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Messages - nopawnsintended

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1
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Anagrams
« on: December 24, 2013, 03:18:33 pm »
3 Zing gok(o)!

2
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Anagrams
« on: December 23, 2013, 09:55:56 am »
pirate ship economist == Permission to Teach Pi

I couldn't come up with any good ones for nopawnsintended.

3
I mixed up rats with stables - and to be honest, I love the result ;)

Addict
Cost: Potion - Action

Trash a treasure.

If you do:
+3 Cards
+ 1 Actions
Gain an Addict.

Remark: Similar to Rats, the supply pile should contain like 20 cards.

You might as well face it, I'm addicted to ... Copper?

4
Dominion General Discussion / Re: Dominion song parodies
« on: December 15, 2013, 10:50:46 pm »
Tell me what you want, what you really really want. (Tell me what you want, what you really really want.)
Tell me what you want, what you really really want. (Tell me what you want, what you really really want.)

I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I really really really wanna King's Court... yeah...

If you want to Torture, but not be tortured back.
If you want to be the only one who can buy a Jack.
Now go wastin' your precious buys... on Silvers, Workshops, Tunnels, buy a Black Market!

Tell me what you want, what you really really want. (Tell me what you want, what you really really want.)

I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I really really really wanna Mountebank... yeah...

If you wanna win at Dominion, and lose all your friends.
The best way for that to happen is to buy Bla-a-ck Market!
If you wanna win at Dominion, and lose all your friends.
Take the only copy, and that's the way you wiiiii-iiin! 

What-cha Think about that?  I just King's Courted Witch.
Say you can't handle my Curses, are you for real?
You have no way.... to Curse me back.  If that's really bugs you, you can say good-bye (rage quit, yeah).

Tell me what you want, what you really really want. (Tell me what you want, what you really really want.)

I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I really really really wanna Tournament... yeah...

If you wanna win at Dominion, and never make any friends.
Pull some power from Black Market, and win those lucky wiiii-ins.

If you wanna win at Dominion, and never make any friends.
Clog him up with curses, ensure the game never ennnnds!

So, here's the story from A to Z. 
If you want a rage quit, you've got to listen carefully.
You've got M* in your face lays their deck to waste.
You've got the one KC makes vic-tor-y easy,
Wait, victory doesn't come for free.
P2 just bought a black market, you see.

Slam your hand down, Black Markets all around.
Slam your hand down, Black Markets all around.

If you wanna win at Dominion, and never make any friends.
Pull some power from Black Market, and win those lucky wiiii-ins.  (Repeat)

ha-ha-ha-ha


Slam your hand down, Black Markets all around.
Slam your hand down, Black Markets all around. And Zig-a-Zag ahhh....

*M = Mountebank

5
Design a Kingdom card that would fit into the Guilds expansion. Such a card should have one or more of the following qualities:

• Produces Coin tokens.
• Has an overpay effect.
• Has a 'name a card' mechanic.
• Has a bald man on it
• Involves Cheesemaking or Ironic Tilling
Why do people forget these things?

As anyone will tell you, I am a forgetful kind of guy. Don't forget wordiness! A Guilds card should be wordy.

…

…

No, I am not serious. Please don't make your submission complex for the sake of being complex.

Dawwww, I thought that was permission!

6
Quote
Rusty the Donkey
Types: Action – Prize
Cost: $0*
+4 Actions. Trash a card from your hand. Choose one: Gain a card with cost up to the number of unused Actions you have (Actions, not Action cards); or gain a card costing up to $4 more than the trashed card; or gain two cards each costing up to $2 more than the trashed card.

Quote
Stalwart Mule
Types: Action – Prize
Cost: $0*
+4 Actions. Gain a card costing up to $1 per unused Action you have (Action, not Action card).

I am happy to present you with the Secret History of Stalwart Mule also known as Why, Rusty?  Why Must Ye Be So Powerful?

