Also, I'm finding it hard to justify Witch over cultist. I remember reading that, in the simulator, Witch against Cultist wins a bit more often. Still, in most games the speed at which Cultist junks is more devastating, because it forces you to get your act together really quickly. And then if you don't retaliate with a junker of your own, powerful Cultist chains are very likely to go off.
The simulator was just Witch BM vs. Cultist BM. Obviously, if any engine is possible, Cultist will just wipe that potential away if your opponent goes for Witch instead.
This is really not terribly true. I mean, yes, you can engineer a board where you want to go cultist over witch and they're on the same board, you can engineer lots. But as a fraction of boards with both on them, they are few. Why? Well, because with both, Mr. Cultist is getting junked, which means he has pretty bad chances of connecting to chain very often, so it's largely just curses vs ruins, big advantage witch, and the important point is that two piles are running very fast, and it's thus not hard to hit the third one. Of course, maybe you are saying the trashing is so good, you can just deal and chain anyway. Okay, fine, but now, there will usually be something better to do than either one - if the trashing is THAT good, the junking has pretty low relevance. Okay, yes, these are some of the boards cultist has advantage, it's true, but I don't think these are so common as ones where witch gets the upper hand.
Assuming it's been tuned to the proper number of Cultists/Witches (where the Cultist deck will buy more Cultists), that's a fair argument. You've now shown that Witch is better than Cultist on boards where there are competing junkers. Is that relevant?
I suppose the question is, is this ranking a question of "On a board with A and B, would you rather have A or B [relative to their price points]?", or "In the grand scheme of Dominion, which card are you more likely to want [relative to its price point], A or B?" I think we're looking for the latter here, in which case your example of Cultist vs. Witch is of only minor relevance.
I think it is. In comparing Cultist vs. Witch (both junkers) you have to look at a few things, and one of them is "if one player goes for cultists and one player goes for witch, who is better off?" and I think the answer here is the player who goes for witch.
But that's not the only question. You also have to ask on a board with just one of them (and no big trashing), what happens to the person who doesn't go for the junker. Well, both of them will put 10 junk cards into the opponents deck. Cultist will do this somewhere between slightly and significantly faster, depending on your shuffle luck and ability to hit $5 to buy more Cultists. Witch will leave the opponent 10 points behind. I think this is pretty much a push, maybe you say Cultist here. I think for the chaining to be important you need to get >4, and by then the junk is pretty much gone anyway, so then you are left playing BM-Lab (well worse since you CANT add anything or it becomes worse), and BM-Lab isn't great. So, they're very close here.
Next, we ask on a board with just one of them (with trashing), what happens to the person who doesn't go for the junker. Well, both of them will put 10 junk cards into the opponents deck, and most, if not all of these will be trashed. So, the question is, will Cultists speed edge be enough to overwhelm the trashing, while Witch would not? Well... it comes down to shuffle luck, really. If you get 2 Cultists turn 3/4, and their chapel falls to T5, then there might be a big difference. But, chances are the junker will want to open with the trashing also (maybe not true, but I have to imagine this is stronger). So they open say Steward-Silver, looking to go into Cultist, while they opponent opens say Steward-Steward, hoping to build some weakish engine. I really have to imagine that going into Cultist here is weaker than skipping it, at least early. And in terms of a late game junker, you would MUCH rather add a Witch, since it will at least help with points too. So, I think a push again.
tl;dr They're close, but I think Witch slightly edges Cultist.
