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[philosophyguy]

The question of whether to go for Masterpiece or Gold will obviously depend on the board, but here's a first approximation using a simple test: which gives your deck a better average card value? Remember that Province games need to hit $1.6/card and $5 rushes or slogs need $1/card.

From crunching the numbers, I have a couple of general observations. First, bigger decks prefer Masterpiece+overpay, since the impact of adding additional cards is smaller. Second, decks with a low total coin value prefer Masterpiece as well, since each additional Silver adds to the deck's coin total.

The threshold depends on both of these things. The actual math is not the kind of stuff you'd want to use in a real game, but we'll build an approximation from it. The formula: If 3*money in deck (prior to purchase) + 5 < 4*cards in deck (prior to purchase), buy Masterpiece.

The more realistic version: when the money:card ratio exceeds 5:4, prefer Gold. So, a 12 card deck with 15 or more coin should lean Gold, less than 15, Masterpiece.

[WanderingWinder]

The question of whether to go for Masterpiece or Gold will obviously depend on the board, but here's a first approximation using a simple test: which gives your deck a better average card value? Remember that Province games need to hit $1.6/card and $5 rushes or slogs need $1/card.

Well, such is only reasonable in big money or slogs - many engines would prefer 1 gold to 3 silver (or indeed go for a $5 action or something). Furthermore... big money for provinces basically never gets to $1.6/card. You green well before that, as you get some hands which hit 8 while that's above average, and that's enough. Slogs are more complicated.

From crunching the numbers, I have a couple of general observations. First, bigger decks prefer Masterpiece+overpay, since the impact of adding additional cards is smaller. Second, decks with a low total coin value prefer Masterpiece as well, since each additional Silver adds to the deck's coin total.

The threshold depends on both of these things. The actual math is not the kind of stuff you'd want to use in a real game, but we'll build an approximation from it. The formula: If 3*money in deck (prior to purchase) + 5 < 4*cards in deck (prior to purchase), buy Masterpiece.

The more realistic version: when the money:card ratio exceeds 5:4, prefer Gold. So, a 12 card deck with 15 or more coin should lean Gold, less than 15, Masterpiece.

To save a lot of hassle, if you're not playing an engine (or combo), and you don't have a weird edge case where a pile is running out, always take the masterpiece. If you get to the point where gold is better, you are really doing something wrong.

It's important to note that your calculations only make sense for *right now*, but you have to work things out for the whole game - typically this means greening, where masterpiece is much more resilient to green. Also, people can just calculate for themselves - it's really not that hard.