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1

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 62: Be a Lady Tonight

« on: April 03, 2023, 03:25:45 pm »

For when you want to make your own shuffle luck.

2

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 61: Copycat Cephalopods

« on: April 02, 2023, 07:45:44 pm »

Judging

Trainee $3 Action - Command Play the card with your Skill token (if possible), leaving it there. Move your Skill token to a non-Command Supply pile costing up to $2 more than its current pile. Setup: put your Skill token on Copper.

Trainee by czzzz I like the idea of using the Mimic token to scale up.  I've always loved self-improving cards like Miser or the Travelers, so that aspect really appeals to me.  I also think the flavor is spot-on.  My one concern is that this might ramp up too quickly:  After three plays, it's almost strictly better than any other non-Victory card in most Kingdoms.  It would take playtesting to be sure, but I suspect any overpoweredness would depend a lot on the Kingdom, including how fast the Kingdom is in general and whether there are decent $2 cards to mimic on the second play.

Tricky Cephalopod $6 Action - Command Play cards with a Mimic token (leaving them), choose one: one card that costs $5 or more; or up to two different cards that costs $4 or less. You may move your Mimic token to a different non-Command non-Duration Action Supply pile. In games using this, each player places their Mimic token on a non-Command non-Duration Action Supply pile during the Action phase of their first turn.

Tricky Cephalopod by BryGuy I love the interactivity of using each other's Mimic tokens.  At first I was concerned that a player who wasn't interested in Tricky Cephalopods could ruin them in a 2-player game, but when I thought about it, that's actually harder than it seems:  Placing your Mimic token on a weak sub-$5 doesn't make this card as weak as you might think (Duchess + Village is better than Bazaar), and there aren't many $5 cards that are weak enough to remove the benefit of the versatility.  Of course, in a multiplayer game, you'll almost certainly want to go for these, and they may be a little too powerful.

Doppelgänger $5 Action - Reaction - Command Play a non-Command Action card from one of your Mimic piles, leaving it there. When any player gains a card, you may discard this to move one of your Mimic tokens to that card's pile. Note: There are 3 Mimic tokens per player.

Doppelgänger by emtzalex Another one that takes some build-up, this time by discarding a $5 card.  The fact that you can react to your own gain reduces the luck-based element of needing it in hand at the right time.  It's particularly strong with good $6+ Actions, since it provides not only versatility but a discount, but those are few and far between.  I'm on the fence about whether it needs a slight buff, but the concept is excellent, as is the flavor.

Channeler $5 Action - Command You may move your Mimic token to a different non-Command Action pile costing $4 or less. If you did, play the card with your Mimic token on it, leaving it there. If you didn’t, gain the card with your Mimic token on it.

Channeler by Snorka Excellent idea and nice fit with the flavor---if you keep calling on a card, you eventually bring it to you.  My one concern is that because you move the Mimic token before you mimic, this could play a bit like an improved Band of Misfits (specifically, Band of Misfits with a gaining option and the ability to benefit from most cost reducers).  On the other hand, Band of Misfits can mimic the same card repeatedly, which Channeler can't, so there is a trade-off there.  But then, if you're repeatedly mimicking the same card with Band of Misfits, wouldn't it almost be nicer to just gain that card permanently?  Sure, it doesn't help this current turn as much, but it probably helps your overall deck more.  It would be interesting to see how it plays and how much of a hinderance not being able to repeat a mimic is.  At the very least, I think it's enough of a hinderance to make this card different from Band of Misfits rather than clearly better. Incidentally, the "three non-Supply pile" version seems like a lot of fun, and while I agree that three non-Supply piles is a bit much for a single card, it could work in an expansion that already has those piles, such as the Spirits from Nocturne.  Actually, having it use the Spirits from Nocturne seems like a perfect fit flavor-wise.  I know that the non-Supply version wasn't your entry, but it seemed too interesting to go without comment.

Innsmouth Ally After playing a Liaison, you may choose one: Put the Ritual token on a non-Liaison Kingdom pile costing up to $5; or spend 4 Favors to play the card with the Ritual token on it (if possible), leaving it there.

