Which is the worst card (excluding animals and S cards)?

[PuertoGeeko84]

I guess HERMIT is the worse. No power on first rounds, can get to 4 in midgame but i wont quit my Champion

[Theter]

That's ridiculous, hermit is one of the strongest A card

For me the worst card is clown except for 1V1. Else it is the reporter

[gpope]

I guess HERMIT is the worse. No power on first rounds, can get to 4 in midgame but i wont quit my Champion

If you remove all your city cards then Hermit is now always just as strong as Champion, but much easier to get doubles of. As a single card I do think it's pretty bad, but if you see doubles you can reliably build around them and they turn extremely strong. It's like having extra Champions, except they also get buffed by AI.

They also do play nicely with Sailors if you're running 7 uniques, because in those decks you will frequently want to bottom deck Champion anyhow (since Champion is the one card you're guaranteed not to have duplicates of, and you need the bottom card to not be a dupe if you don't want to bench out early.)

[PuertoGeeko84]

I guess HERMIT is the worse. No power on first rounds, can get to 4 in midgame but i wont quit my Champion

If you remove all your city cards then Hermit is now always just as strong as Champion, but much easier to get doubles of. As a single card I do think it's pretty bad, but if you see doubles you can reliably build around them and they turn extremely strong. It's like having extra Champions, except they also get buffed by AI.

They also do play nicely with Sailors if you're running 7 uniques, because in those decks you will frequently want to bottom deck Champion anyhow (since Champion is the one card you're guaranteed not to have duplicates of, and you need the bottom card to not be a dupe if you don't want to bench out early.)

That's exactly my point, IF and WHEN you remove all your city cards. It doesn't happen that fast, if it happens

[gpope]

None of the starter cards are that good in the end, even champion... usually if you still have them around you either have a very strong deck with a lot of duplicates or a very weak deck. If you have 2+ hermits it doesn't hurt that much to toss them by round 4 or 5 at the latest, so you're trading a slightly weaker early game for a stronger late game, which is where the trophy points matter the most.

For that matter hermits aren't even that bad in the early game. Even good stuff like AIs often just act as vanilla 2s in the early rounds if the draws don't shake out your way, so most of the time you're only a little bit behind where other decks are and if you get lucky and a hermit comes out before your city cards you have a big advantage. If you have double hermits in round 1 that's a 25% chance to draw a hermit first.

Outside of clown I think reporter is definitely the worst... the ability is just a worse version of a sailor since you have to hope that one of the next 2 cards is something you want on the bottom, and it's mandatory so if you want both of those cards high up then you're just screwed. It also gets even worse if you have multiple reporters since it means that you can no longer reliably bottom deck anything (the first reporter sees something like a submarine that you really want bottom decked, cool, then a few cards later the second reporter appears and has to bottom deck something else, which will now just get deleted by the submarine.) The optimal number of reporters is practically always 0.

[Melarnos]

I see a lot of hate for A cards here, but in my experience, you can win even if you unfortunately pick bad A cards, by adjusting your deck mid-game. But bad C cards can actually make you lose a game.
That's why, for me, the worst card in the game is the Siren. It gives you a very tiny advantage (only somewhat interesting IF the opponent has, on their bench, a card that boosts others), while giving the opponent a great gift (hey, let me free a spot on your bench!!!).
It is, hands down, the last card I would pick, in any configuration.

[gpope]

The Siren ability is optional, you can just choose not to use it if you don't want to give the opponent extra bench space. Most of the time it's a vanilla 6, which isn't great but it's a lot easier to find matches of than 7s. A pair of Sirens is almost always going to be better than two mismatched 7s.

[MikaelsonBG]

I would say it's Hologram. The base strength of 4 is very weak for a pile C card, where you could get a strength 10 card instead. Furthermore, Hologram gives your opponent a free pile B card. That card may be actually stronger than the Hologram itself, since pile B goes up to strength 5.

[T72on1]

I would say it's Hologram. The base strength of 4 is very weak for a pile C card, where you could get a strength 10 card instead. Furthermore, Hologram gives your opponent a free pile B card. That card may be actually stronger than the Hologram itself, since pile B goes up to strength 5.

The clue of the Hologram is actually to mess with your opponent's deck. I almost always take it, and have won several rounds with it.

[RicardoRix]

I would say it's Hologram. The base strength of 4 is very weak for a pile C card, where you could get a strength 10 card instead. Furthermore, Hologram gives your opponent a free pile B card. That card may be actually stronger than the Hologram itself, since pile B goes up to strength 5.

The clue of the Hologram is actually to mess with your opponent's deck. I almost always take it, and have won several rounds with it.

I'm obviously wrong, coz the good players rate it very highly, but I'm perplexed by the logic:
It will add a card of similar value card as the Hologram itself. Both take a spot on the bench (but the card they give you might not). Where is the benefit?
Duplicates however would definitely make it work. but isn't that true for most cards?
Yes the opponent is possibly messed up by miscounting the uniquely different cards, but you had to add this to take up one of your slots. So you yourself can't create as many potential combos, only 6 other slots rather than 7.
Isn't a 'C' pick meant to be at-least as good as any other card in the opponents deck?
Plus the butler would kill against this idea. Which again seems really good to me, but otherwise seems to be rated very poorly by experts.
I've only played 3 games, take my noob madness logic with a pinch of salt.