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Author Topic: Updating the Top 5 lists  (Read 87776 times)

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chwhite

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Updating the Top 5 lists
« on: November 01, 2011, 04:24:49 pm »
+7

Now that we have a bit of experience with Hinterlands, it might be interesting to revisit the Top 5 lists that were featured on the site earlier this year, and see if any Hinterlands cards deserve to be Best or Worst at their price points.  I suppose we could talk about Cornucopia again as well, since most of those lists predate Cornucopia's release.  Might as well give my thoughts first.

The $2s
From Cornucopia, Hamlet obviously deserves a spot on the Best list; I don't think Hinterlands' shiny new trap cards change its placement at #2 behind only Chapel there.  Cheap, flexible, and combo-licious.

The Hinterlands cards are trickier.  As much as Crossroads is not half as good as it looks, it may still squeak onto the Top 5 on the strength of $2 cards generally having puny effects to go with their puny price.  It probably edges Native Village out of the Honorable Mention spot? Remember that I'd still also like to find space for Lighthouse.  I'd also definitely put Duchess on the Worst list, in fact I think it just might edge out Secret Chamber and Pearl Diver to claim the #1 spot.  If Pearl Diver is mainly an exercise in "just how weak and inconsequential we can make a cantrip", Duchess does the same thing for terminal silver.  I guess it's sometimes worth picking up with a Duchy in lumpy, Action-light decks, but its presence has virtually no potential to change whatever strategy the other nine cards present.  While Fool's Gold is also usually a pretty bad card, it actually does have potential to reshape and dominate strategies on favorable boards, and in recognition of that I'd probably keep it just above the Worst list.

The $3s
Cornucopia comes through with another top card: Menagerie is for sure neck-and-neck with Fishing Village for the #3 spot behind Ambassador and Masquerade.  Fortune Teller is weak but not weak enough to make the Worst list; it's better than several cards which missed the Worst list first time around, like Smugglers and Black Market.

There is one Hinterlands card that I would definitely put on these lists: Develop is IMO the very worst $3 card in the game.  Yes, really!  I get that it can have combo potential; I was even beaten by Develop once or twice.  But it takes Hinterlands' trickiness and difficulty-to-play to an absolute extreme.  It's so slow on Coppers and Estates, try it on a $3 and you'll end up top-decking Estates after a while, try it on a good card and maybe you're building your engine more but at the expense of losing a good card that you could have played for advantage this turn.  In short, there are so many ways to play this card poorly, and so few ways to play it well; it's also very slow in a set that mostly rewards fast BM strategies.  I feel that I'm not experienced or good enough to play Develop well, so I just avoid it and that works out well most of the time.  Given how many games I've played, I think that's a damning indictment of the card.  The other Hinterlands cards probably don't make any lists: Oracle is about on par with Fortune Teller, weak but not weak enough.  Tunnel is actually quite good, as it's becoming rarer and rarer to find setups where you can't leverage its Reaction ability to get piles of Gold (Embassy and Cartographer are two of my favorite ways to do this), so I'd consider it for the Best list, but competition is stiff, as the top 4 are pretty much set in stone and we haven't even made room for Steward yet.

The $4s
Okay, the $4s need a total rehaul.  The Best list should be dominated by new cards, as Remake, Tournament, and Jack of All Trades are simply miles better than anything we'd seen before at that price point.  Remake is an elite trasher, Tournament is Tournament, and JoaT is my new most hated card in the game for the manner in which it creates a lightning-fast and super-resilient BM deck, at least in Province matches- it actually does what people erroneously thought Envoy did.  They have to be the new Top 3, in some order.

