Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Variants and Fan Cards => Topic started by: Gazbag on December 04, 2017, 04:30:07 pm
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Dominion: Ice Age is a homemade Dominion expansion. I am designing it as if it were an official expansion and so am limited to a few featured mechanics. Ice Age features 2 main mechanics, Ice tokens which strand cards out of your deck for a number of turns and Reserves, some which also strand cards out of your deck.
Ice Tokens
A number of cards in the set involve setting aside cards and putting a number of Ice tokens on them, referred to as "freezing" them. At the start of your turn you remove 1 Ice token from each card you own that is frozen with Ice tokens on it and when the last token is removed you put the card into your discard pile.
Snow Hag
(https://i.imgur.com/n9tmdIu.png)
This was one of the first and most obvious concepts - a cheap Witch but the Curses are delayed. This means that the junk will take longer to enter the opponents deck, but if the game ends before all the tokens are removed then your opponent won't have a chance to trash the curse, which could be interesting.
Edit: Changed from 3 to 6 tokens.
Yeti
(https://i.imgur.com/zHEh6Pd.png)
This one needs to fixed up, but the concept is there.
Frost Spirit
(https://i.imgur.com/4Oze4Ba.png)
Originally a cantrip, now changed to +2 cards. The cantrip version was far too efficient as an early game thinner and a late game Province setter asider. Hopefully making it terminal makes it harder to keep on top of icing things, we'll have to see. Masquerade is a crazy card, so I wouldn't be surprised if this follows suit. Province setting aside probably needs to be fixed, but it kind of needs to be able to set aside Estates so might be an ugly fix, unfortunately.
Crystal Ball
(https://i.imgur.com/FCCmrP8.png)
A Contrabandy thing, it delays your good cards and topdecks the Victories, ouch! Needs a new name now...
Nomad
(https://i.imgur.com/1fLhjTa.png)
A simple +Buy card with Ice tokens, referencing Nomad Camp.
Frigid Village
(https://i.imgur.com/3DtmEdL.png)
Replacement foe Mountain Village and pretty much the same concept. I know that Lost City for $2 seems crazy good, but Encampment does it and these take a year to enter your deck.
Glacier
(https://i.imgur.com/kigCVYs.png)
I'm still keen on a Victory that starts off frozen, but no more Coffers so I have these variations. Any thoughts?
Igloo:
(https://i.imgur.com/jZfreVd.png)
I'm not sure about this one, it's seemed okay in playtest games but it still feels off for some reason. What do people think?
Reserves
Mountain Outpost
(https://i.imgur.com/rHXrEOP.png)
A cheap Smithy makes a future turn worse if you want it back.
Wanderer
(https://i.imgur.com/FpTfMwW.png)
I thought a Reserve that costed an Action to call would be potentially interesting, this plays itself from the Tavern, I think that's fine, other wording would be comparatively convoluted. The actual effect of the card was Inspired by Asper's Road, which I think is an awesome card idea.
Reclaim
(https://i.imgur.com/jF6TXCF.png)
Why isn't there a Reserve that looks through the discard? That seems like one of those low-hanging fruits that you have to do. The set needed a remodel variant and after many attempts I settled on this.
Bastion
(https://i.imgur.com/jgsRgJX.png)
Not actually a Reserve but uses the Tavern mat so it's in this section. Everybody likes action-victories so let's hope this works out!
Spelunkers
(https://i.imgur.com/i1Yls1o.png)
A simpler reserve and this sets Gold gainer, has nice synergy with Wanderer.
Sanctum
(https://i.imgur.com/RTHjaID.png)
I've really enjoyed this in playtesting, it's terminal and a bit awkward so it's been good at $2.
Periapt
(https://i.imgur.com/jxupWvP.png)
This actually seems pretty fun, it might have to cost $3 because stacking a bunch up is pretty easy.
Fishing Boat:
(https://i.imgur.com/CzTOqSd.png)
An attempt at a spin on Minion. You get both the $ and the draw, and the benefit of reserves, but there's no attack and the numbers are lower.
Outcast:
(https://i.imgur.com/CG9qDhk.png)
I think this is pretty cool, either getting stranded on your Tavern mat or getting a bigger effect but losing it forever.
Warship:
(https://i.imgur.com/e83IYhI.png)
Cantrip Militia that's hard to get back. Getting attacked by an opponent's Warship makes it easier to get yours back. I think this might make it a bit too automatic so I'll be trying some new handsize attacks. I also probably have too many reserves and could do with some more simpler off-theme cards.
Off theme cards
Cabin:
(https://i.imgur.com/E8SMYFg.png)
Cabin is back with a brand new effect. I had the idea of terminal draw that gives you a bonus if it's played terminally, the worry of course is making a big money beast that is lacklustre in engines. Hunting Grounds sucks, even for big money and I don't think +Buys improves it too much, +Buys also gives this a reason to be played terminally in an engine so I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
Hillside Village:
(https://i.imgur.com/wXuNxoU.png)
This a simple village to replace Campsite, also similar to Sleigh. I originally had this alternate between Village and Peddler but that basically cut the amount of village you got from this pile in half, which isn't particularly fun. It might be a little strong in this form, although probably still not up to minstrel and Port.
Hunter
(https://i.imgur.com/h77peLU.png)(https://i.imgur.com/wC1Nz6O.png)
Young Witch was cool so let's try a friendly version. YW gets weaker as the Bane gets better, but Hunter gets stronger as the Prey gets better. The actual card is a $5 Fugitive, but when you draw one with the Prey it becomes a Lost City! The Prey costs $5 so that getting a good Hunter:Prey ratio becomes a little more tricky, hopefully leading to interesting decisions.
Scarecrow:
(https://i.imgur.com/L6Yu3MU.png)
A Candlestick maker variant with a weak Moat reaction, I think that's kind of thematic for a Scarecrow, only the weaklings are fooled! It works pretty well in this expansion because of the two cheap attacks.
Scrounger
(https://i.imgur.com/qLWMAum.png)
This is from that bunch of random cards I posted, but with updated Mountain Village wording and nice snowy art. I needed another $5 smithy and this seems cool to me. Adds to a small discard pile mini-theme with Reclaim which is nice.
Outtakes
Cold Storage
(https://i.imgur.com/b8mpnzo.png)
A Workshop variant that can gain $5's, but you have to wait a bit before you get them. Could be brought back, didn't seem too exciting.
Frozen Cache
(https://i.imgur.com/ulYBiGA.png)
Boring, could be revisited as an Event if I ever get around to deciding whether this set should have Events.
Citadel
(https://i.imgur.com/78e6VCD.png)
Bit boring, but the top seems fine if something else needs a simple-ish action.
Ice Cave
(https://i.imgur.com/zv0qErJ.png)
Didn't work out, Wayfinder is sort of doing this kind of thing.
Venturer
(https://i.imgur.com/lYUNY6i.png)
This was the losing combination of strange and unpopular, even though I like the idea of the Iced-Coppers on gain.
Rediscover
(https://i.imgur.com/gP2yNIt.png)
Again I'm not particularly happy with the name - it's hard to think of so many ice themed things! This is a cheap expand but the gained card is delayed based upon how much more expensive it was than the trashed card. Gain and play shenanigans are hard to do with this but trashing $5's into set aside Provinces might be too good, so this might have to be limited to gaining non-victory cards. Retired, it was okay but a bit wonky and a bit boring, I can do better.
Barbarian
(https://i.imgur.com/WVaAHwH.png)
I think there's something here, this was kind of secretly broken though. Turns out Coin token Oasis is a pretty good $4 without any attack potential! Warlord is the successor to this, hopefully it works out. Now Swashbuckler is doing the whole saving Coffers thing, and Villain has a similar attack so I guess this had some okay concepts going into it?
Taiga
(https://i.imgur.com/3ZHbhdi.png)
A Peddler variant. In my mind this was just trash it to do the stuff, but then I thought it could Ice itself for a bit instead. It seems strong, but maybe it's Another one that just wasn't too interesting really, I might return to this freezing from play idea but I'd probably make it mandatory as a kind of soft one-shot. Probably something Pixie like, a slightly above the curve $2 that's fine if you never get it back and not particularly broken if you can play it 2-3 times in a game either.
Outcast
(https://i.imgur.com/Gz5KzfF.png)
It's like a small Menagerie. Probably don't need this and Sleigh in the same set but it's not the worst. Yeah this was just a hole-filler because I needed some $2s, I can do better.
Cauldron
(https://i.imgur.com/8BV773t.png)
A nice simple thing. Gaining Silvers doesn't seem great, but imagine gaining a Village and a Smithy! Gets truly crazy with cost reduction, like most gainers. Really no problem with the card, I still really like it, it was just I have on-theme gainers and trashers so there just wasn't room for it in this expansion.
Igloo
(https://i.imgur.com/Xyfo7tm.png)
This started out exactly the same as Cargo Ship from Renaissance (different wording but the intent of the effect was the same) I'll give myself a pat on the back for that. I eventually made it a reserve because I'm not a huge fan of having just 1-2 Durations in a set and reserves are doing a pretty similar thing anyway but it's still pretty redundant next to Cargo Ship. I will definitely still have an Igloo card in the set though!
Cargo Ship
(https://i.imgur.com/yg7HZyk.png)
The name is taken now and Coffers have been removed due to Renaissance making them redundant.
Cabin
(https://i.imgur.com/3xKIr5D.png)
Coffers, but I'll probably make a rework (or just another card with the same name/image.)
Mountain Village
(https://i.imgur.com/yttRNIL.png)
Name and Coffers taken by Renaissance, replaced by Lake Village.
Seer/Avalanche
(https://i.imgur.com/5ZIj9zB.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/hVxICqy.png)
I still love this, but Coffers are out and the name was taken (a recurring theme of this set!). I might try to fix it somehow or just have it as a random card not associated with the set.
Signalman/Beacons
(https://i.imgur.com/AYVCfdK.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/MDjcbQT.png)
I'm not sure about these State things, they were kind of experimental anyway and I don't really love them anymore. They also all used Coffers tokens to track things in some way so not a great fit anymore.
Outrider/Frozen Wilderness/ Bountiful Wilderness
(https://i.imgur.com/2pLQRJC.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/Ket5Err.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/CWzLknY.png)
Outrider might return as a cheap +buy card with no accompanying state. Sinister Plot kind of does the whole building up tokens thing I was trying here too.
Campsite
(https://i.imgur.com/7eENDzZ.png)
Good concept but not right here.
Sleigh
(https://i.imgur.com/Y8SdKGr.png)
Boring card.
Pioneer
(https://i.imgur.com/KSuBf3P.png)
It took me a while to admit it but this is a dud.
Spyglass
(https://i.imgur.com/RsXpt5a.png)
THis was pretty lame, but I think something can be done with it.
Massive shoutout to Violet CLM's card image generator. It was used for all of the card images in this set. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=16622.0 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=16622.0)
And of course thanks to all those who helped me out with their insight and suggestions!
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Wow, I really like this idea. Since I'm supposed to be actually working right now, I don't have time to talk about all the cards, but one thing that I thought is that ice cave could probably let you put 2 ice tokens on victory cards.
Nice job. Creative idea.
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I think the idea of Ice tokens is very cool. And I like a lot of the card concepts. I do think that instead of having 11 cards that use them, you'd be better served focusing on 5 or 6 of the simplest and best ones.
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I think the idea of Ice tokens is very cool. And I like a lot of the card concepts. I do think that instead of having 11 cards that use them, you'd be better served focusing on 5 or 6 of the simplest and best ones.
I agree with this.
Snow Hag is probably too similar to Witch and a little strong at 4.
Yeti is probably too similar to Giant and a little weak at 5.
Venturer is nice, and seems to work well, but it might be too good with strong trashing.
Rediscover is probably too similar to expand, but if you could add another twist to the remodel-ice thing I would love it.
Mountain Village is cool.
Ice Cave (should have Buys then coins) looks nice, but does need better wording.
Glacier seems overpriced. I think it could cost 5.
Frozen Cache, meh. We have Cache and Treasure Trove and this doesn't seem interesting. I would consider cutting it.
Frost Spirit is good.
Cold Storage is boring, I like MultiTalented's Exotic Traders better.
Citadel only gives you 1 Ice token, so it seems like you could cut it easily.
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Some of the wording could be improved by adding a "freeze" keyword.
So, the "rulebook" would say: "freeze a card: if the card is not already frozen, set it aside with an Ice token on it; otherwise, add an Ice token on it. At the beginning of each of your turns, remove an Ice token from each of your frozen cards. A frozen card with no Ice tokens on it is immediately put on your discard pile; it is no longer frozen".
And then something like Ice Cave could be: "In games using this, when you gain a Victory card, freeze it once per Ice Cave you have in play", Mountain village would be "if you have any frozen cards", etc.
I know Dominion expansions tend to avoid adding keywords, but this feels like a time when you want to introduce one.
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I also really like the Ice tokens.
I think Venturer is super cheap with any kind of support to help with the Coppers. Especially if you can combo it with Frozen Cache/Cold Storage etc. Maybe not too cheap, I don't know. But really cheap.
Question: when you gain Venturer, do you put 5 tokens on a pile of 3 Coppers, or a total of 15 Coppers, 5 on each? I suspect the latter, since the former seems inconsistent with "remove 1 Ice token from each card". If the latter, Venturer should probably read "5 Ice tokens on each".
Here's an idea:
Ice Mage - $4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Move an Ice token from one of your cards set aside with Ice tokens to another.
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When you gain this, gain a Copper and a Gold and set them aside with 5 Ice tokens on each.
I'm sure you've had similar ideas, but I think it's interesting.
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I really like the concept, and some of the cards are really nice at implementing it. :)
Snow Hag seems fairly straightforward, and still very good. I feel like it might not be different enough from Witch, though.
Yeti is a cool concept that might be a bit too oppressive in multiplayer? Also, giving a Curse seems almost always better than the freezing attack, maybe it could become a Militia on misses?
Venturer seems interesting, except maybe for the name ;D (Speleologist? Spelunker?)
The only problem I see with it is that it's awful without a way to trash the coppers. Coming with 3 stop cards, it actually hurts your deck unless you can trash them.
Rediscover and Mountain Village look good, among the best of the set
Ice Cave seems weak, I agree it could easily freeze 2.
Glacier seems like a good variation on the "convert coins into coin tokens" event idea. Seems ok at 6, but it's hard to say without testing.
Frozen Cache delivers a lot of power in a single buy. It shouldn't have a + before the (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/images/thumb/2/2a/Coin4.png/16px-Coin4.png), and the color seems a bit off?
Maybe a corresponding Event would solve the verbosity problem?
Let it go - Event 6$
Gain a Copper, a Silver, and two Golds from their piles. Set them aside with respectively 1, 2, 3, and 4 Ice tokens on them.
I like that Frost Spirit essentially keeps away 4 cards as long as you have control of your deck. It might be too powerful in letting you hybernate a lot of points. Or maybe not - it's a criticism that comes up every time somebody proposes powerful pseudo-trashers, but it's a concept that I've yet to see it play out badly in a game (except when on broken cards).
Cold storage seems like a reasonable concept.
Citadel doesn't seem all that unique, and I wonder how often he single ice token will be relevant and whether it's worth the space.
All in all, it's a concept that is definitely worth exploring. :)
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I just read these again and I feel like I have to compliment you again. Good job you bag of gaz you. I hope you keep going with this idea. The theme is also super cool (lame pun kinda intended).
I like snow hag a lot, but as mentioned, it might not be unique enough? Although that isn't always bad. Lots of official cards are pretty similar. Maybe it could be a duration like swamp hag? At the start of next turn, get a coin and a card, or a card and an action or something like that.
Yeti could make other players freeze an action card from their hand rather than cursing. That could be fun.
Venturer is isn't very good unless it comes with another freezing card. And even then, several of the freezing cards freeze coppers, victory cards, or curses, so venturer would be bad then. Maybe it could say "you may" instead of making you remove ice tokens. Then the coppers might need just 3 or 4 tokens on them. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong and having a $2 lab that comes with 3 coppers is good even if it doesn't help you thaw out your other good cards.
I like the flexibility of Rediscover. It's always lame when I end up using my expand as a remodel.
I'm not convinced that glacier is overpriced. It seems pretty good to get a coin token each turn for a little while, plus a semi self trashing 2 points. Either way, I love the idea.
Frost Spirit is way cool. I can't tell if it is OP or not though.
I actually like the simplicity of cold storage.
The idea on citadel is fun. Kinda like lost city. It's a super powerful card with a negative on gain affect. Although with only one ice token on it, lots of the time you'd just buy it and it would get into you discard next turn before you even shuffle. It might need to be frozen twice.
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Let it go - Event 6$
up voted
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I think Venturer is super cheap with any kind of support to help with the Coppers. Especially if you can combo it with Frozen Cache/Cold Storage etc. Maybe not too cheap, I don't know. But really cheap.
Huh, I somehow didn't realise that Venturer thaws its own Coppers. That makes it a lot weaker than I thought. Probably fine at $2.
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Oh wow this is much more well received so far than I anticipated!
I think the idea of Ice tokens is very cool. And I like a lot of the card concepts. I do think that instead of having 11 cards that use them, you'd be better served focusing on 5 or 6 of the simplest and best ones.
I agree with this, but first I'm going to have to figure out what the best ones are! I currently only have max 5 games with each of these cards so a lot more testing is needed.
Snow Witch: I like the idea of a frozen curser and I think you can take it 2 ways. The first is to have a cheap curser like this because the first few shuffles go quickly, so the delay on the curse is going to matter the most if you're playing this turn 3/4. The second is to make it more expensive or have some kind of condition so it only triggers late in the game and have the focus be more on a curse that is hard to trash so the attack is more about the - VP. I agree that giving this +2 cards is probably too close to Witch though, it was one of the first Ice token cards I came up with so I was trying to keep it simple. One thought I had was to give this the Venturer fast thaw thing, so it makes the Curses your opponent gives you thaw faster and then increase the tokens to 4 or 5. I also like the idea of a curser that "levels up" like City when a pile runs out, I think the original Young Witch did that? So maybe this could do something with that.
Yeti: The first version of this worked on Coppers, which was obviously silly but yeah this one is a bit similar to Giant. I have a different handsize attack in this expansion (I'll post some more cards in a few days probably) which I'm quite fond of, so I'll try to think of a better trashing attack for this first.
Venturer: Yes this should say "each" thanks for pointing that out Jimmmmm! Also you give me too much credit, moving Ice tokens around like that was not something I had thought of, I might have to steal that idea! Maybe Expedition Party would be a better name? Is Venturer even a word? I've only played this in Ice token heavy kingdoms so far so I need more of an idea how it performs on its own.
Ice Cave: So originally this was a cantrip, that was silly so I made it a Woodcutter but yeah increasing the tokens to 2 is a better starting place now that it's terminal.
Frozen Cache is a dud, but I thought it was cute so I thought I'd post it anyway. I do like Accatitippi's idea of making this an event though, but then I'd have to think up at least 9 other events for this set, so if I decide to do events then this could return in event form. I also blame Disney for making art for this so hard to find!
Frost Spirit: I for some reason totally blanked that this can also "trash" Provinces and the like. Hmm well it's not like broken trashers are a new thing to dominion so I'll leave this as is for now, it can specify non-Province or have a cost limit or something if that's a problem.
Citadel: This is the newest card here, it's just a simple card I had that I stuck the Ice token thing onto as a minor downside so it occasionally misses shuffles. It will probably be cut yeah.
Thanks for all the great feedback so far!
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but then I'd have to think up at least 9 other events for this set,
Donald has said before that thinks 8 is the minimum for bringing back Landmarks/Events, so if you're going by normal dominion expansion standards you'd only need 7 more. But for a fanspansion, only 2-3 events is perfectly fine.
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Also you give me too much credit, moving Ice tokens around like that was not something I had thought of, I might have to steal that idea!
Go ahead! I guess the next step would be giving them to or stealing them from the other players, although the risk with that would be that it would devolve into Ice token tennis or that you'd be able to keep your opponents' cards perpetually frozen.
Also I just realised you are not ashersky (Shanty Town avatar). I was surprised to see him post Dominion-related content.
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Ideally, Ice Tokens delay when cards are added to your deck. If, however, you don't shuffle between a card being set aside with Ice Tokens and the last Ice Token is removed, the cool Ice effect is moot (which you point out yourself, I realize). I believe that the fact that Ice Tokens are removed every turn results in a lot of token bloat and ultimately makes the cards' effects less predictable.
Yeti can't even guarantee that a card it Ices even misses the shuffle. Frost Spirit has to use a million Ice Tokens to have any chance of affecting the game.
I might try removing an Ice Token each shuffle instead of every turn to smooth out the effect. It will make deck size more of a factor, but I think will generally solve more headaches in terms of card power and component count.
I think the idea of Ice tokens is very cool. And I like a lot of the card concepts. I do think that instead of having 11 cards that use them, you'd be better served focusing on 5 or 6 of the simplest and best ones.
I disagree with this. I think that aiming for 11 cards will be easy if the concept is good. Having only the most basic card functions covered by 5 or 6 cards would be kind of a bummer.
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I agree with Fragasnap; remove ice on shuffle. You may need to rebalance quantities of ice in order to do this (e.g. Ice Witch, 2 instead of 3.)
Also, what happens to frozen cards when the game ends? Do you gain them or lose them?
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Well, if it's once per turn, it affects draw-your-deck engines more than it affects slogs, on average. If it's per shuffle, it's basically the same for both. So it depends on what you are going for.
Also, what happens to frozen cards when the game ends? Do you gain them or lose them?
Set aside cards are still considered part of your deck, so you keep them.
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No one commented on the artwork before? It's stunning!
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I might try removing an Ice Token each shuffle instead of every turn to smooth out the effect. It will make deck size more of a factor, but I think will generally solve more headaches in terms of card power and component count.
Oh boy, sloggy games would be unbearable.
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I like the ice token idea, and these are good cards.
Snow Hag - It does seem a bit similar to Witch, but definitely worth trying. To make it more different from Witch, it might be enough to just increase the number of ice tokens, and think of it as a mid-game curser that you play in the early game. You could also have it put more ice tokens on opponents' curses, so that you have a choice of either cursing them quickly or cursing them more.
Yeti - I think it would be better if the ice attack were more reliable, maybe even 100% reliable. For example, you could have it search the top 3 cards, and let you choose which one to freeze. I'm thinking that if you had a trashing attack that searched the top 3 cards of opponent's decks, that would be abusive. But with ice tokens, maybe you can do it without it being abusive.
