1087
« on: June 04, 2012, 09:36:56 pm »
These are some new ideas!
(Sorry for the wall of text)
Here is my feedback:
Baldachin: I've always wanted to have some sort of card that takes things out of play. The only problem I have is the following:
Say you have a hand of King's Court, Baldachin, Level 3 City. Play City. Play KC-Baldachin. Take Kc, Baldachin, and Level 3 City out of play. Rinse and repeat. This will give you infinite money and infinite buys.
Drunkard: Seems rather situational. Normally, you'll get the estate trashing one or two times, and the potion trashing once, I would guess. Unless you've set up some sort of crazy draw engine, I don't think it's worth spamming potions just for this card. But I could be totally wrong here.
Polycephaly: I like this card as-is, except for a wording fix: Reveal your hand. For each card that you have revealed two copies of, you may choose to those two copies of the card. Actually, I don't really like my wording that much either. Yours is ambiguous, and mine's clunky.
Troll: This card needs to be changed. It seems weak to me, with or especially without villages. But more importantly, how it reacts to cards like tribute, fishing village, or even itself needs to be clarified.
Vice Chancellor: I think it might be better to give the revealed cards a navigator-like discard choice, as just discarding four cards seems like it's incredibly useless, and also I would get really annoyed if it discarded my good cards.
Carpenter: This seems weak too. Its action part is worse than just plain old +$1, +1 Action. The reaction portions cool, but not all that much better than a simple top deck reaction, and a whole lot more confusing. I would recommend changing this to a $2 action, changing the action to $1, 1 action, and making the reaction simply top deck.
Exorcist: Slight spelling error in the title. I think that this should say up to four cards rather than 1 to 4, as it doesn't change the card much and also is simpler. Also, for the cure-y part, I think again that the card is a tad weak and could read "if you trash two or more cards and none of them are curses." Or even "three or more cards and none of them are curses."
Hourglass: This is a good idea, but it has a common problem: It's strictly better than silver and only costs $4. If this is in the supply, silver will almost never be bought. I think it needs to get a decent buff and then have the price increased to $5. I'm not sure what a good buff would be though.
Librarian: Wowsers. Well, first off, I would get rid of the -1 action. It adds rules confusion, but it doesn't add much to the card. Also, wording change: "You may reveal any number of cards from your hand, and either discard them or put them on the bottom of your deck. You may trash a library. If you do, (this looked fine). Otherwise, +cards equal to the number of cards revealed. Another thing is, I don't like how you need to connect it with library, a card that you normally wouldn't want very many of. I think it would be better off if it reacted with, estate, silver, or any card that costs at leads $5 ($4?).
Sawmill: Good card, although, like you can probably guess by now, I would like it better if it just reacted with estate or something, like baron does.
Turncoat: I think I need an explanation on this one. Half of the wording I do not understand, and the other half seems impossible to make use of, even with council room.
Copper Smelt: My favorite card of the set. MY only nitpick is situational-ness. In a gardens or hanging gardens game, this is an INSANE power card. In all other games, it seems like a fool's gold with a small bonus that (now that I think about it) might eventually disappear. Like, if one player spammed these like fool's gold, would the coppers empty? Actually, I just changed my mind: since this card can be used for $4 all the time, it's a lot better than fool's gold. I like it a lot; maybe it is balanced with gardens and hanging gardens. I've convinced myself that it's perfect as-is.
Galvanize: Not really sure here, but maybe this is over powered? Does this card upgrade cards that are already in play? I guess if it doesn't, this could be alright, but what about market? I play village-galvanizer and turn my markets into grand markets, buying two to three provinces per turn. Your markets become cantrips. Unless you buy a galvanizer as a counter, there is basically nothing you can do if you are pursuing a similar strategy as me. I don't like that the only real counter is buying more galvanizers. I also don't like its situational-ness. In a big money game, it's totally useless.
Hanging Gardens: I like this card a lot too. However, I think it is needlessly complex. I would probably just bump the price to six and make it a straight victory card. Actually, maybe leave it at five, because at six all those coppers you bought to boost your hanging gardens prevent you from buying hanging gardens. I love the picture.
Accurst/Blasphemy: I would change "play an action card from your hand" to "+1 action." It's almost the same thing. Well, keep it for the newly gained $4 card. Also, two curses with a gold is a steep penalty, I might change it to one. Actually, what I would do is (you guessed it) get rid of the gold gaining thing altogether. Also, I might change it to +$2, but I'm not sure how powerful this card is. I like love blasphemy as-is, but it might need to be a reaction card.
All in all, the main problem is the over complex nature of the cards, as well as a few of them being too weak. A lot of the time the complexness is either unnecessary (like changing play another action from your hand to +1 action) or would be better but into another card (accurst gold-gaining thing). The wording was a tad confusing, but it got the point across for everything but turncoat, which I still don't understand.
I really like some of the ideas here, especially Baldachin, Copper Smelt, and Hanging Gardens. A lot of the time I feel like I'm seeing the same old cards over and over here in the variants forum, but most of these are brand-new.
Please take my probably-too-harsh criticism with a grain of salt, however, because I am by no means a fan card expert. That would be Rinkworks, though he/she will try to deny it.