Well, believe it or not, my submission started out as Stalwart Mule (the +4 Actions, Gain a card costing up to $1 per unused Action).  That was my first thought without any refinement.  The goal was to have a prize that would combo with Diadem, but would be useful by itself.  Plus, it would be awesome to try to gain Provinces with a workshop variant.  Something that would take some setting up, and that could only work as a Prize.   Then, the little devil in me thought that it would be fun to add some choices to make it a little more like Trusty Steed (and to give it a name that sounds like Trusty Steed, but dysfunctional).  As with 99 percent of my submissions, the additional choices were good ideas, but it was ill-advised to put everything on one card. 

At the end of the day, Rusty the Donkey accumulated three choices, and each was a different idea.  One of the ideas was a Super Remodel Gain a +$4 more card (Golden Hammer?).  The other was a let's-break-this-card-shall-we addition (a SuperDuper Remodel).  And, the result was Rusty the Donkey.  Everyone's favorite horse-shaped animal, but watch out if he gets going because he'll kick ya in the teeth.

Turns out, the card was good enough with Super Workshop + Super Village by itself (Stalwart Mule), or with Super Remodel by itself (Golden Hammer).  I guess I get too excited about all the effects I could dump into one card, and I'm happy people got excited about the individual effects by themselves.

The rest of the Secret History is not so secret.  LaFn made the generous offer strip away the brokenness from Rusty the Donkey, and put it on the ballot as Stalwart Mule.  I was more than happy that the change was made, because after all, that was my original idea.  I'll never be able to prove it, so I suppose the only two people who'll really know what happened are me and Rusty.

I see no reason to doubt your story. On the topic of card design, I do agree you could learn a thing or two from Ivan Chesnokov.

I agree.  I too often "change thing that is fine for no reason except to look different from comrade."  :)

7
Quote
Rusty the Donkey
Types: Action – Prize
Cost: $0*
+4 Actions. Trash a card from your hand. Choose one: Gain a card with cost up to the number of unused Actions you have (Actions, not Action cards); or gain a card costing up to $4 more than the trashed card; or gain two cards each costing up to $2 more than the trashed card.

Quote
Stalwart Mule
Types: Action – Prize
Cost: $0*
+4 Actions. Gain a card costing up to $1 per unused Action you have (Action, not Action card).

I am happy to present you with the Secret History of Stalwart Mule also known as Why, Rusty?  Why Must Ye Be So Powerful?

Well, believe it or not, my submission started out as Stalwart Mule (the +4 Actions, Gain a card costing up to $1 per unused Action).  That was my first thought without any refinement.  The goal was to have a prize that would combo with Diadem, but would be useful by itself.  Plus, it would be awesome to try to gain Provinces with a workshop variant.  Something that would take some setting up, and that could only work as a Prize.   Then, the little devil in me thought that it would be fun to add some choices to make it a little more like Trusty Steed (and to give it a name that sounds like Trusty Steed, but dysfunctional).  As with 99 percent of my submissions, the additional choices were good ideas, but it was ill-advised to put everything on one card. 

At the end of the day, Rusty the Donkey accumulated three choices, and each was a different idea.  One of the ideas was a Super Remodel Gain a +$4 more card (Golden Hammer?).  The other was a let's-break-this-card-shall-we addition (a SuperDuper Remodel).  And, the result was Rusty the Donkey.  Everyone's favorite horse-shaped animal, but watch out if he gets going because he'll kick ya in the teeth.

Turns out, the card was good enough with Super Workshop + Super Village by itself (Stalwart Mule), or with Super Remodel by itself (Golden Hammer).  I guess I get too excited about all the effects I could dump into one card, and I'm happy people got excited about the individual effects by themselves.

The rest of the Secret History is not so secret.  LaFn made the generous offer strip away the brokenness from Rusty the Donkey, and put it on the ballot as Stalwart Mule.  I was more than happy that the change was made, because after all, that was my original idea.  I'll never be able to prove it, so I suppose the only two people who'll really know what happened are me and Rusty.

8
For this contest, I'm going to be consistent and say that you can't use mechanics specific to other sets for your Prize card. So no Action–Duration–Prize, etc.