Innsmouth by Xen3k This is really an interesting take, which also borrows the "cephalopod" concept in a much darker way.  My one concern is that 4 Favors is pretty steep compared to something like City State, especially since you can't use it on super-expensive cards anyway and the fact that you need to play a Liaison to trigger it reduces some of the flexibility.  The ability to mess with your more Favor-heavy opponents is fun.  And even if you're not intentionally messing with your opponents, simply pursuing a different strategy can be enough to lead to a tug-of-war.  I love the concept; I'm just a little concerned it's a bit too expensive for what you get.

Winner: Doppelgänger by emtzalex

Runner-up: Tricky Cephalopod by BryGuy

Congratulations to emtzalex, and thank you all for your creative entries.

3

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 61: Copycat Cephalopods

« on: April 01, 2023, 01:47:59 am »

Contest Closed

Entries:

• Trainee by czzzz
• Tricky Cephalopod by BryGuy
• Doppelgänger by emtzalex
• Channeller by Snorka
• Innsmouth by Xen3k

Thanks for all of the entries.  I really like the variety of concepts here.  I will try to make my decision over the weekend.

4

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 61: Copycat Cephalopods

« on: March 31, 2023, 01:05:18 am »

23-hour Warning

I apologize that it’s an hour late.  Contest closes at midnight EDT/4:00 a.m. GMT.

Current entries are:

• Trainee
• Tricky Cephalopod
• Doppelgänger

I’ve enjoyed seeing your entries so far, and look forward to seeing any others.

5

Variants and Fan Cards / Fan Card Mechanics Week 61: Copycat Cephalopods

« on: March 25, 2023, 12:05:32 am »

Hello, and welcome to the new season.  To start this season off, we'll have a challenge inspired by my favorite animal:  The octopus.

Among octopuses' many bizarre sci-fi-esque abilities is the ability to dynamically change their form mimic their surroundings, or even other creatures.  This ability is the basis for this week's challenge.



The fan mechanic of the week is mimic tokens.  Mimic tokens are tokens that go on supply piles to facilitate an ability along the lines of "Play a card in the Supply that has your Mimic token on it, leaving it there."  Inheritance would be the closest official equivalent, but I think we can do something a bit more flexible.

In short, there are two rules for this week's designs:

• You must have a type of token that goes on a Supply pile (or a non-Supply pile, if that's what you want).
• You must have some ability that lets you play the top card of the Supply pile with the token on it.

Also, I'm fine if you have more than one card-shaped object, but they should be connected---an entry consisting of Marauder, Spoils, and the five Ruins would be related enough, but Marauder and Cultist would not.  That said, I'm not super-strict on this as long as you don't go overboard.

I will prefer designs that allow flexibility, but aren't as open-ended as, say, Band of Misfits.  More generally, I like cards with good flavor and interesting choices.

Speaking of flexibility, here are some things that aren't restrictions on this week's designs:

• You don't need to call your tokens "Mimic tokens"---name them whatever fits your flavor.
• You don't need to limit yourself to one Mimic token per player---you can use as many as you want.
• You don't even need to make the Mimic tokens player-specific---if you want the players to move around a shared Mimic token, that's perfectly fine.
• You can use any sort of card-shaped objects, even ones from different expansions---if you want an Artifact that moves a Mimic token between Spirit piles, go ahead.
• And to be clear, while octopuses inspired this fan mechanic, your entries don't need to be octopus-related in any way.

Here's an example of mimic tokens at work:

Way of the Octopus
Way
Choose a card in the Supply costing less than this that has one of your Octopus tokens on it.  Play that card, leaving it there.
Setup: Place your Octopus tokens on two Action supply piles.

As usual, the contest will run for one week (ending at midnight EDT or 4:00 a.m. GMT), and I'll post a 24-hour warning. 

Thanks, and have fun!  I look forward to seeing your entries.

6

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 60: Season 6 Finale

« on: March 22, 2023, 01:33:04 pm »

Thanks, emtzalex.  I'm glad you liked the card.

I don't know if there's supposed to be a gap between "seasons," but unless someone tells me that there is, I'll try to get the next contest posted in the next couple of days---Saturday at the latest depending on my work.

7

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 60: Season 6 Finale

« on: March 15, 2023, 03:04:53 am »

Work Elephant
$4 Action - Mount
Trash a card from your hand to gain an Action card costing up to $1 per Power more than it.
Mount: At the end of your turns, if you gained more than one card that turn, dismount; otherwise, +1 Power.