Venturer - I don't like the idea of an action that thaws out cards, or which moves ice tokens around. That's in the category of abilities that only synergize within the set, and which are mostly pointless when surrounded by other cards. To me, the bigger idea here is a lab that gains you Copper. I don't think I would ever get this without Copper trashing. Although maybe late in the game I'd get some for reliability.
Rediscover - Looks good. It remodels into province even better than Expand does, but it still doesn't seem broken to me. If the strength is an issue, you could try excepting victory cards.
Mountain Village - I'm wondering if sometimes the correct strategy is to rush these. Just buy or gain a whole bunch, and they'll get shuffled into your deck by the time you need them. And if your opponent chose not to rush Mountain Villages, you just buy more so that your deck is filled with Baker-Bazaars. This isn't obvious to me, and maybe it's not bad if true. But I think $2 is too cheap.
Glacier - This looks really strong to me, especially with trash for benefit like remodel. I'd watch out for stockpile strategies that do nothing but gain lots of coin tokens.
Frost Spirit - This looks good, but I'm thinking there are other ways to pseudotrash that might be interesting to try. For example, part of the problem with Lookout is that people are afraid of forced trashing, but with Ice tokens you don't care as much. You could also have something that pseudotrashes on gain. Or something that freezes itself along with a bunch of other cards, kind of like Crypt.
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I might try removing an Ice Token each shuffle instead of every turn to smooth out the effect. It will make deck size more of a factor, but I think will generally solve more headaches in terms of card power and component count.
Define "shuffle". If you have one card in your discard pile and then have to draw/reveal/etc., is that a "shuffle"? What if you have zero cards?
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I might try removing an Ice Token each shuffle instead of every turn to smooth out the effect. It will make deck size more of a factor, but I think will generally solve more headaches in terms of card power and component count.
Define "shuffle". If you have one card in your discard pile and then have to draw/reveal/etc., is that a "shuffle"? What if you have zero cards?
Yeah I did think of tying them to shuffles but it doesn't really get rid of the problems, it just changes the problems. It isn't obvious in cases like this whether you've shuffled. It can also lead to problems when you draw your deck because you can gain and draw mid-turn and potentially trigger multiple shuffles in one turn which seems a bit against the spirit of the idea. It's also much easier to forget as shuffles can trigger at many different times during your turn and even during your opponents turn. So I'd say it introduces more problems than it fixes.
The idea with Venturer is that it's interesting by itself, with Coppers like a time bomb ticking down and Venturer speeding up the count and even more interesting with other Ice token cards. Kinda like how Butcher is interesting by itself and is even better with other Coin token cards.
I'm going to try a Yeti that reveals until it finds an action and Freezes that for 3 tokens. The increased cycling of the opponents deck should make them shuffle a bit more often which will hopefully make the attack hurt more.
Mountain Village, or the card that freezes itself when you gain it which is the main concept here (probably won't look like Mountain Village in the end!) wants to cost $2 so you can always open with it I feel. So the thing to tweak would be Ice token numbers or weaken the effect in a different way. Swapping the Coin token and the +1 Card might make it a bit different to regular villages.
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I really like your idea as well. It's a mechanic with many interesting possibilities. It also works nicely thematically.
My first reaction was also that you should remove an ice token per shuffle, not per turn. When you draw your deck, that may be equivalent. But in sloggy games, the difference is quite significant. Freezing a card (I like the wording proposed by pacovf) only really has an effect at all if you can make it miss a shuffle, i.e. by freezing it right before a shuffle, by putting enough ice tokens on it, or by cycling quickly and shuffling often. So in sloggy games, freezing would hardly ever do anything. As is, the ice tokens mostly reward fast cycling, at the cost of making cards like Ice Cave pointless if that is not possible. Changing the mechanic to 'per shuffle' would definitely change the balance how many ice tokens certain cards should give, though.
I agree there are mechanical problems. I think a shuffle can be defined as 'trying to draw a card when your Deck is empty', which deals with the 'no cards' edge case. But it should be limited to at most one thawing per turn, so the rule would need to be 'Once per turn, when you try to draw a card when your Deck is empty, remove one ice token from each card' or 'When you try to draw a card when your Deck is empty, remove one ice token from each card if you haven't already this turn'. It doesn't go on a card, so can be wordy...
I noticed another point: Is freezing a card good or bad for you? With Glacier, Ice Cave, Frost Spirit, and (unless you have really good trashing) Snow Hag, freezing the cards is good for you, because it delays junk from entering your hand. With Cold Storage, Frozen Cache, and Citadel, it is meant to delay the gaining, and so is bad for you. In itself, that is fine, but if you add a card like Venturer that accelerates the thawing, it becomes an issue. On Venturer, the accelerated thawing out of the coppers is meant as a punishment, but if you combine Venturer with the delayed gainers, it suddenly becomes a reward. You could argue that makes the mechanic more interesting and gives more tactical options, but I think I like it better as a force of nature that cannot be affected directly.
BTW, the concept brought to mind the delay mechanic proposed here http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=16895 (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=16895), which is only about delayed gaining, though. The ice token idea is more flexible, allowing different delays, and also enables 'frost spiriting' away cards you already have. But still, some of the card ideas might carry over.
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I might try removing an Ice Token each shuffle instead of every turn to smooth out the effect. It will make deck size more of a factor, but I think will generally solve more headaches in terms of card power and component count.
Define "shuffle". If you have one card in your discard pile and then have to draw/reveal/etc., is that a "shuffle"? What if you have zero cards?
Didn't Donald eventually end up answering this question; after several pages of debate? I can't remember what the response was though.
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I might try removing an Ice Token each shuffle instead of every turn to smooth out the effect. It will make deck size more of a factor, but I think will generally solve more headaches in terms of card power and component count.
Define "shuffle". If you have one card in your discard pile and then have to draw/reveal/etc., is that a "shuffle"? What if you have zero cards?
Didn't Donald eventually end up answering this question; after several pages of debate? I can't remember what the response was though.
Exactly. I can't remember either. And maybe that itself is a problem.
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I might try removing an Ice Token each shuffle instead of every turn to smooth out the effect. It will make deck size more of a factor, but I think will generally solve more headaches in terms of card power and component count.
Define "shuffle". If you have one card in your discard pile and then have to draw/reveal/etc., is that a "shuffle"? What if you have zero cards?
Didn't Donald eventually end up answering this question; after several pages of debate? I can't remember what the response was though.
Exactly. I can't remember either. And maybe that itself is a problem.
Found it (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=15358.0)! The rule is tentatively that you can shuffle 1 card. Shuffling 0 cards isn't discussed; I think the assumption is that you can't do that. But I agree that it's a rule people shouldn't have to know. Plus I don't think we want to gives reasons that draw-your-deck engines should be even stronger. Actually, if done in the right type of engine; you can shuffle multiple times per turn, which would make Ice cards even stronger.
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Actually, if done in the right type of engine; you can shuffle multiple times per turn, which would make Ice cards even stronger.
Yeah, because of this and because of junky slog decks, I think ice should be once per turn as Gazbag originally suggested. There are still little loopholes like mission, outpost, and possession, but that shouldn't really be a problem.
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Actually, if done in the right type of engine; you can shuffle multiple times per turn, which would make Ice cards even stronger.
Yeah, because of this and because of junky slog decks, I think ice should be once per turn as Gazbag originally suggested. There are still little loopholes like mission, outpost, and possession, but that shouldn't really be a problem.
Yeah I think it's better that it works with Outpost; etc.. it's just another combo that works to make Outpost different than "+3 cards, +1 buy".
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A compromise option would be once per shuffle with a maximum of one per turn. It's less elegant, though. And "at the end of your turn, if you shuffled this turn", which is more or less the same but prevents any gain-and-remove-ice shenanigans - is even less elegant.
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a lot of token bloat
I could imagine a mat being used instead, with numbered spaces 1-6, and cards move along the mat toward 0 as they get more thawed.
Yeti can't even guarantee that a card it Ices even misses the shuffle.
Perhaps if cards were put on top of your deck instead of your discard pile after thawing, that'd be more consistent.
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Actually, if done in the right type of engine; you can shuffle multiple times per turn, which would make Ice cards even stronger.
Yeah, because of this and because of junky slog decks, I think ice should be once per turn as Gazbag originally suggested. There are still little loopholes like mission, outpost, and possession, but that shouldn't really be a problem.
I really don't understand your argument concerning junky slog decks. Until the reshuffle, it makes very little difference whether a card is iced or in my discard pile. In a slog, it takes many turns from one reshuffle to the next, so most ice token effects, maybe apart from Frost Spirit and Frozen Cache itself, are likely to miss it, which makes them completely pointless (except perhaps the coin tokens from Mountain Village). 'Once per shuffle' would power up Ice Cave, Glacier, and Frost Spirit in slog decks! On the gainers, it would be hard, admittedly.
When using 'once per shuffle', Snow Hag should probably only give one token, though, Rediscover would give 0,1, and 2 tokens, and Frost Spirit maybe 2 or 3.
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A compromise option would be once per shuffle with a maximum of one per turn. It's less elegant, though. And "at the end of your turn, if you shuffled this turn", which is more or less the same but prevents any gain-and-remove-ice shenanigans - is even less elegant.
I think 'Once per turn, when you try to draw a card when your Deck is empty, remove one ice token from each card' or 'When you shuffle, remove one ice token from each card if you haven't already this turn' are both reasonably elegant.
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Rediscover
Again I'm not particularly happy with the name - it's hard to think of so many ice themed things! This is a cheap expand but the gained card is delayed based upon how much more expensive it was than the trashed card. Gain and play shenanigans are hard to do with this but trashing $5's into set aside Provinces might be too good, so this might have to be limited to gaining non-victory cards.
As the freezing is meant as a punishment (to make the card cheaper), instead of limiting the gaining to non-victory cards, you could limit the freezing to non-victory cards.
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A compromise option would be once per shuffle with a maximum of one per turn. It's less elegant, though. And "at the end of your turn, if you shuffled this turn", which is more or less the same but prevents any gain-and-remove-ice shenanigans - is even less elegant.
I think 'Once per turn, when you try to draw a card when your Deck is empty, remove one ice token from each card' or 'When you shuffle, remove one ice token from each card if you haven't already this turn' are both reasonably elegant.
The first one doesn't work because of various other things that cause you to shuffle other than drawing (Lookout, Navigator, etc).
I think once per turn is much better, both for complexity and for balance. If the cards are too strong due to coming out too fast, you can increase the number of tokens.
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Actually, if done in the right type of engine; you can shuffle multiple times per turn, which would make Ice cards even stronger.
Yeah, because of this and because of junky slog decks, I think ice should be once per turn as Gazbag originally suggested. There are still little loopholes like mission, outpost, and possession, but that shouldn't really be a problem.
I really don't understand your argument concerning junky slog decks. Until the reshuffle, it makes very little difference whether a card is iced or in my discard pile. In a slog, it takes many turns from one reshuffle to the next, so most ice token effects, maybe apart from Frost Spirit and Frozen Cache itself, are likely to miss it, which makes them completely pointless (except perhaps the coin tokens from Mountain Village). 'Once per shuffle' would power up Ice Cave, Glacier, and Frost Spirit in slog decks! On the gainers, it would be hard, admittedly.
When using 'once per shuffle', Snow Hag should probably only give one token, though, Rediscover would give 0,1, and 2 tokens, and Frost Spirit maybe 2 or 3.
I guess you're mostly right. Although in the case of citadel, I would never buy it in a slog. I won't ever get to see it.
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Gazbag, I really, really like your Ice token mechanic, and I think you succeeded in implementing it in simple yet compelling cards. Design-wise, I like them all; they mostly require some balancing. And they look great!
I'm not decided whether I prefer Ice tokens to be removed each turn or after shuffling, so I'm going to evaluate your cards with the mechanic as-is, for now. My general stance is that few Ice tokens on gained cards will rarely make a considerable difference so I'll often advocate more tokens.
Snow Hag: I don't think the similarity to Witch is a problem, as many official cards are redundant as well. But the Curse needs to come with at least 4 Ice tokens so it's guaranteed to miss the opponent's shuffle even if SH is played in turn 3. Otherwise it's just too strong for $4. Even then, looking at Young Witch, SH would probably require an additional nerf to justify the cheap cost.
She doesn't look like a hag at all but in case you named her this way to account for Asper's and my fan card Snow Witch, that's appreciated ;)
Yeti: Ice tokens seem like the perfect solution to make a vicious trashing attack acceptable. I suggest you make Yeti a pure freezing attack (using Pacovf's terminology) to make the card more reliable and because you already have a curser in the set.
Venturer: Good idea in general but in it's current form I find Venturer too polarized (it's only good with strong trashing) so I would raise the cost and only make it give one or two Coppers. Also removing Ice tokens from other cards, with regards to some other Ice token cards as well as negative self-synergy, doesn't really seem like an upside on Venturer. That on top of an on-gain effect similar to Frozen Cache's (which I like more), makes me inclined to say, scratch Venturer (in its current form) from the set.
Rediscover: This combination of effects absolutely has to be in the set. But I fear rediscovering Provinces might be broken. Maybe not though, as one or two Ice tokens on a card often won't matter, unless you're drawing your deck each turn. I'm curious what you find in playtesting.
Mounain Village: Delayed gaining is not a huge enough downside to a card that self-synergizes to become a card better-than-Bazaar to justify a cost of $2. The concept by itself is great, it's just a matter of finding the right cost for this card.
Ice Cave: Again, cool idea but suboptimally implemented. In this case, it's terribly weak. Compare with Sacred Grove, and Ice Cave's benefit is even more marginal, so you can easily make it give +$3. Putting more Ice tokens on the Victory cards would be more interesting. Consider even 3 Ice tokens per card bought per Ice Cave in play, since you won't usually play more than two per turn.
Glacier: This looks ridiculous compared to Harem, but Harem sucks so who cares. It's a good concept but I would like it even more if it gave VP instead of coin tokens. That would incentivize you to green earlier than you normally would which is generally a good premise for strategically challenging cards. (The coin tokens incentivize it too but they make it much easier to continue greening in the late game which makes it too automatic in my opinion.)
Frozen Cache: The idea is cute so I don't care if it's actually weak or redundant. If it seems too weak and nobody buys it, try it at $5. That should be more appropriate.
The color pattern makes it look more like a Reserve.
Frost Spirit: I'm the minority here saying this card isn't actually that strong. My first impression was this should cost only $2! I realize it's quite good in a deck-drawing engine but it's pretty hard to build such a deck with this as the only support in the first place. How about this:
Frost Spirit, $4, Action: +2 Cards. +1 Action. Set aside a card from your hand with 4 Ice tokens on it.
This would be more akin to Secret Pasage; better at delaying junk but less flexible and synergistic with other cards.
Cold Storage: Another obvious concept that's just a matter of balancing. As usual, I think 2 Ice tokens are too few. Gaining $5-cost cards with a card cheaper than $5 is really powerful! Don't like the name in particular (perhaps something more Workshop-esque?).
Citadel: This seems like something Donald would do, just without the Ice token on it. Unlike many other commenters, I don't think you should get rid of it. But it definitely needs to come with more Ice tokens. Or consider setting it aside with an Ice token each time you discard it from play.
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Great idea! I'm another person who thinks that cards should thaw once per shuffle, and that the number of tokens should be scaled down a bit to compensate. Perhaps "after you form a deck from your discard pile" might be a better wording? I'd also say that frozen cards shouldn't come into your deck at the end of the game, since it makes for more interesting decisions about when you think the game might end and it makes it less broken if you're Rediscovering Provinces.
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A compromise option would be once per shuffle with a maximum of one per turn. It's less elegant, though. And "at the end of your turn, if you shuffled this turn", which is more or less the same but prevents any gain-and-remove-ice shenanigans - is even less elegant.
I think 'Once per turn, when you try to draw a card when your Deck is empty, remove one ice token from each card' or 'When you shuffle, remove one ice token from each card if you haven't already this turn' are both reasonably elegant.
The first one doesn't work because of various other things that cause you to shuffle other than drawing (Lookout, Navigator, etc).
You are right, it would have to be 'Once per turn, when you try to draw, reveal, or look at the top card of your Deck but your Deck is empty, remove one ice token from each card'. That was what I intended, but I got the terminology wrong... Or by avoiding terminology: 'Once per turn, when you try to pick up the top card of your Deck but your Deck is empty, remove one ice token from each card', but the former is probably better...
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Yeah, just keep it at once per turn, and make sure the effects give an appropriate number of tokens so that it usually matters. Trying to trigger on shuffles is trouble.
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I just want this idea to be in a real dominion expansion now
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Okay so I was thinking Frozen Cache can be easily turned into an Event and no current Events use Coin tokens or Ice tokens, so there should be enough design space for this expansion to have some Events. So here's an untested first draft idea I had of a new typoe of Event.
Escalating Events
So an idea I've seen pop up a few times is Traveller cards with some kind of condition that has to be reached in order to exchange. This is a cool idea, but I'm not a huge fan of it because Travellers are super high variance anyway - a Traveller missing the shuffle or Champion/Teacher being at the bottom of a shuffle can often decide a game and adding more stipulations to them compounds this problem. Events don't have this problem so much because you don't have to line up a specific card in your deck with whatever condition. Here is a quick example set of Events I cobbled together in about 20 minutes while watching TV - I'm not particularly thrilled with them but what do you think of the idea?
(https://i.imgur.com/7L5SLka.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/YpSOluk.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/Hw5e6gr.png)
So the idea here is that at first you can only buy Fishing and meeting the condition "escalates" and lets you buy Tracking and then once you've tracked you can go Big Game Hunting - this would have to be tracked either with player tokens on the Event cards or by giving each player their own Event cards and you take the next step when you escalate.
On the Events themselves I like Tracking and it might work as the $2, Fishing is probably too easy to trigger with coppers and doesn't do enough and Big Game Hunting probably wants to be more generous because you have to unlock it.
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Couldn't the last one just be "Hunting" to allow a better font size?
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I agree with the others that Ice Tokens are a very cool idea, and practically all of the ideas in the OP are very simple and clever designs. You can be proud of this mechanic. However, as others already pointed out, the tokens are moot whenever they don't make a card miss a shuffle, and should therefore rather be removed on reshuffling (also it would be kind of annoying to miss a shuffle only by one token in a slog).
By the way, some of my earlier versions of Homunculus functioned in a way similar to Citadel, Frozen Cache or Mountain Village: Set it aside as you gain it, then put it in your discard pile once you shuffle. Of course tokens didn't make sense for just one card, but here it works out, and is worth the trouble of defining whether you can "shuffle" 1 or 0 cards. In the end, you could say something like "The first time in a turn your deck becomes empty". It excludes things like Inn (which btw. screwed over my wording with the old Homunculus version), but that is for the better, I think. Also, if your deck is already empty when you gain the card (for example because there is no deck), then the point where your deck became empty during your turn would have happened already, and you don't lose a token immediately. If your deck is 0 cards, you never lose tokens (booo), but as long as there's one card to discard and draw again, it would work just fine. It also works on opponents' turns, and I think Donate is the only case where it wouldn't work - but that can be stomached, I trust.
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In the end, you could say something like "The first time in a turn your deck becomes empty".
It is my understanding of the Second Edition shuffling rules (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Reshuffle) that this actually happens very rarely.
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In the end, you could say something like "The first time in a turn your deck becomes empty".
It is my understanding of the Second Edition shuffling rules (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Reshuffle) that this actually happens very rarely.
Darn. This is why we can't have ice things.
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That’s ok. “Once per turn, if your discard pile is empty, remove an Ice token from all your frozen cards.”
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That’s ok. “Once per turn, if your discard pile is empty, remove an Ice token from all your frozen cards.”
I like it, except for the fact that when you buy a card with such a token, you can immediately remove one. That's why I wanted that "become" wording. Shouldn't that still work?
"When your discard pile becomes empty for the first time in a turn, remove an Ice token from each of your cards that has one."
Edit: Of course both wordings still allows for tricks with Inn or Watchtower, but I think you can let those slide.
Edit 2: Or just say "shuffle" and clarify in a FAQ whether you do or do not shuffle 1 card. I'd say you can shuffle 1 card (which I think is the official ruling) and can't shuffle 0 cards. I'd still suggest to limit it to once per turn, which should take out part of the relevance of whether you can shuffle 1 or 0 cards, either way.
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Wouldn't you gain the card, then set it aside? That would make the discard pile "become" empty anyway.
Though I guess your wording is better anyway to avoid weirdness with having your deck empty while it's not your turn.
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I still think having the tokens melt once per turn is better. I mean, engines don't need the additional advantage over money decks, do they? Plus, the wording would be much easier.
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Love this idea!
I do notice that in a sense, Frozen Cache is inversely proportional to Glacier. The amount of happiness I get from having a newly purchased Victory set aside for 4 turns is going to be roughly equal to the amount of unhappiness I'm going to get from having my newly purchased Treasure set aside for 4 turns.
I personally think Frozen Cache is weak but isn't 100% worthless, because it is gaining you an insane amount of treasures, so there will be niche situations for it. I wonder if it may be fine at $5 (still weak, but fine).
I do think Glacier is a bit too good. A 4 turn delay on a VP entering your deck and a free coin token every* turn feels a bit much. I think it would honestly be good if it were modified to something like "When you gain this, set it aside with 4 Ice Tokens on it. When all of the Ice Tokens have been removed from this, take 2 Coin tokens". That said, Glacier may be my favorite card of the lot. I love alt-VP, and this is a neat concept.
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I think per turn is fine. Slog decks don't really need a system to keep them from bloating because that's the point of them, and I don't like the idea that you could game the thawing with an empty deck and a bunch of Secret Passages.
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I'm just going to point out that you can (somewhat) control and track when you shuffle your deck. If you do it at the start of your turn there is strategic play in when to gain Venturer or Mountain Village, and even more strategy when comboed with Secret Passage or something.
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Agreed - the control you have over shuffling would make it a more interesting mechanic to play with.
I'd also point out that if you do have a deck which draws itself often, then it's thematic that it should thaw out faster. Industrialisation causing climate change!
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I think per turn is fine. Slog decks don't really need a system to keep them from bloating because that's the point of them, and I don't like the idea that you could game the thawing with an empty deck and a bunch of Secret Passages.
Well, there's more than a fine line between "sleek engine that draws the deck" and "slog" in my opinion. I think the assumption that engines are basically always able to draw your deck is coming from the fact that many fds posters play almost exclusively 2P games, and holds no water when applied generally.
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I think the assumption that engines are basically always able to draw your deck is coming from the fact that many fds posters play almost exclusively 2P games, and holds no water when applied generally.
I was thinking the other day, we could make a drinking game out of the number of posts on f.ds that use the phrase "if you're already drawing your deck". It's definitely taken for granted, which may also have something to do with the fact that doing so has gotten easier over time, as later expansions have better enabled it by focusing more on Engines.
