Frontier Village
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pubby |  | A Village minus was a surprising take on this contest. Its cost of  allowing you to Improve, Develop, etc. it into a Province later on is clever. It also gives players an interesting dilemma; as a Village variant, it's a card that you naturally want a lot of, but the last one in your hand has to be played as a dead card if you want to be able to keep getting more of them. The cost-changing effect is brilliant. Unfortunately, I feel like it's too easy to get a lot of them with +Buys due to the price, and once the pile runs out it becomes better than a Village because you no longer need the price to be low, leaving you with no reason to not leave your Journey token face down, and it's much, much better with TFB. Plus, just making the last copy dead if and only if you want more of them is a pretty negligible drawback compared to the benefits anyway. |
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Astrolabe
Surveyor
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faust |   | Since Astrolabe is a Treasure card, you can just play any Treasures that you don't want to get discarded by Astrolabe first. This makes Astrolabe too easily make too much money for its "return to your Action phase" effect, IMO. It also has the issue of not checking if it's your Buy phase first; it's unclear what happens if you play it during your Action phase via cards like Black Market and Storyteller. While typing this, I also realized that since it doesn't take an Action to play, it's kind of like a Villa that more than makes up for its lack of +1 Buy by giving a much larger potential amount of money and being able to return you to your Action phase on play instead of on gain. Which is obviously broken, given how strong Villa already is.
Surveyor is also too strong. It obviously has a very strong interaction with Astrolabe, but if you keep your Journey token face up (which is easy since Astrolabe turns it over optionally and face up is the default state), Surveyor is at worst a non-terminal draw to 7 (which is a double Lab if played from a default handsize of 5 cards), and unlike other draw-to-X cards, acts as a cantrip even if you have more than X cards in hand. Like Astrolabe, it would be too powerful even by itself. |
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Cabal
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LibraryAdventurer |  | In a similar vein to pubby's Frontier Village, Cabal is a card that becomes terrible unless you play the last one in your turn as a dead card. Unlike its fellow conditional double Peddler Conspirator, Cabal is a card you want lots of (you don't want too many Conspirators lest they clog up your deck and prevent you from activating them), as that makes it easier to make sure your Journey token is face down at the end of your turn. For this reason, I think Cabal is too strong. Sure, the drawback that you incur if you don't play the last one in your turn as a dead card is nasty, but that doesn't make up for how monolithic it is (and its cousin, Conspirator, is about as far from monolithic as a double Peddler can get). I think the best strategy on any Cabal board would be to spam Cabals and play them as activated Consipirators as long as it isn't the last one in your hand (and then you play that one as the necessary dead card). |
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Sea Fog
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Mahowrath |  | Being able to block attacks for 2 turns is an interesting concept, but the rest of the card (a now and next-turn Watchtower) is kind of lame TBH. Although I can certainly understand why, since the 2 turn attack blocking effect already take a wall of text to explain. It also somewhat anti-synergizes with itself, as certain attacks (like Militia, for example) actually HELP draw-to-X. It's not bad, but there were more interesting submissions (and ones that have LESS text than Possession). |
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Homestead
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Fragasnap |  | A Village that can become an on-demand double Lab + Village, but you have to "waste"  in order to get the effect back. Even though that drawback seems similar to that of Wine Merchant on the surface, it's actually very different, and is what Wine Merchant could've been if it was more interesting. With Wine Merchant, you get the super strongness once per copy of Wine Merchant, and just have to pay once to get them all back; with Homestead, however, the ability is shared between all of your Homesteads. This is a genius example of how you can make a card that has a similar premise to an existing card or cards while simultaneously being nothing like that card. |
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Migrant Tribe
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MochaMoko |  | A card that is both a Forum that sometimes gives +1 Villager, and a Villager-generating Cantrip that sometimes gives the Forum effect. It's not a bad idea, but there were more interesting submissions, and it's also way too strong for its cost. I actually think Cantrip +1 Villager should cost  by itself, and this is strictly better than that. Here's why I think that:
Port is one of the best Villages in the game. Why? Because buying Port increases your Village density twice as fast as buying any other Village (except Border Village, but that costs  and probably has better uses). Having a Villager is like having a temporary Village in your deck that you can use at any time. Therefore, a Cantrip +1 Villager would be like increasing your Village density (albeit temporarily) every time it's played, but even better since those Villages can't miss. Plus, most Villages are cards you don't want to get immediately, whereas Cantrip +1 Villager is something you want ASAP, BEFORE you want Villages. Being able to open with Cantrip +1 Villager would very easily lead to degenerate games in which everything might as well be non-terminal. Cantrip +1 Villager also just isn't very interesting, and being sometimes a Forum doesn't change that that much.
