http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/21/game-20120621-102504-53288ed1.htmlI'm not a rabid fan of Saboteur but I bet I play it more frequently than most. My effect with is considerably higher than my effect without although I am more likely to pass on the card than to take it because in general there are going to better cards on the board.
On a set with large draw and surplus actions and
especially where my opponent is likely to have the same cards as myself Saboteur can really put a game into my favor. Of course, Saboteur is relatively luck dependent although there are only corner cases where I would defer playing one in my hand with a disposable action (Farmlands boards being an example) unlike say, Swindler.
Generally speaking if I am going to play Saboteur I am going to play double Saboteur and replace any that get shot down by an opponent's Saboteur. There are a few reasons for this. One is, in order for Saboteur to really be effective it has to be hitting key cards faster than the opponent can replace them which means slogging through silvers and whatnot. Also, if a board is truly conducive to playing Saboteur then it tends to provide high draw and surplus actions so I want to throw a Saboteur in nearly every hand if at all possible. Finally, the opponent more often than not responds to a good old sabotage with his own so having more agents than him makes sure I don't get behind in the game of sabotage.
Nothing feels better in the game of sabotage than wiping out the opponents only Saboteur with your own. Second to this feeling is hitting his VP cards late game. And the next best feeling is striking a card he just bought out of supply; bonus points if it is an alternative attack card such as Mountebank as is in this example game. It's also quite the treat when the opponent's Saboteur hits a card you'd rather have trashed anyhow (such as my Moneylender after getting the needed use out of it in this game). What I'm saying is Saboteur can be a very gratifying card to play with in the right set.
Saboteur gets a bad rap because it does need a fairly narrow board to be the go to card. There are often better attacks available or better strategies in general than relying on decimating the opponent's deck. It really should only be considered in cases where there are no good means of disposing of extra actions and also when the lack of +buy means you are not seeking extra treasure in the hand. A good Saboteur game should find a winning deck's worth of cards in the trash pile, if you cannot with certainly achieve this end then do not approach Saboteur. Rarely is Saboteur going to be the card that you absolutely must buy or die. In the large majority of cases Saboteur is a deck enhancer not a crucial element of the board. However, I do believe this narrow utility has led many to forgo Saboteur altogether when it could have truly swayed the outcome of a given game.
Edit to add: Occasionally Saboteur can be an intermediate card in a game where he can be trashed for benefit courtesy of a higher priced card. In these situations the goal is to use Saboteur to slow the opponent's early engine building and then move on to your own strategy leveraging the $5 cost towards a nicer card such as Expand, Forge, Gold, Platinum, etc. The necessity of the long term high draw/surplus actions is diminished in this type of play.
