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[tlloyd]

I think the real reason Duchess is the worst $2* is that it is almost never going to be needed. Moat may generally be a mistake, but I've played games where it made the difference (either for its reaction or when no other draw was available in an action-rich game). Pearl Diver has a miniscule effect most of the time, but sometimes you really need cantrips. Duchess primarily provides coin, but guess what -- so does Silver! A terminal silver has to provide some significant benefit to be better than silver, almost regardless of its cost. It's not that +$2 is not a good deal for $0, it's that there is always a source of coin that is a better deal -- even for $3 more.

[Jimmmmm]

Speaking of Moat, I just came across this in a game and I guess it seems obvious now. Moat is an excellent counter to the Council Room/Militia Combo. I played two Council Rooms then gleefully played a Militia... only to be Moated. I had naturally ignored Moat and my opponent said he bought it by accident.

Anyway, compared to normal Militia usage, you're much more likely to be able to use your Moat reaction, and when you do it will help you a lot more.

[jomini]

I think like you don't rate Peddler like how it was if it cost $8, you can't rate Duchess as if it cost $2. Of course, the effect of Duchess is much weaker, you can't pull of all these nice tricks you can pull of with Peddler (perhaps only KC it for $6 when there is no alternative for money...), and it will never* be an important part of any engine. But which $2 is**?
When you play BM-ish, a free terminal Silver when you are in the middle of the greening-stage, and the game seems to drag out a little longer (why else would you buy this Duchy?) is 'nice'. Yeah, you won't buy it for $2, but you also don't buy a Peddler for $8.

*for suitable definition of "never".
** Yes, I know NV/Bridge...

Massively important:
**Crossroads/scout (+actions & huge draws)
**Crossroads/nobles
**Hamlet/limited draw (Library, Watchtower, Jack) (discard useless cards to draw better ones)
**Hamlet/Tunnel/draw (Council room, smithy, envoy, etc.) (discard the tunnels & + actions to get more draw)
**Fools gold/draw (council room)
**Fools gold/mint

Can be important:
**Herbalist/Alchemist (ensure never ending potion draws)
**Pawn/limited draw (discardable coin & +buy)
**Haven/limited draw (remove cards for more drawing power)

And that is leaving out things like NV abuse beyond bridges (e.g. cartographer abuse to bury all the dross in the mat).

[jotheonah]

Haven is a like a consolation prize village. "Oh, I can't let you play both your clashing terminals, but why don't you save one for next time?"

[HiveMindEmulator]

^I think haven is a little more than that. It's like a (really) weak version of tactician -- you give up a good card out of this turn in order to make next turn really strong. And in general, one weak turn and one strong one is generally better than two mediocre ones.

[Razzishi]

^I think haven is a little more than that. It's like a (really) weak version of tactician -- you give up a good card out of this turn in order to make next turn really strong. And in general, one weak turn and one strong one is generally better than two mediocre ones.

Or the opposite: moving a Gold out of your $11 hand to make it more likely to hit $8 in your next hand.

[jotheonah]

Perhaps I should have written "I tend to use Haven as..."  Because you're right, there are other uses for it. I think Haven is a good $2 because it's not really a weaker version of something else. It's its own unique thing.

[werothegreat]

What I dislike about most of these lists is that there's sort of a base assumption that you're playing with every single card in your kingdom.  Sure, Venture is "strictly" better than Adventurer, but if Adventurer is in your kingdom and Venture isn't, then your plan might use Adventurer, and if you can draw two Golds with it, maybe use it with a Throne Room, you can totally kick ass with it.  The same can go for any number of cards.  How good a card might be is highly, highly dependent on what else is on the table, and it's very unlikely you'll ever have a setup where you have cards that are "strictly" better than one another, like Remodel and Expand, or Secret Chamber and Vault.  So be nice to these cards.

Sorry if this is off-topic - I'm going by the first post.  This got bumped up to the top, and I'm not reading 7 pages of posts just to get caught up.

