My thoughts:
Tokens in general: They're good for two things; hoarding them for a big turn at the end, or getting a few to even out buys when you really need them.
Overpaying in general: Makes you think hard about setting up for a specific purchase. Pretty cool concept.
Candlestick Maker: I still think this card is very good. Those Coin tokens just add up. I'm thinking the optimal strategy (for this and other Coin token cards) is to save your Coin tokens up for later purchases - mainly Provinces. In this way, you can just buy out your opponent in the late game since you saved up all your tokens.
Yeah, with the + Buy, this guy really lends itself to the megaturn approach to coin tokens.
Stonemason: Still iffy on this one. The main draw to it is the overpay ability (hence its cheapness). The actual ability, however, is rather limited. You can use it to trash Coppers and Curses outright, or to crack open an extra Province or a Border Village, but the "Remodel trick" is impossible with this. I mean, SMing a SM nets you two Coppers, which is not usually ideal. Better to feed these to Salvagers or Bishops or something.
Agreed. I really only use it for the overpay effect, and then occasionally to trash Curses/Coppers. It's pretty awesome in a game with Soothsayer and a viable engine, as you can use the Gold to get engine parts. Also, the overpay is great for running out piles in games with no +Buy.
Doctor: Still think it's enormously powerful. The opening you get will vastly determine how your game will go - 5/2 is clearly the best to get. Baker makes this opening even better. But it very quickly outlives its usefulness - as the game goes on, it gets less and less likely that the card you name will be in your top three cards. And it's especially frustrating when the card you want to trash is in your hand with Doctor. Great as an opener, and peters out later.
With the overpay effect, it's obviously good to get trashing going, but with the help of a discarder like Horse Traders, you can use it to finish your trashing if you get to the point of drawing your deck but still having a bit of junk.
Masterpiece: For BM and Alt-VP, this is literally the "Masterpiece" - this makes all those strategies work. Feodum becomes almost obnoxiously viable and vastly superior to Province, and BM can compete very well with engines. If you can manage to hit a $12 turn, you can bump up all your Gardens by one point in a single buy. And unlike buying Estates/Coppers to fill out your Gardens quota, Masterpiece is actually good for your deck, making those slog games go just a little bit faster.
Yeah, it's a great card for those strategies.
Advisor: The key here is homogeneity. This sucks terribly as an opener, and will continue to suck if you pursue a strategy that revolves around a key card. But once you've got a deck where any random selection of three cards from it will not have an obvious "best" card, you now have a cheaper Lab that cycles. There seems to be a critical mass of these, where one or two will mean you lose your good cards, but at ~5, you're just drawing everything anyway, and then your opponent is looking at an Advisor that has revealed three Advisors, and there's not much they can do about it.
Indeed, it's great with thinning, and Advisors like consistency and each other, but it's also sweet when your "key card" is a treasure like Gold or Bank and you can buy a crapload of your key card.
Plaza: Still haven't gotten to play with it all that much, but how bad can a Village with cool extras be?
This is a decent village for those decks which blur the line between engine and BM as you can turn money now into money when you need it, which really helps for consistency in hitting $8. Also good for the megaturn approach to tokens.
Taxman: I would open with this over Cutpurse. The one drawback is it diminishes your buying power this turn with its delayed Mine effect, which it makes it more suited to Seaside than Cutpurse, really. It can be extremely obnoxious, preventing you from getting the engine piece you needed.
I'd really like to see some analysis on when you want to trash Silver over Copper. Obviously, our Mine instincts say that Silver is almost always a better target than Copper, but you also want the attack to sting, which is something you really don't know. It'll probably be the first card which really combos with the cards which look at your opponent's hand.
Herald: Requires high Action density. If this condition is met, it is very good. Otherwise, it is very stupid. If you can combine this with some heavy duty deck inspection, like Scout or Cartographer, all the better.
Agreed.
Baker: Still have not actually played with it as much as I'd like, but its setup is so game-warping.
Yeah, the setup takes getting used to. The card itself works OK with either of the token approaches.
Butcher: Better than I initially thought. Even just as a provider or Coin tokens, it is powerful. When combined with CM or Baker, it is very good indeed.
I don't really see it as a great card. I should probably play with it more.
Journeyman: I like this quite a lot. Again, this requires that you pay attention to what's in your deck.
I only find it to be a weak $5 Smithy variant, not that great IMO.
Merchant Guild: I'm middling on this. If you can play this every turn with lots of +Buy, then you will be swimming in Coin tokens and the game is going to be ending very quickly. Otherwise, it's definitely middle of the road - providing a slow, delayed trickle of Coin tokens for rounding out Buys.
Haven't played with it much myself, so can't say.
Soothsayer: Very good. I love not having to buy Golds, and of course I love giving other players Curses.
Yeah, interesting curser. The curses slow the game down, but the Golds and Card drawing speed it up.