The worst $4s also need a total rehaul, not so much because new cards have replaced old slots but because the original list was by far the weakest we've seen: no way Ironworks and Cutpurse belong anywhere near the bottom when the utter stinkers Coppersmith, Pirate Ship, and Scout were ignored, and Thief isn't "honorable mention" it's the worst card in the game at any price.  There is one addition I would make, though:  for all people were saying Noble Brigand was supposed to be a strictly better Thief, turns out it's also incredibly weak.  It does have the obnoxious potential to force a crippling 3/2 open if you buy it Turn 1 and get really lucky, but that's pretty much it for NB's power given how often the attack just fizzles, or oh no it takes a Silver which just doesn't hurt that much.  I'd find room for it near the bottom, along with Thief, Pirate Ship, Scout, Treasure Map, and I dunno, maybe Bureaucrat or Talisman or Coppersmith can take Honorable Mention.

The $5s
Theory originally made three lists here, so I'll keep with the split of attacks and non-attacks.  There are two new $5 attacks to consider, both of which are better than Rabble and worse than the already-existent power Top 5.  I'd give Margrave the edge over Jester for the privilege of Honorable Mention; its attack is weaker than Militia or Torturer for sure, but the +Buy is a pretty powerful incentive to go engine-building.  Getting the Council Room-Militia combo in one card is nice.

For the best non-attacks, Cornucopia's Hunting Party stands alone.  Like, #1 better than Wharf alone.  Like, good enough to crack a combined Top 5 list despite the power Attacks.  I don't think I'd quite put any of Hinterlands' $5 cards on the Top Non-Attacks list, but Stables and Cartographer have to come close.  Stables is, obviously, a strong Lab variant which gives you better cycling power at the expense of absolutely forcing a Treasure-heavy deck.  (The net +Cards is the same as Lab, remember).  Cartographer, obviously, blows Navigator out of the water; it is a great addition to virtually every single kind of deck, whether it be Action-heavy or BM.  Embassy is also nice; interesting that giving Silver is usually a nerf but can sometimes make it even stronger!

One other thing to consider with this list: does Ill-Gotten Gains count as an Attack for our purposes?  It gives Curses, so it's obviously getting bought with Attacking intent, but it doesn't say "Attack" on it.  It seems to be a strong card that forces really weird games if you rush it, and I sure don't yet have a handle on how to play it well.  Maybe it would make a Best of list, but can you really justify losing cards like Vault or Apprentice?

As for the worst $5s, I would definitely consider making room for both Mandarin and Cache: obviously they're useful sometimes, all $5 cards are, but those times are just so rare.  My sense is that Mandarin is a good buy about as often as your opponent's Ghost Ship actually helps you: the on-gain effect is supposed to be its big plus, but frankly it's usually a detriment.  And none of the terminal-treasure-no-other-bonus cards are that great, look at the mediocre Harvest and Merchant Ship.  The stats seem to be bearing out my intuition that Cache is sub-Contraband-level bad: people don't buy it, and they lose when they do.  My sense is that the Coppers are usually a big penalty, and on the rare occasions where they're good to have, then chances are you bought Cache because you screwed up: for example, you went Spice Merchant-Stables and need more fuel, probably shoulda just skipped the Merchant.  Or hey, Cache is a great defense against Noble Brigand, woo I'm so excited.  Cache is now my third least-bought card after Thief and Explorer, and I honestly can't point to a single game where I didn't get it, but wish I had bought one.


The $6-plusses
I've said it before, I'll say it again, I'm a broken record: Harem and Nobles ought to be switched. :P  Other than that, Border Village is a great card, IMO the second-best Village, and probably deserves Honorable Mention on the Best list, kicking off Harem (should have been Nobles, there I go again).  As for the worst list, I'd put Farmland somewhere on there; it's not a bad card but the competition is so stiff at this price point.  The requirement that Farmland's insta-Remodel effect be exactly two makes it a lot less flexible and difficult to play. Guess I'd put it at third, worse than all but Adventurer and… Harem.
« Last Edit: November 01, 2011, 05:00:56 pm by chwhite »
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guided

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #1 on: November 01, 2011, 04:43:52 pm »
0

Nobody said Noble Brigand is awesome, just that it's clearly better than Thief.