[Jimmmmm]

Sure, Venture is "strictly" better than Adventurer

No it's not. No Action can ever be strictly better than a Treasure, and vice-versa. Venture is generally better, but I'd usually rather have an Adventurer if I have a bunch of spare actions. It's just that Adventurer has to compete with Gold to be bought and your other Actions to be played.

I don't think Adventurer is as bad as people say. Of course, it's best when you can get rid of all your Copper, and if you can it's worth at least $4. Compare that to Harvest which maxes out at $4 and is otherwise quite similar (money-giving terminal). Of course, Venture gives at least $3 in this situation, which is clearly not strictly better.

Having said all that, I strongly agree with your overall point. I've never liked the reasoning behind Cellar being 4th on the original "Worst $2 Cards" list, which was basically that Warehouse is better. If a cheap card came out which allowed you to trash more than four cards, would that make Chapel one of the worst cards? Of course not.

[Qvist]

I've never liked the reasoning behind Cellar being 4th on the original "Worst $2 Cards" list, which was basically that Warehouse is better. If a cheap card came out which allowed you to trash more than four cards, would that make Chapel one of the worst cards? Of course not.

Yes, that's my thought too. I don't get all the bashing against Cellar. It's a very good card that I buy mostly. It can equalize shuffling luck which is very important in Dominion. Of course Warehouse is better. Because of that Warehouse is more expensive.

[chwhite]

I've never liked the reasoning behind Cellar being 4th on the original "Worst $2 Cards" list, which was basically that Warehouse is better. If a cheap card came out which allowed you to trash more than four cards, would that make Chapel one of the worst cards? Of course not.

Yes, that's my thought too. I don't get all the bashing against Cellar. It's a very good card that I buy mostly. It can equalize shuffling luck which is very important in Dominion. Of course Warehouse is better. Because of that Warehouse is more expensive.

I do sort of agree that we shouldn't argue "Cellar sucks because a more expensive card [Warehouse] fills its niche better"; that's a bit like saying Caravan is bad because you'd rather have a Lab: no, Caravan's still a good card.  It's not quite like saying that, because in practice the gap between $2 and $3 is smaller than the gap between $4 and $5, so the comparison is somewhat more relevant.

However!  I also do think Cellar is pretty weak, and would still find room for it on the Worst List.  Most of the time, I'd rather build a deck that just doesn't need a Cellar effect: trash my junk, or go BMesque and buy more Silver/Gold instead, or any of a whole host of other approaches.  And, even in many of the cases where sifting is useful, Cellar doesn't provide the quality of sifting necessary for it to be worth a buy: in particular, Menagerie decks are boosted by a Warehouse that can selectively discard duplicates after you draw, but Cellar can't do that consistently.  Basically, the benefit that Cellar provides is one that, very often, I just don't want to waste a buy on, and if I do want to/have to spend a buy on it then chances are I don't have a deck I'm very happy with!

[DStu]

I think Cellar is a difficult topic. It has some uses, and there are not many cards that do what it does, Warehouse, Inn a little, Young Witch misses the action. But in many deck it hurts, even when there is no great trashing.  But there are also some decks where it is really great support. Like maybe also Warehouse, but there are not so many alternatives here than say for Herbalists +buy.
I had a Wharf/Cellar without Villages game starting 5/2 some time ago, and this is a deck where it really shines. You can buy it with $2 in T2, you accelerate the deck, but already have your $5 so you don't need anything to boost you buying power, you don't want to trash, you can take care for the reshuffle because you decide how many cards you draw, you have the buy to pick up more, you have large handsizes, you really start greening fastly, so there are targets for Cellar.

[theory]

As I said somewhere in the blog comments, it's very, very difficult to justify buying a card at $2 when a $3 card does it so much better.  Each card fulfills some predestined role, but if you ever find yourself in the exact situation that a card is designed for, and you still wouldn't take it, then I'd consider it weak.

