Contest 73: Mancap Redux JudgingRuffians & Guard Tower by [TP] InfernoSo Ruffians is kind of a mini-Knight combined with a weak discard attack. Urchin shows us that discard-down-to-4 is very rarely relevant, and War not usually being that bad shows us that the main strengths of Knights is in hitting $5's and $6's. I probably wouldn't go out of my way to add a Ruffians to my deck unless I needed the +Buy.
Guard Tower, on the other hand, is a pretty strong card on its own and is a pretty underwhelming counter to most attacks. Contrasted with Beggar, Diplomat, and Horse Traders, this reaction is pretty much objectively bad in a vacuum. It's only good against attacks that care about the top of your deck, but even with those, it isn't great-- it doesn't stop Fortune Teller or Scrying Pool from hurting, it can neutralize Swindler but that's it, it can lower your chance of getting hit by a Knight or a Cardinal (or a Ruffians). I'm not sure I'd even care about the Ruffians attack enough to get a Guard Tower if these two cards popped up together, unless I wanted it for the DtX (and I might, because that part of it is cool).
Golden Ages & Dark Ages by majiponiHey, wait, you can't have a card and an expansion with the same name, that's illega-- oh, right. What a weird combo. The Golden Ages rush to me seems really good-- rush out all the Golden Ages, then use Dark Ages to stuff all the treasures you can on your Exile mat. This seems to be the only strat with a chance of succeeding on board where there are no non-treasure payloads. If there are non-treasure payloads, well, it's likely that this pile gets mostly ignored if nobody is going for it and then Dark Ages never triggers. But it's a really cool and creative synergy nonetheless.
Instruct & Quicksilver by AquilaInstruct is a pretty cool idea. It seems even worse than Pawn in terms of analysis paralysis; I'm sitting here scratching my head thinking of all the different use cases for it. Quicksilver seems really good for a $4-- it's basically a Silver+ under most circumstances and there's some good reasoning about why those should always cost at least $5. Especially since it's reusable with gainers and Instruct specifically allows you to use it twice in one turn, Quicksilver has a very strong synergy with pretty much every gainer, and an insane synergy with Instruct. The combo would be fun to play for sure, though there might be a lot of calculation required.
Porter & Athenaeum by spinefluBoth of these seem pretty unimpressive on their own. Porter is barely a Woodcutter and while you could probably set up a Porter megaturn the same as you could with Bridge, it just doesn't seem worth the effort (unless there are things that give VP's for filling your deck with actions, like Vineyard or Triumphal Arch). Athenaeum is very unlikely to be better than Embassy, but hey, it's DtX, we like DtX. (I like DtX anyway.) Together they're... slightly less unimpressive? Porter is a village or a lab when discarded. Not bad, but nothing to write home about. I think Village Green probably does what Porter does better.
Tribal Village & Stud Farm by faustTribal Village is cool! This is a cool card. It's like Snowy Village but for money. First one's a Gold + Village, the rest are necropolises or worse. Unless you have some way to lower your $ during the turn-- Black Market, Storyteller, Villa, Cavalry... or Stud Farm. But Stud Farm feels pretty weak; when it works out, it's kinda like Storyteller, but terminal, but you can't even play treasures so you might not be able to do anything with it at all. And if you have a deck that can make use of the +2 Buys, you probably don't need the horses to draw consistently (and you'd rather have the money). Putting it all together, this combo would be fun to play, but it would be hard because the two cards don't draw at all until you collide them, but if you add too much external draw then Stud Farm's horses aren't really doing anything for you.
Gaoler & Gold Mine by GazbagThe biggest downside of Gaoler is that you're gonna be forced to put bad cards from Exile into your hand a lot. On its own it strikes me as a Trade Route type, "if this is the only thinning I GUESS I'll take it" kind of card. It's very hard to use for tucking away green cards once you have deck control-- even harder than Native Village-- because you can't make any progress unless you can discard at least three cards for it to exile. Gold Mine does solve the main problem, for sure. This combo will very quickly swap out your bad cards for Golds-- that seems like a money deck that's pretty hard to beat. Although, the question is, is this that much better than just big money with Gold Mine + some other thinner? My intuition says it's not that different, because in big money you are buying Gold a lot anyway. Gold Mine is gonna be a very fast money card in any event, especially since you can open with it and by the time you can afford a Gold you'll probably have all the Golds you need in Exile.