And it is. :P
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painted_cow

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #2 on: November 01, 2011, 04:54:10 pm »
0

Good update, I dont disagree with even one card on your additions to the Top5 lists. Good Job!
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timchen

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #3 on: November 01, 2011, 04:58:38 pm »
0

I feel your ranking of the cards reflect strongly on your playing style.


For what I feel, fool's gold is definitely on the useful list, as it can dominate on some boards. Except chapel and to some extent hamlet, no other cards at $2 do that. I will not rate a $2 terminal silver bad. It may be boring, but not bad.

And for whatever reason, a hard to play card is not a bad card. Also I don't rate remake that high. It is a very good opener but that's probably it. Didn't someone state that a single NB beats Smithy? That sounds good enough for me.

For harem and noble, I think you are wrong. Harem is only bad when you consider extreme action heavy decks. Both cards give the same points. However, the best way you can use Nobles is to use it as a smithy. So that is a 4 cost card, and for harem it is a 3 cost card. Not so different. However, if yiu are in for an action heavy deck, and that proves to be a strong strategy, there is usually some other dominant card. Nobles is just icing on the cake.
(Barring those interactions with vp) on the other hand harem is really a good card to drop in randomly in a money deck.

Sure, I won't put nobles on the worst list. But it is really not as good as one might think.
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chwhite

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #4 on: November 01, 2011, 05:22:41 pm »
0

I feel your ranking of the cards reflect strongly on your playing style.


For what I feel, fool's gold is definitely on the useful list, as it can dominate on some boards. Except chapel and to some extent hamlet, no other cards at $2 do that. I will not rate a $2 terminal silver bad. It may be boring, but not bad.

And for whatever reason, a hard to play card is not a bad card. Also I don't rate remake that high. It is a very good opener but that's probably it. Didn't someone state that a single NB beats Smithy? That sounds good enough for me.

For harem and noble, I think you are wrong. Harem is only bad when you consider extreme action heavy decks. Both cards give the same points. However, the best way you can use Nobles is to use it as a smithy. So that is a 4 cost card, and for harem it is a 3 cost card. Not so different. However, if yiu are in for an action heavy deck, and that proves to be a strong strategy, there is usually some other dominant card. Nobles is just icing on the cake.
(Barring those interactions with vp) on the other hand harem is really a good card to drop in randomly in a money deck.

Sure, I won't put nobles on the worst list. But it is really not as good as one might think.

Sure, I'll happily admit that my play-style informs my rankings, but I don't think it's a perfect correspondence or anything: my preferences are strongly against the sort of games that Jack forces, and I have a hard time sticking to the simulator script so I lose Jack games a bunch, but I'm still putting it up here. FWIW, I've been playing money decks way more often since Hinterlands came out, since that expansion has so many cards that are heavily geared towards boosting money and so few cards that let you get away with little-to-no-treasure.

Fool's Gold is a judgement call: say it's a strong strategy or even dominant 25 percent of the time, marginal 25 percent, and sucks 50 percent of the time (I think these numbers are a little generous, but in the right ballpark).  Compare to, say, Haven, which is never quite as strong, but is almost always better than Copper at least.  Do you take the best-case scenario or the average?  You could go either way.  I'd say you have to take both into account, and if best-case it's near the top, more often it's near the bottom, then I'm inclined to just leave it off both lists.

I certainly don't think all hard-to-play cards are bad cards: Inn is also hard to play and I like it just fine.  As for Remake, it's a better opener than Steward; and I have even been known to take it even over Chapel.  That's powerful.

Harem... I just have a hard time getting excited about Harem unless, say, Mint is on the board.  Even when I'm playing money decks, most of the time I'd rather just have a Gold or a Duchy.  Heck, I might even rank Nobles over Harem in the specific case of money decks; consider that in such a situation their primary competition is going to be Duchy, and if I'm going Action-light adding a points-giving Smithy or two later on has the potential to be more useful for limping to $8 than a points-giving Silver.