Of course, you will buy Cellar, and you will end up needing it, but that's just because no card in Dominion is that bad! When every card is good in some way, you need to find ways in which they "suck".  Being severely out-classed by a similarly-priced card is a pretty clear-cut way that it sucks.  Caravan is outclassed by Lab, but the price difference is bigger, and Caravan isn't really that much worse.  OTOH, the badness of Adventurer is just exemplified with Venture.  I do buy Adventurer, and I love the card, but in every situation that I would buy Adventurer, I would buy Venture instead if it's available.  That, to me, is about as weak as Dominion cards get.

[werothegreat]

As I said somewhere in the blog comments, it's very, very difficult to justify buying a card at $2 when a $3 card does it so much better.  Each card fulfills some predestined role, but if you ever find yourself in the exact situation that a card is designed for, and you still wouldn't take it, then I'd consider it weak.

Of course, you will buy Cellar, and you will end up needing it, but that's just because no card in Dominion is that bad! When every card is good in some way, you need to find ways in which they "suck".  Being severely out-classed by a similarly-priced card is a pretty clear-cut way that it sucks.  Caravan is outclassed by Lab, but the price difference is bigger, and Caravan isn't really that much worse.  OTOH, the badness of Adventurer is just exemplified with Venture.  I do buy Adventurer, and I love the card, but in every situation that I would buy Adventurer, I would buy Venture instead if it's available.  That, to me, is about as weak as Dominion cards get.

While I recognize that some cards you would never buy no matter what else is on the board (and I can't think of any off the top of my head), and there would be some I would reluctantly get because nothing else on the board does what it does (I'm looking at you, Loan), but most cards' merit is heavily dependent on what else is out there.  Given that it seems most people in this forum go by the random selection method of choosing cards, why are these "best to worst" lists so prevalent?  You're only dealing with 10 cards at a time, and usually you don't have a say in what those 10 are.  So the whole process seems silly.  To me, the mark of a good Dominion player is one who can make a good strategy based off of whatever's on hand.  Maybe that would be more constructive - have like a weekly 10 random cards where we discuss how to build a strategy around said cards.  Or if we must go with a theme of "best and worst," perhaps restrict it to "worst" being "I would not buy this card EVER (or maybe sometimes, just very rarely)" and "best" being "if this is on the board, spam it or die."  Or as another idea - see who can build a working strategy around a "worst" card.

[olneyce]

This is like saying 'it's stupid to make a list of your 10 favorite albums of 2011, because you can only listen to one of them at a time!'

Making lists is fun.  The effort to explain what makes one card better than another forces a more thorough consideration of a card's strengths and weaknesses.  And debate over the lists produces a lot of valuable insight into how other people value cards, or extract uses from them that you might not see.

If you don't like the lists, don't participate in the conversation.  I don't see the problem here.

[rinkworks]

I think the real reason Duchess is the worst $2* is that it is almost never going to be needed. Duchess primarily provides coin, but guess what -- so does Silver!

Gold outclasses Silver in every way, but that doesn't make Silver a bad card.  When you need money and only have $3-$5 to spend, you buy Silver.  True, the difference between $3 and $6 is a lot larger than the difference between $2 and $3.  But $2 hands happen, most notably with 5/2 openings and extra buys.  If you're on a 5/2 opening, you may need the economy boost that Duchess gives you NOW, rather than waiting a reshuffle for a chance to buy a Silver.  Timing is everything in Dominion.

I appreciate what you're saying.  Somewhat unusually for $2 cards, Duchess doesn't really offer anything that other cards don't also give you.  But that's just one metric by which a card's value, or lack thereof, may be measured -- and IMHO, not a very important one, or Laboratory would be one of the bad $5's.  At least the alternatives to Duchess are above its own cost tier.

To clarify, I'd still probably rank Duchess approximately 4th on the Worst $2's list.  I just continue to be baffled that anyone would consider Herbalist or Secret Chamber better, especially when Duchess' Duchy rule should break any ties in its favor.

