Highly subjective lists of the most and least fun Dominion cards to play with. To clarify, these aren't the cards that are that make for the most fun games, and absolutely have nothing to do with using great strategy. They're the cards I find most fun to actually play (or, in some cases, getting them played on you) in the moment. Heavy factors are (1) how inherently enjoyable the physical manipulation of the cards is, and (2) how the card contributes to the suspense/risk/reward of the game that makes Dominion so addicting in the first place.
I should also note that this list is about how fun the cards are to play in person rather than online. With online play, the physical manipulation of the cards doesn't come into play, and instead the fiddliness of a card has more to do with how many decisions (that is, mouse clicks) you need to make to play it. I'm not looking at that here.
Most Fun Cards
Honorary Mentions: All the Duration cards except Tactician and Outpost. I enjoy the extra flavor and card manipulation that these cards add to the game, but none of them do that in a substantially unique way except maybe Haven. So they all get a collective honorable mention.
14. Minion
Executing a Minion chain is a pretty satisfying thing to try to keep together, because you never know what each new hand is going to bring you. I'm ranking it a bit low on the list, though, because Minions are usually obligatory whenever they turn up in the kingdom. The repetition makes them a little less fun than they'd otherwise be.
13. Pearl Diver
The weakness of the card distracts from how neat it is to play. You get to look under your deck? Possibly move the bottom card to the top? It's a bit of deck manipulation that no other Dominion card lets you do.
12. Masquerade
Getting to pass cards around the table is kind of fun. Feels a bit more like Hearts than Dominion, but that's why it's cool -- it's something you don't usually get to do in the game. The only disappointment is that most of the time you're just passing copies of the same thing around the table.
11. Tribute
You never know what you're going to turn up. That wreaks havoc on a planned strategy, but the unknown makes it fun to play, whether you're actually playing it or getting it played on you.
10. Native Village
Lots of interesting things you can do here. The shuffling of cards on and off the mat is interesting card manipulation, and stockpiling goodies for later use has a wealth of enticing possibilities.
9. Tournament
The race angle of Tournament frustrates me a little, but otherwise I love it for all the reasons I love both the #1 and #4 entries on this list.
8. Jester
A running theme of this list, which is starting to become clear, is the anticipation of the unknown. When you play Jester, you never know what's going to happen. You might curse all your opponents, or you might come away with a Grand Market or a Peddler or some other juicy nugget. Sometimes it hits Silver all around, but the risk/reward possibilities are hard for me to pass up.
7. Golem
The randomness adds a lot here. If you've planned your deck properly, you can avoid nasty surprises like drawing Remake-Remake -- in which case the only question is which goodies do you get to have? An extra element of intrigue is present when you're using your last action and still have terminals in your hand. Will you get to play them afterward, or not?
The only thing that brings this card down a bit in the rankings is that it's really disappointing in a deck without a lot of actions, or with actions that can draw your whole deck on their own. Then you probably shouldn't have a Golem in your deck in the first place, but that's no fun.
Honorary mentions on this list are all (but one -- see the next list) of the other deck-scourers, like Library and particularly Adventurer.
6. Smugglers
Few things in Dominion are so sadistically satisfying as watching your opponent think hard about how to put together a chain of actions that just manages to scrape together enough for a Gold, and then just slapping down a Smugglers to get one too.
5. King's Court
A staggering percentage of the coolest things you can do in Dominion begin with "King's Court, King's Court...." But the card loses fun points when it shows up, especially in multiples, in hands without any other actions.
4. Treasure Map
These can be frustrating on the wrong board, but I probably go for them more often than I should anyway, just because it's such a rush when they hit. Four Golds, right on top of the deck! Certainly they're better with enablers, though. I prefer enablers that let you directly reposition the cards, though -- like Warehouse, Haven, and Courtyard -- rather than something like Chapel, which merely increases the odds of activating them as a side-effect.
3. Grand Market
Great for similar reasons as my #2 pick, the difference being that it's the acquisition, rather than the activation, that makes the cool little sub-game.
2. Conspirator
Trying to make these activated is a fun little sub-game you can play on every turn. When they do fire, it's fun drawing the sequence of cards you can get out of a Conspirator chain and seeing how long you can make it last. The knowledge that you're racking up a princely sum in the process helps too.
1. Black Market
For me, every play of Black Market is an adventure. You never know what goodies might turn up in the Black Market, except that you do know that probably whatever you turn up won't be available to anyone else -- even you -- again in the whole game. (Of course this assumes that you play with a copy of EVERY unused card, from all expansions, which I do). Will there be something good? Will you have enough to buy it?
It also helps that Black Market + Fairgrounds is possibly my favorite combo in the game, because then not only do you get to have the adventure of playing Black Market, but you get rewarded for pulling lots of stuff out of it. (Even without Black Market, though, Fairgrounds is one of my most fun cards; the only reason it's not in this list is because you don't really "play" it -- it just shapes the nature of the games it's in, which makes it ineligible for this list.)
Least Fun Cards
6. Tactician
I thought hard about this one and even considered it for my "Best" list. Because the actual playing of a Tactician hand is a lot of fun. But playing the Tactician card itself means throwing away the rest of your hand and then, while you're waiting for your opponents to take their turns, you can't even look at and anticipate all the goodies you'll have to work with. The delayed gratification is just a bit too delayed. And it's awful when someone ends the game before you get to play that second turn.
5. Hunting Party
As previously mentioned, I enjoy the deck-scouring process in cards like Adventurer and Golem. Here, though, that tiny little extra bit of mental processing required to tell if a card is unique or one to skip (especially when you have a large hand size, common with Hunting Party) ruins the therapeutic aspect.
4. Sea Hag
The "discard the top card" aspect of Sea Hag is important for game balance reasons, but it still feels like unnecessary fiddliness.
3. Mountebank
Getting attacked by Mountebank wreaks harm enough on your deck, but the process of reaching across the table to not one but two different supply piles is insult to injury.
2. Ambassador
Great strategic card, obviously, but the physical manipulation of the cards is awkward. When I play it, there always seems to be a tiny bit of disorientation around the table about what's happening. Unless everyone is paying strict attention (and they might not be, as they may be thinking out their next turns instead, which is fine), then there always seem to have to be some clarification about what's going on. Did I return one copy or two? Of what? Or, no, wait, you're just revealing a card for me to gain?
Additionally, if I'm returning one or two cards, I always feel silly putting them directly in the pile that other players will be grabbing from, so I feel like I should pass out what I've got. But the number of cards I'm returning is often not the same number as the number of my opponents, so either the cards don't all get passed out, or I still have to return something to the supply.
Whereas less finicky card manipulation can be therapeutic (like shuffling, drawing, clean-up, etc) this just seems awkward.
1. Saboteur
While not as bad as Ambassador in terms of card manipulation, getting Saboteured is about as fiddly as getting Mountebanked. Worse, the goodies in your deck get broken down. It might be a weak attack in theory, but for me it's the only official card I actively dislike. It's the only attack I find to be actually demoralizing.