, Haunted Woods, and Gold. There will be little room to use anything else. Interestingly, all the Finalists add extra gains, but no extra Buys.
Horse Lord competes directly with Crown. Horse Lord helps you cycle through your deck to your key cards or provides Recruiter fuel, while Crown paired with Gold is most of a Province. I kind of prefer Horse Lord to keep getting to my Haunted Woods, and you have the option of topdecking Horse to counter the opponent's Haunted Woods. That said, it may be tricky to find a time to buy Crown or Horse Lord here when Recruiter, Haunted Woods, and Gold take precedence.
Portorosso's Villagers get overshadowed by Recruiter unless you have more than a couple Action cards, and you probably won't have time to accumulate lots of Action cards. Likewise, you won't have time to get multiple copies of Portorosso, and you probably can't wait for 2 Seafolk to collide with your Portorosso.
Artifact Dealer allowing an extra Action gain could be decently strong. You still have to collide it with Forgery or Gold, but Recruiter can help with that. When paired with Forgery I probably gain and play Enchantress, and with Gold I probably gain and play Haunted Woods, unless it's my last turn. I don't think I would get Artifact Dealer before Gold, but I probably get it before Haunted Woods. It can also gain fuel to feed to Recruiter and support more Action cards, which is useful if the game goes into Duchy dancing.
Magi Workshop hurts your ability to get Recruiter, which is the main thing to be doing turn 3 and 4. There isn't a lot of draw midgame, so it is easy to get the Horse, but Imps probably won't be gained. Will-o'-Wisps are useful but have a high opportunity cost given how good Coppers are here, and that hinders Spoils gaining too. I just don't see Magi Workshop working here.
Kingdom 2Poor House, Supplies, Guardian, Wizards, Ghost Town, Clashes, Remake, Blessed Village, Displace, Family of Inventors Desperation, Commerce.
Some brutal attacks that can be countered by Guardian. Early access to Gold with Desperation + Commerce, but Remake, Battle Plan, and Student are probably higher priorities. Poor House is normally bad for Remake, but Family of Inventors can disable the gain. While there are multiple gains, there is still no +Buy (I swear I'm doing this randomly). Lich when-trash is only useful if you use Family of Inventors on the Wizards. Displace alternating between Territory and Province could be a good source of VP, although that can be disrupted with Family of Inventors. (I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many Family of Inventors interactions.)
Horse Lord can use Horses from Supplies or double Battle Plan or Displace. It's mostly an expensive Throne Room with a dud consolidation here, which can still be nice.
Portorosso has some cheaper alternatives for Villages. Villagers are usually good dud insurance, but there's no terminal draw, and Ghost Town can also help avoid duds. Gold could be nice here with Displace, but I kind of like the Province & Territory combo, and either way, Family of inventors can ruin things.
Artifact Dealer is quite nice here. Gold can be made cheaper by Family of Inventors, but not Forgery. Blessed Village is a good target, as well as Battle Plan and Warlord (if it is cheap enough). Limited draw means the two card combo is a downside, but early trashing with Student and/or Remake can help.
Magi Workshop might pair nicely with Student. You could get your draw from Will-o'-Wisps, Horses, and eventually Imps. Except for Overlord, which locks you out of the Imp requirement. You can counter with Guardian, but that locks you out of Will-o’-Wisp gaining next turn. I think Battle Plan and control of the Clashes is more important early on.
Kingdom 3Hermit, Villa, Trail, Mastermind, Livery, First Mate, Crypt, Apprentice, Wayfarer, Way of the Sheep.
A kingdom with strong draw, trashing, and +Buy. No Attacks or alt-VP, so you have to move quickly. Hermit has no extra cards costing up to $3, so I might skip it in favor of Apprentice, especially with the Trail combo. Livery is nice payload paired with Villa. The next cycle Villas’ +Buys can get Trails played as WotSheep. And Crypt can help keep Coppers away. The only thing missing is a solid opening buy, although there’s always Silver, and on 4/3 maybe you open Trail and trigger an early reshuffle.
Livery is a powerhouse Horse gainer, and Mastermind makes exceptional use of those Horses, so I think
Horse Lord gets edged out here.
Villa diminishes the value of Villagers, and Livery is better payload than Gold, so I don’t think
Portorosso has a place here.
Artifact Dealer paired with Forgery isn’t that great here. Trail already plays itself, and it can’t play Villa (which has the same timing as
Siren, while Artifact Dealer has the same timing as Spell Scroll), although you can still play the Villa later. Artifact Dealer paired with Gold has far more options, but you have to get the Gold separately. Still, the kingdom has a lot of draw, so I think there’s room to play with Artifact Dealer here.
While there is no alternative $4 opener to compete with
Magi Workshop, I think I want to do everything possible to afford either Apprentice or Livery turn 3 or 4. Plus draw from Will-o’-Wisp and Imp gets edged out here. Crypt removing Coppers from play can enable the Will-o’-Wisp and Spoils gain, so picking this up in the mid-late game could provide a slight benefit, although I think just getting another Livery probably outscales that.
Kingdom 4Squire, Bauble, Taskmaster, Enchantress, Swamp Shacks, Fortune Hunter, Livery, Crew, Possession, Architects’ Guild.