« Last Edit: November 01, 2011, 05:28:57 pm by chwhite »
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Epoch

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #5 on: November 01, 2011, 05:22:56 pm »
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And for whatever reason, a hard to play card is not a bad card. Also I don't rate remake that high. It is a very good opener but that's probably it. Didn't someone state that a single NB beats Smithy? That sounds good enough for me.

I stated that... and I'm like 95% sure that I was right.  But I was about to restate it for this thread, so I reran it in the simulator, and it lost fairly substantially to Single Smithy.

So.  Um.  Not sure what happened there.  I want to blame the simulator, but since neither card involves making any choices, unless there was an actual bug fix or bug introduction since I first ran it, I don't think that was it.  Maybe I swapped the columns in my mind a week ago, or ran into a very rare quick simulation edge case where it got a 10% swing in win rates?

EDIT:  Presently, with Accurate simulation and the built in Noble Brigand and Smithy bots, I get 44% NB, 48.66% Smithy, 7.34% tie.  Which does suggest to me that NB is probably better than chwhite is giving it credit for, even if it doesn't beat Smithy.

EDIT2: 

This bot beats built in Single Smithy by a very substantial margin, though (basically, it buys 2 NBs instead of 1):

Code: [Select]
<player name="2xNoble Brigand" author="Epoch" description="Big Money + 2 Noble Brigands.  Waits until after turn 1/2 to buy the NBs, to minimize chances of just missing and hitting Coppers.">
 <type name="Province"/>
 <type name="UserCreated"/>
 <type name="SingleCard"/>
 <type name="Generated"/>
 <type name="Bot"/>
 <type name="TwoPlayer"/>
 <type name="BigMoney"/>
   <buy name="Province"/>
   <buy name="Duchy">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="5.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Estate">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInSupply" attribute="Province"/>
         <operator type="smallerOrEqualThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Gold"/>
   <buy name="Noble_Brigand">
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Noble_Brigand"/>
         <operator type="smallerThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
      <condition>
         <left type="countCardsInDeck" attribute="Silver"/>
         <operator type="greaterThan" />
         <right type="constant" attribute="2.0"/>
      </condition>
   </buy>
   <buy name="Silver"/>
</player>

More surprisingly, it beats single Mountebank?!?  And single Witch?!?  Geronimoo, can you investigate this?  Is there a bug?
« Last Edit: November 01, 2011, 05:33:41 pm by Epoch »
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theory

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #6 on: November 01, 2011, 05:24:40 pm »
+2

I'd love public feedback on this.  I'm planning on revisiting all of them before the next expansion, though I guess I should sneak in the best and worst of Alchemy first.
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Epoch

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #7 on: November 01, 2011, 05:24:55 pm »
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Fool's Gold is a judgement call: say it's a strong strategy or even dominant 25 percent of the time, marginal 25 percent, and sucks 50 percent of the time (I think these numbers are a little generous, but in the right ballpark).  Compare to, say, Haven, which is never quite as strong, but is almost always better than Copper at least.  Do you take the best-case scenario or the average?  You could go either way.

I think you can very fairly say that Fool's Gold is almost always better than Copper.  The only scenarios where it's not that I can think of involve Counting House or Coppersmith.  Surely Haven is worse than Copper at least that often.
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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #8 on: November 01, 2011, 05:31:09 pm »
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For what I feel, fool's gold is definitely on the useful list, as it can dominate on some boards. Except chapel and to some extent hamlet, no other cards at $2 do that. I will not rate a $2 terminal silver bad. It may be boring, but not bad.

I agree.  Fool's Gold is one of the three $2 buys that can set up a brand new strategy.  It needs good trashing (2+ cards) or +buy and +card draw.  At the same time, without those aspects it's a terrible card that should be avoided.  It might not crack the top-5 list because of how swingy it is, but it needs to be an honorable mention.

