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[soulnet]

BTW, the original question was "kingdom card" specifically to avoid Silver or Province gathering all the attention.

[popsofctown]

How about Tournament?

Mainly because it's a cheap Peddler in the beginning makes it at least as decent as Silver.
Even when you're both skipping Provinces altogether it still has that Peddler-ability.

Dead-draw is that nasty edge case that makes cantrips worse than nothing.  You definitely need a curser on the board to make Followers resistible, but given that you have both a curser and a dominant dead draw strategy, Tournament is very ignorable. 

[popsofctown]

One point of clarification, are we judging the proportion of all boards, or the proportion of all games?  Like, in the proportion of all boards, Island is probably the least ignorable, because there will be some situation where you buy it as an almost Duchy in endgame situations.  And then in whatever bizarre board where that's not even viable, it's probably just carrying its weight by being a good card on its own.

[soulnet]

One point of clarification, are we judging the proportion of all boards, or the proportion of all games?  Like, in the proportion of all boards, Island is probably the least ignorable, because there will be some situation where you buy it as an almost Duchy in endgame situations.  And then in whatever bizarre board where that's not even viable, it's probably just carrying its weight by being a good card on its own.

By that logic, Tunnel would be better. I was thinking proportion of boards, but anyway, there are many non-altVP games where you don't even buy Duchies because you can cruise with Provinces. I would say that falling below Duchies in a regular greening happens less often than not.

[popsofctown]

One point of clarification, are we judging the proportion of all boards, or the proportion of all games?  Like, in the proportion of all boards, Island is probably the least ignorable, because there will be some situation where you buy it as an almost Duchy in endgame situations.  And then in whatever bizarre board where that's not even viable, it's probably just carrying its weight by being a good card on its own.

By that logic, Tunnel would be better. I was thinking proportion of boards, but anyway, there are many non-altVP games where you don't even buy Duchies because you can cruise with Provinces. I would say that falling below Duchies in a regular greening happens less often than not.

I was thinking there was probably some Goons games or Fortress loops or something where you would not even want Tunnel or Island when things really get going, but that in some of those game types you want Island for the light trashing.  Maybe I was thinking too hard and tunnel wins out.

The thing is, 99% of strategies are going to have, "well if you can buy a Province and a Duchy and win by one point, do it" as part of the strategy.  And that extends to Island and Tunnel, so some sort of VP card has to be the answer.  The only exception would be unusual strategies that have a 0% chance of ever being offered that kind of opportunity.

[Asper]

Masquerade:
If i'm not forgetting anything, there are only around 3 4 5 handsize reducers that leave you with 3 cards (Militia, Goons, Mercanary, Ghost Ship and Margrave) and 2 that leave you with 4 (Urchin, Minion), and of course there's Bureacrat, Torturer and Cutpurse (i ignore Followers). All of these are terminal, so you need a KC/TR or Village for discard/Masquerade to work. Most of the games you have Masquerade, at least one of those parts will be lacking, and even more often it will be hard to set-up reliably. Without handsize reducers, Masquerade is nice, but... not that harmful.
Also consider that there are games with more than 2 players (trust me, they exist). In such games, if there are discard attacks, a player relying only on them will usually profit more from your Masquerade than you do, as he doesn't need to set up an engine for it. Now imagine him being the player to your left. With junkers on the board, Masquerade is harmed, too. If player 1 plays Masq, player 2 plays cursers, and player 3 keeps passing his curses to the Masq player, Masqerade harms the curser player and helps his other opponent, lowering Masquerades value at the same time.

Mountebank:
Mountebank is an attack, so everything that counters that directly weakens Mountebank considerably. This includes Lighthouse, Trader, Watchtower, and of course Moat. Also, there are followup-counters like Rats, Jack, Outpost... I remember i once even won against Mountebank with a Counting House strategy (though that might have been because my opponent played poorly).

Goons:
Goons is an attack, too, so Moat, Lighthouse and Watchtower work here, just as do Beggar (which also helps emptying the Copper pile) and Horse Trader. Also there are Library and Jack, and unless there are cost reducers (chances of which are slim, there are 4 if you count princess), Embargo can block cheap Copper-purchases (though this becomes weaker with Cursers on board).

Rebuild:
So all of these power cards have pretty clear situations where they are weaker. I feel something for this is lacking for Rebuild. As it doesn't get its power from harming the opponents, "protecting against it" is impossible. The only thing that comes to my mind are Shelters, buying Duchies out and playing Saboteur a lot, but besides Shelters none of these seem very attractive to me.

[Eggplantation]

What about Ambassador? I have always thought that was a pretty powerful card. A card that is most of the time, very unwise not to open with. Of course their are edge cases, but for the majority of the time, this seems true.

[Simon (DK)]

If i'm not forgetting anything, there are only around 3 handsize reducers that leave you with 3 cards (Militia, Goons, Mercanary)

There's also Margrave.