I personally always enjoy a good Slog or Big Money game, if only because Engine now feels like the norm. Variety is the spice of life. I kinda hope as time goes on, we get a bit more of Slog/BM in the card pool, just so drawing your deck isn't a no-brainer.
Also, I'll save Awaclus the trouble: "something something, 2P is the only mode that matters" ;)
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which may also have something to do with the fact that doing so has gotten easier over time, as later expansions have better enabled it by focusing more on Engines.
No, we have better enabled it by getting better at the game.
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which may also have something to do with the fact that doing so has gotten easier over time, as later expansions have better enabled it by focusing more on Engines.
No, we have better enabled it by getting better at the game.
Why not both? Hasn't Donald X stated that he's focused more on Engines than BM as time has moved on since they are more interesting?
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which may also have something to do with the fact that doing so has gotten easier over time, as later expansions have better enabled it by focusing more on Engines.
No, we have better enabled it by getting better at the game.
Why not both? Hasn't Donald X stated that he's focused more on Engines than BM as time has moved on since they are more interesting?
I don’t believe so. Maybe I’m misremembering.
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(https://i.imgur.com/HBpzm1o.png)
Look everyone here's a new card! I made it extra big this time because there's only one. I did have some updates on some of the Ice token cards as well but I might have accidentally deleted them and have to mock them up again.
At first this was supposed to be an attack where you pay Coin tokens to make it better, but that was useless on it's own and broken with other Coin token cards. So now you just have to reach a threshold and it turns on the attack. I think this is a bit stronger than it looks as people generally underrate terminal Silvers (Bard and Tormentor spring to mind) and its bonus is quite a bit better than +$2, the Coin token really makes a difference.
I thought a picture would be easy to find for this but none of them had the right dimensions, I'm not particularly happy with this one but oh well.
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Uh, by the way, did you know about Snow Witch from Co0kieL0rd's and my Seasons expansion? It's based on the same Japanese folklore as your Snow Hag and just like it, is a cheaper Witch with delayed Cursing (though in a different way).
(https://i.imgur.com/TXnLEuj.jpg)
I guess great minds think alike :P
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Uh, by the way, did you know about Snow Witch from Co0kieL0rd's and my Seasons expansion? It's based on the same Japanese folklore as your Snow Hag and just like it, is a cheaper Witch with delayed Cursing (though in a different way).
(https://i.imgur.com/TXnLEuj.jpg)
I guess great minds think alike :P
Yeah I'd already designed and named Snow Hag, but I saw Snow Witch before I mocked it up. I made sure to use different art, even though yours clearly has the best art out there :). I definitely like yours better, although mine still needs lots more testing and tweaking so hopefully it'll end up in a similar place.
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Uh, by the way, did you know about Snow Witch from Co0kieL0rd's and my Seasons expansion? It's based on the same Japanese folklore as your Snow Hag and just like it, is a cheaper Witch with delayed Cursing (though in a different way).
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I guess great minds think alike :P
Yeah I'd already designed and named Snow Hag, but I saw Snow Witch before I mocked it up. I made sure to use different art, even though yours clearly has the best art out there :). I definitely like yours better, although mine still needs lots more testing and tweaking so hopefully it'll end up in a similar place.
I actually like the ice token mechanic a lot and it has the advantage you don't have to have that board. Moving the token each turn can be annoying. If you're just talking about art, I like yours, too. If I had known how dark the art we went for would look on a card, we might have decided for something else.
Hum... Considering Seasons is also based on turns instead of shuffles, perhaps ice tokens are fine as they are, after all. For cards like Snow Hag, you'd assume that getting the cards in the same shuffle wouldn't make much of a difference, either way, as then you'd already have to have a very bloated deck.
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Uh, by the way, did you know about Snow Witch from Co0kieL0rd's and my Seasons expansion? It's based on the same Japanese folklore as your Snow Hag and just like it, is a cheaper Witch with delayed Cursing (though in a different way).
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I guess great minds think alike :P
Yeah I'd already designed and named Snow Hag, but I saw Snow Witch before I mocked it up. I made sure to use different art, even though yours clearly has the best art out there :). I definitely like yours better, although mine still needs lots more testing and tweaking so hopefully it'll end up in a similar place.
I actually like the ice token mechanic a lot and it has the advantage you don't have to have that board. Moving the token each turn can be annoying. If you're just talking about art, I like yours, too. If I had known how dark the art we went for would look on a card, we might have decided for something else.
Hum... Considering Seasons is also based on turns instead of shuffles, perhaps ice tokens are fine as they are, after all. For cards like Snow Hag, you'd assume that getting the cards in the same shuffle wouldn't make much of a difference, either way, as then you'd already have to have a very bloated deck.
I was talking about card and art!
I meant to say a few words on the turns vs shuffles discussion actually. The main argument against turns is that if you don't shuffle while a card is frozen then it doesn't do anything, I don't think this is bad though - it can potentially make you reevaluate how good fast cycling/trashing is and change how you approach a board.
On the other hand, in order to have cards balanced properly if I change tokens to remove on shuffles then a lot of them will have to just have 1 or 2 tokens as missing 3 shuffles is really slow (especially in sloggier games) or have stronger effects to compensate. But what this means is that the cards would be stronger when you're going through your deck faster and if you're drawing deck every turn the the tokens might not matter at all, so it doesn't actually fix that problem in practice.
I like that having it be based on turns means the cards are weaker in stronger decks and stronger in weaker decks, because most cards are the other way around.
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Snow Hag- looks pretty strong for a 4 cost, but sorta seems balanced.
Yeti- Looks balanced maybe a tad weak, decent knight clone.
Venturer- I really need to see this card in game with and without trashing to tell how strong it is. It could be broken, balanced, or maybe even bad. The cost of 2 could make some pretty broken 5/2 starts. Sentry, Venturer seems pretty good.
Rediscover- I am not sure if this card is different enough from expand to warrant it, seems better in a few ways as well. Not letting it gain victory cards would just make it bad.
Mountain Village- This card seems pretty bad if it's the only ice token card in a kingdom without +buys. The miss a deck cycle isn't that bad for a village but it forces you to buy it early, and you won't get too much out of the coin token effect without +buys.
Ice Cave- Isn't this just a woodcutter for 5? 1 ice token doesn't even guarantee that the victory card will miss one deck cycle.
Glacier- Seems pretty strong. Seems like a replacement duchy on turns you missed the province. However if you can get more than one of these out at once it could be too powerful, and you can just keep buying them.
Frozen Cache- I would say this is bad design, it's either 100% worse or better than buying a gold early and you won't buy it later in the game.
Frost Spirit- This card seems pretty weak to me, but I could be wrong. it's not benefiting buying power while not fully trashing cards. I would 100% buy a Spice Merchant over this early game.
Cold Storage- This card is probably too good since it can get duchies.
Citadel- Looks balanced to me, the 1 snow token doesn't look that impact full tho.
Overall I like the Ice Token idea, but not sure if it's interesting enough for card design.
Here is a random split pile ice token card idea I made on the spot.
Snowy mountain (Top of stack)-
Cost - 4
Type - Action
Effect - +2 Card +1 Action When you play this card set it aside and put two Ice tokens on it for each snowy mountain set aside.
Amount - 5
Avalanche (Bottom of stack)-
Cost - 5
Type - Action
Effect - +3 Coins Remove all Ice tokens from an a set aside card. If it the card had 4 or more Ice tokens, +1 Action.
Amount - 5
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Snowy mountain (Top of stack)-
Cost - 4
Type - Action
Effect - +2 Card +1 Action When you play this card set it aside and put two Ice tokens on it for each snowy mountain set aside.
I like the idea of an Ice Token card setting itself aside each play, but the split pile thing doesn't appeal to me.
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Snowy mountain (Top of stack)-
Cost - 4
Type - Action
Effect - +2 Card +1 Action When you play this card set it aside and put two Ice tokens on it for each snowy mountain set aside.
I like the idea of an Ice Token card setting itself aside each play, but the split pile thing doesn't appeal to me.
I do have one in the file but it's action isn't particularly inspiring. I think Citadel might evolve into something using this mechanic though.
Thanks for the comments loneXolf, although think some of your evaluations are way off :P. It's still good to know what is popular though so I'm taking everything on board.
Anyway here's some updates:
(https://i.imgur.com/yttRNIL.png)
5 tokens means that if you get this turn 1 or 2 it'll miss the first 2 shuffles and also makes the Coin token slightly easier to trigger. I like that this is a village that you have to get earlier than you want, that makes it interesting to me but I'm a bit worried it won't be popular?
(https://i.imgur.com/n9tmdIu.png)
This was a bit too good. 6 tokens means this if you're player 1 and play this turn 3 the curse will enter your opponents deck on their turn 8. That seems more reasonable to me?
Venturer is scrapped for now because it's strange and doesn't seem popular, which isn't a winning combination.
Now for some new things- a few Coin token and off theme cards:
(http://i.imgur.com/7eENDzZ.png)
I like self scheming cards and Walled Village always missed the mark for me as the scheming village. $2 might not be enough so I'll have to try it at $3 if that's too good. Or make it so you have to pay for each Campsite individually perhaps, but that might need weird wording.
(http://i.imgur.com/KSuBf3P.png)
This seems like a well balanced simple thing, Pioneers are super-settlers right? It would probably be fine at $4, although a strong opening for sure. This seems like a nice on-gain ability that doesn't exist because overpay was in the only Coin token set (I assume).
(http://i.imgur.com/9cBWBrx.png)
One of those things that seemed simple in my head but was a bit of a nightmare to word on a card. Could this cost $2? The warning bar on the bottom of the art amuses me, so it's staying!
(http://i.imgur.com/2FGs5Zz.png)
This is stronger then it looks, I promise! It's really quite flexible, although it's still not that strong maybe it should give +2 actions when you discard.
(https://i.imgur.com/HBpzm1o.png)
Reasonably sized Bandit repost because nobody talked about it yet.
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(http://i.imgur.com/2FGs5Zz.png)
This is stronger then it looks, I promise! It's really quite flexible, although it's still not that strong maybe it should give +2 actions when you discard.
I actually think it looks very strong when you have Victory cards; Lab + Fugitive is a pretty good deal, with some flexibility to boot.
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I actually think it looks very strong when you have Victory cards; Lab + Fugitive is a pretty good deal, with some flexibility to boot.
Yeah the Victory is the key, without it it's a terrible Plaza thing.
(https://i.imgur.com/YMUw8Ha.png)
I forgot about this one! This started out as a Coin token Salvager... that was outrageous so now it gives you a steady stream of tokens. Durations that stay out multiple turns are cool so that's great.
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The new cards are great. I think it goes to show that if you can come up with the brilliant ice token mechanic, you can also come up with good cards that don't use it.
Mountain Village & Snow Hag - I like the changes. My speculation, based on zero testing was that three ice tokens wasn't enough to weaken them, and I think upping the ice tokens makes them more balanced and interesting.
Campsite - Sounds like a very good village, competitive with Port or Worker's Village. I don't think $2 or $3 makes a big difference. Since the central concept is "a village that topdecks itself" rather than "village that makes you sacrifice $2", you could experiment with other conditions. Like, what if it's a village that behaves just like Treasury. Or maybe it topdecks itself only if you don't buy actions LOL.
Pioneer - I think this looks too strong to cost $4, especially with the on-gain bonus. My main complaint about this is it seems a lot slower than Peddler, without being sufficiently different to justify it.
Sleigh - It's certainly very good in the early game, when most of your deck is copper. And if you get 6+, it seems pretty strong, maybe on par with Herald. I'm a bit worried that it would lead to a monolithic strategy--Herald wants to add terminal actions, but this card doesn't want you to add expensive cards.
Hunter - Funny thing about this is that you have to decide whether to discard an action or treasure before drawing 2 cards. Looks fairly strong even with just the victory card part.
Barbarian - This doesn't look that strong, but here you say it's stronger than it looks. Well color me surprised. It looks worse than Butcher, but then Butcher is amazeballs, and Tragic Hero demonstrates that if you make a nerfed version of an amazing card it can come out pretty decent. The attack could hurt, but opponents can see it coming a long ways, and can prepare for it by buying provinces.
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A possible solution to the once-per-shuffle problem is to add a Heirloom-like copper (or silver?) variant saying "When you play this, remove one ice token from all of your frozen cards, then if you removed the last ice token from any of them, put it in your discard pile".
The pros:
It doesn't need outside-card-text rules, or remembering to thaw at start of turn.
It has some cute interactions with stuff like Storyteller and Crown.
It's possibly more interesting, and gives you the ability to control your thawing rate.
The cons:
It can skip shuffles (but so can anything else)
It sort-of-breaks some cards in their current form (Snow Witch and Ice spirit, for example) and as they are now.
There are already 7 copper replacements.
But it's an interesting possibility.
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Ice tokens are a bit hard to judge without playing with them before.
Mountain village- The 5 ice tokens change seems to be focused on the coin ability giving it more self sustain and maybe to nerf buying multiple copies. Mountain village's bazaar effect seems most useful when spammed. However I can see 5 ice tokens making this card frustrating to buy when it's not early game.
Snow hag- Fair nerf. Still can't tell if a witch costing 4 is too good even with the 6 delayed turns for the curse.
Campsite- Seems like a more useful walled village in most cases. It's effect might make it too consistent.
Pioneer- Seems like a worse peddler, since you are limited to 7 copper(without gaining more) really makes this card not that spamable which is the best use of peddler. Making this compete with cards like market and bazaar which is really rough. The free coin token is nice for later turns and for on gain effects but is a overall weird choice for a on gain bonus for me.
Sleigh- This is such a strong early game card. Not a huge fan of the RNG factor. Seems a little bit similar to Chariot Race design except Sleigh works better with lower cost cards and is more controllable RNG. Sleight might be too good for 3.
Hunter- This card is all over the place for me. I need to see it in game, all of the discard sides seem a bit useful. Could be too strong or weak for 5. Turning any action into +2 actions is weird.
Barbarian- I think it's attack is too dependent on having other coin token gainers. 4 coin tokens is rough to get in one turn with just this card, and keeping 3 coin tokens turn to turn to trigger this attack seems weak.
Cargo Ship- Seems much slower and weaker than Glacier and looks weaker than remodel to me. Maybe I am missing something.
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Oh, and let me say that I really like Barbarian's concept, and Cargo Ship is also neat.
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Well I have some free time so I guess I'll address a few things. Long post incoming!
Mountain village- The 5 ice tokens change seems to be focused on the coin ability giving it more self sustain and maybe to nerf buying multiple copies. Mountain village's bazaar effect seems most useful when spammed. However I can see 5 ice tokens making this card frustrating to buy when it's not early game.
So Mountain Village is a village instead of say some kind of payload card for a reason, the idea is that you have to buy them earlier than you would normally buy a village as this hopefully creates a unique and interesting play experience. The reward for having a frozen card then has the function of making them not so sad to buy later on too. With just 3 tokens it wasn't really delayed at all at the time you would usually consider buying a village so I upped the number of tokens to try and fix it. This also had the nice added effect of making the Coin token easier to get.
Pioneer- Seems like a worse peddler, since you are limited to 7 copper(without gaining more) really makes this card not that spamable which is the best use of peddler. Making this compete with cards like market and bazaar which is really rough. The free coin token is nice for later turns and for on gain effects but is a overall weird choice for a on gain bonus for me.
I mean there's only 10 in the pile y'know, getting 7 Pioneers seems rare. It's significantly better than Peddler until you trash Coppers - it's more like an Apothecary-lite, drawing the Coppers increases your handsize which is often important and increases cycling which is very important. It also removes Coppers from your deck so your other draw can pick up better cards. It's an early-mid game accelerator where as Peddler is a mid-late game payload card.
Sleigh- This is such a strong early game card. Not a huge fan of the RNG factor. Seems a little bit similar to Chariot Race design except Sleigh works better with lower cost cards and is more controllable RNG. Sleight might be too good for 3.
It's pretty much a worse Wishing Well as an opening, I don't really understand the RNG factor comment either. It seems worse than Wishing Well to me in general but I have been called Luckbag on numerous occasions, so maybe Wishing Well is worse for other people.
Barbarian- I think it's attack is too dependent on having other coin token gainers. 4 coin tokens is rough to get in one turn with just this card, and keeping 3 coin tokens turn to turn to trigger this attack seems weak.
The trick is that "+$1 take a Coin token" is decent anyway, probably a reasonable $3 cost. The attack is painful but can be hard to set up - kinda like Legionary.
Cargo Ship- Seems much slower and weaker than Glacier and looks weaker than remodel to me. Maybe I am missing something.
It has the magic words "trash a card" although I might try this at $4. I suspect that's too good in the opening though, maybe a bonus for trashing Coppers would be better.
Okay now onto trivalknot:
The new cards are great. I think it goes to show that if you can come up with the brilliant ice token mechanic, you can also come up with good cards that don't use it.
Campsite - Sounds like a very good village, competitive with Port or Worker's Village. I don't think $2 or $3 makes a big difference. Since the central concept is "a village that topdecks itself" rather than "village that makes you sacrifice $2", you could experiment with other conditions. Like, what if it's a village that behaves just like Treasury. Or maybe it topdecks itself only if you don't buy actions LOL.
Thanks for the kind words :)
Campsite is quite strong, but $2 is a real cost so it isn't an automatic decision, or maybe it is and I've been playing it wrong! It also rewards deck tracking but not in an annoying way in my opinion, which I enjoy but maybe other people don't? It's certainly got nothing on Minstrel or Port for sure though.
Pioneer - I think this looks too strong to cost $4, especially with the on-gain bonus. My main complaint about this is it seems a lot slower than Peddler, without being sufficiently different to justify it.
Ah I meant $4 without the Coin token, I didn't make that clear but yeah I figured it would be on the high end of $4's - not Ironmonger level but still very good, that's why I put it at $5 with the Coin token thing. Hmmm it's certainly not as bad in that regard as Hunting Party is compared to Lab, but Hunting Party is miserable IRL so I'll have to think on it. I won't repeat myself about the Peddler comparison.
Sleigh - It's certainly very good in the early game, when most of your deck is copper. And if you get 6+, it seems pretty strong, maybe on par with Herald. I'm a bit worried that it would lead to a monolithic strategy--Herald wants to add terminal actions, but this card doesn't want you to add expensive cards.
At the end of the day it's still just a conditional Lab so it'll never be a (good) strategy by itself.
Hunter - Funny thing about this is that you have to decide whether to discard an action or treasure before drawing 2 cards. Looks fairly strong even with just the victory card part.
I didn't think of that actually... would people like it more if the victory part was first? The victory part is where a lot of the strength comes from, it would be too similar to Shepherd without the other stuff though - I made this before Shepherd was released mind.
Barbarian - This doesn't look that strong, but here you say it's stronger than it looks. Well color me surprised. It looks worse than Butcher, but then Butcher is amazeballs, and Tragic Hero demonstrates that if you make a nerfed version of an amazing card it can come out pretty decent. The attack could hurt, but opponents can see it coming a long ways, and can prepare for it by buying provinces.
Worse than the best $5 in dominion is a fine place to be :P. Tragic Hero is a really strong Gold gainer guys - comparing it to Margrave is a mistake (why am I derailing my own topic?) If I make my opponent buy Provinces prematurely then I'm very happy, Barbarian did his job!
Okay I got sidetracked at the end there, but thanks for the feedback!
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I mean there's only 10 in the pile y'know, getting 7 Pioneers seems rare. It's significantly better than Peddler until you trash Coppers
Maybe it was more of a nitpick comment on the Pioneers. But my line of thought was that most of the time you would draw into copper(s) during the end of your turn limiting Pioneers spamability, pairing that with any amount of trashing and it could quickly turn into a card that you don't want many copies of. Which makes me think a vanilla peddler is better (Not counting the coin token effect).
It's pretty much a worse Wishing Well as an opening, I don't really understand the RNG factor comment either. It seems worse than Wishing Well to me in general but I have been called Luckbag on numerous occasions, so maybe Wishing Well is worse for other people.
Well wishing well has the same RNG factor of hitting a estate during it's first use which makes both of them way less impactful. But I do not see how Wishing Well is much better, Sleigh always has copper as a target and is much easier to build around later into the game. However I am assuming that Sleigh is a pretty decent card to spam which is where I am drawing most of it's power, which I might be wrong on.
It has the magic words "trash a card" although I might try this at $4. I suspect that's too good in the opening though, maybe a bonus for trashing Coppers would be better.
I don't think the strength of this card is in trashing starter cards. Having multiple of these out at once seems like the most ideal use of this card to me, which is why I compared it to glacier. The best normal target for this card seems to be estate like most other Remodel clones, however remodel itself gains you a 4 or lower costed card while cargo ship just gives you 2 coin tokens over two turns and most of the time they both trash coppers for nothing. But on the other hand, trashing high valued cards for cargo ship seems too slow for me unless you have a strong gainer. Even degenerate combos such as rats and fortress could be done better with remodel, apprentice, etc since they're not duration cards. Idk maybe I am just seeing this card under a bad light.
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I mean there's only 10 in the pile y'know, getting 7 Pioneers seems rare. It's significantly better than Peddler until you trash Coppers
Maybe it was more of a nitpick comment on the Pioneers. But my line of thought was that most of the time you would draw into copper(s) during the end of your turn limiting Pioneers spamability, pairing that with any amount of trashing and it could quickly turn into a card that you don't want many copies of. Which makes me think a vanilla peddler is better (Not counting the coin token effect).
I don't want this to become a generic strategy discussion, but this is a terrible way to evaluate cards. Pioneer is better than Peddler in some situations and worse in others, more importantly though they have different roles in deckbuilding. The main problem I have with Pioneer is that it can take a while to resolve - especially if you trash your Coppers and it becomes a cantrip Chancellor, which can lead to multiple shuffles per turn.
It's pretty much a worse Wishing Well as an opening, I don't really understand the RNG factor comment either. It seems worse than Wishing Well to me in general but I have been called Luckbag on numerous occasions, so maybe Wishing Well is worse for other people.
Well wishing well has the same RNG factor of hitting a estate during it's first use which makes both of them way less impactful. But I do not see how Wishing Well is much better, Sleigh always has copper as a target and is much easier to build around later into the game. However I am assuming that Sleigh is a pretty decent card to spam which is where I am drawing most of it's power, which I might be wrong on.
