Governor
Card: Tower
Cost: 3
Value: 2
Quantity: 3
Ability: Increasing maximum hand size to 12 instead of 7.
Ability Power: Very Low. Generally speaking you'll go most games without having to discard or even having to worry about having to discard. You draw cards 1 or 2 at a time and can spend up to 7 at once so it's pretty rare to spike up over 7 cards. However, some games you end up putting together a powerful setup and then you have to start thinking about discarding. If you have two Silver Mines, for example, you can draw 6 cards in an action. If you had a couple cards in hand before that and Trader as your last action you're going to have to discard. You can get around this by only calling Trader when you're going first to ensure you can call Builder after that. Or you can moderate your trade, by Trading say Silver + Indigo at the end of the turn. This way you don't have to discard and you keep a Silver to Trader again after you Builder. You may have to focus harder on the order you call your jobs and may lose a little bit as a result, but you still won't really have to discard. However, getting a Tower into play does mean you can pretty much ignore hand size as a thing and can just generate cards and spend them when your opponent Builders, which he will have to do since he will fill his hand before you do. It's also one of the two ways to really play multiple expensive things in quick succession (the other being the Crane). I don't like it since I think if you're playing well it doesn't do anything but it does open up potential plays on the right board so it's not as useless as, say, the Archive.
Scoring Power: Low. It is worth 2 points so it's better than some other cards.
Card: Chapel
Cost: 3
Value: 2
Quantity: 3
Ability: During the Governor phase you can remove a card in your hand from the game and put it under the Chapel. Each such card is worth 1 point at game end.
Ability Power: Very Low. You do use the Chapel before discarding for maximum hand size, so you can end a turn with 8 cards in hand and not lose one to discarding but that's the only way to really gain any sort of card advantage by playing it. One thing to keep in mind is the cards you remove from the game are gone for good, so you can use this to try to deny your opponent cards he really wants. (In particular, sticking a Guild Hall under here instead of discarding it to build something could win you the game if he doesn't draw the other one and 'would have' drawn yours the next time through the deck.)
Scoring Power: Very High. Barring the 6 cost buildings this is the most point efficient building in the game. It also has the ability to warp the way the game is played. One of the games I played at WBC this year I built a Chapel pretty early. I then refused to call Builder for the rest of the game. I just sat around accumulating cards and using the Chapel. My opponent was often stuck in a very bad spot as a result. For example, if I was Governor, what is he supposed to do with his choice when he has a mediocre hand? He can Builder and play something not great or he can pick up some cards, but then I just made him pick up more and he had to discard. During this game I took basically null actions at a couple different points in order to not Builder. (Things like Producering when we had no empty production buildings or Tradering when we both had 8+ cards in hand.) It is important to note that you need a way of getting cards to really have the Chapel work for you, since if all you do is Prospector for 1 card and put it in the Chapel you're going to lose. You still need to be able to build reasonable buildings and score points with a 6 coster or two. The Chapel is just a good way of turning extra cards into points.
All
Card: Library
Cost: 5
Value: 3
Quantity: 3
Ability: Once per round when you choose a job you get the bonus twice.
Ability Power: Very Very High. This is the most powerful card in the deck in a 2 player game by a wide margin. It's very close to Prefecture in a larger game. Consider what it does for the given jobs... Prospector is an extra card every turn. Builder (assuming you can build something reasonable and it wasn't already free) is an extra card every turn. Councillor lets you see 3 more cards. Producer lets you make a third good if you have room for it. Trader lets you sell a third good if you have it. So, if you can Prospector or Builder every turn then the Library is always a card every turn. And if you can't, well, you might get something useful out of it anyway. Prospecting for 2 cards is absurdly powerful. Think about what you'd have to set up to out card advantage that... If you have a Coffee and a Silver and your opponent only has an Indigo then you can spend 2 actions for 4.8 cards to your opponent's 1 card. That's 1.9 card advantage per action which is still worse than just Prospecting! If he builds so much as a Sugar you can't beat him by Producer/Trading without having even more going on than two Silver! If my opponent builds a Library then I call Prospector every turn. You have to deny it or you can't win. He'll probably still beat you by Buildering a lot but maybe he won't have something to build every now and then to try to mitigate it. Build this every game if you can. Do whatever it takes to get it into play. The only thing I might possibly build first if I have a Library in hand is a Prefecture, and then only if I'd have to discard it to build the Library. And then I'd call Councillor to make sure I could get the Library out as fast as I could after that. I harp on card advantage a lot, but when it comes to building a Library all that matters is card quantity. Get the cards you need to build it as fast as you can and then its card advantage will carry you from there.
