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1101

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Inverse Counting House?

« on: April 21, 2013, 03:56:34 pm »

Yep, that's why I said you have to shuffle your deck afterwards. I think it should be terminal, with no other bonuses; it has the potential to be too strong otherwise. Its main uses would be in slogs where your deck is full of junk, in which case you aren't going to be drawing it with other actions normally anyway, so making it terminal doesn't hurt that much. It makes combos harder to set up since you need a village too, but I feel like that's appropriate.

Island has a bunch of advantages:
1) You don't need to play the same Island once per reshuffle to keep the cards on your mat, they're there forever
2) If Island ends up near the bottom of your deck, it's not totally useless
3) When playing Island, you can trigger reshuffles mid-turn without worrying, and getting Spy-ed or Council Room-ed isn't an issue
4) Island is cheap so you can get the benefits very early
5) Island is worth 2VP!
Not to mention a whole lot of edge-cases to do with Silk Road, Ironworks, Possession, etc. Actually that's a thought, if you get Possessed, you'll be made to discard all of your most important engine components!

I feel like it's a $5 card due to the similar unreliability problem as Counting House. At $6 it would be unattainable in slogs where it would be most useful.

1102

Variants and Fan Cards / Inverse Counting House?

« on: April 21, 2013, 02:23:12 pm »

Name a card, look through your deck, discard any number of that card from it, then shuffle your deck. By itself, it filters Copper/Estate/Curse out of your deck (it doesn't work on Ruins as they have different names). However, you will have to track your deck very carefully, so that you don't accidentally trigger a reshuffle during your turn and get a deck full of Copper/Estate/Curse. It has the not-always-useful problem of Counting House, but in reverse - it's better when your discard pile is empty - so it combos with Counting House to make it reliable.

Thoughts?

1103

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Challenge: Design the best beginners kingdom!

« on: April 21, 2013, 08:16:11 am »

Menagerie seems like a solid suggestion for a first game, but I fear that the beginner will have trouble understanding how to activate it.

It's easy enough to understand the text on the card; if they didn't figure it out, you can give them that "ah-ha" moment by playing it and revealing a hand with one more Menagerie.

For the second game, let them choose some of the cards!

1104

Rules Questions / Re: Possession and on-Trash effects

« on: April 21, 2013, 08:07:21 am »

I guess if you can reliably use Council Room/Governor with Possession every turn, then you can be slow enough to do whatever you want because they won't get any more turns. And if there's Ambassador or Masquerade on the board, you don't even have to start before they've got half of the victory points, and they don't even have to buy the Forge themselves. So I suppose if it's a continuous pin rather than a cute gimmick, then you have plenty of time to set up.

1105

Rules Questions / Re: Possession and on-Trash effects

« on: April 21, 2013, 04:32:39 am »

Ideally play King's Court/Forge and trash the cards in sets whose costs add up to $11. (If it's not a Colony game, how on Earth do you have time to set up Possession gimmicks?)

1106

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Challenge: Design the best beginners kingdom!

« on: April 21, 2013, 03:37:18 am »

I think Cornucopia is a good expansion for beginners - they often do the "that looks nice, I'll have one of those" thing and end up with lots of different things that don't fit together well; with Cornucopia they can learn the game mechanics without needing to be told not to just buy one of everything. Fairgrounds is a good choice, I'd also put Menagerie in because it's simple enough and makes it easier to use such decks. Not sure I like Border Village in there; Fairgrounds and Hunting Grounds are already both $6, and another one just means beginners will never buy Gold.

1107

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Challenge: Design the best beginners kingdom!

« on: April 21, 2013, 03:32:33 am »

Don't include any game-warping cards or combos.

Workshop

Gardens

1108

Game Reports / Re: Horn of Plenty highs and lows

« on: April 20, 2013, 06:47:05 pm »

I am proud to have played this game, even if I lost.