Also, even if we have 5 slots open, I'm likely to only allow one Prize, since the larger the Prize pile is, the longer it takes to figure out which Prize to gain when you win a Tournament. I suppose we could have 5 new Prizes and add a rule such that you only put 5 randomly selected Prizes in the pile for each game. I could be convinced of that if we actually have 5 great submissions.

I'm a little late to see this comment because I've been away.  I like the solution to randomize which five prizes are available whenever Tournament (or some other Prize-gaining card) comes along.

Also, what's the deal with voting on this contest?  I looked for a voting deadline and didn't see it, but maybe it is because I haven't followed the thread.  Also looks like the thread hasn't received attention for a few days, so... what's going on? :)  Do I still have a chance to vote?

Just one specific comment in my confused state: I like Stalwart Mule, but it might need 5 Actions to be a Prize.  Maybe I'm just a fan of overpowered and complicated cards.  Yes, I think so.

9
Here's hoping my prize is better than Satan's Workshop.

Satan's workshop? What kind of cards does that gain?

The worst cards, followed by the best cards, all in the most diabolical way.  It was my submission for Dark Ages.  It was bad.  Even I didn't vote for it.

Quote
Satan's Workshop
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $5
Gain a card costing up to the number of Fire tokens in your Satan Pit. Each other player may reveal a hand with 2 or fewer Treasures. If nobody does, put a Fire token in your Satan Pit. Each other player gains a Copper, putting it into his hand.
When you would trash this, set it aside. If you do, at the beginning of your next Buy phase, +1 Buy, +$1 per token in your Satan Pit, and put this into the trash.

Setup: Each player puts 2 Fire tokens in his Satan Pit.


10
Here's hoping my prize is better than Satan's Workshop.

11
Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Proposal for future rounds
« on: October 23, 2013, 12:20:09 pm »
I think the "cards can be tweaked, vote for concepts you like" is the best aspect of the competition, and submissions and voting should be in line with this. The cards winning competitions this time are more interesting than last time where a lot of slight twists on existing cards won. However I think cards will still be ignored because they look/are imbalanced, undercosted etc. The worst is when a card isn't voted for because it "won't fit the set". Some of the most interesting ideas will come from users who aren't intimately familiar with the balance of the game, or who make a mistake with their proposal. There's also a lot of misconceptions about how a card would work, and clarifying intent BEFORE voting would have been helpful.

Therefore a proposal for future rounds -
Instead of just submitting a card, you submit a concept (the more concise the better), and then submit a "sample card".

For example, a card from the intrigue competiton (not mine) was this:

Tiller
Action - $4
Trash a card from your hand. The player to your left chooses a card in the Supply costing at least $2 more than the trashed card. Gain it.

Now this card is obviously bad because it's strictly worse than remodel for the same cost. I suspect that the creator intended it to be "more than $2 more". However the concept is interesting and I would have gladly voted for it. So the new submission

Tiller:
Concept: A powerful card where someone else chooses the card you gain
Sample card:
Tiller
Action - $4
Trash a card from your hand. The player to your left chooses a card costing at least $2 more for you to gain.

While the card is still imbalanced, it is more explicit that the concept is what's being voted on.

If the idea eventually wins, and it becomes apparent that the set is missing a $2 card, then it could be a $2 card that goes up $3, and if it needs a $5 card, it could remodel up $5 (as examples).

Associated ideas:
* You could leave out costs to emphasise.
* It could be run in rounds, for example
- Concepts you'd like to see (round 1)
- Pick the concept you want to develop (round 2)
- Design parameters (cost? vanilla effect? etc.)
* A good place to start with this would be the "alchemy" round, as I'd like to vote on different ideas for how the potion cost could be used in an interesting way.

I'd like to see the minds of this forum collaborate to make the best attempt at a fan set that adds a significant amount to the game.

