I was still only lurking here when Silverspawn started a fight with half of the forum by suggesting that lookout was a better trasher for 3 than ambassador but I watched it with amusement and interest. One thing that interested me was his 'ratio' for the reduction in deck size vs the damage done to your current hand (which no-one actually refuted by the way) and I decided to reprise this here.
Silverspawn's 'ratios' were off as he treated all cards in hand as being of equal worth when they're clearly not; estates are worth nothing financially so removing them does nothing to harm your current hand while the spot taken in your hand by the trasher is likely worth 2 as it could have been a silver.
Here are my revised 'ratios'.
Lookout:
1/2
Ambassador (treating junking your opponent one card as equivalent to trashing one):
1/2 (does not return anything, just junks your opponent), 2/3 (returns a single copper), 3/4 (returns 2 coppers), 2/2 (returns a single estate), 3/2 (returns 2 estates)
Obviously Ambassador is superior here but I thought it would be interesting extending this to other trashers that cost 4 or less (for simplicity's sake I'm only going to consider gaining money and trashing copper or estates even though most of these cards are worse than normal in such a situation).
Chapel (obviously has many more possibilities but I'm going to assume you trash all the estates and coppers you see):
3/5-3/2 (collides with your other opener), 4/6-4/3 (doesn't)
Moneylender:
1/0
Remodel:
0/2 (draws without estates and doesn't trash a copper), 0/-1 (trashes estate, grains silver (yes I am aware that gaining a card worth 3 is not equivalent to the worth of 3 money in your hand))
Masquerade (early on +2 cards vs 2 money is a wash):
0/-1 (passes estate for copper, doesn't trash), 1/0 (passes estate, trashes whatever's recieved), 1/-1 (passes estate for copper, trashes estate), 0/0 (passes copper for copper, doesn't trash), 1/1 (passes copper, trashes)
Steward:
0/0 (doesn't trash), 2/4-2/2 (does)
Island:
1/3-1/2
Loan:
0/1 (hits silver), 1/1 (hits copper)
Trade Route:
1/2, 1/3
Remake:
2/4 (cc), 1/0 (ce), 0/-4(ee)
Develop:
1/3, 0/-3
Jack:
0/-1 (trashes), -1/0 (doesn't)
Spice Merchant:
1/1
Trader:
1/3, -1/-6
Forager:
1/2 (trashes copper or estate (having not trashed a treasure earlier)), 1/1 (trashes estate after trashing copper)
Hermit:
0/-3 (trashes), -1/-3 (doesn't)
Rats:
0/0-0/1
Doctor:
0/2-3/2
What do people think: how much value does such an analysis actually have?