1109

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Feedback Wanted: The Anti-Embassy

« on: April 18, 2013, 05:37:08 pm »

With a Smithy, you could discard your worst 2 cards to the Militia and draw back up to 5. With this card, it doesn't matter what you discard to Militia because you're going to have to discard the rest and draw 5 random cards.

Just wanted to respond to this old reply, because you could play a Festival or other non-terminal first, so it does matter what you discard to the Militia. Saving two Festivals and an Anti-Embassy would be nice; $4, 2 actions and 3 buys, and still you have five cards in hand.

1110

Rules Questions / Re: Market Square when-a-card-is-trashed timing

« on: April 18, 2013, 12:34:39 pm »

I was thinking of something like this:

There is a Border Village on top of your discard pile.
You gain another Border Village, putting it on top of your discard pile.
...You gain an Inn, putting it on top of your discard pile.
......You look through your discard pile and shuffle one Border Village into your deck.
......You reveal Watchtower.
.........You top-deck your Inn. The top card of your discard pile is now a Border Village.
...You reveal Watchtower.
......Can you top-deck that Border Village which is now on top of your discard pile?

The lose-track rule says no, because you can't determine (or at least can't prove) whether it's the Border Village you just gained or a different one—the Border Village you just gained has literally been lost track of, and could be either on top of your discard pile or shuffled into your deck. So that's why it makes sense that covering up a card in the discard pile and then uncovering it still counts as losing track.

(Another question, though, is should it really matter whether the Border Village now on top of your deck is actually the one you just gained. There's a case to be made that it shouldn't matter, by indistinguishability; but Donald X has decided that it does.)

OK, I didn't know that Inn allowed you to re-order your discard pile. Now I'm sort of persuaded that there's a practical reason for it. And that post you linked to at least makes it clear that that's the intention of the rule.

1111

Rules Questions / Re: Market Square when-a-card-is-trashed timing

« on: April 18, 2013, 04:40:27 am »

I guess when you're looking through your discard pile to choose Action cards to shuffle into your deck, due to Inn, then you might have to make sure you leave another gained card on top of your discard pile so that it isn't lost track, but that's OK because strictly speaking Inn didn't say you could re-order your discard pile, just choose some Action cards (potentially zero), remove them, and shuffle them into your deck. That gained card that you didn't choose to shuffle into your deck, therefore, must still be on top of your discard pile, where it was gained to, and where Watchtower should expect it to be.

I guess it's not so bad to have a rule saying you have to react to multiple when-gains in the order that you gain the cards, but why not make that the rule, instead of making it a really, really subtle consequence of Lost Track?

1112

Rules Questions / Re: Market Square when-a-card-is-trashed timing

« on: April 17, 2013, 05:56:21 pm »

The practical reason that a card is lost track of if it's covered up in your discard pile is that otherwise you'd have to go hunting to find it, in order to resolve whatever was supposed to move it from there. By the rules, you aren't allowed to look through your discard pile unless you're told you can, and revealing Watchtower isn't one of those situations; it's clearly practical to say that if finding that card in order to topdeck it would require you to break the rules, then you can't do it. However, if it's on top, visible, but happens to have been covered and uncovered in between getting there and being looked for there, it isn't "lost track of" out of any practical necessity. I really think it ought to mean "is covered up", rather than the (a little ambiguous anyway) "got covered up". That sort of implication - especially when unmotivated - due to a single word which means almost the same thing anyway, the provenance of which isn't remarked upon in the rules text itself, just seems very strongly to me like a quirk of phrasing rather than the intent of the rule.

1113

Rules Questions / Re: Market Square when-a-card-is-trashed timing

« on: April 17, 2013, 03:58:26 pm »

There's still the question of that exact wording from the Lose Track rule, though; it says a card in your discard pile has been lost track of if it "got" covered up, but surely this should be "is" covered up - a card could "get" covered up, but then become visible again, and that shouldn't matter for any practical reason.