----

For $5 non-attacks, I believe Vault needs to be the one bumped off the list instead of Tactician.  I'd argue for Tacticican being in the top three (below Hunting Party and Wharf)... but that's more personal opinion.

-------------

One of the big things with the best/worst list is that a lot of it is trying to teach Dominion concepts.  Simple things like "Merely drawing a card and getting an action is not a good thing" and "Discarding your entire hand to get ten cards next turn is really strong".  Which is why a card like Ironworks is on there -- it looks good initially, but playing it without a plan is a bad idea.  Same with stuff like Pearl Diver and Pawn.

------------

Regarding Noble Brigand-- it becomes more powerful in multiplayer and its power level is closely associated with how much your opponent's deck is "big money".  Like the other money attack cards.
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chwhite

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #9 on: November 01, 2011, 05:33:16 pm »
0

EDIT:  Presently, with Accurate simulation and the built in Noble Brigand and Smithy bots, I get 44% NB, 48.66% Smithy, 7.34% tie.  Which does suggest to me that NB is probably better than chwhite is giving it credit for, even if it doesn't beat Smithy.

I have a hard time giving credit to a card which I have a 0.33 Win Rate With.  :P

Zero point three three!  That's even worse than Develop and Thief!
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chwhite

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #10 on: November 01, 2011, 05:38:51 pm »
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For what I feel, fool's gold is definitely on the useful list, as it can dominate on some boards. Except chapel and to some extent hamlet, no other cards at $2 do that. I will not rate a $2 terminal silver bad. It may be boring, but not bad.

I agree.  Fool's Gold is one of the three $2 buys that can set up a brand new strategy.  It needs good trashing (2+ cards) or +buy and +card draw.  At the same time, without those aspects it's a terrible card that should be avoided.  It might not crack the top-5 list because of how swingy it is, but it needs to be an honorable mention.

----

For $5 non-attacks, I believe Vault needs to be the one bumped off the list instead of Tactician.  I'd argue for Tacticican being in the top three (below Hunting Party and Wharf)... but that's more personal opinion.

-------------

One of the big things with the best/worst list is that a lot of it is trying to teach Dominion concepts.  Simple things like "Merely drawing a card and getting an action is not a good thing" and "Discarding your entire hand to get ten cards next turn is really strong".  Which is why a card like Ironworks is on there -- it looks good initially, but playing it without a plan is a bad idea.  Same with stuff like Pearl Diver and Pawn.

------------

Regarding Noble Brigand-- it becomes more powerful in multiplayer and its power level is closely associated with how much your opponent's deck is "big money".  Like the other money attack cards.

I can see where you're coming from on Fool's Gold; I just think that Crossroads is a better candidate for that "sometimes awesome, sometimes trap" Honorable Mention spot.

Agreed re: Tactician, I also would put it at #3 non-attack.  Personally I'd bump Venture, but that may be my play-style bias speaking.  (Oh, and City needs to go.  It's not even the best $5 Village. :P)

I think it's sufficient to keep Workshop on the Worst list for that lesson rather then to force Ironworks there when there are a lot of really bad $4 cards, given that Ironworks is so much better than Workshop in so many more situations.  Pearl Diver I think belongs in the same boat as Duchess; it's not that they harm your deck it's just that they do so little; and Pawn was also on the Best list, remember.
« Last Edit: November 01, 2011, 05:41:43 pm by chwhite »
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DG

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #11 on: November 01, 2011, 07:17:13 pm »
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As I've come to see more of the Hinterlands expansion I thinking it's quite important to see the cards in their setting. Just in the way that herbalist is poor without alchemy, and a counting house is poor without prosperity, a lot of the hinterlands cards will be poorer without hinterlands support. So the question is whether to rate a card poorly when it plays well in it's expansion, a physical box that a person can buy from a store and take cards from collectively, or to rate them in a wider context.

