Last night I finished my first ever game of Dominion: Intrigue, and I'm feeling conflicted about my evaluation of some of the cards on the board. In particular, I cannot decide of the Baron is junk or should be highly valued.
Pros: it gives you something to do with the Estates in your hand.
Cons: it requires you to actually have an Estate in your hand, and will actually stuff you with more Estates if you have to use the "gain an Estate" ability.
On balance, I'm inclined to view the card as junk, but OTOH I could envision a Baron-heavy strategy that involves taking tons of Estates, and discarding them all for cash whenever they show up in your hand. But could such a strategy actually work?
(I didn't attempt to use the Baron strategy in last night's game. Instead, I stockpiled the Great Hall and won by 4 points over my nearest competitor.)