But it does matter, by the rules -- If I gain a Border Village, and gain my $5 before revealing Watchtower, I can't topdeck my Border Village.

Clearly there's a difference between the two wordings, no argument, but I don't see any practical reason that a card which is visible on top of the discard pile, where it's expected to be, should be lost track of. Revealing Moat from your deck, instead of your hand, would be different gameplay but also totally impractical.

This is like if I go to a restaurant with a friend, the waiter takes our orders, goes to the kitchen, and I swap seats with my friend and then we swap seats back again, and then the waiter comes back and doesn't bring us any food because he can't work out where we're sitting any more, even though we are sitting exactly where he thought we were.

1114

Rules Questions / Re: Yet another Treasure Map question

« on: April 17, 2013, 03:46:38 pm »

OK, so a card's effect can lose track of the card itself, I have been confusing myself rather a lot, then. DXV sez "if card A wants to move card B but it's not where card A expects it to be" which seemed to imply that they were two different cards; he did also say, don't quote him on that, though. I guess the actual rule would be the one from the rulebook, funny, eh?

Still, I wouldn't say that Feast fails to trash itself due to lose track; it fails to move itself to the trash because it's already there, something can't be moved to where it already is.

1115

Rules Questions / Re: Market Square when-a-card-is-trashed timing

« on: April 17, 2013, 06:27:33 am »

I guess it hinges on a technicality: "when you ___" triggers an effect which is pooled into a set of effects which should be simultaneous, so you choose the order they happen in; however, "if you do" apparently doesn't get pooled, its consequences are immediate.

There's still the question of that exact wording from the Lose Track rule, though; it says a card in your discard pile has been lost track of if it "got" covered up, but surely this should be "is" covered up - a card could "get" covered up, but then become visible again, and that shouldn't matter for any practical reason.

1116

Rules Questions / Re: Yet another Treasure Map question

« on: April 17, 2013, 06:07:22 am »

Even when you play a card (such as with Throne Room the second time) and as part of playing it try to move it to play, and that fails, you still do everything else, namely follow the instructions on the card.

A card can't lose track of itself, but another card can lose track of it if that other card tries to move it from somewhere that it isn't. Throne Room doesn't contain any instructions about moving cards, so Throne Room itself can't lose track of anything; well, there's the implicit instruction to move the Action card from your hand to the play area, but I'm not aware of any card that could move it away from your hand in between you choosing it and Throne Room putting it in play.

Throne Room/Feast works because even though Feast can't move itself to the trash a second time (it's already there; it didn't lose track of itself, but it's already there), the "gain a card costing up to 5" part is not contingent on trashing, there's no "if you do". Throne Room/Band of Misfits can't select a different card each time, because once the Band of Misfits is in play, it is the other card - let's say it's a Feast. So Throne Room plays a Feast twice, not Band of Misfits twice. After playing it once, the Feast is trashed, now it's in the trash and it's a Band of Misfits again... never mind, Throne Room was playing Feast twice, so it plays Feast again.

1117

Rules Questions / Re: Yet another Treasure Map question

« on: April 16, 2013, 06:24:17 pm »

As for the idea that the Mining Village can't be trashed a second time because it lost track of itself, I'm pretty sure that it's impossible for a card to lose track of itself.

1118

Rules Questions / Re: Yet another Treasure Map question

« on: April 16, 2013, 06:21:24 pm »

Does Throne Room really try to move cards to the play area again before playing them the second time? For normal cards, that's impossible, they can't be moved to somewhere they are already. By my reckoning, a literal Throne Room would say "place an action card from your hand in the play area, then follow its instructions, then follow them again". Why would it need to move it into the play area a second time? Where would it think it was moving the card from, the second time, if not the play area already?

1119

Rules Questions / Re: Market Square when-a-card-is-trashed timing

« on: April 16, 2013, 11:25:38 am »

Oddly, there is nothing in the rules preventing you from digging into your discard pile in order to pull out a Tunnel you just discarded.