You can wish for more than Copper with Wishing Well, the first Sleigh is just Wishing Well for Copper. The RNG isn't really any more than you're average card, perhaps it's a bit more in your face though. When you start chaining multiple Sleighs together the first few are very unlikely to trigger as you are likely to be trashed down if you're lining up so many Sleighs. I'm not saying it's a weak card but it seems very similar to Wishing Well to me - Wishing Well is very strong mind. My main disagreement with you was when you said it was such a good early game card.
It has the magic words "trash a card" although I might try this at $4. I suspect that's too good in the opening though, maybe a bonus for trashing Coppers would be better.
I don't think the strength of this card is in trashing starter cards. Having multiple of these out at once seems like the most ideal use of this card to me, which is why I compared it to glacier. The best normal target for this card seems to be estate like most other Remodel clones, however remodel itself gains you a 4 or lower costed card while cargo ship just gives you 2 coin tokens over two turns and most of the time they both trash coppers for nothing. But on the other hand, trashing high valued cards for cargo ship seems too slow for me unless you have a strong gainer. Even degenerate combos such as rats and fortress could be done better with remodel, apprentice, etc since they're not duration cards. Idk maybe I am just seeing this card under a bad light.
Trashing your starting cards is amazing, so yes that is where a lot of strength comes from, although this is very inefficient at it. I think I agree with you that this is a little tame in it's current form but it's not terrible, it would certainly be too good at $4, Coin tokens are really strong! This is more of a Salvager than a Remodel though, that's what it started out as at least. Also Remodel has to gain a card, so it can't trash Coppers for nothing. Hmm being weaker than Apprentice is a place most cards want to be, I think.
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I wanted to suggest to give +2 Actions, +2$ and +2 Cards as the bonuses for Hunter, as an extension of Ironwork's theme... Then I realized that it becomes kind of similar to Ironmonger. Ah well.
For my Heir, I put the draw first to give it a buff, but it doesn't normally draw, so it needed that. Also for Heir, it's risky. I would just make it depend on how strong the card seems in the end, but yes, draw first seems "logical" in a way.
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I wish I had found earlier the leisure to comment on the second batch of cards you posted. You set high standards for yourself with the first bunch and the others don't disappoint!
Mountain Village and Snow Hag: Good to see you're taking other people's criticism into account. These are reasonable nerfs. With this many Ice tokens, MV and Curses, respectively, should be almost guaranteed to miss the shuffle which I think was neccessary to balance these cards.
Campsite: A clever Village variant. I'm surprised this doesn't exist, yet. The reason might be that this is crazy in any engine that draws the deck, though it's only marginally useful while you're still building it. A ways to circumvent this, which I'm sure has been suggested already, is to make you pay $1 or $2 per Campsite you want to topdeck. As another note, this fits very well in a Coin token-based expansion.
Pioneer: This card is fine and balanced but, as you pointed out, might result in too much searching and shuffling. You could always just row back and turn this into an actual Peddler with the on-gain effect. This would be a definitive buff as it would allow you to trash your Coppers. Since searching for Coppers could quickly become annoying, and for the sake of simplicity, I'd say just make it a Peddler.
Sleigh: A cute card that starts out worse than Wishing Well but gets better the more you play in a row. That said, you pretty much commit to Sleighs when you start buying them. That means there will be games where it's not worth going for them at all, and that's fine for a $3-cost card, which they can't all be the best, anyway.
Hunter: I don't know. It seems convoluted and could use some paragraphs. It should say "You may discard a Treasure." Now onto the bonuses; they're hard to assess. Discarding an Action for +1 Action seems like it will be a mistake too often, especially considering you may discard a Victory card last. Hunter is expensive so that should be the first thing you do. It's not like the other two bonuses are particularly strong, either.
Barbarian: I like the idea a lot but the card is weak as-is. Without the attack it would be fine, probably a bit too weak for $4. But to use the attack you need to save 4 Coin tokens which means you basically played 4 terminal Coppers (the fourth with an attack attached that's random and mediocre)! You could try it at $3 or reduce the number of Coin tokens needed for the attack. With enough playtesting you should get this unique concept to work out.
Cargo Ship: Another clever idea but, alas, weak again. The only way this is better than Salvager is it gives Coin tokens instead of $. But they are delayed, Cargo Ship doesn't have +buy, Salvager is faster at spiking high-cost targets and trashes more often, except if you only trash $0-cost cards with Cargo Ship (which would be terribly slow). This needs a vanilla bonus (I suggest +1 Card, +1 Action) to be any good. Alternatively, it could cost $4 but then it would still only situationally be viable, and ignorable in many Kingdoms.
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Okay here's a new thing and some changes/updates/thoughts. I've updated the OP with stuff too.
Seer
(https://i.imgur.com/5ZIj9zB.png)
Here it is the Seer, now the on play effect is very similar to Barbarian, but I have a new Barbarian because the old one wasn't going down well. So hopefully this is a bit better. When you pay the tokens you only add Ice tokens to your Avalanche, if that wasn't clear.
Avalanche
(https://i.imgur.com/hVxICqy.png)
Yep there it is, Avalanches are very similar to Saboteurs it turns out. 15 seems like a good number for Avalanche, not too fast that it becomes oppressive every time and not too slow as to never matter. There are also ways to make this hurt not so much, mainly just gaining expendable cards, Silver gainers and stuff like that. I'm using Violet CLM's image generator for these which doesn't have a template for States, so sorry about that.
New Barbarian
(https://i.imgur.com/WVaAHwH.png)
Okay so Barbarian is now a Coin token Oasis. That is very probably too good for $4, but maybe it's borderline? It could have an on-gain penalty maybe if it's a little too powerful. It should be much easier to get the attack going now that it's non-terminal. Also a note that I think I forgot to mention before is that this particular attack is very devastating early on, when your hands are basically one $3-$4 card and Estates/Copper. Which is the logic behind why I chose this particular attack to be delayed by the tokens like this.
Cargo Ship buff
(https://i.imgur.com/v6zOJ6e.png)
Cargo ship was on the weak side, but was in an awkward position where it was a bit too good at $4 so I made it a little better at trashing Coppers.
Igloo
(https://i.imgur.com/ryU0kmF.png)
This snowy themed expansion needs an Igloo right? It was surprisingly hard to find a picture actually. This is a pretty simple idea, although as usual the wording sucks. This is isn't the best thing ever but it's not too bad, I've had it since before Nocturne but forgot to post it earlier, I now worry that Tracker is a bit similar to this and more exciting with the Boons.
Hunter
I'm not overly pleased with Hunter at the moment, perhaps switching the bonuses would make it better. Action for +2 cards, Treasure for +1 action and Victory for Coin token. Discarding an action for +1 action does rub me the wrong way a bit and currently hunter is terrible without a Victory card. We'll have to see, I worry that it'd be hard to remember which goes with which if they're switched like that though.
@Co0kieL0rd: Thanks for the post! I agree with most of what you said - hopefully you like the changes I made this time. Apart from cantrip Cargo Ship, that'd be cwazy! Oh and I'm thinking of making Pioneer blow itself up for a Coin token if it fails to find a Copper - the Copper searching is functionally quite different to just a Peddler and it is a great subtle effect so It'd be a shame for it to die due to physical issues. But at same time I'm of the opinion that Hunting Party was a mistake and isn't worth the hassle so I guess that's still on the cards for sure.
Ah yes I almost forgot Venturer and Ice Cave have been retired for now, Venturer was strange and not very popular so I figured it should go and Ice Cave wasn't very interesting. Cold storage and Rediscover will get more attention soon.
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Avalanche- Please make Avalanche not able to target victory cards, this card being able to trash provinces triggers me. Also I don't think this card has to always hit to be scary/destructive, the constant trashing of cards could make decks not improve well without gain effects or +buys. Seems like a cute card though, I really want to see this card in game to see how it plays out.
Seer- The one to one ratio for coin to ice tokens doesn't seem that effective. Maybe just allow a maximum of 1 coin token to be spent for 2 ice tokens. I like it more than the old Barbarian though.
Barbarian- Not really a huge fan of Oasis clones since Oasis has the perfect cost for it's effect. It's hard to tell how good this card is, playing 4 of them in one turn still seems a bit rough. But it's much easier to pull off that the last version of barbarian. Would need to see it in game. The coin token effect on Oasis is probably good enough for the cost of 4 already.
Cargo Ship- Very helpful buff but I don't see this card being bought over most other trashers. The cost of 5 while trashing not that effectively with the slowness of the coin tokens are both it's main weaknesses for me. But this buff looks sorta nice on paper.
Igloo- Text seems a bit off on this card. But hot damn this card seems extremely good, quickly getting yourself just bought cards while netting you a card for the next turn? This could maybe cost 5.
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Avalanche- Please make Avalanche not able to target victory cards, this card being able to trash provinces triggers me. Also I don't think this card has to always hit to be scary/destructive, the constant trashing of cards could make decks not improve well without gain effects or +buys. Seems like a cute card though, I really want to see this card in game to see how it plays out.
Hahaha better get some Seers if you wanna keep your Provinces. Seriously though, I haven't tested this yet, I rarely have Provinces in my deck but I'll see if a more sane player hates that in testing. I want Avalanche to be nasty though.
Seer- The one to one ratio for coin to ice tokens doesn't seem that effective. Maybe just allow a maximum of 1 coin token to be spent for 2 ice tokens. I like it more than the old Barbarian though.
Yeah this is something to keep an eye on, I haven't yet had chance to actually test Seer/Avalanche so I don't yet know how well it works.
Barbarian- Not really a huge fan of Oasis clones since Oasis has the perfect cost for it's effect. It's hard to tell how good this card is, playing 4 of them in one turn still seems a bit rough. But it's much easier to pull off that the last version of barbarian. Would need to see it in game. The coin token effect on Oasis is probably good enough for the cost of 4 already.
The idea of Barbarian was that you have to choose between using the Coin tokens and using the attack, you don't use up the Coin tokens to do the attack so once you have a stockpile of 3 tokens the attack will always trigger because Barbarian adds the 4th itself. You don't have to play 4 in one turn. Coin token Oasis is probably on the strong side for $4 anyway so I'll have to keep a close eye on this one.
Cargo Ship- Very helpful buff but I don't see this card being bought over most other trashers. The cost of 5 while trashing not that effectively with the slowness of the coin tokens are both it's main weaknesses for me. But this buff looks sorta nice on paper.
I think you're underestimating the Coin tokens a little bit - getting a Coin token at the start of your turn is like playing a Baker, a decent $5 card. Anyway I understand that this isn't a powerhouse and trashers are often on the strong side of things so I'm relatively happy with where this is at the moment.
Igloo- Text seems a bit off on this card. But hot damn this card seems extremely good, quickly getting yourself just bought cards while netting you a card for the next turn? This could maybe cost 5.
I'm not happy with the wording on this, but it gets the intent of the card across so it's okay for now. Eh I'm not sure this is that hot? (I guess Igloos are hot inside?) It doesn't seem amazing compared to Tracker, it only works on one card and only on cards you buy. The effective +1 card next turn is nice though but I don't think it makes up for Royal Seal's non-terminalness either so I'm not seeing this at $5. Maybe it'll end up at $4 though if double Igloo openings are crazy.
Anyway thanks for the comments again, you've helped me quite a bit so far :)
Edit: Woops I forgot, here's a thing.
(https://i.imgur.com/0vNHAWG.png)
I've realised recently that I love Copper gaining and Venturer didn't work out so maybe this new Citadel is more interesting. I think I fluffed the wording on the below the line but oh well. Is it too harsh? Not harsh enough? Too boring? Too exciting?
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Igloo- I still think Igloo is pretty strong but it's limited by + buys, so I don't think multiple copies is a problem. +2 coins is pretty solid and putting the card you buy into your hand for the next turn seems so much stronger than +1 card to me at least until to start to buy victory cards. While it's not as strong as some power duration cards such as wharf, I do find it stronger than Merchant Ship at least the first copy. I don't know, maybe I think it's effect is too good.
Citadel- I am not sure how good a split grand market is at 5. Sorta seems are the weak side to me but it could be pretty strong.
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4 New cards of varying complexity.
Cabin:
(https://i.imgur.com/poJlkvz.png)
This comes from wanting a Governor type thing that isn't broken like Governor. I figured making it terminal was the first thing to do and now it's this Count-like thing that is a mess of words. The idea is that you get 2 of the options and your opponent gets 1 of the 2 options that you chose. Taking a Coin token is obviously the strongest option here and is never bad, but that means it'll always be good for your opponent where as the other options are more situational, so you might be able to leverage them to get more out of them than your opponent, making taking the token as one of the options not always the best thing to do (hopefully). I think this is on the weaker side, as terminal money usually is. Does Sacred Grove make this redundant? No particular reason why this is a cabin other than that I had art for a cabin.
Outcast:
(https://i.imgur.com/Gz5KzfF.png)
I feel like every set should have at least 1 $2 cantrip these days. This one is a little Menagerie type thing, but seem much weaker than Menagerie so it's $2. Seems similar to Patritian so far in terms of powerlevel. It's an Outcast because it finds things that are on their own, also because the name seemed to fit the art that I had well.
Cauldron:
(https://i.imgur.com/8BV773t.png)
This has about as much to with the Ice theme as Faithful Hound has to with Nocturne. I actually really like this, even though nobody would have batted an eyelid if it were in the Base 2nd edition. It's an old one from before Empires that started out as very similar to Engineer and then when Empires came out I shelved it for being similar to Engineer until recently I was thinking about an Altar that gained $4's and how it would be too bad at $5 but too good at $4 and then remembered Cauldron and here it is now as an Alter double-Workshop hybrid thing. It's good on similar board to when Workshop is good, but costing $5 means it plays quite differently. Flavour justification: you're putting something in the Cauldron (trashing it) and getting some new stuff out of it.
Mountain Outpost:
(https://i.imgur.com/zkthcb1.png)
We have many durations that are good now and good later (Fishing Village, Merchant Ship etc) and many that are bad now and good later (Tactician, Haunted Woods etc) but none that are good now and bad later. Here's one that is good now and bad later to fill that gap. It's pretty simple, which is good, although maybe +4 cards might not be quite generous enough given that this stacks quite badly and Hunting Grounds gives that with an extra on-trash thing for $6. It reduces your next turn's handsize, like Outpost and I managed to find art that is similar to Outpost's art so I'm happy with that.
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Gee, I really need to step up my game ;D
These new ones all look pretty great!
I do think that Cabin has too may options, though. Removing just the +2 Card one would probably make it much better. I mean, I like how this option interacts with the chancellor option, but it's the most complex one and also has the most words. I don't find anything negative to say about the other three, they all look cute.
My first reaction to Outcast was to assume it would need a little extra, but by now I think it's certainly strong enough.
Mountain Outpost seems fine, and the idea of "good now, bad later" is better executed than I have seen anywhere before. I appreciate how clean the design is. However, if you are worried about strength already, I'm sure adding a buy would work wonders.
I'm not exactly sure what to say about Cauldron, because I feel you'd have to play with it to see. At worst, it's a Trader, at best it gains 5$s thanks to cost reduction. If you wanted to avoid that, you could say "costing less than this", but I guess it's more fun this way. One last thing: The name "Cauldron" kinda sounds like something that should cost a Potion.
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I agree with Asper that one of the Cabin choices should probably disappear.
I also think that mountain outpost could definitely use a buff. I like that you can't stack it like crazy without ruining your next turn, but being a duration you won't get it in your hand as often. I'd much rather buy hunting grounds at $6 than this at $5. Then again, it is good to have some stronger and some weaker cards as long as the deviation isn't too much.
I think Cauldron is super cool and it looks like fun. I think Outcast looks really good for a $2 actually
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Gee, I really need to step up my game ;D
These new ones all look pretty great!
Thanks a lot! That's high praise indeed coming from you!
I do think that Cabin has too may options, though. Removing just the +2 Card one would probably make it much better. I mean, I like how this option interacts with the chancellor option, but it's the most complex one and also has the most words. I don't find anything negative to say about the other three, they all look cute.
This is probably the fix, the chancellor option only really makes the cards one +2 Cards Discard too cards so it's not like it's a great loss that that interaction goes. The text on the card does look much nicer without that option. I also doubt it makes it much weaker, Secret Chamber reaction was never really that useful.
My first reaction to Outcast was to assume it would need a little extra, but by now I think it's certainly strong enough.
Yep seems pretty Patritiany to me so far, Maybe a bit weaker on average.
Mountain Outpost seems fine, and the idea of "good now, bad later" is better executed than I have seen anywhere before. I appreciate how clean the design is. However, if you are worried about strength already, I'm sure adding a buy would work wonders.
I did think about that but then I remembered Wharf and Margrave and thought, maybe terminal draw with +buy is too good? Even Tragic Hero is much better than most people seem to be giving it credit for. I also want this to be a functioning set, so I have to be careful of how many +buy cards there are.
I'm not exactly sure what to say about Cauldron, because I feel you'd have to play with it to see. At worst, it's a Trader, at best it gains 5$s thanks to cost reduction. If you wanted to avoid that, you could say "costing less than this", but I guess it's more fun this way. One last thing: The name "Cauldron" kinda sounds like something that should cost a Potion.
Yes, Cauldron is quite board dependant for sure. Gaining 2 Silvers? Usually not the best. Gaining 2 Ironmongers? Wow! It can get crazy with cost reduction, Highway in particular, but I think that's cost reduction being broken rather than Cauldron so I don't mind it myself. Yeah Cauldron probably could fit right into Alchemy, but Loan has nothing to do with debt so there!
I agree with Asper that one of the Cabin choices should probably disappear.
I think I agree too.
I also think that mountain outpost could definitely use a buff. I like that you can't stack it like crazy without ruining your next turn, but being a duration you won't get it in your hand as often. I'd much rather buy hunting grounds at $6 than this at $5. Then again, it is good to have some stronger and some weaker cards as long as the deviation isn't too much.
It's not the best card ever in it's current form, If you play 1 every turn then it's "Discard a card. +4 Cards" which is probably an okay $5 so yeah this could do with a small buff. +1 buy is the easiest and probably the simplest, but I'll try to thin of something more unique that doesn't ruin the simplicity of the card.
I think Cauldron is super cool and it looks like fun. I think Outcast looks really good for a $2 actually
I'm glad you like it :) By really good do you mean it's too strong? Or good as in $2 is a good cost?
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I can't read minds, but I would assume Chappy7 means that Outcast is strong. After all, it's relatively likely to be a Lab if you have it in hand early in your turn, which is huge for a card at the "might as well buy this over nothing" cost point. It will whiff more often if you draw it later, and also has a high chance to do so early in the game, but like Menagerie the payoff is relatively huge. The thing with Menagerie is, once it fails for the first time, it becomes very likely that subsequent attempts will also fail, which isn't true for Outcast. For both, the card becomes less and less likely to draw those extra cards the more often you play it successfully, but again, this is steeper with Menagerie because of its higher payoff.
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I'm glad you like it :) By really good do you mean it's too strong? Or good as in $2 is a good cost?
Oh sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. I mean that it looks quite strong. Kinda like a chariot race effect, but it only costs $2 to buy. I definitely could be way off, but it seems like it would be pretty easy to make it a lab. I'll try to use it next time I play irl and see what I think.
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I'm glad you like it :) By really good do you mean it's too strong? Or good as in $2 is a good cost?
Oh sorry, I guess I wasn't clear. I mean that it looks quite strong. Kinda like a chariot race effect, but it only costs $2 to buy. I definitely could be way off, but it seems like it would be pretty easy to make it a lab. I'll try to use it next time I play irl and see what I think.
No worries! The difference between $2 and $3 isn't all that much really and this is very unreliable as draw because you have to line up the 2nd card of your deck and the contents of your hand. Chariot Race is weird one because it would be weaker if it cost $2. I'll admit I haven't really tried to go too far out of my way in any games to trigger Outcasts so maybe it's actually really good, I'll have to try that out. It would be awesome if you tried it yourself!
What do people think about an on-gain Chancellor effect for Mountain Outpost? I opened Cursed Village the other day on a 5/2 and got War and it just Chancellored me because I didn't have any 3/4s yet, which gave me the idea. It also has the interaction with Ice tokens that it makes you shuffle more so the tokens matter more. Or do you think that could lead to too much shuffling? Can't be any worse than Inn for that though, right?
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I don't think you should actively try to "line up" cards to trigger Outcast. But if you trash down and go for many different cards, it should pay nicely to have these over quite a few other 2$s.
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I don't think you should actively try to "line up" cards to trigger Outcast. But if you trash down and go for many different cards, it should pay nicely to have these over quite a few other 2$s.
Oh yeah, this is how I've been playing it. Can't hurt to test these things though!
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Got a few new ones for you.
Tundra:
(https://i.imgur.com/Dxa98q7.png)
Partially inspired by Enchantress and also trying to sneak a way to get Copper gaining into the set, because I love Copper gaining for some reason. Instead of blanking the first played action it blanks the first gained card, it gives the Copper option as to not ruin single gain games, it's kind of ended up as a mini Swamp Hag. I don't think Copper pile size variation with more players is a concern because it's limited to 1 per turn, although thinking about it would multiples make people gain multiple Coppers if they don't want to exchange? Well the on play bonus is pretty weak so hopefully that doesn't matter. Also with multiple buys this could let your opponents pick up cheap Silvers and then there's interactions with on-gain effects too, hopefully that makes for fun experiences. Could this get away with costing $3? I'm a bit short on $3s at the moment.
Taiga:
(https://i.imgur.com/3ZHbhdi.png)
TAIGA UPPERCUT!!! Everybody likes Peddlers! An Ice token from play was an obvious thing to try, but this stemmed from the idea of a reverse traveller at first. The way I was going to do that was to have a vanilla cantrip that you can optionally set aside for an additional bonus (+$2 +1buy or +1 card +1 action, stuff like that) because making the exchange mandatory was bad if you forgot to do it - Vampire/Bat gets around the mandatory exchange because you do it when you play the card but actions can't do that obviously. Setting the card aside wasn't great, especially with Ice tokens doing that in the same set and you just always exchanged the first 2 or so times and then left it and never got the weaker ones. It had too many issues and didn't seem worth all the extra cards. So now you do it once and then it's a Silver, but if the game lasts long enough you get it back! That might be a bit too much to be honest but we'll have to see, the type of decks that can abuse a Grand Market don't appreciate the Silvers so much and I don't mind cards being strong in sloggier games. Flavour justification is that you cut down the forest for some cash and then it grows back. "Coppice" would be a good name too.
Reindeer:
(https://i.imgur.com/1P4SE9K.png)
+2 Cards Take a Coin token is probably too good for $3, but I'm pretty sure the other part makes this much weaker if you want multiples. I'm also pretty sure this won't stay in the set for long but maybe something can be salvaged from it...