Ability Power: Very Very High. This is the most powerful card in the deck in a 2 player game by a wide margin. It's very close to Prefecture in a larger game. Consider what it does for the given jobs... Prospector is an extra card every turn. Builder (assuming you can build something reasonable and it wasn't already free) is an extra card every turn. Councillor lets you see 3 more cards. Producer lets you make a third good if you have room for it. Trader lets you sell a third good if you have it. So, if you can Prospector or Builder every turn then the Library is always a card every turn. And if you can't, well, you might get something useful out of it anyway. Prospecting for 2 cards is absurdly powerful. Think about what you'd have to set up to out card advantage that... If you have a Coffee and a Silver and your opponent only has an Indigo then you can spend 2 actions for 4.8 cards to your opponent's 1 card. That's 1.9 card advantage per action which is still worse than just Prospecting! If he builds so much as a Sugar you can't beat him by Producer/Trading without having even more going on than two Silver! If my opponent builds a Library then I call Prospector every turn. You have to deny it or you can't win. He'll probably still beat you by Buildering a lot but maybe he won't have something to build every now and then to try to mitigate it. Build this every game if you can. Do whatever it takes to get it into play. The only thing I might possibly build first if I have a Library in hand is a Prefecture, and then only if I'd have to discard it to build the Library. And then I'd call Councillor to make sure I could get the Library out as fast as I could after that. I harp on card advantage a lot, but when it comes to building a Library all that matters is card quantity. Get the cards you need to build it as fast as you can and then its card advantage will carry you from there.
Scoring Power: Medium. On top of being awesome it's worth 3 points. That's still just a fair cost for the points so it's not spectacular, but it's as good as it gets other than the actual scoring cards.
Scoring
Card: Statue
Cost: 3
Value: 3
Quantity: 3
Ability: None.
Ability Power: Not Applicable.
Scoring Power: High. 4 cards for 3 points is better than every card discussed so far except the Chapel after you've used it two or more times.
Card: Victory Column
Cost: 4
Value: 4
Quantity: 3
Ability: None.
Ability Power: Not Applicable.
Scoring Power: High. 5 cards for 4 points is better than every card discussed so far except the Chapel after you've used it three or more times.
Cost: 5
Value: 5
Quantity: 3
Ability: None.
Ability Power: Not Applicable.
Scoring Power: Very High. 6 cards for 5 points is better than every card discussed so far except the Chapel after you've used it four or more times.
Cost: 6
Value: ???
Quantity: 2
Ability: None.
Ability Power: Not Applicable.
Scoring Power: Very High. This card is worth 4 points if you've built one of the 'monument' cards which are the Statue, Victory Column, and Hero. It's worth 6 if you've built two of them. It's worth 8 if you've built all 3. With only one monument in play this is still better than every normal card. With two it's more efficient than even the Hero. With all three it's amazing, especially since you also have three very high scoring cards in play. You've made a very efficient use of your cards to score points, so you're well positioned to win unless your opponent has massive card advantage on you or a similarly strong scoring combo.
Card: City Hall
Cost: 6
Value: ???
Quantity: 2
Ability: None.
Ability Power: Not Applicable.
Scoring Power: Very Very High. This card is worth 1 point for every purple building you've built, which does count itself. So, in order for it to be better than a normal card you just need 3 other purple buildings. That's really not hard to come by. The monuments above are also all purple, so chance are this is at least as good as the Triumph Arch and probably even better if you've built a lot of purples. This card is key to one of the two big strategies, which is basically to build Quarry/Carpenter and then power out monuments and anything else purple on the cheap. The 'perfect' game goes along this strategy and if you pull it off you will win.
Card: Guild Hall
Cost: 6
Value: ???
Quantity: 2
Ability: None.
Ability Power: Not Applicable.
Scoring Power: Very Very High. Other than a Chapel in a silly game this is the card with the highest point potential in the game. It's worth 2 points for every production building you've built. It's not unheard of for this to be 18 or 20 points (City Hall caps at 11 in a normal game, 12 if you Crane over your starting Indigo.) With this in play you can pump out Indigo for 3 points and Silver for 5. It's pretty absurd if you get it going, and the key is that it's pretty easy to get going. Other than needing to have the Guild Hall itself you really only need one card advantage to get rolling and then the Silvers you build will feed themselves in a Producer/Trader cycle. An early Library or Smithy is really all you need, and you can do it with a Poor House or a Prefecture too. Contrast with the City Hall plan above, which really needs Quarry/Carpenter and to draw all the monuments to pull off. Guild Hall loses to City Hall when they both work optimally but I think Guild Hall works more often. Anything else (except maybe some sort of bizarre Chapel game) loses to either one. You don't need to have a Guild Hall or City Hall in hand to start down either path but you better hope you draw one eventually and you'd better hold onto it for dear life if you do draw one.
Card: Palace
Cost: 6
Value: ???
Quantity: 2
Ability: None.
Ability Power: Not Applicable.
Scoring Power: Very High. This card is worth 25% of your other points (rounded down). So if you would score 31 before counting the Palace, you get 7 more points. There's not really anything special to talk about here, it's just good. Unless your other 11 buildings are worth 15 or fewer points then it's a decent build, and if your board is that bad you're probably losing by a mile. The Palace is particularly important though if you're going a Chapel plan, since you're probably building fewer buildings than your opponent (decreasing the value of the other 6 costers) but you're hoping to outscore them with a lot of Chapel points which will count for the Palace.
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