1.) Cultist [X]

2.) Rebuild [X]

3.) Governor [X]

4.) Mountebank [X]

5.) Wharf [X]

6.) Ghost Ship [X]

7.) Butcher [X]

8.) Junk Dealer [X]

9.) Highway [X]

10.) Lost City [X]

11.) Witch [X]

12.) Upgrade [X]

13.) Minion [X]

14.) Counterfeit [X]

15.) Royal Carriage [X]

16.) Horn of Plenty [X]

17.) Haunted Woods [X]

18.) Laboratory [X]

19.) Margrave [X]

20.) Distant Lands [X]

21.) Baker [X]

22.) Bridge Troll [X]

23.) Embassy [X]

24.) Stables [X]

25.) City [X]

26.) Duke [X]

27.) Tactician [X]

28.) Apprentice [X]

29.) Treasure Trove [X]

30.) Torturer [X]

31.) Count [X]

32.) Journeyman [X]

33.) Swamp Hag [X]

34.) Haggler [X]

35.) Band of Misfits [X]

36.) Merchant Guild [X]

37.) Catacombs [X]

38.) Inn [X]

39.) Soothsayer [X]

40.) Hunting Party [X]

41.) Summon [X]

42.) Market [X]

43.) Bazaar [X]

44.) Library [X]

45.) Bandit Camp [X]

46.) Jester [X]

47.) Rabble [X]

48.) Council Room [X]

49.) Seaway [X]

50.) Ball [X]

51.) Trade [X]

52.) Graverobber [X]

53.) Mystic [X]

54.) Festival [X]

55.) Mint [X]

56.) Outpost [X]

57.) Vault [X]

58.) Storyteller [X]

59.) Ill-Gotten Gains [X]

60.) Trading Post [X]

61.) Relic [X]

62.) Raid [X]

63.) Artificer [X]

64.) Treasury [X]

65.) Wine Merchant [X]

66.) Rogue [X]

67.) Giant [X]

68.) Cartographer [X]

69.) Pillage [X]

70.) Explorer [X]

71.) Venture [X]

72.) Tribute [X]

73.) Mandarin [X]

74.) Counting House [X]

75.) Saboteur [X]

76.) Mine [X]

77.) Royal Seal [X]

78.) Merchant Ship [X]

79.) Cache [X]

80.) Stash [X]

81.) Harvest [X]

82.) Contraband [X]