No trashing, but it’s still possible to build a deck that can draw itself and play Possession each turn (thank goodness it’s only one Possession per turn now). Possession shuts off Taskmaster, eats up Enchantress draw, and uses previously gained Horses. But on a Possessed turn the opponent doesn’t actually gain cards, so Favors can’t be used up, and Livery can’t gain Horses for anyone. The question is if you can get enough Provinces before a Possession opponent can set up.
Once again,
Horse Lord must compete with Livery, although this time Livery isn’t as good as before with the lack of exceptional $4 gains. If you think the opponent may Possess you soon, using the Horse gain option isn’t great.
Possession messes with
Portorosso’s Villagers and existing Seafolk. However, Seafolk and Gold gained on a Possessed turn go directly to their discard, making a Portorosso a Necropolis on a Possessed turn. Especially when paired with only a couple of Crew, this could be a decent but expensive defense against Possession. Possession aside, Also, Squire is a cheap alternative Village, and a Livery Horse can provide the draw needed to get to your Crew.
A possessed
Artifact Dealer can’t play the Action gained, limiting its effectiveness. Meanwhile, on your own turn, you could gain Swamp Shack for guaranteed draw. But the lack of trashing means combo cards like Artifact Dealer / Forgery, and Swamp Shack / Swamp Shack are pretty ineffective. Swamp shack could be boosted by Taskmaster and Enchantress, but those are already vulnerable to Possession.
Lack of trashing and reusable non-terminal draw, paired with the low cost Squire are great conditions for
Magi Workshop. You delay Livery, but that’s probably fine here, given the lack of spamable $4s. Bauble can topdeck Horse and later Imp, but never Spoils and Will-o’-Wisp. Horse and Spoils are vulnerable to Possession, but you probably just don’t get those later in the game.
Kingdom 5The previous kingdoms were randomly dominated by game-warping cards (Recruiter, Clashes, Livery, and Possession). So now lets get one final kingdom without any of the cards previously selected. I was planning on re-rolling any other powerful cards, but I didn’t really get any here.
Settlers, Shanty Town, Marauder, Baron, Wheelwright, Mystic, Mint, Jester, Bank, Barracks, Tireless (on Wheelwright)
Mint is the only trashing, and there’s also not a lot of draw. Marauder has a chance to shine here. Tireless makes Wheelwright the target for Jester and Mystic. Barracks probably gets some use since Ruins don’t play nice with Shanty Town, although Bustling Village might show up later on. Baron or Ruined Market is +Buy. Not a lot of draw options.
Horse Lord providing the only guaranteed draw makes it pretty valuable here. I probably get it early on to set up for Mint trashing and then transition to Wheelwright + Mystic.
Portorosso’s Villagers work well with all the Ruins. Seafolk could also be a defense against Jester if you don’t have Wheelwright. The endgame could just be Gold into Province, but I kind of like Wheelwright + Mystic better.
Artifact Dealer is hurt by the lack of trashing and draw. Plus there aren’t really any spamable cards costing up to $4. Wheelwright can more reliably gain $5s, and Jester can gain Wheelwrights if the other player is using them.
The kingdom’s lack of draw and trashing is nice for
Magi Workshop, and once again the non-Supply piles are a deterrent for Jester. It competes with Marauder in the opening, but I value Spoils + Horse + Will-o’-Wisp more than Spoils + maybe a Shanty Town + Ruins to Opponent. It’s also safe to open with Shanty Town as guaranteed draw.
ResultsMagi Workshop with Spoils and Horse by anordinaryman: Honorable Mention
It’s really good when the kingdom lacks reasonable draw or trashing, but that is rare. Usually there is a $4 card you want to use more in the opening, or a $5 card you want to afford turn 3 or 4. And other sources of draw don’t have such a high opportunity cost. My suggestion would be to limit the card to 3 gains, eliminating the Horse gain. This has a thematic connection to the 3 gifts of the wisemen, and it frees up space to add something like “For the rest of this turn, when you gain a card, set it aside and put it into your hand at end of turn.” That’s even more wordy, but it doubles down on draw being the benefit of Magi Workshop, and you see the benefit of your sacrificed turn much earlier.
Horse Lord with Horse by NoMoreFun: 3rd Place
Not a lot to say here. Often I’m paying for a Specialist just for the Throne Room effect, so $5 Throne Rooms are perfectly reasonable. Horse gaining is a nice side hustle. Draw is powerful, so this is valuable in kingdoms without draw, although that doesn’t make me less sad that I have to pay $5 for it, and I have to be careful that simple big money doesn’t beat out whatever I’m trying to do.
Portorosso with Seafolk by emtzalex: 2nd Place
I really liked the theme of this one, but it just didn’t fit with most of the randomly generated kingdoms. It goes back to that Renaissance Secret History; cantrip villager at $5 is a hard concept to make work. Usually there are cheaper alternatives for Villages or better payload than delayed Gold, even when gained to the hand.
Artifact Dealer with Forgery by 4est: Winner
It’s very dependent on the rest of the kingdom, but as a gainer that comes with the territory. It was able to stay relevant in kingdoms with powerhouse cards like Recruiter and Possession. I kind of still wish that Forgery did more than just Copper, but it’s in the name, and the interaction with Artifact Dealer is more than enough to keep it interesting.