[Kirian]

What about Ambassador? I have always thought that was a pretty powerful card. A card that is most of the time, very unwise not to open with. Of course their are edge cases, but for the majority of the time, this seems true.

Shelters are hardly an edge case.  ~17% of games where Amb isn't great right there.

I think people are looking at this from the view of individual boards rather than looking at the forest.  Sure, Mountebank becomes less powerful with certain cards on the board.  The question is which cards this happens to the least.

I personally agree with the general consensus of Masquerade, Mountebank, and Goons as being the big three.  Border Village and Cultist are pretty high too I think.

[soulnet]

If i'm not forgetting anything, there are only around 3 handsize reducers that leave you with 3 cards (Militia, Goons, Mercanary)

There's also Margrave.

And Ghost Ship. To a least extent, Cutpurse. And Torturer as well, although if your opponent is playing Masq, you probably have it too, and then Torturer is not such a great idea.

[Piemaster]

If i'm not forgetting anything, there are only around 3 handsize reducers that leave you with 3 cards (Militia, Goons, Mercanary)

There's also Margrave.

And Ghost Ship. To a least extent, Cutpurse. And Torturer as well, although if your opponent is playing Masq, you probably have it too, and then Torturer is not such a great idea.

I find Torturer to be frequently ignoreable.  In fact, on any Kingdom without a village I tend to ignore it by default, only buying it if I have a compelling reason to. 

[soulnet]

I find Torturer to be frequently ignoreable.  In fact, on any Kingdom without a village I tend to ignore it by default, only buying it if I have a compelling reason to.

Oh, definitively. We were just listing cards that may reduce handsize to 3 or less.

[Davio]

How about Tournament?

Mainly because it's a cheap Peddler in the beginning makes it at least as decent as Silver.
Even when you're both skipping Provinces altogether it still has that Peddler-ability.

Dead-draw is that nasty edge case that makes cantrips worse than nothing.  You definitely need a curser on the board to make Followers resistible, but given that you have both a curser and a dominant dead draw strategy, Tournament is very ignorable.

Well, just looking at the CR data gives us some indication: http://councilroom.com/popular_buys

Just do a descending sort on "Win Rate Without".

Two Tournament prizes are at the top, obviously Followers and Trusty Steed. Goons is next and Tournament is just below it. Mountebank rounds out the top 5.

Of course, CR only has data up to Hinterlands, so I don't know how the DA and Guilds cards would rank.

[dondon151]

I agree with Tournament; it's such a great card for $4 even if you ignore the fact that it can gain Prizes. It's not so much as a you-must-buy-this card as it is a why-wouldn't-you-buy-this card (same as Border Village).

[markusin]

Doesn't Tournament become weaker in Colony games? That being said, on a non-Colony board, I only remember ignoring Tournament once and winning; I went for Tunnels with both Cartographer and Cellar and just rushed for Provinces. Never had time for the Tournament.

My guess is that the Rebuild is the least ignorable card, but then again it also gets weaker in Colony games, so long as there is a good engine on the board.

[dondon151]

Tournament becomes weaker in Colony games because there's a greater opportunity cost to go for Prizes. On the other hand, it becomes even more of a why-wouldn't-you-buy-this card, because it's much less likely to get blocked. Just the vanilla bonus on Tournament is preferable to Silver and most other $4s.

[blueblimp]

If i'm not forgetting anything, there are only around 3 handsize reducers that leave you with 3 cards (Militia, Goons, Mercanary)

There's also Margrave.

And Ghost Ship. To a least extent, Cutpurse. And Torturer as well, although if your opponent is playing Masq, you probably have it too, and then Torturer is not such a great idea.

Torturer is still good if Masq is available, and arguably better than normal. The main damage of taking a curse from Torturer is that it increases your deck size by 1. Your deck size is still bigger even if you subsequently pass that curse back via Masq.

Masq helps Torturer by making the chain easier to set up and discouraging discarding to Torturer (because you want a curse in hand in case Masq is played next).

[Stealth Tomato]

How about Tournament?

Mainly because it's a cheap Peddler in the beginning makes it at least as decent as Silver.
Even when you're both skipping Provinces altogether it still has that Peddler-ability.

Dead-draw is that nasty edge case that makes cantrips worse than nothing.  You definitely need a curser on the board to make Followers resistible, but given that you have both a curser and a dominant dead draw strategy, Tournament is very ignorable.

Well, just looking at the CR data gives us some indication: http://councilroom.com/popular_buys

Just do a descending sort on "Win Rate Without".

Two Tournament prizes are at the top, obviously Followers and Trusty Steed. Goons is next and Tournament is just below it. Mountebank rounds out the top 5.

Of course, CR only has data up to Hinterlands, so I don't know how the DA and Guilds cards would rank.