Fertile Village & Midwife by grrgrrgrrFertile Village is pretty unimpressive, but it's a Village+ for $4. Sometimes you buy Village Green or Fortress when you can't trigger them, because a village for $4 is still worthwhile. You can maybe use it to grab a few extra copies of itself by the time you have overdraw.
Midwife, on the other hand, is even worse when you can't trigger it. Sometimes you take the Smithy+ for $5 when you need the draw, but you're really not going to be happy about it. On the other hand, with pretty much any trigger at all, this becomes +4 Cards +1 Action which is mega nuts. I guess the Fortress comparison is apt-- either you can't trigger it and it's meh, or you can, and triggering it is probably gonna be centralizing. The synergy between the two cards is there, though I think Midwife synergizes more with non-terminal discarders like Artificer and Mill, because then the fact that revealing it is nonterminal matters more.
Recycle & Goblet by mandioca15Both of these are kinda nuts. Recycle is a trasher with Recruiter/Sentry levels of unskippableness, and you can keep it as a powerful DtX if you can't feed it, or you can just toss it out once you've thinned. Goblet is just insane with pretty much any trasher. It's reminiscent of HoP; it can gain copies of itself, but it's a LOT easier to trigger a megaturn-- rather than having 8 unique cards in play, you just need to trash a $5 and with enough Goblets in hand you can empty the Provinces. These cards do work well together, insomuch as they are both extremely powerful.
Schoolteacher & Dullahan by D782802859Schoolteacher's pretty cool. A terminal silver for $2 means that even if it doesn't happen to hit it still helps. The Victory effect is by far the strongest, the Action one is okay if you desperately need a village, and the Treasure one will almost never be useful. Dullahan, aside from having accountability issues (you can't look through your discard), is incredibly swingy, and is certainly worth buying on a board where you can't draw deck without it, but the game will probably be determined by whoever draws their Dullahans at the bottom of the shuffle more often. Schoolteacher does definitely help it, especially if you're trying for a megaturn, so that interaction is pretty cool.
Assembly Shop & Monk's Village by artlessAside from certain boards where consistently hitting $5 is important (Duke comes to mind, but Minion as well, especially because Minion is DtX that likes discard-for-benefit), this feels very slow-- if you can draw enough of your deck to make the discarding possible, then it might be equivalent to adding like an Artisan or a HoP, but you can only get one, and you have to spike all the way up to $7. Monk's Village is a cool concept, rewarding you for emptying your hand, but I don't know how good this synergy even is. If you use Assembly Shop in the Action phase, Monk's Village will draw you a card before Assembly Shop gains you one, so you can't even predict it, and you've basically given up your turn anyway so the card you draw probably won't matter. In the Buy phase, it's a little better, but you're unlikely to have enough cards to discard there.
Comptroller & Market Day by FragasnapComptroller reads as pretty unlikely to trigger. Even if it comes up with an Event, most Events aren't ones you want to buy a lot, especially late in the game. And if you have a big enough deck to want +Buy, you probably have enough deck control that its reserve nature doesn't help THAT much. (Or you're in a Gardens rush, and you don't care when the +Buys come because they're going to be Coppers anyway.) Market Day is really good, though not really game-warping, on boards where +Buy is plentiful (Worker's Village, Margrave, Spices, etc.). Which I guess is the case for Comptroller, but it doesn't have to be. If Comptroller isn't worth getting because you can't build to where the +Buys matter, Market Day probably isn't going to change that.
Privatize & Customs House by LordBaphometPrivatize doesn't do anything without Villagers/Coffers already in the game; this is a problem. It's not unfixable, but a fix would be awkward (a setup line saying to include a Villager or Coffer card, maybe, but that would make the text smaller than it already is). As for a viable source of alt-VP, well it probably isn't? Sure in Masterpiece/Guildhall or Merchant Guild madness, but the majority of the time it's too slow. And converting your villagers to coffers means that you can't even rely on villagers for deck control. Customs House is a Silver with extra steps, as each coffer that goes on due to it probably comes off when one is in play and grants a villager and a coin. It's kinda cool. The synergy lets you bounce them around forever, which is also cool, but Privatize is just so unlikely to be useful at all in a random kingdom.