The main cards under discussion here are fool's gold and the tunnel which I see as the core of the expansion, even though they are cheap cards. The margrave looks like a strong card until you see that it is fatally weak against those cards. The same can be said for the noble brigand. The jack of all trades doesn't look so wonderful when your opponent has used a lousy spice trader to create a fool's gold rush.

For general wider play I'd accept that the border village and jack of all trades are in the top 5 lists. Farmlands are a fair card with a fair price and are better than harems, imho, as a 6 cost victory card with 2 vp and an extra ability. Mandarins are a weak 5 cost card, not useless but rarely game changing and lacking the power of other 5 cost cards. The highway could be one of the most misplayed cards I've seen, much more frequently than develop which looks far more complicated. Cache is ok and against works best in hinterlands.
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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #12 on: November 01, 2011, 07:47:46 pm »
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As I've come to see more of the Hinterlands expansion I thinking it's quite important to see the cards in their setting. Just in the way that herbalist is poor without alchemy, and a counting house is poor without prosperity, a lot of the hinterlands cards will be poorer without hinterlands support. So the question is whether to rate a card poorly when it plays well in it's expansion, a physical box that a person can buy from a store and take cards from collectively, or to rate them in a wider context.

Given that this is a forum peopled mostly by Isotropic players, I think the wider context is the obvious one. I understand from a business/design perspective the importance of making self-synergizing expansions, but in the internet game it feels like a very artificial restriction.
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ChaosRed

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #13 on: November 01, 2011, 07:57:08 pm »
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I think we need to remember isotropic is a very artificial environment, that as of right now, doesn't put a dime in Donald's pocket. I am still a big fan and supporter of cardboard games, and value the fact each expansion has synergy and theme contained in the box. My lousy wooden nickel on the subject.
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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #14 on: November 01, 2011, 10:46:42 pm »
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I'd love public feedback on this.  I'm planning on revisiting all of them before the next expansion, though I guess I should sneak in the best and worst of Alchemy first.

Count me as another that thinks chwhite nailed it perfectly.  I might find some quibbles if I put more thought into it, but the broad strokes sound exactly right to me.
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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #15 on: November 01, 2011, 10:55:26 pm »
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Best $5: Embassy is some high level ridiculousness and I think it'll eventually get its due. I give Embassy and Wharf a slight edge over Hunting Party/Lab, with Vault and Venture as #5 and #6. I used to use and abuse Tactician very often but there are many fast boards in which the double turn is simply unnecessary.

Worst $5: Probably stays in tact (Sab, Stash, Explorer, Contraband, Mine). Cache has potential to enter the list then drop back out once its usefulness is fleshed out.

Best $4: Jack, Remake, Tournament, Envoy, Bishop are all up there, but prioritizing Sea Hag is still the go-to strategy on most boards. It might be interesting to see how well Jack does against it as the draw/trash seems like a direct counter.
Worst $4: With the addition of Hinterlands I think Bureaucrat definitely moves up in strength, and was already better than Thief, Scout, and Coppersmith. Funnily enough I have +1.64 effect with Thief but it is very much a trap card in non-KC games. (Thief, Coppersmith, Scout, Pirate Ship, Noble Brigand)

Best $3: Masquerade should probably replace Steward as #3. Menagerie is the most board dependent of the top $3 cards so it gets bumped below the others. My list at this point would be Ambassador, FV, Masq, Warehouse, Tunnel/Menagerie.

Best $2: Chapel and Courtyard to me are locked in as #1 and #2. Courtyard is so dynamic in terms of managing your resources and is one of my favorite cards period. Crossroads, while often misused, has chapel-level implications when used correctly and is a powerful buy in most decks going into late game. #4 and #5 to me are a toss up between lighthouse and hamlet.
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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #16 on: November 01, 2011, 10:57:13 pm »
0

The only change I'd consider making is the inclusion of Young Witch in the top five $4 card along with Sea Hag and the three chwhite mentioned (JoaT, Remake, Tournament). Obviously, the strength of the card is contingent on the bane card, but very few bane cards offer a really strong defense. On average, this card is great. For some proof of the card's eliteness, I submit the following: http://councilroom.com/win_weighted_accum_turn.html?cards=sea%20hag%2C%20young%20witch
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Jimmmmm

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #17 on: November 01, 2011, 11:05:45 pm »
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For what I feel, fool's gold is definitely on the useful list, as it can dominate on some boards. Except chapel and to some extent hamlet, no other cards at $2 do that.