Finally here's an updated Mountain Outpost:
(https://i.imgur.com/iSiwQeB.png)
It seems like a nice extra bonus, a bit different from boring old +1 Buy.
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I don't really see what's so appealing about Copper gaining. In the end, Tundra is pretty much a weaker Swamp Hag. Also, it needs to be reworded to avoid an interaction with junking attacks.
+1 for Taiga uppercut ;D
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Well the main idea of Tundra was the Silver exchange and the Copper part was just so it doesn't lock people out of the game, but yeah it does make it too close to Hag probably. I too don't know what's so appealing about Copper gains, I just enjoy it and Cache and Mountebank give it a bad reputation.
(https://i.imgur.com/nDxTEku.png)
Here's a different version, it doesn't work if there's no mid-turn gaining but it gives +1 buy now so hopefully that means it has enough utility to still be bought sometimes without that. It also gets around the junking attack interaction - thanks for pointing that out. I feel like this can cost $3 too? Duration-Woodcutter seems very weak so I think it's fine?
Edit because there's no point making another post:
I like Asper's suggestion of removing the +2 cards, topdeck 2 option of Cabin so here's that updated:
(https://i.imgur.com/48CPZ5h.png)
A couple of games with Frost Spirit proved that it is in fact, crazy. The combination of non-mandatory cantrip thinning and then setting aside Provinces later is way too much. There are a few things that can be done to reign it in, preventing it from setting aside non-Estate victory cards is one thing to try - but man that's an ugly phrase to have on the card, I'd rather not resort to that. It might be fine at $5, but I'd rather it stay cheaper. Making it mandatory won't be enough on it's own. Cookielord suggested making it +2 cards at $3 which I liked the sound of because I <3 Masquerade. So here's that version:
(https://i.imgur.com/4Oze4Ba.png)
Finally here's something I thought of about 15 minutes ago.
Spyglass: (Now with proper formatting, thanks to Asper for pointing that out)
(https://i.imgur.com/RsXpt5a.png)
So I love getting an early Sun's gift with Bard, it's like a non-terrible Navigator that also does more useful stuff later, absolutely wonderful. I also would like a treasure in the set. So yeah early on this gives you some ever underrated cycling and later in the game when your deck is in order and full of different components the inspection is less useful this gets cashed in for a Gold which I think is neat, also seems fairly thematic. I guess it could be reworded a bit to make the Gold gain optional but I doubt you'll ever be too upset when that happens. I'm not sure whether that pen in the art is appropriate for dominion but I'm not too bothered really, I also actually remembered to credit the artist so there! Also with this and Taiga there's something that turns into a Gold, something that turns into a Silver... I'm smelling a mini-theme that could sneak a little Copper gaining in here...
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About Frost Spirit, maybe the cantrip version would be fine if it was just 3 tokens instead of 4? Just in case you prefer a cantrip variant. That seems relatively easy to scale. I take back my suggestion of having it cost 5$ or being mandatory, and I'm glad you didn't go for those.
Spyglass's Coin symbol should be big, like in other Treasures, and should be repeated at the upper borders.
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About Frost Spirit, maybe the cantrip version would be fine if it was just 3 tokens instead of 4? Just in case you prefer a cantrip variant. That seems relatively easy to scale. I take back my suggestion of having it cost 5$ or being mandatory, and I'm glad you didn't go for those.
Spyglass's Coin symbol should be big, like in other Treasures, and should be repeated at the upper borders.
Yeah that seems like another decent option. I like this +2 cards version because it costs $3, which this set is lacking in.
Yep I messed up the Spyglass a bit, it's a miracle it says treasure on the bottom instead of action really.
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Tundra - This attack seems to kingdom biased. Why have this card to only counter gainers: black market, workshop, gold gainers, while helping some: rats, death cart, and letting remodel trash coppers into silver. And in kingdoms without action gainers it's just a delayed wood cutter. Maybe I am too hard on this card, I don't know.
Taiga - Seems okayish maybe even a bit strong. I see most of this card's power of this card coming from the extra +1 coin, The buy just seems to be there to make it a grand market clone (I prefer more consistent sources of + buys) but the +buy doesn't seem bad. The Silver gain is cute but it seems to lower weight of the choice for setting aside the taiga since it "replaces the limboed Taiga" while increases the max coin your deck can produce when you get your taiga back. But I am not sure how bad 6 ice tokens are since I never played with them. Hard card to judge.
Reindeer - This card seems to have a huge luck factor if you plan to use +1 action and gain a reindeer effect. Just looking at the top card to trigger it's effect doesn't seem that controllable at all. However like you said +2 cards and a coin token does seem very strong for 3. Here is a reworked effect of this I just thought of randomly...
Name - Reindeer
Cost - ?
Type - Action
Effect- +1 Card Reveal your hand if you reveal two or more action cards +2 Actions. Otherwise, +1 Card and Gain a Reindeer.
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Tundra - This attack seems to kingdom biased. Why have this card to only counter gainers: black market, workshop, gold gainers, while helping some: rats, death cart, and letting remodel trash coppers into silver. And in kingdoms without action gainers it's just a delayed wood cutter. Maybe I am too hard on this card, I don't know.
Yeah it is Kingdom dependant but honestly I think that's not a bad thing, so many attacks in Dominion (mainly ones from earlier expansions) are super powerful, so I think there is plenty of room for more situational attack cards. The main issue I have with it is that it just might not be fun, gaining cards is fun and not always available/viable so hosing that might just not be great for funness.
Taiga - Seems okayish maybe even a bit strong. I see most of this card's power of this card coming from the extra +1 coin, The buy just seems to be there to make it a grand market clone (I prefer more consistent sources of + buys) but the +buy doesn't seem bad. The Silver gain is cute but it seems to lower weight of the choice for setting aside the taiga since it "replaces the limboed Taiga" while increases the max coin your deck can produce when you get your taiga back. But I am not sure how bad 6 ice tokens are since I never played with them. Hard card to judge.
The buy is mainly there because I don't really have any +buy cards I'm overly happy with yet, so time to start sticking +buy on things at every opportunity! Also it could lead to situations where you get a cheeky pileout from a surprise +buy, which is always fun/makes you feel smart. I also suspect that winning in this way will become known as the TAIGA UPPERCUT!!! 6 Ice tokens is a long time, especially if you reach the point of drawing deck - that's like 6 whole shuffles! It's less of a concern on slower sloggier decks, but $5 Peddlers are generally terrible in those decks so that's nice. The Silver adds a stop card to engine so you can't abuse these too much and it's decent in other decks too. My guess on the powerlevel is that it's on the stronger side of a weakish subset of cards, I'll go with better than Baker and Market but worse than Bazaar.
Reindeer - This card seems to have a huge luck factor if you plan to use +1 action and gain a reindeer effect. Just looking at the top card to trigger it's effect doesn't seem that controllable at all. However like you said +2 cards and a coin token does seem very strong for 3. Here is a reworked effect of this I just thought of randomly...
Name - Reindeer
Cost - ?
Type - Action
Effect- +1 Card Reveal your hand if you reveal two or more action cards +2 Actions. Otherwise, +1 Card and Gain a Reindeer.
I probably shouldn't have posted Reindeer, it was just a jokey thing but hey maybe something comes of it. This Reindeer probably plays like a broken Vassel thing or something.
Aaand instead of finishing off my Qvist list part which I'll be posting tomorrow - the bottom half of the $2's, stay tuned. I've been making a couple more rough cards that I should probably think about more before posting.
Refuge:
(https://i.imgur.com/uAyVDHo.png)
I like journey token cards and Idol is kinda like them, so why not try something else using new Idol technology? It's a Hamlet for actions and then a Bazaar! First draft this only gave the extra action on the first play, so the second play was just a Peddler but that sounded very weak to me so now you always get the village. On odd plays the effect is weak for $3 but the net effect on the second is like playing 2 Villages and an Oasis which is a bit above curve, so this is balanced? A bit bland maybe?
Hunter version 2
(https://i.imgur.com/7S9KtyV.png)
Ideally the Game card would have been the Quarry card, as in a hunter's quarry. Unfortunately Quarry is also a stone digging hole so that's already a card... best to avoid confusion there, differentiating Actions and Action cards can already be confusing. The main idea is that it's a Village for a certain card, it's the reverse of Young Witch because Young Witch is weaker with a strong Bane but Hunter is stronger with a strong Game (imagine a game where this is the Bane!). I think this wants to be cheaper than $5 so it doesn't compete with the Game but I'm honestly not enthused with the on-play currently, it's actually just really similar to Plaza. Maybe the discard could be mandatory and then you get something for discarding a victory, like +1 buy or something?
I don't think this expansion needs Refuge and Hunter btw, 1 discardy villagy $3 is plenty so it's a case of seeing which people prefer/what plays nicely. Or maybe they meld into 1 card or I find something better, who knows.
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Isn't the new Hunter just a more complicated, worse Plaza?
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Isn't the new Hunter just a more complicated, worse Plaza?
Yes as I already pointed out:
it's actually just really similar to Plaza.
Do you like the core idea of a village that can only play another card? The other stuff is kinda placeholder at the moment.
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Refuge- The even odd effect doesn't seem to have much payoff if you don't discard dead cards. Playing one or three refuges during your turn seems much worse than villages to me. Looks a tad weak to me, I could very well be wrong though.
Hunter- Like asper said it looks like a worse plaza. Here is another reworked effect I just thought of randomly...
"Name - Hunter
Cost - 4
Type - Action
Effect- +1 Card +1 Action You may play a Game card from your hand twice. If you do, Trash it. This turn, Game cards cost 4. / Setup: Add an extra Action Kingdom card pile costing 5 coins to the Supply. Cards from that pile are Game cards."
Probably way too strong for 4.
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Isn't the new Hunter just a more complicated, worse Plaza?
Yes as I already pointed out:
it's actually just really similar to Plaza.
Do you like the core idea of a village that can only play another card? The other stuff is kinda placeholder at the moment.
Sorry for missing out on that. I wouldn't have assumed you'd go for it if you had been aware of the similarity, as it is a lot worse at a price point which is only marginally cheaper (and Donald X often stated he'd like several of the 4$ Villages to cost 3$ if it wasn't about "strictly better stuff") as well as being too complicated.
I like the "play a special card" idea, but I think the card itself needs to be more interesting. As interesting as I find the ice token mechanic, as much do I think that coin tokens were sufficiently covered by Guids. Cantrip tokens, terminal tokens, disappearing tokens, on-buy tokens, conditional tokens... In the end, coin tokens are already a variant of "+coins", so there isn't unlimited space to explore here. In general, I find the "pure" Ice token cards better, because they are more unique in what they do. Think about how Scrying Pool looks like a more complicated Spy for having its attack.
The obviously balanced thing would be something like a 5& or 6$ card that gives +3 Cards and allows you to play the Game card. Obvious because, well, Cultist already does a thing like that. And then there's Imp and Conclave, both of which have much less rigid restrictions. I used to ponder a "Young Sorcerer" idea that could somehow use a Bane card in your deck back when Cornucopia came around, and I think (but can't swear) that I thought about playing that card. And well, I never managed to think of a card that was worthwile, so I'm afraid Cultist is the best I can think of. At least I can say that the idea to only let cards costing 5$ be Game makes sense to me.
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Isn't the new Hunter just a more complicated, worse Plaza?
Yes as I already pointed out:
it's actually just really similar to Plaza.
Do you like the core idea of a village that can only play another card? The other stuff is kinda placeholder at the moment.
Sorry for missing out on that. I wouldn't have assumed you'd go for it if you had been aware of the similarity, as it is a lot worse at a price point which is only marginally cheaper (and Donald X often stated he'd like several of the 4$ Villages to cost 3$ if it wasn't about "strictly better stuff") as well as being too complicated.
No worries man, I usually just let it slide when people repeat something I said because it usually means they agree with me. I was in a pretty sour mood when I made that post so I hope it didn't seem rude or anything.
I did write a long ranting post about your opinion on Coin tokens but it was a bit much, so I'll just say I think Cargo Ship, Seer, Barbarian and to some extent Cabin all do new/interesting enough things with Coin tokens to justify their presence in this expansion and then if they're in the expansion anyway they can be used for balance reasons or just to spice up a few cards. Sort of like how Cobbler doesn't justify the Nights, but in the context of a set already using Nights it's a totally reasonable card.
Also I think you're implying that Cultist is balanced? Errrr...
I think what to do with Hunter is to make it a $2 bad village or to make it a $4 thing that is sometimes village or sometimes non-terminal. Having it cost $3 makes it tricky to balance relative to village/other $4 vilages.
Also the first ever play of Spyglass resulted in a Gold gain, ha! And people told me it was weak!
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Isn't the new Hunter just a more complicated, worse Plaza?
Yes as I already pointed out:
it's actually just really similar to Plaza.
Do you like the core idea of a village that can only play another card? The other stuff is kinda placeholder at the moment.
Sorry for missing out on that. I wouldn't have assumed you'd go for it if you had been aware of the similarity, as it is a lot worse at a price point which is only marginally cheaper (and Donald X often stated he'd like several of the 4$ Villages to cost 3$ if it wasn't about "strictly better stuff") as well as being too complicated.
No worries man, I usually just let it slide when people repeat something I said because it usually means they agree with me. I was in a pretty sour mood when I made that post so I hope it didn't seem rude or anything.
I did write a long ranting post about your opinion on Coin tokens but it was a bit much, so I'll just say I think Cargo Ship, Seer, Barbarian and to some extent Cabin all do new/interesting enough things with Coin tokens to justify their presence in this expansion and then if they're in the expansion anyway they can be used for balance reasons or just to spice up a few cards. Sort of like how Cobbler doesn't justify the Nights, but in the context of a set already using Nights it's a totally reasonable card.
Also I think you're implying that Cultist is balanced? Errrr...
I think what to do with Hunter is to make it a $2 bad village or to make it a $4 thing that is sometimes village or sometimes non-terminal. Having it cost $3 makes it tricky to balance relative to village/other $4 vilages.
No, Cultist isn't balanced. I just meant to imply that terminal draw is a good thing to put conditional Action card playing on. But we already have two cards that do this, so maybe it's not as great.
I see your point with Cobbler and the Night cards. It's not even like I dislike the coin token mechanic, the ice tokens are just more interesting and unique.
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No, Cultist isn't balanced. I just meant to imply that terminal draw is a good thing to put conditional Action card playing on. But we already have two cards that do this, so maybe it's not as great.
I see your point with Cobbler and the Night cards. It's not even like I dislike the coin token mechanic, the ice tokens are just more interesting and unique.
The quote block was getting a bit big, so I cut it out.
Yes I see what you're saying about Cultist now, I misread that at first. I guess Saunavanto is also doing a similar thing, so maybe it's just an idea that leads to busted things. Although I think getting rid of the trashing ability of Sauna would make it less ridiculous - Saunavanto is just doing too much at once and the split pile mechanic kind of just compounds that. I also think Cultist without the attack could be a reasonable $4 maybe.
Anyway here's a new new Hunter:
(https://i.imgur.com/C2vNusc.png)
I think maybe making it cost $5 like the game is actually good, because with it being a $3 I feel like the deck would kind of build itself if the game was something worth doing, if that makes sense. So this is Fugitive or a Lost City if you have the game, seems reasonable to me? Fugitive is obvs weak for $5, but not useless and the ceiling of Lost City is totally insane or anything and having to line up and balance $5's 1:1 isn't trivial.
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Hunter- It seems sorta hard to build an engine with the lost city part of this card if the Game card isn't a good terminal. Maybe making the game cost 3 or 4 is better, but maybe that would make it too easy to proc? I don't know.
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Hunter- It seems sorta hard to build an engine with the lost city part of this card if the Game card isn't a good terminal. Maybe making the game cost 3 or 4 is better, but maybe that would make it too easy to proc? I don't know.
I think this being on the weaker or more situational side of things isn't too bad because it's always going to add another $5 action to the table. The upside of a Lost City is really good too so I'm fairly certain it'll be powerful a reasonable amount of the time. I hope trying to balance these with the Game card leads to interesting deck building decisions.
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Personally, I like the new new Hunter. Not only is it different to the cards I named (and Saunavanto, which I forgot), it also looks balanced. And I also like that, unlike a Cultist variant, it doesn't suck if the game card is terminal. I also find the "adds a regular 5$" atgument convincing.
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Personally, I like the new new Hunter. Not only is it different to the cards I named (and Saunavanto, which I forgot), it also looks balanced. And I also like that, unlike a Cultist variant, it doesn't suck if the game card is terminal. I also find the "adds a regular 5$" atgument convincing.
Yeah, I guess the worst case is something like Mint as the Game or just one of the weak things like Mandarin. Have to test at some point, it seems promising though!
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2 new cards trying to incorporate States. Seer was pretty fun in the 1 game I played with it, so why not try other things? Also if this set wants to be big it could do with 1 more mechanic to explore and States are things to put tokens on so seems like a decent option?
Outrider/Bountiful Wilderness
(https://i.imgur.com/tWCUUFT.png)
A non-terminal Survivors with +1 Buy. Survivalist would be a cute name thinking about it. A weakish card, but it has utility. If you have enough spare buys then you find a Bountiful Wilderness...
(https://i.imgur.com/0o4ej44.png)
If you don't use all of your buys you get a Coin token, so hopefully you can use your buys better next turn! I think these will need a bit of tweaking, maybe 4 buys on Outrider is too many. I'm also prone to being an idiot, as we saw with the first new Hunter being a terrible Plaza, so if this is obviously terrible please be as harsh as you like.
Signalman/Beacons
(https://i.imgur.com/rVpZPbt.png)
This is a bit more like Seer where you start off the game in a State and tokens track things... Beacons is friendly though, where Avalanche is nasty. Also "each player takes a Beacons" great wording.
(https://i.imgur.com/MDjcbQT.png)
Beacons gives you a free Moat, but if you want to keep up the defences you'll have to get a Signalman or two. Also each beacon only defends one attack, this is so that attacks aren't completely useless in Signalman games. Although Lighthouse and Guardian kinda make attacks useless a lot of the time... Signalman does other things with Beacons so it isn't useless in games with no attacks. You don't have to remove tokens for the coin effect of Signalman, so it could potentially be good payload later in the game. Perhaps the +$1 you get for putting a token on Beacons could instead be take a Coin token. Hmmm, what do people think?
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Outrider- This just seems like a non-attack spy that gives you a buy instead of a card. While milling two cards is much better than one it can still be awkward if you get a copper/dead card with a high value one. Also the card only nets a buy which doesn't make it that spamable to trigger Bountiful Wilderness. Maybe removing the spy effect for +1 coin would be better but then it might be too similar to Candlestick Maker.
Bountiful Wilderness-...Doesn't seem to work that well Outrider. I can see this card being pretty powerful with some other +buy cards. Market, Druid, Squire, Forager, Counterfeit, Bridge Troll to name a few, on the top of my head.
Signalman/Beacons- I am not a big fan of pirate ship clones. It's a bit faster than Miser since it starts with a coin token, Also giving a coin isn't that much worse than "trashing a copper". Also in a two player game I can see this really killing most attacks later in the game if you can make a decent engine with this, which probably isn't a big deal.
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Signalman seems too much better than Pirate Ship, to be honest. It starts at one token, gives +1$ even when you add one, has no risk of whiffing, can use its tokens for other benefits and costs less. The Treasure trashing on PS makes sure it isn't strictly worse, but I would argue that it actually is even another disadvantage most of the time.
I also think that Outrider Signalman could technically work without a state, if it just used special tokens and said something similar to Embargo:
"Setup: Each player takes one Signal token. When another player plays an attack card, players may lose one Signal token to be unaffected by it."
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Signalman seems too much better than Pirate Ship, to be honest. It starts at one token, gives +1$ even when you add one, has no risk of whiffing, can use its tokens for other benefits and costs less. The Treasure trashing on PS makes sure it isn't strictly worse, but I would argue that it actually is even another disadvantage most of the time.
I also think that Outrider could technically work without a state, if it just used special tokens and said something similar to Embargo:
"Setup: Each player takes one Signal token. When another player plays an attack card, players may lose one Signal token to be unaffected by it."
I wouldn't say Signalman directly Powercreeps Pirate Ship since most of Pirate's Ship "strength" can come from it's attack like thief. For example in games with the only decent way to gain coin is Pirateship and Treasures where the other player(s) bought a chapel(heavy trashing) or in a bad kingdom where the only openings is silver/pirate ship or silver/silver. However I do agree, if you don't plan to benefit off the attack of Pirateship, Signalman is just better. Also I think Signalman could lose the set up token at the cost of 3. I assume your Outrider comment is for Signalman, I don't really see much of a reason for signalman to have it's own token, if Embargo couldn't really use a card since it would cover the card. And if it used a coin token it wouldn't work well with trade route. A state is much easier to add then another token.
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Signalman seems too much better than Pirate Ship, to be honest. It starts at one token, gives +1$ even when you add one, has no risk of whiffing, can use its tokens for other benefits and costs less. The Treasure trashing on PS makes sure it isn't strictly worse, but I would argue that it actually is even another disadvantage most of the time.
I also think that Outrider could technically work without a state, if it just used special tokens and said something similar to Embargo:
"Setup: Each player takes one Signal token. When another player plays an attack card, players may lose one Signal token to be unaffected by it."
I wouldn't say Signalman directly Powercreeps Pirate Ship since most of Pirate's Ship "strength" can come from it's attack like thief. For example in games with the only decent way to gain coin is Pirateship and Treasures where the other player(s) bought a chapel(heavy trashing) or in a bad kingdom where the only openings is silver/pirate ship or silver/silver. However I do agree, if you don't plan to benefit off the attack of Pirateship, Signalman is just better. Also I think Signalman could lose the set up token at the cost of 3. I assume your Outrider comment is for Signalman, I don't really see much of a reason for signalman to have it's own token, if Embargo couldn't really use a card since it would cover the card. And if it used a coin token it wouldn't work well with trade route. A state is much easier to add then another token.
Yes, I meant Signalman, not Outrider. I don't see how a State would be easier. You have tokens already, so the State just is additional material.
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Signalman seems too much better than Pirate Ship, to be honest. It starts at one token, gives +1$ even when you add one, has no risk of whiffing, can use its tokens for other benefits and costs less. The Treasure trashing on PS makes sure it isn't strictly worse, but I would argue that it actually is even another disadvantage most of the time.
I also think that Outrider could technically work without a state, if it just used special tokens and said something similar to Embargo:
"Setup: Each player takes one Signal token. When another player plays an attack card, players may lose one Signal token to be unaffected by it."