[dondon151]

I, also, don't understand the arguments against making "best of" lists. As a beginner Dominion player myself at one point I was making a whole lot of buying mistakes until I peeked at some of the "best of" lists here. I suppose only from further playing experience have I really appreciated the fact that all cards have their niche somewhere, but at least in my opinion, it's better to tell a less experienced player to not buy (for example) Adventurer because it's a rather bad card instead of telling him that every card has its niche and have that being misinterpreted to mean that he should buy whatever he wants.

Additionally, if you consider all the kingdoms in which a card may exist, some cards are going to perform better on average than others. That's certainly a criterion for the list - an impractical one, but valid nonetheless.

[Donald X.]

This is like saying 'it's stupid to make a list of your 10 favorite albums of 2011, because you can only listen to one of them at a time!'

Instead, the problem is that years ending in 1 are low points of their decades. Okay I don't have many data points here. 1971 was a fine year - 1976 was the low point of the 70s. But 1981 was the worst year for music in the 80s, 1991 for the 90s, and 2001 for the oughts. So, 2011, I wasn't expecting much, and man, not a great year.

I can't really rate 1961 or 1951 - I just don't know the 50s or the early 60s that well. 1961 is bound to suck compared to 1964-1969, but I mean, let's not be hasty. I liked 1941 but I don't know the end of the 40s that well, and well there was the war, how fair is it really to compare those years. 1931 was fine, I don't know what the weak year of the 30s is, I would have to study it. Music gradually got slower in the 30s, so 1931 was probably not the low point, but who knows. 1921 has the problem of, amplification came into its own in 1925, so any music you hear from earlier is just drastically lower in audio quality. 1926-1929 just blow away 1920-1925. And then prior to 1921 my knowledge of wax cylinders is almost entirely confined to Billy Murray recordings, and even those only go back to 1903.

But uh still, in modern times, that 1 is a killer. I'll make a list for 2011 anyway, but I won't like it.

[theory]

Yeah -- these lists do promote strategy in a way (it's a pretty convenient way to give 1-paragraph summaries of cards), but in the end, it's mostly for fun.  I don't know if anyone ever used to read Flux's Decahedron columns for Diablo II, but I took a lot of inspiration from his hilarious lists (e.g., Best/Worst Item Sets, Best/Worst Uniques).

[werothegreat]

This is like saying 'it's stupid to make a list of your 10 favorite albums of 2011, because you can only listen to one of them at a time!'

There's a difference between favorite and best.  I could most definitely make lists of my favorite cards - there are definitely cards that I personally enjoy playing.  But that's not what we're doing here, is it?  And I have nothing against rating cards to discuss strategy and help out noobsters - but when we start hearing sentences like "But with the advent of Warehouse, Cellar’s main selling point is now that it’s slightly cheaper, and honestly, you’re almost never going to need a Cellar but unable to afford the Warehouse." (which is taken directly from the original Five Worst $2 cards list), I am irked.  If Cellar and Warehouse are both in the same setup, then sure, you'll go for Warehouse.  But how likely is that to happen?  If Cellar is there, and Warehouse isn't, you'll go for the Cellar, particularly in lieu of cheap mass trashers like Chapel and Steward.

[olneyce]

And I have nothing against rating cards to discuss strategy and help out noobsters - but when we start hearing sentences like "But with the advent of Warehouse, Cellar’s main selling point is now that it’s slightly cheaper, and honestly, you’re almost never going to need a Cellar but unable to afford the Warehouse." (which is taken directly from the original Five Worst $2 cards list), I am irked.

I don't know what to tell you then.  Stop reading the thread if it annoys you.  Other people like it and find the exercise to be useful - and are able to recognize that judgments of 'best' can be useful in spite of their subjective nature.

[olneyce]

But uh still, in modern times, that 1 is a killer. I'll make a list for 2011 anyway, but I won't like it.

Hard to argue with this.  I write a music blog, and have been making end of the year lists since 2005.  They're usually 25 or 30 albums.  This year I'm struggling to find 15 I can heartily endorse.  It's been a bummer of a year musically.