Ledger & Favorite by grepLedger's neat, it scales similar to Courtier based on the number of different types available. There's probably some silliness with Bonfire? There's also silliness with gain moving (Watchtower, Royal Seal, etc.) because I think as written if Ledger loses track of itself it can still be played (similar to how Vassal/Faithful Hound can set aside the Hound and still play it), and then it can be looped. That's a bit of a problem, and I would probably rather word Ledger like Outpost where "if you haven't yet played a Ledger this turn." Favorite's a card with a lot of types, that's cool. Cantrip receive a Boon is probably balanced/on the weak side at $5, but it also slows the game down a ton. This one's probably even worse in terms of game enjoyability? But it seems pretty balanced; you lose some of the power for the flexibility. The synergy is great and makes a deck that would be very powerful and also interesting to play. Until you have six Favorites and are flipping over the Boon and Hex piles every two turns... maybe Favorite would also want to have a "if this is the first time you played a Favorite this turn" clause. There's a reason Donald X. didn't do cantrip Boons, aside from Pixie which is one-shot.
House & Merchandise by X-traHouse is cool, a weak village with some payload built in. Sometimes you'd take a necropolis, and you're happy to have one that also gives some cash. Merchandise is really abusable. Anything that lets you load up on a cantrip is gonna make this explode and fast. House is almost certainly not the best target for it-- pretty much any cantrip is better-- but the synergy is there because both cards want you to have a lot of cards in play, and Merchandise does need a village. But it would prefer a drawing village, for sure, so that synergy is pretty weak.
Small Market & Innkeeper by RhodosSmall Market is fine. It's a Moat with a buy, sometimes you'd pay $2 for that. (Sometimes I pay $2 for a Moat on a board with no attacks.) The reaction is a nice boost that's distinct from the other on-discard reactions. Innkeeper is cool but it seems like more trouble than it's worth to get and hold onto Accommodations, though I will admit that it synergizes with Small Market nicely-- Small Market's reaction lets you keep up a steady supply of Innkeepers to continue to add Accommodations. Accommodation requires a very high action density to be that useful, but even when it's one-shot, it is two horses, so maybe it's worth going for. But it's gonna get pretty awkward when you run out of Estates and each Innkeeper is one-shot.
Deacon & Knave by alion8meDeacon is a Sauna variant, not contingent on any other card, but it can only trash cards that are played. It's basically a Junk Dealer on trashing a Copper, but in return it can't get rid of Estates or Curses. Seems all right. Knave is a pretty weak attack, it doesn't really seem worthwhile unless you can trigger its on-trash. Oh well. Deacon makes it easier to trash, though it would be cooler if Knave's on-play attack would synergize with its on-trash attack so that it meant more that you would get them both in the same turn. Knave will probably be most useful in a rush similar to IGG-- you don't have to hit $5 this way, but you do have to line up the Knave with the trasher. Also pretty good with Lurker.
Cargo Vessel & Port Market by CarlineCargo Vessel is essentially a Lost City. That's very good. The fact that its first draw doesn't come until next turn slows it down a bit, but it's made up for by the fact that you get to pick what the card will be. I expect this pile to disappear rapidly in every game it's in. Is that fun? Maybe, but there's really no downside to stuffing your deck full of these. You get actions, draw, reliability, basically an engine handed to you. As for Port Market, it's a neat Peddler variant with an extra once-per-turn bonus unless you can evade the bonus by removing it from play. Seems reasonably strong, you certainly want one, and the synergy with Cargo Vessel is definitely there, though I think the overpowering strength of Cargo Vessel mostly overshadows it.
Mouse & Cat by somekindoftonyA Mouse that eats your Coppers and gives extra actions, and a Cat that eats cards costing $2 of which Mouse is one. Cute! Your fear is justified, though-- Cat is very good. Probably better than Apprentice, at least in the early game. Mouse does give it a small boost, but you almost certainly can't skip it anyway. Mouse is good when there is strong terminal draw; I'd be fine swapping my coppers all for necropolises as long as I had the draw to back it up. The synergy works similarly to Rats, because Cat likes to have $2's rather than $0's and Mouse turns all your $0's into $2's. Cat is already very strong and this makes is that much stronger.
Turtle & Road by mad4mathSo Turtle is just as many +Actions as you can muster. Seems pretty reasonable, albeit obviously very good with strong draw, similar to Coin of the Realm. Road is very annoying to work with, and it's good with other cost reducers and other +Buy. I agree with people saying the +$5 is too strong; it gives you way too much flexibility as a payload. As for the synergy, I guess the idea is that you draw enough to get four Roads in hand, then buy a Turtle and win next turn a la KC/KC/Bridge/Bridge/Bridge. Like KC and Bridge, it's pretty swingy depending on who manages to collide the right cards at the right time first. But they are pretty creative cards, with a pretty creative synergy.
Winner: Mouse & Cat by somekindoftony
Runner-up: Schoolteacher & Dullahan by D782802859