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Curio Merchant
Automaton
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Erick648 |   | I think this is too much of a must buy, at any price. If you get Curio Merchants and your opponent doesn't, the game's already been decided. +Villagers are so much stronger than +Actions that the fact that you have to discard a card doesn't make up for that gap, and as a result, I'd say Automaton is arguably stronger than Champion (other than Champion's Attack immunity, of course), even ignoring the fact that you can start getting Coffers instead once you have enough Villagers. |
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Janus
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Carline |  | A choose one: Smithy or Village that is sometimes a Lost City. I think this would be too monolithic even without the ability to be a Lost City. Smithy variants and Villages are both cards that every engine wants, and this is both. Sure, there are several cards that are both Smithy variants and sources of +Buy (another pair of things every engine wants), but you usually don't really need a bunch of +Buys; you DO usually want a bunch of both Smithies and Villages, and this is whichever you want whenever you need it. Caring about Journey tokens other than your own is an interesting concept, but the execution needs some refining. |
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Snake Oil
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Xen3k |  | Using the Night phase to make it so that you can't reacquire the super-strong bonus and then immediately use it is a clever idea. It's kind of like a non-terminal Wine Merchant that requires to you to pass up specifically getting from playing a Snake Oil rather than just any . Unlike Wine Merchant, however, Snake Oil turns into a Silver instead of disappearing from your deck, and it doesn't have to take all-or-nothing; you can play a Snake Oil as a Silver even if the +1 Buy and additional + are prepped. So like Fragasnap's Homestead, Snake Oil is both similar to Wine Merchant and nothing like it. |
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Maudlin Witch
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Timinou |  | Since this junks you just as quickly as it junks your opponents (albeit with less bad junk), the best way to play this is probably to leave your Journey token face up and use it as a trasher until you run out of things to trash, at which point you start using is as a junker. I think this card is somehow both too weak and too strong, at the same time. It's too strong because it's both a junker and a trasher, which means that it can deal out junk and protect you against junk, but it's too weak because it guarantees that there's a way to defend against it. Yes, Young Witch obviously does this as well, but it's harder and less effective to defend against it, because you need two cards rather than just one to be on both the defensive and offensive. Plus, Young Witch's +2 Cards, discard two cards is a better effect than Maudlin Witch's +, gain a Copper. Sifting still helps you, whereas + gain a Copper hurts you in the long run. I don't think this card works at any price. Like Carline's Janus, it's a decent concept, but the execution needs work. |
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Village of the Dead
Pumpkin Patch
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Meta |   | Village of the Dead is a card that is either a Peddler or a Worker's Village, but you have to choose upon playing the first one each turn which one all of them are. I think it would be reasonably balanced even if it was a choose one between +1 Action and +1 Buy or + . But of course, if it did that, then it wouldn't need to use the Journey token, and wouldn't qualify for the contest.
Pumpkin is probably too strong for a card that you start with. Sure, Goat is also super-strong for an Heirloom, but it not only doesn't have such a good synergy with the card it comes with, but it also isn't good for the entire game and for every hand it shows up in.