8

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Card Fusions

« on: March 13, 2023, 07:36:13 pm »

Card Fusions #12
Modify & Black Market

Submissions/comments for past fusions are always welcome, too.

Illicit Modifications
$4 - Action
Reveal the top 3 cards of the Black Market deck. Choose one: Trash a card from your hand to gain a revealed card costing up to $2 more than it; or +1 Card and +1 Action.  Put the remaining revealed cards on the bottom of the Black Market deck in any order.
Setup: Make a Black Market deck out of different unused Kingdom cards.

I used the Black Market deck instead of an Illicit Modifications deck so it could share a deck with Black Market if they're both in the Kingdom.  The card text is excessive, but so is Black Market's---it's hard to use the Black Market deck without a lot of small text.

9

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 52: It only gets Charter

« on: December 27, 2022, 08:42:25 pm »

Vow of Poverty
$0 Charter
The next time you play a Treasure costing $5 or more, gain a Curse.  Until then, at the start of your Buy phase, trash a card from your hand.

An improved Cathedral that Curses you if you ever break your vow by using Gold (or any other expensive Treasure).  The $0 cost is thematic and functionally isn't different from $2-3 in most cases since you'll want to buy it Turn 1-2 if at all.

10

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #172: Trait Me Right

« on: December 25, 2022, 05:05:41 pm »

Frugal
Trait
Directly after you finish playing a Frugal card, you may pay 1 Action for +1 Villager or pay $1 for +1 Coffer.

11

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Annoying and potentially harmful card anti-synergies

« on: December 21, 2022, 12:43:04 am »

The +1 {bonus} tokens from Adventures can be disappointing on Taskmaster, as they don't do anything when Taskmaster's start-of-turn ability triggers.  "Repeat this ability" is not the same as "Play this again."

12

Dominion General Discussion / Re: * Plunder Previews #5: More Stuff *

« on: December 16, 2022, 03:20:47 am »

Imagine Swindling someone’s Silver into a Cursed Experiment (though the 2 Loots somewhat make up for the double-cursing).  Or buying Messenger and giving everyone a Cursed Port, which comes with a second Port, 2 Curses, and 2 Loots.

13

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: December 16, 2022, 02:19:12 am »

Ruined
Trait
When you play a Ruined card, only perform the first line or sentence of instructions, replacing all numbers with 1.

If this is on the Knights pile, I want Sir Michael.

IIRC, it’s the only handsize attack this works for because all of the others have some other text (usually a vanilla bonus) first.

14

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 51: Season 5 Finale Challenge

« on: December 13, 2022, 03:00:54 pm »

Abbot
$4 Action
+1 Piety
Trash a card from your hand.  +1 Piety per $1 it costs.
Premonition: Succession Crisis

Succession Crisis
Premonition
After each player has taken seven turns, the players with the most level 3 Pieties (including ties) each gain a Province.

15

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #171: Gains Upon Gains

« on: December 10, 2022, 12:16:31 am »

Trainee
$4 Action - Duration
Now and at the start of your next turn:  If this is in play, gain a card costing up to $3.
Until then, when another player gains an Action card, you may exchange this for a copy of that Action card.

I wanted to name this "Apprentice", but that was already taken.

16

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #170: 2/7 Offsuit

« on: December 03, 2022, 07:50:49 pm »

Almoner
$2 Action - Attack
Each player (including you) gains a Copper.
Reveal up to 3 Coppers from your discard pile and put them into your hand.

Edit:  Modified card.
Edit 2:  Incorporated SignError's updated wording.  Thanks, SignError.

17

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 50: A Natural Gift

« on: December 03, 2022, 07:45:52 pm »

Here's a split pile (5-5, like in Empires, as opposed to the 4-4-4-4 rotating split piles from Allies) that limits the exponential potential and forces you to choose a strategy:

Forest Paths
$2 Night - Duration
At the start of your next turn:
Discard any number of cards, then draw that many.
When you gain this, each player (including you) may gain a National Park.

Tycoon
$5 Action - Attack
Each player (including you) reveals the top 2 cards of their deck, discards any non-Victory cards, and puts the rest back in any order they choose.

Set aside any Action or Treasure cards you discarded in this way and play them in either order.