After the initial confusion of reading the card as "The player to your left chooses a card in the Supply costing at least $2...{stop reading}", this feels like a deliberate misreading of the card.  "costing at least $2 more than the trashed card.  Gain it." is the same as "a card costing at least $2 more for you to gain."  If you read the whole sentence, there's no ambiguity.  I agree that the second wording is better because it avoids the initial confusion, but there's no difference in what these two cards do.

------

Correction: The second wording fails to specify that the card come from the supply.  Perhaps then you could choose cards from the trash?

12
Number of responses has gone up to 32. Sounds like LF granted the lazy folk a reprieve.

It is ironic that people who don't spend hours on an online forum are called "lazy" here and "busy" in the outside world.

(Just an observation. Not being sarcastic. Don't read anything into my tone.)

13
My theory is that this contest was secretly being operated and funded by the US federal government, and has somehow been deemed "non-essential".

This is another theory:





Also, LF might be sidetracked by pokemon.

Something something, compares all cards to Warehouse, something something.

The card I submitted for this contest was like Warehouse, except that (a) it doesn't give +1 Action, (b) it neither draws cards, nor discards them, and (c) it makes LastFootnote disappear.

Sorry.

14
Wow.  I'm one of the ones who forgot to vote.  Life got busy, I guess.

Both Recycle and Observatory are interesting, and I could see myself voting for either.  Unfortunately, I didn't vote at all...

15
I have some crazy ideas for this one too, but not particularly well developed.  :-\

Just make sure to put the gained ideas on top of your deck!

If you go this route, you need to gain two ideas, one costing exactly one more, and one costing exactly one less than your original idea.  This technique works best when there is a synergy between ideas that have a cost difference of two, or when ideas cost $7.

16
GokoDom / Re: GokoDom II: Round 7 Discussion Thread
« on: October 04, 2013, 12:31:35 am »
Revered Peasant and No Pawns scratch themselves to a draw.  3-3

Game 1: http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20131003/log.516d315ce4b082c74d7b31f0.1380852752598.txt Revered Peasant 37 No Pawns 29

Sea Hag versus Junk Dealer.  I get a 5-2 opening against is 4-3, so I go for Junk Dealing with minimal Sea Hag.  My goal is to churn through the Curses he gives while building some economy.  I might have started greening too early.  My deck dies earlier than I thought.  I don't know what happened here.

Game 2: http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20131003/log.516d315ce4b082c74d7b31f0.1380853757993.txt Revered Peasant 19 No Pawns 20

Rats and Watchtower are on the board, so I try that combo.  His Sea Hag gives me plenty of ugly cards to trash, but I don't have much of an idea aside from Rats + Watchtower + ??? = Profit.  ??? turns out to be Menagerie and money, and I am able to use Rats as a third pile to control the piling out at the end of the game.  I win by one.

Game 3: http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20131003/log.516d315ce4b082c74d7b31f0.1380854801924.txt Revered Peasant 30 No Pawns 32

Urchin-Mercenary is important here, but so is Procession.  He goes Mercenary + Money + a coupla Wharves.  I go Urchin-into-Mercenary + Procession, and Scrying.  I process things like Wharves, Pillages, my Mercenary when I last need it, a Remodel at one point in the middle of the game.  And, it is fun.  End game I pull some stunts to buy a Fairgrounds, and then get it up to 4 points per FG.  I eke it out by 2.

Game 4: http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20131003/log.516d315ce4b082c74d7b31f0.1380855587359.txt Revered Peasant 43 No Pawns 42

This is mostly a Fishing Village - Journeyman mirror where we pile Tunnels and name Tunnels to gain Golds.  He bought more Silver early on.  This one ended up being less interesting than I thought it would be.  Anyway, I have a dud turn at the beginning of a Duchy dance from the lead, and he closes it out by buying the last Province.  Maybe the early Silvers did it.

Game 5: http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20131003/log.516d315ce4b082c74d7b31f0.1380856232014.txt Revered Peasant 42 No Pawns 23

Tournament is key here.  He gets them, and he buries me (relatively) with Sea Hag.  I don't get up to Province, really.  So, I try to make up for it by buying Estates.  I win the battle to get the most Silver (9>6), but I lose big time on points.