Both of these cards are pretty bland, IMO. |
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Fortified Village
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scolapasta |  | A card that alternates between being a Village and a Lab, and can accelerate the pattern upon being attacked. It's probably a little weak in games with no Attacks, but then again, so is Moat. In games with Attacks, however, it's an extremely interesting card. It might make opponents think twice about playing Attacks, but without being overpowering, and it doesn't have the problem of being obvious when to use the Reaction like most official Reaction cards do. Fantastic job on this. |
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Homebody
Wandering Soul
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emtzalex |   | A big problem with non-terminal + is that it can easily lead to infinite games where all players just keep playing Homebodies to get + without ever bringing the game closer to its end. Official cards avoid this problem by either requiring bringing the game closer to its end (such as Bishop and Gardener), being terminal and thus hard to outpace someone who's bying Victory cards, or by being the second half of a pile and thus only being attainable once people have started being able to outpace it (Plunder). Homebody does none of the above.
Wandering Soul is a double Lab when your Journey token is face up. Since turning over your Journey token is optional for both of your cards, Wandering Soul is strictly better than a double Lab, for the same price as a Lab, in Kingdoms without other Journey token cards (and even then, you can keep Wandering Soul super overpowered by simply boycotting the other Journey token cards, which are super rare). In other words, this is way, way, way, way, way too busted. |
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Village Children
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D782802859 |  | Like Meta's Village of the Dead, Village Children has two effects you can choose between, but you don't get to make that choice for each individual play, only for each turn. However, unlike Village of the Dead, Village Children would be unbalancable if it was a simple choose one (it would be too strong for  , but definitely too weak for ), and the timing of when it allows you to turn your Journey token over doesn't allow for an informed decision; in fact, it's about as uninformed decision as it could possibly get. That said, I think it would be reasonable to make it so you make the choice of whether to turn over your Journey token on the first Village Children played each turn. That way, you get to make an informed decision, and it doesn't seem too strong that way. |
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Pilgrim
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fika monster |  | A potential double Lab that starts as a Smithy, and becomes a Ruined Village once after being played as a double Lab. Seems reasonable for . Using an on-gain effect to turn your Journey token over is an interesting fix to avoid being OP with other Journey token cards, even if it was silverspawn's idea. It's decent, but there were more creative entries. |
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Logging Camp (3+ players)
Logging Camp (2 players)
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spineflu |   | I don't think this is balancable at any price. If everybody's playing to maximize their own money gain, then the players who's turns are later are better off; player 1 plays it to turn over opponent's tokens, and gets money for their own token only, player 2 turns their token face up and gets money for their token and player 1's, player 3 does the same and gets money for their token and players 1 and 2's tokens, etc. Caring about other people's tokens is an interesting concept, but this execution needs a lot of tweaking, both to make turn order matter less and to make the 3+ player version scale less with more players (and more importantly, to avoid needing a separate 3+ player version to begin with). |
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Quay
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Aquila |  | The "otherwise, 0" wording is awkward. You could just have a parenthetical that says something like "this stays in play either way." Wording issues aside, by default, this is a Hunting Grounds that stays in play for 2 turns. Switch which side has which effect, and it would be reasonably balanced, but I think that a Hunting Grounds that stays out for 2 turns is already strong enough for . |
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Salesgirl
Spy
Assassin
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silverspawn |    | I like that unlike the official Travellers, there's actually a reason to want all three of these. Salesgirl makes Spy and Assassin more consistent, and Spy has a higher ceiling of self-benefit than Assassin does. That said, I think this is too swingy. The first player to get an Assassin can fairly easily prevent their opponent from ever getting their own Assassin; upgrading Spy has a condition other than just playing it, which can be prevented by discarding your opponent's Gold or by discarding the Spy itself. Sure, Warrior has the same problem with being able to trash opponent's Warriors, but hitting a single card is a lot harder than your opponent having a specific card in hand. And as long as you have both a Salesgirl and an Assassin in our deck, and don't draw the Salesgirl dead, you can make sure Assassin attacks every time it's played. |
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Young Rider
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Something_Smart |  | A Lab that becomes a one-shot unless the last one in your turn is played as a Copper. Since you can't make an informed decision, I think this is going to be weaker than Experiment most of the time (because Experiment comes with 2 at a time, and is cheaper). Most of the time, the only way you can safely play it as a Lab is if you have another one already in hand. The other entries that used the "the last of these you play this turn has to be bad, or else you get something REALLY bad" concept executed it better, IMO. |
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, you could spend 