Hey y'all. These posts seem to be well-received, so here I go. It's time to see how many of my upvotes were due to my hilarious Young Witch pun last time and how many of them are from actual Dominion content.Full disclosure, I didn't rank Knights so I've adjusted some of my rankings by one to account for that. This time I sorted the cards by the difference between my ranking and the community's ranking, then made a cutoff point based on what I thought was worth talking about, which turns out to be 14 ranks. This ends up being roughly the same percentage-points value as the other costs, which is kind of neat (and expected). So this list is sorted in increasing order by how much I disagree with the community's ranking; let's get to it.I ranked Throne Room higher than most did on the $4 list, but it wasn't enough to show up. If Throne Room cost $5, I would probably put it above quite a few entries on this list and a lot of people would disagree with me. I often joke that the text on Throne Room reads "take the best card on the board, +1 Action and then that" and though that's a slight exaggeration, it really isn't for Royal Carriage. Royal Carriage is a really, really, really good card and I expect it to be ranked much higher on the next cards list.Hey guess what, I still like green cards more than the general consensus! Wheee!Here's my theory: Develop is underrated because a lot of people just don't know how to use it to its best potential. So is Procession, and so is Inn. How do you play it better? Well that's a really difficult question to answer and I don't think I can answer it very well so I will just let my bold statement stand as slightly speculative.19th, eh? I like Swampy right where I put her. Gaining a Curse on your own terms is not nearly as painful as having it force-fed into your discard pile. Sure, it's close and it's an Adventures card so there's not as much collective experience with it.I like Giant where he is too, maybe this is a case of people underestimating his cost -- it really takes two cards and two actions to get that effect, and while it's good, it's really slow. The biggest thing Giant has going for him is the fact that he's an attack, which means there will always be boards where he's going to be relevant.All right, here's one I can finally speak a little more strongly about: Trade is a lot better than 69th on this list for sure. Silver is a good card, and it's way better than the junk you're going to trash to it. Trade is a hard counter to junking attacks, which means that because Trade exists, your opponent can be better off because you junked them than they would be if you hadn't. Yellow=Purple is an exaggeration 99% of the time and just plain silly over 50% of the time (that's a big statement and I'm prepared to back it up), and Silver is one of the best yellows around. I actually think I've underrated Trade now that I think about it again.Hmm, this one I might have overrated, but I wouldn't put it all the way down at rank 54. Eh, this one is probably closer than it seems but BoM can be quite good a lot of the time, I'd say it's closer to 36 than it is to 54.Whoa, I really don't see what's so good about Vault, like what am I missing here? I like where I put it and I really don't see why Vault+Gold=Province puts it above so many other cards. This one really baffles me...Once again, it's an Adventures card and I like where I put it. There are some cool combos and broken things you can do with Artificer, but barring that it's just a Peddler and that happens so often that it's ignored a lot of the time. To really get mileage out of Artificer's ability you either need to have cost reduction to use with it or MASSIVE draw, and with that kind of draw, chances are you'll be able to do better than Artificer -- I used all caps there so like drawing 8 Silvers can get you two Provinces not on top of your deck and I feel like this is a pretty valid comparison.I think I'm willing to say I have Baker overrated a bit, to the point where 40th is probably close enough....this is where it starts to get juicy, where the differences are really big, like more than 20 ranks.Torturer is a good card. I mean, it's a lot better than a lot of other fivers, I'll give you that for sure. But top ten? Really? There are easily 20 cards better than Torturer for sure. If there's a halfway decent village around then sure Village/Torturer will be very significant, but you certainly can't say it dominates every such game (with any decent trashing it's just a Smithy that annoys your opponent instead of the whole point of the midgame). Many other fivers are less conditional and have impacts on the game that are just as warping. I think the fact that Torturer needs a village to have any real presence is a big mark against it.I said this already, but I should say it again so I'm clear, Torturer is a good card and it's important, but top-ten fivers is not a place I think it belongs.So many times I find myself thinking "Cartographer is probably going to be good on this board" and then I never end up getting any of them. Why? Because it doesn't have enough of an impact -- there's always something more important to pick up. If I'm spending $5 on a card, almost all of the time I need that card to make my deck way better and so often Cartographer just doesn't do enough.These next three cards: if you read what I have to say about them and you didn't already agree with me, then you're about to get some monster Dominion advice that if you take it, you will become significantly better at the game. I'm so confident about my reads on these cards and they're so different than what the community as a whole has come up with that I'm willing to stake my reputation on them. Big talk, I know.Guys, Treasure Trove is totally broken. It's a difficult card to use in engines but oh mansies, this thing is enormous. I think the community really needs to rethink this card; there's a Treasure Trove of potential here that most people appear to just not be seeing.We've made some good progress here, more and more people are seeing the light about IGG, but as you can see we have a long way to go. This has been talked about at length elsewhere so I won't re-hash it here, but suffice it to say IGG has not yet hit terminal velocity on its trip down the $5 cards list.*evil laugh* I remember losing so many games in playtesting because I thought I could just get by without going for Distant Lands. Don't let this happen to you, unless you're playing meDistant Lands is vastly underrated by the community, it's a wonderful card and it is really powerful. Going for Distant Lands will change the way you build your whole deck, where it feels like you are just spinning your wheels for four or five turns, but it's so many points and I think that's where people are misreading this card.This thing, it's been talked about before. Most people believe Hunting Party is better than Lab and I disagree. In the early game, yes, but past that I would just rather have Labs, man. I know this is not a popular opinion so I won't belabor it.But top ten? No way, not even close, man. How can Hunting Party be top ten when Lab is down in the twenties? Who plays Hunting Party stacks anymore? Like, they're not good. I haven't played a simple Hunting Party stack in so long (unless I was being the fun police for testing champion match boards, and in that case I lost like every single game I played, for the record). Sure, it's easy to execute, but those decks just aren't good. Hunting Party will support almost any deck you could possibly build so contesting them doesn't hurt and a simple HP stack with only 5 HPs is actually really awful. Is there something else totally amazing that Hunting Party does that Lab doesn't that warrants over a ten rank difference (towards the top of the list, no less, where I believe these differences are magnified)?I think I've been a little bit harsh on Hunting Party. I can see bumping it up like 5 or 10 ranks, but this card does not deserve to breathe the same air as the top ten cards in this list. I just don't see how it made it that high.