I think "better than Pirate Ship" is something all cards should strive to be... I mean if you think it's too strong that's fair enough but I don't care for the Pirate comparison. Miser seems like a better comparison and Copper trashing is better than +$1 by at least a mile. I mean I think that Signalman is pretty weak... seems poor compared to Gladiator to me considering you have to play Abandoned Mine twice before it's worth $3. Also no Fortune or free Gold.
I am thinking that the way it is now it sucks as an attack defence, which was supposed to be the main hook of the card. I'm thinking it could just do something generically useful and add a token, and if there aren't any attacks to defend against, well it's still doing something generically useful. I guess it's not like Lighthouse is great without attacks and that's fine too. Or maybe you just start the game with like 3 tokens and then it just does something unrelated so you only have a limited number of tokens? I don't know, lots of ways to take it.
Technically all States could use a token/ tokens, a good example is the Hexes. If Hexes were in Adventures for example I'm sure Miserable and co. would use a token. But Nocturne didn't have tokens, so it uses States instead. Ice Age has Ice and Coin tokens already and other cards that use a State, so using Coin tokens and a State seems more logical to me. Donald has also said that if he did a 2nd edition of Seaside he would update Embargo and Pirate Ship to not use tokens and instead just set aside treasures/put Embargos on piles to track (or probably just get rid of them because they're both duds). The reason why Pirate Ship and Embargo use tokens is because the publisher wanted to justify a higher price point for the expansion by including metal tokens, as seaside had 200 fewer cards than Base and Intrigue. The notion that using tokens is somehow simpler is false, in my opinion. It's nice to have the card there with the rules right on it.
Oh also it turns out that Rediscover gaining Provinces with 3 Ice tokens on them is fairly broken, I'll have to rethink that one...
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I don't think the word "first" belongs on the Beacon text, as it can only be used after the Attack is played but before it can resolve.
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I guess you are right about Pirate Ship being too weak (especially in 2P games) to matter as much, but even Miser has not only advantages over Signalman - so I'm not sure it's too weak. For instance, if you can't line up Signalman with a Copper, it doesn't just whiff. Also, compared to Signalman, you suffer not 1$, but 2$ loss the turn you use Miser to build up money. Signalman can be useful in decks with other strong trashers, whereas Miser is redundant with those. Also, the tokens can still be used as a defense and it costs ever-so-slightly less.
About Gladiator, it isn't always worth 3$, and Fortune isn't something you get by Gladiator, so counting it as something seperate from those free Golds leads to the wrong impression.
I don't recall Donald saying that he'd put Embargo itself on the piles, but you might have newer information than me. Last time I checked, he said that putting Embargo itself on the piles (as done in the beginning) was confusing to people, and so he changed it when it was clear there could be tokens. Similar about Pirate Ship confusing people when Treasures on the mat were worth more than 1$. Maybe you can link to where you got that information? I do recall him saying he'd have preferred Adventures' -Card and -Coin tokens as States, but that's another bag. One thing they have in common with Nocturne'state for example is that they are given to players at some point and can be removed later.
Also, I don't agree to Embargo being a dud. Our games have shown me that you are a much better player than me, so maybe Embargo is weak from an experienced player's perspective. But it shapes a game, as you can't go for certain strategies without being punished (ergo it's not pointless), and I also believe it is relatively popular. My favourite Seaside card togegher with Haven, actually.
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Yes, I meant Signalman, not Outrider. I don't see how a State would be easier. You have tokens already, so the State just is additional material.
I meant adding extra cards would be easier than adding another unique token for a single card. Unique tokens would just make the game harder to set up and track, while more cards would also do this I would put it on a lesser effect. Also I don't know which dominion token you could use to track Signalman well.
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I don't think the word "first" belongs on the Beacon text, as it can only be used after the Attack is played but before it can resolve.
I referenced the 2nd edition Moat for that wording, so I assume it's close to how it would be worded in an official set.
I thought Donald said that stuff in the interview thread, but it was actually on Discord. I'm not sure whether I can link to particular things on Discord? If you just search for posts from Donald X. he was talking about it last Tuesday, it shouldn't be too difficult to find.
Gladiator uncovering Fortune and allowing you to be the first to buy it is the most important thing about Gladiator. I had Embargo as the worst $2 on my Qvist card ranking and in my opinion Tax is a much better execution of that concept, so it's a huge dud in my opinion.
Well the reaction to Signalman has been resoundingly negative anyway, so I'd best rethink it because of that.
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Huh, interesting. This sounds like a pretty big change of heart, but if he said it on Discord I'll take your word for it.
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(https://i.imgur.com/AYVCfdK.png)
2nd Signalman attempt. It's now a slow Workshop that can also block attacks. I haven't thought this through much so it might be super strong? Actually it seems reasonable? Still much wore than Lighthouse at blocking attacks, but you get one block for free.
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(https://i.imgur.com/AYVCfdK.png)
2nd Signalman attempt. It's now a slow Workshop that can also block attacks. I haven't thought this through much so it might be super strong? Actually it seems reasonable? Still much wore than Lighthouse at blocking attacks, but you get one block for free.
The Workship effect seems too slow to me for constantly helping a engine, but gaining a free 3 cost card after two/three plays might not be that bad. I wonder if saving the coin tokens for a province is decent.
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The Workship effect seems too slow to me for constantly helping a engine, but gaining a free 3 cost card after two/three plays might not be that bad. I wonder if saving the coin tokens for a province is decent.
Best case seems to be a useful $2 like Hamlet or something. Maybe it could topdeck the gained card, but it is a terminal Silver so for $3 it doesn't need much extra.
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Here's an idea for a change to the states that go with Outrider, Bountiful Wilderness was a little uninspired. I still think Outrider's on-play is okay, not powerful or anything but it has enough utility to be reasonable. I think it's better to be on the weaker side because it's paired with these states which make +buy a little more valuable.
(https://i.imgur.com/2pLQRJC.png)
A thing that States can do is be double sided, so that seems like something to explore, flipping to a different state.
(https://i.imgur.com/Ket5Err.png)
You start the game in a Frozen Wilderness, which slowly stockpiles tokens. Perhaps this should be more like Lost in the Woods and be "you may discard a card, to put a token on this" but I'd like to try it in this form first and change it if it's crazy.
(https://i.imgur.com/CWzLknY.png)
Frozen Wilderness flips into a Bountiful Wilderness, but once you flip it, it can't flip back. The idea is that you have to time it right to get the most value out of the Coin tokens. If you do it too early they will run out, too late and you'll have some wasted tokens. The requirement is now just 2 unused buys, so with one Outrider play you can flip it if you don't buy anything, or you could build up to many +buys and flip it that way while still buying cards.
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Here's an idea for a change to the states that go with Outrider, Bountiful Wilderness was a little uninspired. I still think Outrider's on-play is okay, not powerful or anything but it has enough utility to be reasonable. I think it's better to be on the weaker side because it's paired with these states which make +buy a little more valuable.
(https://i.imgur.com/2pLQRJC.png)
A thing that States can do is be double sided, so that seems like something to explore, flipping to a different state.
(https://i.imgur.com/Ket5Err.png)
You start the game in a Frozen Wilderness, which slowly stockpiles tokens. Perhaps this should be more like Lost in the Woods and be "you may discard a card, to put a token on this" but I'd like to try it in this form first and change it if it's crazy.
(https://i.imgur.com/CWzLknY.png)
Frozen Wilderness flips into a Bountiful Wilderness, but once you flip it, it can't flip back. The idea is that you have to time it right to get the most value out of the Coin tokens. If you do it too early they will run out, too late and you'll have some wasted tokens. The requirement is now just 2 unused buys, so with one Outrider play you can flip it if you don't buy anything, or you could build up to many +buys and flip it that way while still buying cards.
Frozen Wilderness- Seems like a rough card to judge might be pretty good, extremely bad, or insane. If you only bought one outrider you are forced to not buy anything to proc this, if your deck cannot fit more than 1 outrider it could be random/rough to proc this. I would also like it if you need at least one outrider to proc frozen wilderness, as is it could be super easy to proc in some kingdoms but then I guess it would turn into when do I proc wilderness game, so maybe it's fine.
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I did an overdue big update on the OP, introducing the newer stuff and adding tweaks/outtakes of the older stuff.
Now to make that update instantly out of date... new card time!
Wayfinder:
(https://i.imgur.com/gqSfQg5.png)
Duration Scout? Also trying to make the Victory setting aside thing Ice Cave tried to do work. Perhaps it steps on Frost Spirits toes too much now?
Tundra 3rd attempt(I think?)
(https://i.imgur.com/Dvtirca.png)
A different take on an Ice token attack and the messing with the 1st gained card that Tundra was trying. I think 3 is a decent number, taking the first few shuffles into consideration? I also considered an Embargo-like thing that put Ice tokens on a supply pile, but I didn't really like that, Embargo sucks.
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Wayfinder- Scout clones! Sure wayfinder could be useful later in the game if you have a lot of victory cards in a slim deck or maybe against curse attackers. But I just don't see this card being bought in most kingdoms. Sure it looks better than scout but it doesn't look fix it's core problems.
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Wayfinder- Scout clones! Sure wayfinder could be useful later in the game if you have a lot of victory cards in a slim deck or maybe against curse attackers. But I just don't see this card being bought in most kingdoms. Sure it looks better than scout but it doesn't look fix it's core problems.
I don't think that Scout had any "core problems". The problem was rather that the idea was put onto a weak card. On Patrol it works fine. Chancellor is a similar idea which is perfectly fine but only worked once DXV stuck it onto a Woodcutter (with some little extra tricks).
About Wayfinder, it doesn't only Scout but also termporarily sets aside. Getting green and purple out of your deck for some time can be extremly good.
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Well I mean scout was removed from the second edition. The main problem of scout for me is that's it's a niche support card. Not many strategies want a lot of victory cards early,that with the reveal cards from the top of your deck randomness, and not benefiting directly off drawing victory cards most of the time besides the basic you won't draw it next and you got a pretty weak card. I would put wayfinder a bit above scout, since you would only really lose the immediate scout and synergies from drawing victory cards. Is buying wayfinder early worth it to try to semi-trash your starting estates, or is this card meant to be bought for limboing victory cards later in the game? Neither seem that strong or consistent to me, but it's a scout clone and maybe I am underestimating 3 ice tokens.
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I don't deny that Scout is extremly bad. But the stuff that Scout does besides the +1 Action, i.e. scouting, is good. In my opinion Patrol is one of the best $5 Smithy variants and I guess that Scout would have been OK as a cantrip.
Wayfinder is a delayed cantrip Scout that sets the scouted cards aside. My limited playing experience with Crypt and Archive tells me that keeping bad cards out of your deck for some turns can be quite good and unlike those 2 cards Wayfinder is cheap.
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Well I mean scout was removed from the second edition. The main problem of scout for me is that's it's a niche support card. Not many strategies want a lot of victory cards early,that with the reveal cards from the top of your deck randomness, and not benefiting directly off drawing victory cards most of the time besides the basic you won't draw it next and you got a pretty weak card. I would put wayfinder a bit above scout, since you would only really lose the immediate scout and synergies from drawing victory cards. Is buying wayfinder early worth it to try to semi-trash your starting estates, or is this card meant to be bought for limboing victory cards later in the game? Neither seem that strong or consistent to me, but it's a scout clone and maybe I am underestimating 3 ice tokens.
The idea behind Scout was precisely to make earlier greening feasible, that is, allow you to spend less time on building to make sure your deck runs smoothly. It just sucked because what it did besides its ability was so bad that the ability alone couldn't make up for it.
From my experience with Frost Spirit, which is extremely strong (but enjoyable), I think putting ice tokens on the cards goes far beyond what Scout does or should do. It's pretty much a trasher now. Sure, the cards come back after a while, but you also don't lose the VP on them.
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Well I mean scout was removed from the second edition. The main problem of scout for me is that's it's a niche support card. Not many strategies want a lot of victory cards early,that with the reveal cards from the top of your deck randomness, and not benefiting directly off drawing victory cards most of the time besides the basic you won't draw it next and you got a pretty weak card. I would put wayfinder a bit above scout, since you would only really lose the immediate scout and synergies from drawing victory cards. Is buying wayfinder early worth it to try to semi-trash your starting estates, or is this card meant to be bought for limboing victory cards later in the game? Neither seem that strong or consistent to me, but it's a scout clone and maybe I am underestimating 3 ice tokens.
The idea behind Scout was precisely to make earlier greening feasible, that is, allow you to spend less time on building to make sure your deck runs smoothly. It just sucked because what it did besides its ability was so bad that the ability alone couldn't make up for it.
From my experience with Frost Spirit, which is extremely strong (but enjoyable), I think putting ice tokens on the cards goes far beyond what Scout does or should do. It's pretty much a trasher now. Sure, the cards come back after a while, but you also don't lose the VP on them.
Cantrip Frost Spirit is much more spamable and consistent looking then Wayfinder and also think it gave more ice tokens. 3 Ice tokens doesn't look that impressive to me for "trashing" estates early. Wayfinder does look like it could be strong for limboing duchies and/or provinces later in the game. But if it's late game where you're looking to buy provinces, I don't think wayfinder would be that impactful since the game is ending soon already. Overall, I think wayfinder has the same core problem as scout, while it does help cycling victory cards it doesn't do much else. Sure it being a cantrip and limboing victory cards makes it much more buyable then scout, but I wouldn't call it that strong of a card. But like I said earlier maybe I am underestimating 3 ice tokens.
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Overall, I think wayfinder has the same core problem as scout, while it does help cycling victory cards it doesn't do much else.
That's like saying that Island doesn't do much else besides providing 2 VPs.
If you played Patrol and scouted 1 Victory card the card has become a Hunting Grounds. Pretty good for a $5.
Let's stay with this example of scouting 1.
Wayfinder does something beyond drawing just that 1 Victory card (which would already be good in itself, it is a step from cantrip to Caravan), it sets the green aside for some turns. This is like drawing one more card the next time(s) you shuffle which is why I mentioned Archive above.
So you can read Wayfinder as delayed virtual extra draw on a cantrip. Perhaps it is not as good or consistent as other non-terminal draw for $4 like Caravan or Advisor but I doubt that it is bad.
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Overall, I think wayfinder has the same core problem as scout, while it does help cycling victory cards it doesn't do much else.
That's like saying that Island doesn't do much else besides providing 2 VPs.
If you played Patrol and scouted 1 Victory card the card has become a Hunting Grounds. Pretty good for a $5.
Let's stay with this example of scouting 1.
Wayfinder does something beyond drawing just that 1 Victory card (which would already be good in itself, it is a step from cantrip to Caravan), it sets the green aside for some turns. This is like drawing one more card the next time(s) you shuffle which is why I mentioned Archive above.
So you can read Wayfinder as delayed virtual extra draw on a cantrip. Perhaps it is not as good or consistent as other non-terminal draw for $4 like Caravan or Advisor but I doubt that it is bad.
I won't compare island or patrol so directly with scout and wayfinder, since they have more value without the the victory card interactions. Sure drawing a victory card with wayfinder is better then caravan most of the time, but you just don't want to draw victory cards with your caravans do you? Caravan is more of a draw support/spam card then wayfinder is, but wayfinder seems to help with cycling victory cards and temporarily thinning your deck of victory cards and curses. Overall, I think wayfinder is a niche card. But I could be underestimating it.
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Overall, I think wayfinder has the same core problem as scout, while it does help cycling victory cards it doesn't do much else.
That's like saying that Island doesn't do much else besides providing 2 VPs.
If you played Patrol and scouted 1 Victory card the card has become a Hunting Grounds. Pretty good for a $5.
Let's stay with this example of scouting 1.
Wayfinder does something beyond drawing just that 1 Victory card (which would already be good in itself, it is a step from cantrip to Caravan), it sets the green aside for some turns. This is like drawing one more card the next time(s) you shuffle which is why I mentioned Archive above.
So you can read Wayfinder as delayed virtual extra draw on a cantrip. Perhaps it is not as good or consistent as other non-terminal draw for $4 like Caravan or Advisor but I doubt that it is bad.
I won't compare island or patrol so directly with scout and wayfinder, since they have more value without the the victory card interactions.
While the 2VPs of Island are anything but irrelevant you can easily imagine a Colony Kingdom in which you open with Island in order to thin, not to increase the VP spread.
s. Sure drawing a victory card with wayfinder is better then caravan most of the time, but you just don't want to draw victory cards with your caravans do you?
Drawing a Victory card with Wayfinder and setting it aside for some turns is usually better than drawing anything with Caravan.
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Just being a cantrip is enough to eliminate the problem of Scout, because it means Wayfinder isn't a stop card and so will never be bad for your deck like Scout can. I think Wayfinder is a fine card, it's just a case of whether it's different/interesting enough to have a spot in the set.
I also realised Wayfinder sucks with Nobles and friends, oh well. Easy to change the wording to fix that.
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I have a few potential updates, I'd be interested to see what people think!
Cargo Ship:
(https://i.imgur.com/yg7HZyk.png)
I like Cargo Ship, but it was a little slow. Now it gives a Coin token straight away, I'm not sure why I never thought of this change before... this change means it only stays out for 1 turn when it trashes Estates which makes it miss shuffles much less often early on.
Glacier:
(https://i.imgur.com/81yaxGz.png)
This is pretty much exactly the same card, but hopefully it feels more coherent to people now.
Rediscover:
(https://i.imgur.com/7VoQSQ5.png)
Original Rediscover was fun to read, but I wasn't thrilled will the gameplay and setting aside Provinces with it was strong. Now it's a Remodel that is good at trashing itself, but I felt it needed something more to be worth $5 so it can gain a gold. Any suggestions on this one, I don't think it's quite there yet? I don't know whether this really wants to cost $6 or whether that makes it too easy?
Frontier:
(https://i.imgur.com/dcsij34.png)
A bonus fresh card! Is this stupid? Does it suck? Is it broken? I have no idea!
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They all look good and Frontier is the one I like most (not because it is necessarily balanced). It is bonkers in Shepherd games (buy two Estates via the extra Buy, gain two Shepherds) and is obviously good whenever you want Estates, i.e. with Inheritance, Silk Road and Garden. Otherwise it seems weak as you need decent sifting / trashing to make the "$5 Action with some junk for $2" work (Forum comes to mind). Seems highly Kingdom-dependent but very interesting.
The mere Hireling-esque permanent extra Buy is probably worth $4 or $5. Of course if there is no extra Buy in the Kingdom and you want to play an engine you don't mind how much you pay for an extra Buy.
IMO the 2VPs of the old Glacier was better than the new Copper version.
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IMO the 2VPs of the old Glacier was better than the new Copper version.
Yes, especially given the theme of land=vp. I like the idea of a card called glacier being a vp card. Maybe even a card that has a variable value
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You can blame me for the new Glacier. I nagged about the delayed VP gaining and the consistent token stream being two interesting concepts that shouldn't be combined because that made each shine less. I agree that Glacier as a card name suits a VP card better, but that isn't necessarily the same discussion.
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You can blame me for the new Glacier. I nagged about the delayed VP gaining and the consistent token stream being two interesting concepts that shouldn't be combined because that made each shine less. I agree that Glacier as a card name suits a VP card better, but that isn't necessarily the same discussion.
Nah blame me for listening :P
The idea with Frontier was that you can play a few and then use the buys to get like 3 Estates and million $5's.
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Cargo Ship- I like the change, however still think coin token effect looks awkward. For reasons, I stated in past comments.
Glacier- This new glacier just seems like a downgrade, 4 delayed coin tokens isn't worth it at 6 to me and the glacier card itself only has value if there is a remodel clone in the kingdom. This could maybe cost 5???
Rediscover- Weird card, I see this jack of all trades type of card you're going for and I like the self-synergy. It's cost of 5 gives me a bit of OCD since you would rarely gain 7 costs with this. Is the 2 ice tokens really needed, it seems to be just there to have ice tokens so maybe just 1 or 0 could work? Also what if you got +2 actions for trashing it instead of +2 cards? Since it looks to need muit-action support for multiple copies.
Frontier- Having two frontiers out at once seems nuts to me. If both/all players go for this card I can really see quick 3 supply pile games happening. Looks like it can be pretty strong, but seems to need testing to evaluate a strength level.
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The new glacier could cost 4$ just fine. It’s a mix between Treasury and Baker for four turns, then becomes a copper. It just can’t cost 5$, even less so 6$. At 4$, it allows you to convert money into coin tokens, but you really only want that if you have a lot of buys, a way to get rid of glaciers, and you still need to wait four turns for the conversion to happen. It would be fine. Borderline too good in the presence of TfB, but that deck would take a while to setup anyway, so that’s fine too.
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The new glacier could cost 4$ just fine. It’s a mix between Treasury and Baker for four turns, then becomes a copper. It just can’t cost 5$, even less so 6$. At 4$, it allows you to convert money into coin tokens, but you really only want that if you have a lot of buys, a way to get rid of glaciers, and you still need to wait four turns for the conversion to happen. It would be fine. Borderline too good in the presence of TfB, but that deck would take a while to setup anyway, so that’s fine too.
I'm not sure you should be able to open with it, Ice tokens are a little sensitive to opening turns because you generally shuffle on turn 5 and you have to balance them around that (actually the main reason is this set is already a little $4 flooded). If it proves too weak at $6 then the answer would be to increase the number of tokens and/or to put +1 Buy on the top to add some self-synergy there and a general reason to hold onto a Glacier.
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I felt like trying to make a Throne Room for this set, most sets seem to have Throne Rooms these days. What's a royal icy thing? An ice queen, cool here's an ice queen:
(https://i.imgur.com/DvTAZp7.png)
I was thinking that a Throne Room that does something else as well as throne would be sweet kinda like Procession and Disciple, we can have that experience with the tokens from Adventures but things can get confusing pretty easily when you start throning thrones. So I figured to stop things from getting too crazy it could give you something nice when you discard it from play and then hey Coin tokens seem like a perfect fit for that kind of thing so there we go. A throne that gives you free Coin tokens seem a bit good even at $5 so it also freezes the throned action and then because Ice Queening an Ice Queen means the 2nd doesn't give any Coins maybe I can get away with this giving 2 Coins. The whole variable cost thing might just be a dud idea and probably gets messed up by cost reduction too so perhaps a non-variable number would be more sensible.
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Ice Queen - I am not really a fan of the variable ice token since it tries to push you to use it with cheaper actions. But I can see why you did it since a static ice token number doesn't look that great on this card to me. Also does this card not work well with Duration cards or am misinterpreting it?
Random Bad Variation-
Name - Ice Queen
Type - Action
Cost - 5
Effect - You may play an action card from your hand twice. When the Action would be discarded instead set it and this card aside with an Ice token on it for each Coin it costs. ______ While this card is set aside by it's own effect, During your buy phase cards with the same name as the attached Action card cost 2 Coin less, but not less than 0 coins.