This doesn't directly interact with the on-trash penalty of National Park, but it does indirectly interact with it:  The difficulty in trashing National Parks makes you think twice about getting one from an opponent's Forest Paths, and the Tycoon attack doesn't punish Curses like it does National Parks and other Victory cards.

When i first saw the card, i though maybe we'd each pick a National Park and design a Victory to comprise a split pile like Castles. Future idea maybe?

That does sound fun.

18

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card

« on: November 27, 2022, 05:20:46 pm »

19

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #169: I Am Not Throwing Away My [One-]Shot

« on: November 26, 2022, 08:23:09 pm »

Trailblazer
$3 Action
+5 Cards
Discard 4 cards.
You may trash this to play it again.

20

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #168: Turkey Time

« on: November 15, 2022, 02:19:34 pm »

Duration terminal draw is the only delayed effect (Horses don’t count as they are cards that can be Remodeled or Throned) that is slightly better than the immediate effect as the increase in engine consistency does on average outweigh the decrease in frequency of play of the card.

True.  I love when I can get start-of-next-turn draw for my engines, and always feel a bit disappointed when I have to use Barge for its this-turn effect (in Kingdoms with other draw) instead of saving it for next turn.  Kicking off an engine from 8 cards or 11 cards is so much more reliable than just having 5.

21

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #168: Turkey Time

« on: November 14, 2022, 11:33:38 am »

So i tried a few different names, but most were too complex so i settled for something simple.

Duration cards only stay in play if there is something to track on a future turn. So if you choose the first option then it won't stay in play... which makes this card strictly better than Laboratory!

Even if it did stay in play on the Laboratory option (which it doesn't), it would still be too powerful at $3.  Compare it to Caravan, which costs $4 and doesn't give you the Lab effect until next turn (in addition to not having the other option). 

Even having it be +1 Card +1 Action now would be strong, since you could buy them for the next-turn effect (which is stronger than Caravan's) but still have the cantrip option to keep them from harming you if you drew them too early.  You might even be able to knock a card off of both options, which would still make it a useful tool for boosting the reliability of your engine (I'd buy it in most games), although I don't know if that would make it too weak compared to Gear (which admittedly is pretty strong, IMO).

22

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #168: Turkey Time

« on: November 11, 2022, 12:31:34 pm »

Does a live turkey count as food when its ability relates to Thanksgiving?

Way of the Turkey
Way - Liaison
+3 Favors
Each other player gets +1 Favor.
(This counts as playing a Liaison.)

EDIT:  While I was posting this, AJL828 posted a different turkey-based entry.  I guess that makes me the turkey. 

At least they have different names, so I think my entry is not disqualified by the existence of similarly-named entry (please let me know if this is not the case).

23

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 47: No Good Mutineering Scallywags!

« on: November 10, 2022, 01:08:58 am »

Press Gang
$3 Action
+5 Cards
+5 Mutineers

24

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Neat and potentially useful card interactions

« on: November 07, 2022, 06:59:52 pm »

For that matter, Trail + Way of the Butterfly lets you gain $5 cards as though they cost $4.  For example, you can use a Workshop variant to gain Trail, then use Trail's reaction to play it and apply Butterfly to return it for a Laboratory. 

This also applies to Trails gained by Way of the Butterfly itself, letting you "double-upgrade" $3 Action cards.  For example, you can play a Horse from your hand, apply Butterfly to return it and gain a Trail, play the Trail using its reaction, and apply Butterfly to return it and gain a Laboratory.

25

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Semi-Interesting Dominion Moments Thread

« on: November 04, 2022, 12:28:44 am »

Set a new personal best:

Not shown:  Way of the Ox (to make those terminals work), Toil (for Souk), and Ride(!)

In addition to being able to gain 30 18-point Horses a turn indefinitely, Tiara topdecked all of the Horses, making it easy to draw my deck.  There was some other support, too, like Pirate.

I'm a little disappointed that I was 1 point short of 2500.  I could have gotten more points if I'd spread out my Anvil gains instead of running down the Bounty Hunters, but it was late and I didn't want to drag it on unnecessarily (clicking Ride->Topdeck->Ride->Topdeck dozens of times takes a while).

The funny thing is, when my opponent was setting up this board, she said she wasn't going to give me any combos.  But we wanted to use the new cards, and she does like Horses...