Game 6: http://dom.retrobox.eu/?/20131003/log.516d315ce4b082c74d7b31f0.1380857138511.txt Revered Peasant 42 No Pawns 46

Remake is on the board.  Colonies in play.  Throne Room, Bridge is nice.  Only source of draw is Apprentice.  Inn is nice too.  Needing a win, I decide to go for the fun strategy (Remake to thin, amass TRs and Bridges, get a few Apprenti and Inns, and hope to draw a bunch of awesomeness with TRs to TR-TR-TR-B-B-B, etc.  Oh yeah... Monument is around too.  I figure that if I get behind, I could pick up a few of these, and get some points that way.  He goes Remake into Money (the other strategy I considered).  And, he pulls out to a lead that makes me consider picking up some Monuments to close the gap.  I stick to my guns, and I get the strategy to hit once or twice for big turns, and I'm in a position to pile out when he has less control over the endgame (because my strategy is the one with the buys). 

All in all, I thought it was a nice variety of boards.  I played some well.  He played some better, and in the end, we end up with a tie.  Fun match, RP.  Thanks for organizing the tourney, Kirian.

18
I made Satan's Workshop.  Sorry.

19
So if the possibility of hitting your own Province is such a bad thing (it really isn't), then it's better just to put some other restriction on there so that the Province doesn't get trashed in the first place.  A cost restriction on the trashing would be one way.  Another option would be to have it discard Victory cards instead of trashing them.  Then the trashing also whiffs on Estates, which also helps mitigate how powerful Charter can be just on its own.

The possibility of hitting your own Province is bad if there's nothing you can do about it.  At least with Lookout, you get some choice about whether you trash Province or some other card in the top 3 cards (and if you turn over 3 Provinces, maybe you have too many).  But, having no choice is bad.  Maybe that's my opinion/taste, but it's a firmly held conviction that I find to be quite reasonable.

That said, I like the idea of whiffing on trashing Victory cards (both on trash and gain).  That interaction with Sab seems to be the issue that people are having more than anything.

20
Well, I'm doing it. Not all of them though. Just my favorites (my card may or may not be included).

Onto the cards!

Quote
Charter (A)
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+1 Card. +1 Action. Trash the top card of your deck. You may gain a card from the trash.

When you trash this, +2 Cards.
This is just so cute. It's basically discard the top card of your deck if it rocks, trash it otherwise and gain something decent from the trash. It has a few other tricks (most notably on-trash effects like Cultist and Squire), but that's the gist of it. It almost needs a $3-$6 clause, but then that almost defeats the purpose of it if you happen to trash a Province. It steps on Rats toes just a bit, but not enough that I don't think it shouldn't exist.  I think that if the on trash is too powerful, it could be reduced to just +1 Card. But then the similarities between it and Rats grow even similar.

I agree that the card is so cute, but one of the neat tricks that I like the most is if you amass a bunch of these.  Sometimes Charter A will be the top card of the deck.  In that case, this is +3 Cards, +1 Action (practically).  That's Menagerie-like activation that would be fun to play, I think.  Combined with the trashing, and this can get pretty strong.  There's also a weird way to piece this reliably together with Watchtower.  Namely:

Play Charter A, trash the top card (Charter A), draw your stuff, gain Charter A, reveal Watchtower, put Charter A on top of the deck.  Play another Charter A (you have lots of them).

Thinking about it now, maybe it is strong at $4 (a non-terminal, indiscriminate-in-a-way trasher that can't hurt, plus Menagerie activation when you hit), but possibly costing at $5 will work, too.  On other tweaks, I don't like the cost restrictions on the gain.  Namely, it is unfun to trash your own Province as the card is written because this is essentially a Great Hall or a curselessFamiliar when good stuff is on top without the cost restriction.  For that reason, I don't think this card needs to be potentially dangerous to play.
It could have a cost restriction on both the cards it trashes and cards it gains, no?