First ever Crossroads game I played had both Baron and Harem. Now that was a dominant $2 card.

Just wondering... how do we define the "worst" cards? I mean, take Pearl Diver. Sure, it doesn't do a lot for me, but if I have a spare $2, a spare buy and nothing else I want, I'm taking the Pearl Diver most of the time. And most of the time buying it instead of nothing will increase my chances of winning, even if it's by an incredibly small amount. And, you know, if it keeps my Mountebank from missing a shuffle, win for the Pearl Diver.

Also, how do we feel about Cache as an opening?
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jonts26

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #18 on: November 01, 2011, 11:10:09 pm »
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I mean, take Pearl Diver. Sure, it doesn't do a lot for me, but if I have a spare $2, a spare buy and nothing else I want, I'm taking the Pearl Diver most of the time. And most of the time buying it instead of nothing will increase my chances of winning, even if it's by an incredibly small amount. And, you know, if it keeps my Mountebank from missing a shuffle, win for the Pearl Diver.

In a lot of set ups pearl diver won't hurt you to buy if you have a spare $2. However, there are also a lot of times it will. The biggest is probably when you might draw PD dead. But you also don't want it when you want to have some sort of reaction card in hand as a defense. And this includes having a curse in hand against the Mountebank. So no, I would not grab pearl divers with MB on the board.
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greatexpectations

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #19 on: November 01, 2011, 11:21:55 pm »
+1

Also, how do we feel about Cache as an opening?

well, on the right board you can potentially have a turn 3 province. cache/nothing will get you a slightly better average money value (12/13) than silver/silver (11/12) but it comes at the cost of the slightly larger deck.   would work well in a gardens deck, and could be a fantastic buy with trader in hand. i've only seen it on one or two boards though so i can't comment much more.
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Jimmmmm

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #20 on: November 01, 2011, 11:33:38 pm »
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I mean, take Pearl Diver. Sure, it doesn't do a lot for me, but if I have a spare $2, a spare buy and nothing else I want, I'm taking the Pearl Diver most of the time. And most of the time buying it instead of nothing will increase my chances of winning, even if it's by an incredibly small amount. And, you know, if it keeps my Mountebank from missing a shuffle, win for the Pearl Diver.

In a lot of set ups pearl diver won't hurt you to buy if you have a spare $2. However, there are also a lot of times it will. The biggest is probably when you might draw PD dead. But you also don't want it when you want to have some sort of reaction card in hand as a defense. And this includes having a curse in hand against the Mountebank. So no, I would not grab pearl divers with MB on the board.

Yes the two situations that I could think of which made me say "most" instead of "all" are if you're going to be playing terminal drawers without spare actions (something which I usually try to avoid) and if you want to have defensive/Reaction cards in hand as often as possible. Possibly I should have mentioned these but they were meant to be implied. Personally I find that more often than not I'd rather buy any given cantrip than nothing at all.

Although good call on the Mountebank. It was meant to be a token powerful card. I didn't think of the defensive issue. Replace it with, I don't know, Gold.

Anyway, not saying that Pearl Diver is a great card. It's obviously not. But I think in most games in which it's present there is a high probability that you'll find yourself in one or more situations in which it's worth buying. There are many cards that this cannot be said for and go unbought much more often than Pearl Divers.