[theory]

And I have nothing against rating cards to discuss strategy and help out noobsters - but when we start hearing sentences like "But with the advent of Warehouse, Cellar’s main selling point is now that it’s slightly cheaper, and honestly, you’re almost never going to need a Cellar but unable to afford the Warehouse." (which is taken directly from the original Five Worst $2 cards list), I am irked.  If Cellar and Warehouse are both in the same setup, then sure, you'll go for Warehouse.  But how likely is that to happen?  If Cellar is there, and Warehouse isn't, you'll go for the Cellar, particularly in lieu of cheap mass trashers like Chapel and Steward.

But it's true, isn't it?  Cellar is fine, it's great, you'll buy it often, but isn't it a whole lot weaker than Warehouse?

I suppose you can take issue with anyone rating a card objectively bad just because a better card exists.  For instance, Throne Room and Lab are obviously not bad even though KC and Hunting Party are superior usually.  But Cellar happens to be a combination of:

1) Not much price difference
2) Not really that great an ability
3) An ability that is considerably stronger in its superior form

So it's not just that Warehouse is better, but the card itself is not so great.  It's not "worst" material on its own, but it's close, and so the fact that there's a massively better card pushes it over the edge.

Apologies if all of this didn't come through in my too-short post.

[Robz888]

If Cellar and Warehouse are both in the same setup, then sure, you'll go for Warehouse.  But how likely is that to happen?  If Cellar is there, and Warehouse isn't, you'll go for the Cellar, particularly in lieu of cheap mass trashers like Chapel and Steward.

I don't think that's true. There are situations where I would have bought Warehouse if it were available, but don't want Cellar (which is available) because the relative benefit isn't so great. Think of Hoard and Explorer. If Hoard is available, a Gold-acquiring early Victory-buying strategy looks great. Now, if Explorer is available but no Hoard, I will usually pursue some other strategy. It's true that Hoard and Explorer rarely face-off against each other, but Hoard is so much better than Explorer, you usually don't even want Explorer in lieu of Hoard. That was my understanding of what theory was saying about Warehouse and Cellar.

I would also mention Crossroads as a card that mostly does what Cellar does, but better. Victory cards are typically what you want to Cellar out of your hand anyway, and Crossroads lets you do that without actually getting rid of any cards, making them easier to stack (and unless you intend to play lots and lots of Crossroads, Crossroads' initial +3 actions are helpful). That said, Crossroads still isn't a great $2 (I would call it middle of the road). So Cellar more than deserves its spot on the Worst $2s list.

[Qvist]

What is better: A hand with a Cellar and 4 Curses or a Crossroads with 4 Curses?
Or: Opening 5/2 Mountebank/Crossroads. Turn 3 and you draw a Crossroads with 4 Coppers! You wish it were a Cellar!
In short: You can't really compare Crossroads and Cellar. I like Cellar and think it's a good card to add in you deck. Others may disagree.

As theory's disclaimer says: Every card shines in different situations, but some cards shine more often than other cards.
To know which card is mostly a better card is a very valuable information to get a better player and one part to success.
(Another part would be how the board must look like that a card shines or cannot shine)

But how do you get the list of the best cards?
One attempt might be to analyze and evaluate statisics to get to a conlusion. For that we have councilroom.com
The other possibility are simulators.
The third one is experience. Experience of each player differs and the best (in my opinion) is to compile a list of as much players as possible => condensed experience

I like Cellar, but if 10 other players disagree, the possibility is high, that I'm wrong. Of course the majority isn't always right but the probability rises.
Because of that I initiated this other thread to compile a list of the best cards (and one list of the favourite cards to force everyone to differentiate between these two factors, as I find myself mixing these two factors far too often). Maybe we can learn something from this list. dondon151 said these lists were helpful for him/her. Maybe a complete list isn't only helpful for newbies, maybe also for all of us.