I'd be happier with that.  I'd hate to trash a Province and not be able to gain it.  Seems like a reasonable tweak, to me, but I'm thinking about it quickly.

21
Well, I'm doing it. Not all of them though. Just my favorites (my card may or may not be included).

Onto the cards!

Quote
Charter (A)
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+1 Card. +1 Action. Trash the top card of your deck. You may gain a card from the trash.

When you trash this, +2 Cards.
This is just so cute. It's basically discard the top card of your deck if it rocks, trash it otherwise and gain something decent from the trash. It has a few other tricks (most notably on-trash effects like Cultist and Squire), but that's the gist of it. It almost needs a $3-$6 clause, but then that almost defeats the purpose of it if you happen to trash a Province. It steps on Rats toes just a bit, but not enough that I don't think it shouldn't exist.  I think that if the on trash is too powerful, it could be reduced to just +1 Card. But then the similarities between it and Rats grow even similar.

I agree that the card is so cute, but one of the neat tricks that I like the most is if you amass a bunch of these.  Sometimes Charter A will be the top card of the deck.  In that case, this is +3 Cards, +1 Action (practically).  That's Menagerie-like activation that would be fun to play, I think.  Combined with the trashing, and this can get pretty strong.  There's also a weird way to piece this reliably together with Watchtower.  Namely:

Play Charter A, trash the top card (Charter A), draw your stuff, gain Charter A, reveal Watchtower, put Charter A on top of the deck.  Play another Charter A (you have lots of them).

Thinking about it now, maybe it is strong at $4 (a non-terminal, indiscriminate-in-a-way trasher that can't hurt, plus Menagerie activation when you hit), but possibly costing at $5 will work, too.  On other tweaks, I don't like the cost restrictions on the gain.  Namely, it is unfun to trash your own Province as the card is written because this is essentially a Great Hall or a curselessFamiliar when good stuff is on top without the cost restriction.  For that reason, I don't think this card needs to be potentially dangerous to play.

22
Most concerning: One problematic card that you missed is Stonemason. Hitting $6 for a Stonemason and two DMs seems pretty darn strong. Talisman is also! You'd trash the first one, but gain the second. I definitely think that Band of Misfits should be counted, since it can act like DM easily. Rogue is also pretty easy combo, since DM trashes on-buy.

I knew I had missed some, and I was thinking about how strong Stonemason's interaction would be.  Rogue is a pretty easy combo, but you do have to wait for it for a while.  Good point on BoM.

Otherwise, you make good points. But, I think I end up with a different conclusion. The way I see it, DM could be WAY overpowered with cheap gainers like Workshop, Ironworks, and Armory. And, it could be mildly OP with some other gainers. To me, it goes beyond "combo" territory and into "broken interaction" territory. But, that's not to say it's not salvageable -- with some minor tweaks of vanilla bonuses, it could be a very reasonable card.

I think we reach the same conclusion.  Not sure if I expressed like this anywhere, but this is exactly my sentiment.

23

How often can Danse Macabre be gained? How many cards can gain $4 cards? I made a quick look through the expansions, and get the following list (I may have missed a few):
...
That's 29 cards out of 205. I don't know if this is how it works, but it seems like it would be able to be gained in about 3/20 games, or about 15% of the time.
You're a long way out. If your numbers are correct, it's more like 75%.

Uh, yeah, you're right. I hate probability.

It's my impression that different kinds of gaining are more or less problematic than others, too.

I just went through the cards that can gain a $4 card without your opponent choosing it and this is the list I come up with.  I only have 22 cards, but I'm leaving cards off like Band of Misfits, Hermit, and Dame Natalie because they need help to gain a $4 cost card.  It's possible that I've missed some too.

Direct Gainers
Workshop
Ironworks
Armory
---
These seem most problematic, especially Ironworks, as gainers, but they don't comprise most of the gainers as we can see.