Oh! So the Tunnel is covered up, but still, you did discard it, and it said when you discard it you can reveal it, so you can.

1120

Rules Questions / Re: Market Square when-a-card-is-trashed timing

« on: April 16, 2013, 11:09:48 am »

Regarding Watchtower and Border Village/Woodcutter, is that an official ruling? It seems to me I can do it in this order:
1) Buy Border Village
2) Gain Border Village
 [Border Village is now on my discard pile.]
3) Reveal Watchtower
 [Now we have two on-gain effects which are resolved in the order that I choose; I choose to resolve Border Village first:]
4) Gain a Woodcutter
 [Woodcutter is now on my discard pile.]
5) Reveal Watchtower
6) Topdeck Woodcutter
 [Now I have finished resolving Border Village, I'll finish resolving the first reveal of Watchtower:]
7) Check that Border Village is visible on top of my discard pile, where Watchtower expects it to be - it is indeed!
Topdeck Border Village.

There's a couple of ways I can think that this couldn't work - firstly, after the definition of the Lose Track rule (I'm going from my Dark Ages rulebook), there's some explanations or examples, the last sentence of which says that a card in the discard pile is lost track of if it "gets" covered up, rather than if it "is" covered up. Since Border Village "got" covered up, Watchtower lost track of it, even if it isn't covered up any more. Secondly, since Watchtower is already in the "reveal" zone (if there is such a thing) it might not be possible to reveal it - it's already there; in the same sense that you can't trash something that's already in the trash, because it can't be moved to somewhere it already is. Perhaps revealing a second Watchtower is necessary!

Lose Track is far too confusing. The first example from Dark Ages has Procession on a Madman, and it says that Procession can't move the Madman back to the Madman pile because it lost track of the Madman - but the instruction to return the Madman to the pile is not on the Procession card, it's on the Madman card itself. Shouldn't the Madman be moving itself to the pile, then, and isn't it always the case that a card can't lose track of itself? Why does the Procession have to do the moving? By my interpretation, the Madman can't be returned to the pile the second time simply because that's where it already is.

Looks like the forum turned my number 8 into a face with sunglasses, though maybe that's actually more appropriate. My interpretation of Procession->Madman is apparently the same as what the rulebook says, I should read it more carefully.

1121

Rules Questions / Re: Market Square when-a-card-is-trashed timing

« on: April 16, 2013, 08:28:43 am »

So if I topdeck a gained card using Watchtower, it visits my discard pile on the way?

1122

Rules Questions / Re: Market Square when-a-card-is-trashed timing

« on: April 16, 2013, 08:17:13 am »

OK, that makes sense and is consistent; Market Square reacts when one of your cards has been moved to the trash, finishes resolving, and then the card which trashed it finishes resolving.

But does that mean that when I reveal a Tunnel, I'm actually revealing it from my discard pile, rather than revealing it before putting it into the discard pile? That has complications because per the rules, only the top card of your discard pile is visible. If I discard two Tunnels at once (atomically), do I have to reveal the top one from my discard pile, therefore making the one below it visible, in order to reveal the second one? Or does the first Tunnel finish resolving, go back on the discard pile, and then prevent me from revealing the second one which is no longer visible? It also seems odd that, were I to discard Tunnel and Estate, I would need to be careful to put the Tunnel on top.

1123

Rules Questions / Re: Market Square when-a-card-is-trashed timing

« on: April 16, 2013, 08:02:26 am »

And if I Throne Room an Urchin, I can't trash it because it reacts "when you play another Attack card".

1124

Rules Questions / Re: Market Square when-a-card-is-trashed timing

« on: April 16, 2013, 08:00:30 am »

Nice one! Didn't think about that.

1125

Rules Questions / Re: Market Square when-a-card-is-trashed timing

« on: April 16, 2013, 07:56:18 am »

Let me be clear - I don't think Market Square is supposed to behave this way, and I don't want to play it as if it does. I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with my understanding of the rules.