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I think that Ice Queen is most of the times weaker than Throne Room.
Its best use is probably to turn $2 cantrips into splitters (due to the throning) and 2 turn auto-Bakers.
But I doubt that having an Ironmonger out of your deck for 4 turns or a Torturer set aside for 5 turns is worth 2 Coin tokens.
By the way Gazbag, how do you intend Ice tokens to work with Reserve cards? Are they frozen before they land on the Tavern mat or the other way around?
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I think that Ice Queen is most of the times weaker than Throne Room.
Its best use is probably to turn $2 cantrips into splitters (due to the throning) and 2 turn auto-Bakers.
But I doubt that having an Ironmonger out of your deck for 4 turns or a Torturer set aside for 5 turns is worth 2 Coin tokens.
By the way Gazbag, how do you intend Ice tokens to work with Reserve cards? Are they frozen before they land on the Tavern mat or the other way around?
Ya I don't like it so much now, I'll think of something else. Reserves would go to the tavern and the Ice Queen would lose track, like Procession.
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How about having Ice Queen be a Throne Room that can King's Court instead at the cost of freezing the card? Although probably that could just as well be trashing, maybe? But if trashing would be too weak, freezing seems like an ideal way to make up for it. Like:
Ice Queen, 5$, Action
You may play an Action card from your hand twice. You may set it aside with 3 Ice tokens on iit to play it a third time.
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How about having Ice Queen be a Throne Room that can King's Court instead at the cost of freezing the card? Although probably that could just as well be trashing, maybe? But if trashing would be too weak, freezing seems like an ideal way to make up for it. Like:
Ice Queen, 5$, Action
You may play an Action card from your hand twice. You may set it aside with 3 Ice tokens on iit to play it a third time.
I did briefly think about some kind of icy kings court but I thought I'd try something different instead. To be honest I was kind of ill when I came up with Ice Queen, I might just scrap it.
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Ice Queening a Hireling looks as if it could potentially be strong.
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So I was thinking that this set really could do with 1 more mechanic to round it out if it wants to be a large expansion. I was trying out States but I feel like having a million cards with all these States flying around isn't ideal, so I think there's only really a place for like 3-4 State cards. Reserves are popular and kinda fit with the delayed theme of Ice and Coin tokens too so I thought I'd try some reserves.
Here's some existing cards tweaked to be reserves, some are slight tweaks and others are basically entirely new cards just filling the same spot in the set.
Mountain Outpost
(https://i.imgur.com/gaf9Grs.png)
As a duration this was a little weak, but it seemed nice after adding a when-gain chancellor effect. This reserve version doesn't have room for the chancellor thing but it has the benefit of being a reserve so it could be good enough still. Do you prefer this or the duration version?
Igloo
(https://i.imgur.com/Xyfo7tm.png)
I was never really happy with the wording of Igloo but this reserve version has no issues. Setting aside non-ice token cards isn't ideal in a set full of ice token cards but the cards won't be set aside for long so this isn't too bad. There was a suggestion that this was strong as a duration and this reserve version is even stronger, but it's a terminal Silver, I mean they have to be strong to be worth buying.
Outrider
(https://i.imgur.com/SygJ3BD.png)
Outrider was kinda poop so this is basically strictly better, I still find the wildernesses compelling. We don't have a +buy on reserve and this lets you stock them up to trigger the wilderness flip so it seems like a fitting upgrade to me. Maybe it's a little strong now and can lose the Survivors effect.
Sleigh
(https://i.imgur.com/KCPEyJO.png)
Sleigh had bad wording and didn't seem well received to begin with so it's been a bit of a placeholder for a while now. This is supposed to be a half-lab basically, which seems reasonable to me. I think the wording makes that work? It's kind of a shame that this can't have simpler wording, or maybe it can?
Rediscover
(https://i.imgur.com/f3TOB2s.png)
Still a remodel variant, this might be a bit too powerful? It can't trash Estates but it's still basically adding $2's worth of value to your deck as a cantrip, it could work at $6, which is fine because there's room at $6 and there aren't any $6 reserves (Teacher doesn't count :P) lowering the increase to +$1 and letting this trash Coppers makes it too similar to Upgrade for me. Or maybe it's actually fine at $5?
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I think I'd rather just buy Smithies than Mountain Outpost. I'm not sure what I'd do to change it though, so I guess this isn't a very helpful reply
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Ice Queening a Hireling looks as if it could potentially be strong.
With the current wording it's identical to Throne Room due to lose-track, isn't it?
I feel the current Mountain Outpost is an improvement.
Igloo is a tad similar to Royal Seal, but at first glance it seems fine.
I feel Outrider has the issue that Donald described about his attempts at buy-reserves: You call it just to get it back.
Sleigh now reminds me of my failed "Barkeep" concept. IIsn't it just so that all Sleighs in your deck -1 ARE Labs? You'll just try to get as many of this as you can, I'm afraid.
I'm not sure how I feel about rediscover. It kinda feels like the type of card you could get away with doing as a Night type, especially as I think it being a cantrip is rather generous. If I'm not mistaken, you can call it to remodel itself.
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Ice Queening a Hireling looks as if it could potentially be strong.
With the current wording it's identical to Throne Room due to lose-track, isn't it?
Ice Queen would still get discarded at cleanup and you'd get the Hireling back after ages and have +2 cards each turn so it's pretty good yeah. I don't think there's any losing track involved.
I feel the current Mountain Outpost is an improvement.
Igloo is a tad similar to Royal Seal, but at first glance it seems fine.
I feel Outrider has the issue that Donald described about his attempts at buy-reserves: You call it just to get it back.
Sleigh now reminds me of my failed "Barkeep" concept. IIsn't it just so that all Sleighs in your deck -1 ARE Labs? You'll just try to get as many of this as you can, I'm afraid.
I'm not sure how I feel about rediscover. It kinda feels like the type of card you could get away with doing as a Night type, especially as I think it being a cantrip is rather generous. If I'm not mistaken, you can call it to remodel itself.
Mountain Outpost- Sweet, seems clear to me that you'd buy 2 Mountain Outposts and the rest Smithies if they're both available.
Igloo: Seems more comparable to Tracker than Seal no?
Outrider: I think you're wrong about this for 2 reasons. 1. Outrider stinks, why the hell am I trying to get a non-terminal Survivors back into my deck? 2. Frozen Wilderness is an incentive to save up buys. I mean it still might not work, but I'm never calling this unless I need the +buy.
Sleigh: No, it's got that tortured wording so that this isn't the case. 1st Sleigh goes to Tavern mat, 2nd doesn't because one is already there, then you can call the 1st, then the 3rd would go to the mat and so on. I mean I'm normally trying to get as many Chariot Races or Wishing Wells or Villages or whatever as possible so i don't think that's a problem? It's just the nature of cantrip cards really?
Rediscover: Still needs more of a rethink, I'm defo not adding nights to this set and it doesn't need to be a night so no night! It should say another or even non-Rediscover to stop that yeah.
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Oh dear, looks like I gave some very premature feedback there. Usually I read more carefully. For some reason I thought Outrider was a cantrip and I don't know where I got the idea that Hireling would be lost track of... I also misread Sleigh. It looks good, although of course there's the option to just make it "If you played an even number of Sleighs this turn: +1 Card".
Sorry for my poor reading skills...
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Yeah no worries, I hope I wasn't too defensive there, I really appreciate all the great feedback you give!
I did realise Sleigh was just a kind of over complicated Journey token thing, Idol wording means that they don't carry over between turns but it's much simpler so maybe that's worth the loss. I was just trying to get fancy with reserves to be honest.
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I dislike the new Igloo as it is vulnerable to handsize attacks. I also don't consider the old one to have been overpowered. Terminal space is usually limited so you have to think hard about whether that extra card is really worth the action.
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I dislike the new Igloo as it is vulnerable to handsize attacks. I also don't consider the old one to have been overpowered. Terminal space is usually limited so you have to think hard about whether that extra card is really worth the action.
The new one is a bit stronger unless there's a handsize attack, so there's that!
Here's a simpler non-reserve version of Sleigh, you can't save this up for next turn so it's a little weaker but it seems worth the simpler wording.
(https://i.imgur.com/Y8SdKGr.png)
And here's a nerfed Rediscover. It was pretty obviously overpowered on reflection, not quite sure what I was thinking!
(https://i.imgur.com/uWtdozV.png)
You need to build up a bit before you can use it and it gets harder and harder to call multiples in one turn as you trash cards from play.
And a couple of new reserves:
Gatherer:
(https://i.imgur.com/6l0OWLC.png)
Counting House and Harbinger type things always get flak for not working if the discard is empty, so I thought something looking at the discard was a good fit for a reserve effect. It gives a Coin token that you can save for the big turn when you topdeck 2 things. Is this too weak? Would it be op with +1 Action?
Spelunkers:
(https://i.imgur.com/i1Yls1o.png)
I've had this discard 3 to gain a Gold to hand thing floating around for a while, thought I'd try it on a reserve. Too boring? I like that it's tricky to incorporate in an engine because you have to discard at the start of turn. Probably would have to make sure it isn't broken in big money I guess, I doubt it is though. Seems really good to open with so I costed it at $5, is that reasonable?
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Gatherer looks weak to me.
I like Spelunkers, kind of a mixture of The Sky's Gift and Secret Cave. It doesn't look overpowered to me. Sure, it's a cantrip but it is also a Reserve that you can only play every second turn and discarding 3 cards is a significant cost. Also, in an engine you might sometimes prefer the Coins (of Secret Cave) over the Gold.
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I don't think gatherer is weak. If you have any kind of engine that is village + draw, this is really nice. If you just have a village in hand, you can top-deck a smithy. If you just have a smithy, top-deck two treasures. It would also be decent in really junky games. You can recycle the few good cards you have in your deck. Plus you could afford it even with a hand of curse curse estate copper copper. The coin token works great here too
I really like it as a reserve. That seems to fix the Counting house/Settlers/Harbinger problem nicely.
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I really like it as a reserve. That seems to fix the Counting house/Settlers/Harbinger problem nicely.
At the cost of making the card a terminal Coin token. Harbinger might sometimes misfire but it never hurts. With sifting/discarding it can also sometimes be smartly used midturn.
Gatherer can also hurt you if you have only one good card in your discard pile. We know that from Herald's overpay ability.
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I really like it as a reserve. That seems to fix the Counting house/Settlers/Harbinger problem nicely.
At the cost of making the card terminal. Harbinger might sometimes misfire but it never hurts. With sifting/discarding it can also sometimes be smartly used midturn.
Gatherer can also hurt you if you have only one good card in your discard pile. We know that from Herald's overpay ability.
Gatherer costs $2 so it shouldn't be particularly strong. It's also up to 2, so if you have 1 good card you can still just topdeck that. I'd like to end up about as strong as Tracker, perhaps topdecking 3 wouldn't be too much.
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Another way to buff Gatherer a bit would be to add +1 Action to the "above the line" part (akin to the $2 costing Candlestick Maker)
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Artefact
(https://i.imgur.com/8WfhTVI.png)
Oops this was supposed to cost $5, like a Contraband variant, but instead of blocking things it slows them down, but oh no it speeds up Victories! So it doesn't become a broken Gold when you're buying the greens, also speeds up Nights, but a lot those are gained to hand so it still messes a lot of them up!
Wanderer
(https://i.imgur.com/s7srDsl.png)
Inspired by Aspers Road, from his Town/Road combo. This is limited to 2 plays per turn, so no Champion nonsense. Even with no Villages this can be played on later turns, like having a Smithy in reserve so it's never "just a Moat". I think this is pretty sweet, doing something new with reserves and it seems pretty well balanced at $3 to me?
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Artefact needs some rewording. As of now, the "Otherwise" clause is completely nonsensical.
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Artefact needs some rewording. As of now, the "Otherwise" clause is completely nonsensical.
Care to explain? I think it's pretty obvious how the card works and I'd rather make sure it's actually a good card before worrying about the perfect wording. As an example Jester uses "otherwise" wording so it's not as if it's a thing I made up, was this changed in 2nd ed? Because I'm not too bothered if that's the case, note the lack of "coffers" wording.
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More specifically, you need to add "..a card, if it is.." to the when gain statement. Right now the otherwise clause reads "If you don't gain an Action or Treasure, put it [no antecedent] on top of your deck"
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More specifically, you need to add "..a card, if it is.." to the when gain statement. Right now the otherwise clause reads "If you don't gain an Action or Treasure, put it [no antecedent] on top of your deck"
Oh I see what you mean now, it needs to say "when you gain a card, if it's an action or victory...Otherwise..." I'll change it when I get round to changing the cost... thanks for pointing that out! The problem wasn't with the otherwise clause, it was with the first one.
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Wanderer is very confusing. I'm assuming that playing it from your Tavern Mat uses up an Action? When the official cards say "play" or "you may play" the playing doesn't use up an action, so this is a break from that. Also, all of the official Reserve cards are "called" from the Tavern Mat, not "played," and they can only be called at times specified on the cards. There are no rules on "playing" a card from the Mat, and a time is not specified. Can I "play" it at literally any time, including the Buy phase?
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Wanderer is very confusing. I'm assuming that playing it from your Tavern Mat uses up an Action? When the official cards say "play" or "you may play" the playing doesn't use up an action, so this is a break from that. Also, all of the official Reserve cards are "called" from the Tavern Mat, not "played," and they can only be called at times specified on the cards. There are no rules on "playing" a card from the Mat, and a time is not specified. Can I "play" it at literally any time, including the Buy phase?
It uses up an action, you can only play it any time you could play an action. I considered saying "You may play this from your Tavern mat as if it was in your hand." would that be clearer?
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I like the card, a simple and good take on the +2 Cards family.
How about: "At the start of your Action phase or directly after resolving an Action, you may spend an Action to discard this from your Tavern mat for +2 Cards."
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I agree, maybe something like:
"+2 Cards
Put this on your tavern mat.
---
During your Action phase, you may spend an action to call this. If you do, +2 Cards."
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I like Artefact but 6 Ice tokens seems way too much given that an average game of Dominion takes less than 20 turns.
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I agree, maybe something like:
"+2 Cards
Put this on your tavern mat.
---
During your Action phase, you may spend an action to call this. If you do, +2 Cards."
Would it be easier to just remove the Reserve part, and say "If this is the first time you played Wanderer this turn, you may put this in your hand"?
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Every Champion game has Champion nonsense. It's called Warrior. Every Champion game is also broken and luck-driven, and I feel not the slightest remorse for Champion games with Road being broken and luck-driven. I guess it should be fixed, but well, so should Warrior. That card is easily second in my worst list. And in the end of the day, hey, if you have Road and Champion, just draw your deck, and then if you have discard for benefit, calculate the max you get, win the game. People usually don't starve revealing Moat for eternity, either.
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Warrior's potential for brokenness is capped by a number of things: There's only 5 of them, it takes a long time to get them, and Treasure Hunter makes it harder to draw your deck. Warrior's draw often turns out to be disappointingly wimpy if there's terrible/non-existent trashing and your Treasure Hunters enter a feedback loop with your opponent.
Road, on the other hand... the only cap is where it ends up after you shuffle. And possibly Enchantress.
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Every Champion game has Champion nonsense. It's called Warrior. Every Champion game is also broken and luck-driven, and I feel not the slightest remorse for Champion games with Road being broken and luck-driven. I guess it should be fixed, but well, so should Warrior. That card is easily second in my worst list. And in the end of the day, hey, if you have Road and Champion, just draw your deck, and then if you have discard for benefit, calculate the max you get, win the game. People usually don't starve revealing Moat for eternity, either.
Yeah Champ is pretty dumb, I don't play with it anymore irl. I actually like the idea behind Road, although I have a few balance issues with it as we all know. I mentioned Road here simply because I wouldn't have come up with Wanderer without thinking so much about Road following that heated debate. Perhaps putting in that Champion comment made it seem like I was taking a dig at Road, that wasn't my intent! I know how easy it is to get defensive about these things, like with the Glacier thing.
Anyway, I understand that I brought up Road here, but I'd appreciate it if you could at least give some insight on my cards as well. This topic is supposed to be about my Ice Age cards, not the Page line or Road.
As to not be a hypocrite, Wanderer needs clearer wording Commodore Chuckles is right that just saying you can play it is confusing and isn't clear enough. The question is whether calling for -action or just playing it from the Tavern is best. I like playing from the Tavern myself, it doesn't really create any new rules stuff in the way that calling for -1 Action would, you don't have to specify when it can be called so there's words saved and it's friendlier with Adventures tokens and whatnot.
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Hum, I don't think I can say anything negative about Wanderer. It DOES avoid the endless turn issue Road can have, and if seen on it's own, it's a decent, not overly-complex card. The one thing I prefer with Road is that it has a straightforward wording that leaves no questions open. Maybe you could have this be the best of both worlds? Just a Reserve that allows you to put it into your hand? That way you can play it once every turn if you have the spare Action, but considering decks that draw themselves it doesn't seem outlandish. Theoretically it could do the same as a Duration, which would mean the chain breaks once you fail to play it but also saves a dividing line.
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It's definitely a neat idea, but it's hard to think of wording that's unambiguous while also not bogging down the concept's elegance. The big problem is keeping track of whether it's already been on your Mat. Maybe when you return it to your hand you turn it upside down? Pretty screwy idea, but I can't think of anything else that's not horrifically convoluted.
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It's definitely a neat idea, but it's hard to think of wording that's unambiguous while also not bogging down the concept's elegance. The big problem is keeping track of whether it's already been on your Mat. Maybe when you return it to your hand you turn it upside down? Pretty screwy idea, but I can't think of anything else that's not horrifically convoluted.
Maybe I didn't make this clear enough, but my suggestion would not differentiate at all (so it differs from Gazbag's original). It would just return itself to your hand, you play it, it goes on the mat, you return it, and so on. Probably that concept works better as a Duration though, as now the chain can break:
Wanderer, Action - Duration, 5$
+2 Cards
At the start of your next turn, put this into your hand.
Edit: I have no idea what this should cost. If you only have one of them, it's like starting every turn with a Smithy in hand. Big Money paradise. So maybe this suggestion is actually awful? No clue.
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Just a random freezing attack idea I had for a Duration card:
While this is in play, when another player gains a non-Victory card, they freeze it 3 times.
Probably not that strong so it might also be OK to you use 4 or 5.
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Just a random freezing attack idea I had for a Duration card:
While this is in play, when another player gains a non-Victory card, they freeze it 3 times.
Probably not that strong so it might also be OK to you use 4 or 5.
Yeah this is a nice idea, it's basically what the next version of Tundra is like at the moment, but it's limited to the first card gained just so it doesn't have the potential to be too miserable. I haven't tested it much though and Yeti is pretty nice as a freezing attack so it could be a little redundant.
I had chance to do a nice bit of playtesting this weekend, although I forgot to record any exact kingdoms. One game had Wanderer and Spelunkers, which I discovered have quite nice synergy with each other as having some Wanderers in reserve means you can discard down to 2 villages with Spelunkers and still kick off your engine. I remember this game had Forager, Blessed Village, Shanty Town and Wine Merchant too. Wanderer seemed much more viable as draw than Oracle, but I'm happy with it costing $3, it's still no Gear I'm pretty sure! Spelunkers was a nice way to add money to the deck, I liked how it played.
There was another game with Cabin and Frost Spirit, Frost Spirit was strong yet again, but I think it's pretty fun and interesting so I like it. Still have to decide whether to introduce measures to stop you setting aside Provinces though... Cabin was basically garbage though, like, the effect you get is strong for the price compared to cards that do similar things, but getting money, Silver gaining and Chancelloring aren't really necessary things for most decks so it seemed like you were better off just using treasures and reaping the benefits from opponent's Cabins than actually using Cabin. I still like the basic concept of the card, so here's a buffed version (with bonus coffers update!):
(https://i.imgur.com/3xKIr5D.png)
So now it gives you a buy too and it gains gold instead of Silver. +1 buy is nice, because the set really needs more +buy and it means you're getting something useful that you need to actually buy a Cabin to have access to. Buffing the Silver gain also buffs the drawback because it's better for you're opponent too, but if you bought a Cabin you should have a good plan for the Gold and maybe your opponent doesn't. I guess it's kind of similar to Sacred Grove now, but I think it's different enough.
Rediscover was still completely broken, so it'll need another big overhaul. I would like a Remodel type thing in the set though so I'll have to work on it some more. To be honest just making it not a cantrip would probably make it reasonable.
Outcast has been sitting there being kind of fine, but off theme and a little boring and similar to Sleigh. So I'm going to try this new thing as a replacement. Draw-to-X is a fun thing that people always seem to enjoy and Diplomat and Leprechaun are two of the most fun cards from recent sets so it kind of tries to do a similar thing to them.
(https://i.imgur.com/B8HWpmJ.png)
So if you have exactly 3 cards in hand (after playing it), it's Baker for $2 woah! And if you have fewer cards then it becomes Lab or better, but you'll need to find a way to reduce your handisze first, playing one from a 5 card hand does nothing, but does set up your next Outcasts. I could see this at $3, but spamming too many could certainly backfire so it's $2 for now.
Oh here's better worded things:
(https://i.imgur.com/0RSoosx.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/FpTfMwW.png)
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Great minds think alike I’m also creating my own expansion. A relative will be taking care of how all the info and pictures get on the card. But all the information is my ideas. It’s called the
Snow line expansion. A snow line is an area where the snow stays all year round. A few of the cards that you have in your ice age expansion do completely different things from the ones I have. And it’s just a few. Like yeti and cold storage. And I have firn village and frigid village. But I don’t have mountain village. Frigid village is duration card similar to fishing village from seaside. And firn village is basically a village with minus victory points, that an attack called avalanche gives out. And then it also then gives out curses when you run out of firn villages. And firn village is purple too. My expansion has about 7 cards that work with the journey token. Duration cards. Reserve cards. And 2 new blue reaction cards. And one reserve that works like a reaction. But I really do love your cards too. They look so much like the real cards. I’m sure mine won’t look as legit. But that’s okay as long as friends and I enjoy playing it. It doesn’t have to be as awesome as yours look.
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Oh and it also has 2 new travelers cards. Churl and vandal. Vandal-outlaw-sell sword-hedge knight- and warden. Churl-drifter-mountaineer-hunter- and fur trader. And since firn village is given out by avalanche. It’s not in the supply. So I’ve made 1 other card that also may give out a card that isn’t in the supply. Just like urchin and hermit. Except you get to keep your cards. Except for avalanche maybe. You can use it to attack to give out as many firn villages as you can. However a benefit is if you trash you gain a card that is not in the supply and a gold too. And the card you gain is called snow shoes. So,that’s about 25 different cards that will be in the supply and 11 that aren’t in the supply.