Remodelers
Remodel
Upgrade
Expand
Remake
Develop
Procession
Graverobber
Butcher
Governor
-----
These are less problematic in my mind.  To get a Danse to use, you'd need to get one of these, then line it up with a card that can be remodeled into a Danse.  Then, wait a reshuffle.  That takes a while, and seems worth the penalty.  Remake might get a bit silly, especially once you have things thinned, Danse-Remake activates.

Feasters
Feast
Catacombs
-----
Same timeline as the remodelers in my mind for Feast.  For Catacombs, it will take longer because you need a way to trash it.

Otherers
Haggler
Border Village
Altar
University
Horn of Plenty
Forge
-----
All of these aside from Forge seem to be quick ways to amass a bunch of Danses. 

So, I count 9 (the direct gainers + the 5 Otherers + Remake) that concern me on average.  Is that easy to achieve?  Well, approx. (9)* 9/205... 40% ish of the time having a super viable gainer... not doing the counting this morning.  The rest of the time, you could hash something together, but it might not be worth it.  That's qualitatively different than 15%, and there's variety in how you'd gain it... so maybe that's interesting too.

Either way, I find that having some context for the type of gaining scheme you'd have to use to get a bunch of these is worthwhile.

24
Thursday's Card:

Quote
Danse Macabre
Types: Action
Cost: $4
You may play an Action from your hand for none of its effects. If you do, +4 Cards and +1 Action.

When you buy this, trash it.

When you trash this, gain 2 cheaper cards of different costs.
[...snip...]
Ok, now how about games where it can be gained. Here, I worry that this would just stack way too well, especially with Workshop-like cards that can gain a ton of these. 2 Labs is nothing to sneeze at, especially from a card that you can mass easily and use the "wasted action" on another weak card. If this were to win, I could see tweaking the vanilla bonuses -- maybe something like +3 Cards, +2 Actions would be more reasonable? Maybe it's ok as it is. I do like that this can be a counter to Ruins, which is nice.
[...snip...]

When I first read this, I got confused about your "2 Labs" comment.  But then, I thought about it more, and having two of these in your hand is like having two labs in hand.  Sometimes, I'm slow like that.  I guess I was thinking about the better cases for this card.  Implicitly, this wants to make Ruins into companionLabs, which is even better than being a $4 cost card that's 2 Labs when you get two of them.  That's quite a powerful defense against Ruins junking.  It is probably easy enough to "connect" this with another action in order to make it worth while -- much easier than Tournament-Province or Explorer-Province in many circumstances.  But, there is the case where it doesn't hit.  Maybe $4 isn't a bad cost.

Anyway, I love the counter to Ruins.  Whenever I can just play a counterRuins strategy and win, I love it.

One concern I'd have is that buying all 10 of these would lead to a very short game.  Not sure if there's a way to make such a rush optimal, but imagine that Tunnel is on the board.  Buy this, gain Tunnel and Estate.  OK... that's not likely to be a good strategy, but maybe Oasis on the board.  You could gain all the Estates and Oases, and trash all the Danses.  Again, not sure it's optimal, but seems like it could be too fast.

Lastly, I don't (usually) like cards that don't let you gain them when you buy them.  I'd like for it to be viable to use its effect whenever it is in the kingdom (but maybe not a good idea), but if you have no gainers on the board, I wonder what the point is.  So 85% of the time, this card exists in the kingdom and can't be played.  That doesn't feel like a way to balance a card, but that's my usual case.   Maybe this card is an edge case because, in non-gaining situations, buying it is really like buying two cheaper costed cards (and that's interesting in an alternative Talisman way).  With Courtyard in the kingdom, Silver-Courtyard would be a nice pickup with this.  You could open Silver-Courtyard-Silver, not bad.  So, this trash-on-buy effect has some interesting strategy outside of the card, which I like.  Maybe I'm coming around.

This might have been one of the cards I didn't like at first, but I may just vote for it now.

25
Game Reports / Re: Mind Games in the Face of Five Attacks
« on: September 25, 2013, 12:33:51 am »
Oh Polk, you and your mind games... IRL, I have learned to assume that you never let anything slip.

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