Win Rate Without is a bad metric for popular cards because most players not buying them are losing players anyway. Even if they bought them they'd be relatively unlikely to win.

[Awaclus]

Win Rate Without is a bad metric for popular cards because most players not buying them are losing players anyway. Even if they bought them they'd be relatively unlikely to win.

But if not buying a card is a sign of being so bad you couldn't beat your opponent even if you bought that card, doesn't that mean the card is pretty much unignorable?

[Asper]

If i'm not forgetting anything, there are only around 3 handsize reducers that leave you with 3 cards (Militia, Goons, Mercanary)

There's also Margrave.

And Ghost Ship. To a least extent, Cutpurse. And Torturer as well, although if your opponent is playing Masq, you probably have it too, and then Torturer is not such a great idea.

Torturer is still good if Masq is available, and arguably better than normal. The main damage of taking a curse from Torturer is that it increases your deck size by 1. Your deck size is still bigger even if you subsequently pass that curse back via Masq.

Masq helps Torturer by making the chain easier to set up and discouraging discarding to Torturer (because you want a curse in hand in case Masq is played next).

Interestingly enough, Torturer, Bureaucrat and Ghost Ship all share that they are stronger if the Masq player plays them than if the opponent does.

All other discard attack harm Masquerade more than they help it, though. If my opponent uses Masq, i use Militia. He'll then be the one to decide between keeping or discarding bad cards, and will have to give me the worst of his 4 against my worst of 5. As playing one terminal action is easier than setting up to play both, it will be much easier to block him than for him to set up a pin. So in most cases the counter to the pin is allready provided.

[soulnet]

All other discard attack harm Masquerade more than they help it, though. If my opponent uses Masq, i use Militia. He'll then be the one to decide between keeping or discarding bad cards, and will have to give me the worst of his 4 against my worst of 5. As playing one terminal action is easier than setting up to play both, it will be much easier to block him than for him to set up a pin. So in most cases the counter to the pin is allready provided.

Its still the worst of 6, but with only a little worse information because the Masq player does not see all 6 cards at once. Still, the edge of the Masq player is the hability to trash the incoming junk, which you cannot, so it works a little bit like a discard attack too, weaker at the beginning, but strong at the endgame because you cannot "discard" (i.e., pass) the Provinces that you would discard to a regular Urchin.

[Asper]

All other discard attack harm Masquerade more than they help it, though. If my opponent uses Masq, i use Militia. He'll then be the one to decide between keeping or discarding bad cards, and will have to give me the worst of his 4 against my worst of 5. As playing one terminal action is easier than setting up to play both, it will be much easier to block him than for him to set up a pin. So in most cases the counter to the pin is allready provided.

Its still the worst of 6, but with only a little worse information because the Masq player does not see all 6 cards at once. Still, the edge of the Masq player is the hability to trash the incoming junk, which you cannot, so it works a little bit like a discard attack too, weaker at the beginning, but strong at the endgame because you cannot "discard" (i.e., pass) the Provinces that you would discard to a regular Urchin.

If he discards to 3 due to my Militia, then plays Masquerade, it's worst of 4. It's worst of 6 on a normal hand.

[soulnet]

If he discards to 3 due to my Militia, then plays Masquerade, it's worst of 4. It's worst of 6 on a normal hand.

No, its worst of 6, you just need to decide first which 2 you are NOT passing and then which other 3. The Masq player decides what to discard taking into account that they will play Masq, and they decide what to discard. This restriction is usually not bad enough to be really worse than just deciding seeing all 6 cards together, and I bet is definitely better than deciding among 5.

Also, a great deal of difference is that the Masq player, militia'd or not, can decide not to play Masq if his hand does not look good for it, while the opponent does not have such decision.

[Asper]

If he discards to 3 due to my Militia, then plays Masquerade, it's worst of 4. It's worst of 6 on a normal hand.

No, its worst of 6, you just need to decide first which 2 you are NOT passing and then which other 3. The Masq player decides what to discard taking into account that they will play Masq, and they decide what to discard. This restriction is usually not bad enough to be really worse than just deciding seeing all 6 cards together, and I bet is definitely better than deciding among 5.

Also, a great deal of difference is that the Masq player, militia'd or not, can decide not to play Masq if his hand does not look good for it, while the opponent does not have such decision.

So you consider keeping a bad card in hand and discarding two better cards nothing? If i play Masquerade on a 5 card hand, draw a Curse and pass it, fine. If i discard down to three, keep a curse, play Masq and draw another Curse, shit. If i discard down to 3, keep good cards and don't draw a bad one, shit. If i discard down to three, only keep good cards and discard Masquerade - well, you know.

I honestly don't get how you can think that.

[eHalcyon]

If i discard down to three, keep a curse, play Masq and draw another Curse, shit.

Pass one Curse, trash the other.