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Been a while since I've had any time to work on this! I have a few potential new cards ideas for the set:
Reclaim:
(https://i.imgur.com/jF6TXCF.png)
I was struggling to have a Remodel variant in the set with the Ice token version of Rediscover not working out and the Remodel-from-play Reserve versions being busted. So why not Remodel from discard? It looks at hand or discard as to not suck if you're drawing deck every turn. Gatherer is already a Reserve looking at the discard, but maybe having 2 doing that is fine, it did strike me as a pretty big thing missing from the official Reserves. I could also just decide which one I like best and cut the other. Or maybe this is a little lackluster for $5 so I merge the 2 and make this topdeck the gained card.
Bastion:
(https://i.imgur.com/jgsRgJX.png)
I wouldn't be surprised if this is a massive dud but a Miser for Estates could be cool? It's like a really bad trasher that can be a cheap Duchy later, or more if you invest in more Estates.
Warlord:
(https://i.imgur.com/hT39NUA.png)
This is another take on Barbarian as I wasn't too happy with its current form. I thought a card that "Save" itself could be neat and maybe making it also give +1 Coffers when you save it could make the attack more obtainable. I imagine the numbers on this would need a lot of testing and tweaking and perhaps the whole saving mechanic here is just broken. I think it'd be cool if it works out though?
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Bastion looks very slow. Perhaps if it weren't limited to Estates, or if it were a Night card with that funky "This is gained to your hand" trick. Also it could use the Island mat?
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I like Reclaim. You are totally right Gazbag that it doesn't look very fancy but I don't think that it has to be, it has the simplicity of an official card.
It is probably weaker than other Remodel variants for early remodeling as it is slower but brilliant later in the game and for endgame Gold/Provinces to Provinces.
Bastion looks very slow. Perhaps if it weren't limited to Estates, or if it were a Night card with that funky "This is gained to your hand" trick. Also it could use the Island mat?
In games without trashers it is not slower than Island which is what you have to compare Bastion with. Island is also very slow, a one-shot that only quasi-trashers one card but makes up for that via VPs.
It would be too good (at $4 or at any price?) if it could set aside other Victory cards. Non-terminal is an option though.
At first it seems bonkers with Shepherd but Shepherd wants the Estates to remain in your deck. It is probably still good, not at least because Bastion itself being a Victory card makes Shepherd more reliable, but I don't think that it will be broken.
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I like Bastion. I feel it looks more innocent than it is, though. Very cute.
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I like Reclaim. You are totally right Gazbag that it doesn't look very fancy but I don't think that it has to be, it has the simplicity of an official card.
It is probably weaker than other Remodel variants for early remodeling as it is slower but brilliant later in the game and for endgame Gold/Provinces to Provinces.
Bastion looks very slow. Perhaps if it weren't limited to Estates, or if it were a Night card with that funky "This is gained to your hand" trick. Also it could use the Island mat?
In games without trashers it is not slower than Island which is what you have to compare Bastion with. Island is also very slow, a one-shot that only quasi-trashers one card but makes up for that via VPs.
It would be too good (at $4 or at any price?) if it could set aside other Victory cards. Non-terminal is an option though.
At first it seems bonkers with Shepherd but Shepherd wants the Estates to remain in your deck. It is probably still good, not at least because Bastion itself being a Victory card makes Shepherd more reliable, but I don't think that it will be broken.
I do like the night card idea. Or maybe rather than that it could also look through the discard pile for Estates. IDK it's hard for me to tell how good this would be, but I feel like it needs a slight buff.
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I think I'm with Asper here that Bastion is probably better than it first appears, sure it's very bad as a "trasher" only "trashing" Estates and giving no real benefit for it (aside from points), but it represents potentially a lot of points. They become Duchies for $4 once you've matted your starting Estates and you can potentially add more later in the game too and then they can be a lot of points.
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Like Island Bastion sucks as trasher but provides VPs. Like Miser, a pretty weak card, Bastion cannot be (much) stronger because such build-up cards can become too strong/explosive.
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Bastion - I had thought of a nearly identical card called Isle. Seeing Bastion got me excited so I thought I'd share Isle with you. I think it's a cool concept and should be explored more!
(https://i.imgur.com/CkQ8t3e.jpg)
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Hey folks, I've been quite busy the past month or so and haven't had much time to put into this, but I should have some more free time in the coming weeks now so I should make some good progress! If anybody is interested in playing some test games on tabletop simulator just give me a PM!
I've been done some housekeeping in the OP, some cards have been retired for various reasons, updated with new ones and such. I have a few card ideas I feel like sharing too, mostly Peddler-like things.
Outcast:
(https://i.imgur.com/4czDYFf.png)
I decided to retire Taiga, as much I loved the taiga uppercut it was just a little boring, I guess I could reuse the name on a different card though anyway. I still like the idea of a 'freeze' from play card but I thought something mandatory and more Encampment/Pixie-ish would be better and finding good $2s is hard so you can't turn down any new ideas for $2s! It's about as simple as it can be at the moment, maybe it could give a Coffers instead of plain +$1 if it's a little lacklustre.
Supply Post:
(https://i.imgur.com/C5Kyrq3.png)
This is a silly one. I don't think it really works with Trade Route but I can live with that for now. Stupid Trade Route killing other cards that put Coin tokens on piles! It's a cantrip so it's always a reasonable target for its tokens, but aside from midturn gaining your opponents get first chance at the tokens so you have to be clever with where you put them, hopefully it encourages divergent strategies? It probably won't work out but hey it's an idea. If it was fine apart from alongside midturn gaining it could be easily changed to on-buy instead of gain.
Summoner:
(https://i.imgur.com/6cdLW0u.png)
A workshop type thing with Ice tokens does seem like a classic idea, so I'll try a different one. I think there was reasoning behind the 6 tokens, going off playing this turn 3 or 4 and shuffles are likely to go. I don't really remember though, I need to do some heavy testing with these Ice token cards.
Pioneer:
(https://i.imgur.com/0cLQOg6.png)
Not a new one just a tweak. People kept calling this a Peddler variant even though it wasn't so I'm trying it as an actual Peddler variant. Also there were concerns about this slowing down games with all the revealing and it becomes a cantrip chancellor if you trash all your Coppers resulting in copious amounts of shuffling so hopefully giving this a different option makes that happen less often.
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An average game of Dominion takes around 14-18 turns. So you will rarely play Outcast rarely more than twice. That's not different enough from a one-shot for my taste.
Supply Post could also be an Event. You don't really want plain cantrips in your deck unless you want to Throne them into Villages or serve your Vassals and Conspirators.
Summoner is a nice idea but again I think that the delay is too large. Most likely makes the engine start too late. Kind of neat with alt-VP though; it could make Gardens and Silk Road work in quite some Kingdoms.
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Supply Post - Adding a non-Victory Action instruction would clear up any interactions with Trade Route.
I'll give some more in depth analysis later. Really cool cards though! Excited to sit down and really take a close look at them. Also, why are you and Holunder9 so opposed to +Coffers!? It's simple and elegant and saves valuable card text space. You too are really missing out! :P
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With regards to Coffers - from what I understand the tokens are still Coin tokens and you put them on your Coffers? Butcher talks about removing tokens from your coffers. So saying to move tokens from the piles to your Coffers seemed a bit more concise than removing a token and then getting +1 Coffers. Maybe that's not how it actually works?
The idea of Supply post being a cantrip is basically so you always have an action that you can put the tokens on. Also this set isn't currently using Events, but I might end up including some if I can think of enough good ones, but if I do end up including them this could be a top candidate to get Eventified now that you point it out.
Outcast is basically supposed to be a one-shot, but hey sometimes it's a 2 or 3 shot depending on things. If that's not your jam, that's cool. I actually think that cards like Vagrant or Pearl Diver are a bit closer to one-shots than people think, because their additional benefit on top of the cantrip doesn't usually trigger all that often.
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Why are you and Holunder9 so opposed to +Coffers!?
For me it is a mixture between being used to something, not wanting cards with old and new wording and above all language issues. I am German but play with the original cards and all the folks I play with are familiar with Coin tokens. Coffers on the other hand is a word that I have never heard before and I am pretty sure that the folks in my gaming group don't know it either.
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With regards to Coffers - from what I understand the tokens are still Coin tokens and you put them on your Coffers? Butcher talks about removing tokens from your coffers. So saying to move tokens from the piles to your Coffers seemed a bit more concise than removing a token and then getting +1 Coffers. Maybe that's not how it actually works?
My Coffers inquiry was more an attempt at humor than anything else, but to answer your question, I think they are still completely interchangeable. I think it's just a matter of what makes the most sense on a case by case basis. As for Supply Post, I think it's worded perfectly in terms of token usage.
For me it is a mixture between being used to something, not wanting cards with old and new wording and above all language issues. I am German but play with the original cards and all the folks I play with are familiar with Coin tokens. Coffers on the other hand is a word that I have never heard before and I am pretty sure that the folks in my gaming group don't know it either.
Thanks for posting your cards in English!
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I've been thinking on Bastion and Dominion's general rules regarding mats. I'm of the opinion that cards on mats are not automatically returned to the player's deck for counting points. Mostly this doesn't matter with the official cards, but with Bastion it would. If the Estates are not specifically told to return to the deck at the end of the game, they won't be counted.
This is a small difference in score, but I'm curious what your intention was? To have the Estates count towards your score or not?
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Cards on your mats are yours; they count toward your score.
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I've been thinking on Bastion and Dominion's general rules regarding mats. I'm of the opinion that cards on mats are not automatically returned to the player's deck for counting points. Mostly this doesn't matter with the official cards, but with Bastion it would. If the Estates are not specifically told to return to the deck at the end of the game, they won't be counted.
This is a small difference in score, but I'm curious what your intention was? To have the Estates count towards your score or not?
What LFN said, Inherited Estates as Ratcatchers for example, still give 1VP if they're in the tavern.
Also I'll take the opportunity to mention that work is being done on the set, just a little slowly because I've been busier than I anticipated recently. I've been thinking of gutting the Coffers from the set because I think I overstuffed it with different mechanics a bit and then Renaissance was announced so that kind of settled that. Expect a big update at some point with all the Coffers replaced with new Reserve/Ice token designs.
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I'm of the opinion that cards on mats are not automatically returned to the player's deck for counting points.
I always viewed and explained it like this: at the end of the game, everything in your play area in the broadest sense
matters for points. Just put everything, i.e. hand, deck, discard pile and cards on mats (except for Distant Lands but this is obvious as it explicitly cares about where it is) together and then count points.
So if those Misers put 6 Coppers on your Tavern mat and those 4 slumbering Wine Merchants are still in the Tavern your Gardens are worth 1VP more.
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Some thoughts on the more recent cards...
Reclaim - This looks fairly strong to me, if you can trash from discard. Compared to Remodel, Reclaim keeps one extra card in hand. In the late game, that extra card is often Gold. So you can imagine playing Reclaim, playing Gold to buy something, and then calling Reclaim next turn to trash the same Gold for Province. Of course, often your discard is empty at the beginning of your turn, especially in engines, in which case Reclaim is a gimped Remodel. So it's better than Remodel in good stuff strategies, but still works in engines. I like it.
Bastion / Isle - I think the Duke comparison is apt, but Bastion is less interactive than Duke because $2 and $4 are fairly low price points that don't require you to build a good deck. And because they're terminal stop cards, it's actively difficult to build an interesting deck that synergizes with them. As for Isle, the higher price point is more interactive, but I think it's just too weak. I don't like the setup rule because Isle+4 coppers is really sad.
Although Violet CLM's night card idea seems overly complicated to me, in a way I think it makes a lot of sense. Hitting a high price point with an estate in hand is a more interesting hoop to make players jump through.
Outcast - This just seems very low impact, to the point of being uninteresting. It's like caravan guard--a bland card IMO--but blander. Or like Encampment but without the gold/plunder reveal option.
Supply Post - I think this is really neat. It's a bit like Embargo in how it impacts asymmetric strategies, but it uses a carrot instead of a stick. I really like Embargo and am constantly disappointed by the fact that Embargo simply isn't that good, but I think Supply Post is a lot better because coin tokens are pretty much always decent.
I wouldn't worry at all about the trade route interaction. It doesn't actually seem to be imbalanced or lead to any contradiction, it's just a weird interaction kind of like the Defiled Shrine / gathering pile interactions.
Summoner - I would compare this first to Cobbler, which is also basically a cantrip gainer. Cobbler is faster though, and you don't have to decide what you want before you get it. From Summoner, I'd expect some hilarious antics as I choose cards that it later turns out I didn't really want.
But now I'm thinking, does this card actually work? The main usage seems to be winning important splits from piles you don't actually need right away--say, Advisor or Herald. Or gaining Silk Roads, which looks pretty degenerate. And once you gain all the things you wanted, you might gain estates and hope the game ends before the ice runs out.
Pioneer - It's sounds fine. In general I would choose copper in hand over +$1, if only because that removes copper from the shuffle. It's also better with discard for benefit--say, Warehouse. But the benefit compared to peddler seems marginal most of the time.
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What LFN said, Inherited Estates as Ratcatchers for example, still give 1VP if they're in the tavern.
Okay, I am convinced. This was the evidence I was looking for, because the rules really tell a different story in terms of how Mats work at the end of the game. Thanks to you, LastFootnote, and Holunder9 for the clarification.
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What LFN said, Inherited Estates as Ratcatchers for example, still give 1VP if they're in the tavern.
Okay, I am convinced. This was the evidence I was looking for, because the rules really tell a different story in terms of how Mats work at the end of the game. Thanks to you, LastFootnote, and Holunder9 for the clarification.
Possibly even more notable in terms of how it works - a Distant Lands on your tavern mat is worth 4 VP, but also counts as a card in deck when you count up for Gardens.
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One of the classic combo decks also hinges on the fact that cards on mats count for points--Native Village/Apothecary
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Bastion - Since we've concluded cards on mats are "taken" at the end of the game, Bastion should say "Worth 1VP per Estate on your Tavern mat at the end of the game." Otherwise, technically no Estates will be on your mat when Bastion is scored.
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Thumbs up for Igloo being very similar to Cargo Ship!
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I've done a pretty big post-Renaissance update to the OP. Coffers have been made redundant and so are cut, some other cuts and tweaks some new cards, trying new frozen wording.
New cards:
Nomad
Sanctum
Lake Village
Periapt
Scrounger
Removed cards:
Igloo
Cargo Ship
Cabin
Mountain Village
Seer/Avalanche
Signalman/Beacons
Outrider/Wildnerness
Card tweaks:
Glacier changed
Mountain Outpost +4 to +5 Cards
Hunter changed "Game" to "Prey"
Here's a bonus card which I wasn't confident enough in to put it directly into the OP, does anyone actually understand what this card does? You'll need a magnifying glass first!
(https://i.imgur.com/kg8qCx1.png)
More to come soon!
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Here's a bonus card which I wasn't confident enough in to put it directly into the OP, does anyone actually understand what this card does? You'll need a magnifying glass first!
I think it's clear what it does; it looks like an Outpost-Cargo Ship-Reserve hybrid. (Either that or I am very confidently misinterpreting the card.)
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Here's a bonus card which I wasn't confident enough in to put it directly into the OP, does anyone actually understand what this card does? You'll need a magnifying glass first!
Just to be clear; you may call one Resevoir per turn, and on that turn, you set aside all cards you gain, and at the end of your turn, you take an extra turn in which your hand is made up of the set aside cards.
I like it!
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Mountain Outpost looks crazy strong. The drawback looks pretty small. Maybe it should discard two cards?
Sanctum looks strong and not very interesting.
I like Periapt. Buying a curse to gain a few $5 cost cards is neat.
Nomad looks good.
Scrounger seems fine.
I like the new Glacier card with +1 card instead of coffers.
I never liked the idea of a village that you couldn't use for several turns after you buy it. Doesn't seem fun. That said, I like Lake Village better than Mountain Village.
Congrats on designing Cargo Ship before Donald did.
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OK, it is not fair to compare every Woodcutter variant to Bridge but Nomad looks kinda weak
I disagree with LibraryAdventurer about Sanctum. While it could trash more cards than Chapel we know from Ratcatcher how much being a Reserve hurts trashers. Although Sanctum being able to trash during or at the end of the turn is a significant advantage over Ratcatcher. I like it.
Periapt is basically better than Cursed Gold so as long as there are trashers in the Kingdom it seems like a no-brainer to use a Buy for a Curse and a $5.
Scrounger is by far my favourite. It looks so simple, being to Smithy what Mountain Village is to Village, but coming up with the simple stuff is often the hardest thing to do!
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Agreed that Nomad is kinda weak. Actually having reserves in the set kind of makes the "freeze from play" thing a bit less novel because all reserves remove themselves from your deck when you play them... I have this other thing, a Woodcutter that comes with a free frozen card.
I have done some solo testing games with Sanctum and it seemed pretty cumbersome and difficult to get much out of early but if you could set up some draw you can get some big trashes off, sort of like Cemetery or Mint, but you have to draw and play this do-nothing terminal first. So it can do powerful things, but you need to play around it and set it up, which I think is what you want dominion cards to be doing really.
I was thinking of trying Mountain Outpost a a $2 cost Smithy. The problem with the big version is that it isn't great at being deck-drawing engine draw because you can only call 2-3 per turn and also can only play them every other turn, but it's kind of ridiculous as big money draw.
These any better?
(https://i.imgur.com/TZ9ezLg.png)(https://i.imgur.com/qBN6RpC.png)
I also have this reserve-attack:
(https://i.imgur.com/4oQyXcp.png)
Cantrip-Militia but it isn't too easy to get back, I like that opponent's Archers as well as Reserves like Mountain Outpost or Spelunkers make this easier to discard from the mat.
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Nomad - This would be interesting if you had a choice of how many times you could freeze the $3 cost card. Like a range from 3 to X times. Would open up some cool strategies with freezing Estates. You could also use it with fast trashers like Chapel to get a Silver into your deck at that crucial point when most of your Copper economy is gone. Sounds small, but it could mean the difference of one turn over your opponent.
Either way, it's always nice to see some Woodcutter variants!
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Here's a long overdue update to this.
Removed cards:
Campsite: I like the concept but think it is better using Debt to pay for the topdecking.
Sleigh: I have other, similar cards I like more.
Pioneer: Slow to resolve and not popular.
Spyglass: It's pretty lame, it might return with a better execution.
New cards:
(https://i.imgur.com/E8SMYFg.png)
Cabin: Cabin is back with a brand new effect. I had the idea of terminal draw that gives you a bonus if it's played terminally, the worry of course is making a big money beast that is lacklustre in engines. Hunting Grounds sucks, even for big money and I don't think +Buys improves it too much, +Buys also gives this a reason to be played terminally in an engine so I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
(https://i.imgur.com/CzTOqSd.png)
Fishing Boat: An attempt at a spin on Minion. You get both the $ and the draw, and the benefit of reserves, but there's no attack and the numbers are lower.
(https://i.imgur.com/p5vgqRJ.png)
Hillside Village: This a simple village to replace Campsite, also similar to Sleigh. I originally had this alternate between Village and Peddler but that basically cut the amount of village you got from this pile in half, which isn't particularly fun. It might be a little strong in this form, although probably still not up to minstrel and Port.
(https://i.imgur.com/jZfreVd.png)
Igloo: I'm not sure about this one, it's seemed okay in playtest games but it still feels off for some reason. What do people think?
(https://i.imgur.com/CG9qDhk.png)
Outcast: I think this is pretty cool, either getting stranded on your Tavern mat or getting a bigger effect but losing it forever.
(https://i.imgur.com/L6Yu3MU.png)
Scarecrow: A Candlestick maker variant with a weak Moat reaction, I think that's kind of thematic for a Scarecrow, only the weaklings are fooled! It works pretty well in this expansion because of the two cheap attacks.
Other changes
Lake Village renamed to Frigid Village and always gives +2 cards (used to only if you had a Frozen card):
(https://i.imgur.com/3DtmEdL.png)
Nomad gets new art and wording changed to "gain a cheaper card" to avoid gaining all the copies of itself with cost reduction.
(https://i.imgur.com/1fLhjTa.png)
I'm sticking with this version of Glacier:
(https://i.imgur.com/kigCVYs.png)
A Prey marker card for Hunter is added:
(https://i.imgur.com/wC1Nz6O.png)
Artefact renamed to Crystal Ball (although the card might be removed/reworked at some point.)
(https://i.imgur.com/FCCmrP8.png)
I'm going with the cheaper Mountain Outpost:
(https://i.imgur.com/rHXrEOP.png)
Archer renamed to Warship, I felt like this set needed a Viking longboat card:
(https://i.imgur.com/e83IYhI.png)
The OP has been updated with these changes and cleaned up a bit.
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Sleigh: I have other, similar cards I like more.
Tbh I don't see the logic in removing a card for this reason. Unless you're planning on publishing this as a set or something, unless there's really something wrong with a card you should keep it in.
(https://i.imgur.com/jZfreVd.png)
Igloo: I'm not sure about this one, it's seemed okay in playtest games but it still feels off for some reason. What do people think?
I think it's off because you would only want one frozen since another would do nothing, I think it can pretty easily cost $3.
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I don't really like the wording on the cards you freeze on-gain. I don't know what changes this wording has had, but I think it would seem more intuitive if it was like, when you gain this freeze it.
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Sleigh: I have other, similar cards I like more.
Tbh I don't see the logic in removing a card for this reason. Unless you're planning on publishing this as a set or something, unless there's really something wrong with a card you should keep it in.
The idea of this set is to be like an official, printable expansion, down to counting the cards so they fit into a printable number. So this is a very good reason to cut a card as far as I'm concerned!
(https://i.imgur.com/jZfreVd.png)
Igloo: I'm not sure about this one, it's seemed okay in playtest games but it still feels off for some reason. What do people think?
I think it's off because you would only want one frozen since another would do nothing, I think it can pretty easily cost $3.
You might want to Freeze a second to make sure you keep the topdecking effect up after first thaws. I have tried it at $3 already and I still didn't like it much. I think it might just be a dud effect to be honest, at least for me.
I don't really like the wording on the cards you freeze on-gain. I don't know what changes this wording has had, but I think it would seem more intuitive if it was like, when you gain this freeze it.
I didn't want them to visit the discard pile because of lose-track nonsense so I tried to make the wording like Nomad Camp and the Night cards which go into your hand which but with the new errata I guess that isn't so much of an issue anymore. Looking over the wording is on the to-do list though!