So my original question: how do we define "worst"? If it's "does the least for you", maybe PD deserves to be there. If it's "worth buying least often", I'd say it doesn't.
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chwhite

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #21 on: November 01, 2011, 11:45:41 pm »
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For what I feel, fool's gold is definitely on the useful list, as it can dominate on some boards. Except chapel and to some extent hamlet, no other cards at $2 do that.

First ever Crossroads game I played had both Baron and Harem. Now that was a dominant $2 card.

Just wondering... how do we define the "worst" cards? I mean, take Pearl Diver. Sure, it doesn't do a lot for me, but if I have a spare $2, a spare buy and nothing else I want, I'm taking the Pearl Diver most of the time. And most of the time buying it instead of nothing will increase my chances of winning, even if it's by an incredibly small amount. And, you know, if it keeps my Mountebank from missing a shuffle, win for the Pearl Diver.

Also, how do we feel about Cache as an opening?

Yeah, Pearl Diver generally doesn't hurt you if you have a spare buy and you're not likely to draw it dead, which is why I've generally considered Secret Chamber and possibly Moat to be worse, because sometimes buying them with $2 will actively harm your deck in a way that PD usually won't.  I find PD to be best in games with Goons or Conspirator or Peddler, where the fact it's a $2 cantrip is the main draw.

So my original question: how do we define "worst"? If it's "does the least for you", maybe PD deserves to be there. If it's "worth buying least often", I'd say it doesn't.

I'd say it's a somewhat subjective weighing of those two factors.  PD quite possibly does less for you than any card in the game (though Scout is often just as bad on that count), but there are literally dozens of cards I'd buy less frequently.  So I'd say it probably ought to be on a Worst list, but not dead last: for the $2s my vote would be Secret Chamber, which is rarely worth buying and does very little for you except in rare combo situations like Tactician (and then you'd always rather have a Vault).

_________

I am unsold on Cache as an opening.  You're adding $5 worth of treasure over 3 cards, so the average value of the cards you're adding to your deck is $1.83- worse than if they were Silvers.  Maybe it's not actually worse than three Silvers, on the principle that Gold + Copper is better than two Silvers since you want variance, but then you're tying yourself to a lumpy, inconsistent treasure strategy. 

A Silver/Silver opening will give you $11 worth in cash over 12 cards; a Cache/nothing opening gives you $12 over 13 cards, which is better by a miniscule amount, but also means an additional card will miss the Turn 5 reshuffle, god help you if Cache is one of them.  Basically, I don't see it outperforming Silver/Silver by much if at all, and frankly Silver/Silver is a pretty low baseline.
« Last Edit: November 02, 2011, 12:00:58 am by chwhite »
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mischiefmaker

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #22 on: November 02, 2011, 01:03:45 am »
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How does the Secret Chamber-Tactician combo work? I tried putting this together once and was not happy with the results. You can't go double tactician because your 10 card hand has to include Secret Chamber, Tactician, and a card to discard to Tactician, leaving you with only 7 cards to discard -- not enough for a province. Is the idea to use the combo once and then wait for it to hit again? Or is it to pick up a coin-giving action to make up the slack? Or...something else I'm not seeing?

Also, not that this is something you would want to build a deck around or anything, but if you happen to have a Watchtower in your deck for some other reason, it works nicely with Cache.
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kn1tt3r

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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #23 on: November 02, 2011, 03:03:20 am »
+1

How does the Secret Chamber-Tactician combo work?

Not really well actually. It does work with some Lab support, but it's still very slow to set up and not really reliable once you have a bunch of green cards in your deck.

Tactician-Vault, however, is rather strong.
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Re: Updating the Top 5 lists
« Reply #24 on: November 02, 2011, 05:52:11 am »
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Best $4: Jack, Remake, Tournament, Envoy, Bishop are all up there, but prioritizing Sea Hag is still the go-to strategy on most boards. It might be interesting to see how well Jack does against it as the draw/trash seems like a direct counter.

DoubleJack beats Sea Hag even more easily than it beats Witch. 75-25 against one hag + big money, 64-36 against two hags + big money.
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