Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Variants and Fan Cards => Topic started by: JW on March 27, 2018, 05:12:45 pm
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Bureaucrat, Revised
Action - Attack, $4
+$1. Gain a Silver. Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand puts a card from their hand onto their deck.
When you play Bureaucrat on an opponent with a 5-card hand, the attack is guaranteed to hit. However, when the attack hits it is weaker, because it gives a choice of which card to put back, and because it can’t reduce an opponent below 4 cards in hand. Instead of improving your economy on what is typically the next turn by putting the Silver it gains onto your deck, it now gives $1 this turn. That makes it simpler and generally stronger, particularly in an action-heavy deck that didn’t want the Silver on top in the first place.
It’s like Ironworks that you always use to gain Silver, plus a weak attack that sometimes helps your opponent. Ironwork’s strength is due to being able to gain Actions and its flexibility, not because $1, gain a Silver is particularly strong. So I'd still expect this version to be pretty weak at $4, and it's possible it should cost $3 instead.
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Or:
"+1, Gain a silver, Other players take the -1 card token"
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How about:
Bureaucrat
Action/Atrack - $4
Gain a Silver to your hand.
Each player (including you) with 4 or more cards in hand puts a card from their hand onto their deck.
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How about:
Bureaucrat
Action/Atrack - $4
Gain a Silver to your hand.
Each player (including you) with 4 or more cards in hand puts a card from their hand onto their deck.
<3
My favorite downsides are downsides that you can plan around and mitigate. In order to avoid putting a card on your deck, you just have to play at least two action that don't give you a card, and you get to keep the bonus card.
Also, it combos with all the cards that are better when you control/know the top card of your deck, like chariot race, necromancer, etc...and those are pet favorites of mine.
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Or:
"+1, Gain a silver, Other players take the -1 card token"
My intent was to make a card that could go in the base set, so I didn't use the -1 Card token. The -1 Card token is a substantially stronger attack than a choice of which card to put back, which makes this version substantially stronger than my version (but probably still balanced).
How about:
Bureaucrat
Action/Atrack - $4
Gain a Silver to your hand.
Each player (including you) with 4 or more cards in hand puts a card from their hand onto their deck.
This may be too complex for the base set, and Artisan also requires topdecking a card from your own hand, making this less unique. I can see it being okay for money decks since you can get multiples without fear of collision, but it generally seems weak, particularly in 2 player games.
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Honestly you could just gain the Silver to your hand. It's not that broken, right?
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Honestly you could just gain the Silver to your hand. It's not that broken, right?
Would make it better than Explorer. Both would gain a silver to hand (Explorer CAN gain a gold later in the game), but then the Bureaucrat also has an attack.
Which I guess shows how weak Explorer is for a $5.....
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Honestly you could just gain the Silver to your hand. It's not that broken, right?
Would make it better than Explorer. Both would gain a silver to hand (Explorer CAN gain a gold later in the game), but then the Bureaucrat also has an attack.
Which I guess shows how weak Explorer is for a $5.....
The Gold gain is 90-93% of the reason why Explorer is ever worth buying.
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Honestly you could just gain the Silver to your hand. It's not that broken, right?
Would make it better than Explorer. Both would gain a silver to hand (Explorer CAN gain a gold later in the game), but then the Bureaucrat also has an attack.
Which I guess shows how weak Explorer is for a $5.....
The Gold gain is 90-93% of the reason why Explorer is ever worth buying.
Yeah but you generally have to buy it in a state where gold gain isn't guaranteed. If you can guarantee the gold gain, you either should have been greening or should be engining something harder.
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If you can guarantee the gold gain, you either should have been greening or should be engining something harder.
Not really. Gaining a Gold to your hand is sometimes the hardest you can engine, especially if there's something like Remodel available.
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I actually find Bureaucrat not too shabby as is. It can be a great first turn buy if there is chapel on the board as you can then trash coppers without fear and later trash itself. And it can hurt an opponent worse than militia sometimes.
Minor improves Id consider....
1. Give it a debt cost of 4 debt instead of its usual cost and it would be a great defense against knights.
2. Have it trigger when you buy it or play it like noble brigand.
3. Maybe just say 'you may gain a silver' for when you have too many.
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I actually find Bureaucrat not too shabby as is. It can be a great first turn buy if there is chapel on the board as you can then trash coppers without fear and later trash itself.
Bureaucrat is simple bad and I am pretty sure that Squire or Amulet would be the superior Silver gainers (and better opening choices) in most Chapel Kingdoms.
And it can hurt an opponent worse than militia sometimes.
In multiplayer you can indeed have to topdeck 2 cards before it is your turn again. But then again the attack rarely hits in the very Kingdoms in which Bureaucrat might be nearly OK, Kingdoms with good trashing.
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And it can hurt an opponent worse than militia sometimes.
In multiplayer you can indeed have to topdeck 2 cards before it is your turn again. But then again the attack rarely hits in the very Kingdoms in which Bureaucrat might be nearly OK, Kingdoms with good trashing.
If you have 2 dead cards in your hand, topdecking one of them is going to be worse than discarding both. But in general, Militia hurts much worse. And yeah, Bureaucrat just plain sucks. You usually only need one or two Silvers to kickstart your engine. Buying the Bureaucrat, gaining 2 Silvers and then trashing it is just a colossal waste of time.
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Consider these early game hands
1. 3 coppers and two estates.
2. 4 coppers, and one estate.
3. 5 coppers.
Would you rather be hit by militia or bureaucrat?
1. Militia please.
2. Hard to say probably Militia.
3. Bureaucrat clearly.
In a multiplayer game the real pain isnt double beuracrat in one turn its bureacrat every turn so you see green all the time. However + 2 far exceeds Gain a silver in enabling an engine.
And later game militia attacks when hands are often better win games.
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Consider these early game hands
1. 3 coppers and two estates.
2. 4 coppers, and one estate.
3. 5 coppers.
Would you rather be hit by militia or bureaucrat?
1. Militia please.
2. Hard to say probably Militia.
3. Bureaucrat clearly.
In a multiplayer game the real pain isnt double beuracrat in one turn its bureacrat every turn so you see green all the time. However + 2 far exceeds Gain a silver in enabling an engine.
And later game militia attacks when hands are often better win games.
That's an issue after the first shuffle. Afterwards the green density in your deck usually goes down with potentially no green in your deck during the entire middlegame.
The problem of Bureaucrat is not so much the attack which could be interesting on another card. It is the top-decking of Silver on a terminal card which is simply a weak effect. Put the attack e.g. on a Smithy variant for $5 and it would be totally OK (Rabble is probably the better concept but it was just meant as illusrtration of sticking the attack part of Bureaucrat on a card that does something which is useful for you in most Kingdoms).
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I feel like the Bureaucrat attack (in it's current form) kind of needs to be on a weak card, just because the pin potential would be pretty real in a no Estate trashing game. That could of course be easily fixed by putting a handsize limit on it though. I was quite surprised that Woodcutter got the axe over Bureaucrat though, it's much more useful and simpler. I'd even take Thief over Bureaucrat to be honest... at least it can actually do damage in certain conditions and make for a good story.