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426

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #115: Don't Count On It

« on: May 18, 2021, 01:04:32 am »

Stratagem
Night - Duration

Set aside an Action card from your hand. At the start of your next turn play it.
_______________________________________________________________
This is gained to your hand (instead of your discard pile).


My thoughts
- This is a really interesting challenging idea for the contest. When thinking through and refining cards, very often you might want to add vanilla bonuses or other tweaks which would not be permitted. This has evolved quite substantially from my original idea as a result. It has retained a common theme of being able to do something with unplayed action cards.
- This is a variation of Scheme that trades not playing an action card one turn for playing it without using up an action the next. It can still be used to bootstrap your turns but more careful deck planning might be required as the Stratagem and the action will be stop cards in your action phase.
- Where it offers more flexibility then Scheme is when action cards are unintentionally drawn dead. The gain clause allows for the possibility of tactically gaining it should cards have been drawn dead on that turn.

Looks like a Necro/Village and not a Scheme variant to me.
I think that it is weaker than Ghost Town. If you drew no Actions dead that you can set aside with this, you'd rather have the +1 Card of Ghost Town.

427

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One

« on: May 13, 2021, 12:54:28 am »

Design of that one got some tweaks from the good folks on the Discord:



So, which head will you choose? The one that's a super-Village? Or perhaps the Smithy head? Or why not the Peddler head, it's always been reliable in the past.
Careful though. When you cut a Hydra's head, 2 more pops in its place. A courageous Knight smiting the Hydra will only multiply it in your deck, for instance.

Not excited about the vanilla stuff but it is obvious very strong with Remodelers. I’d consider returning it to the Supply when it is trashed.

428

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One

« on: May 11, 2021, 03:00:29 pm »

I agree that it might be too weak for $3 but I don’t think that it is always or on average weaker than Hamlet. Discarding a card hurts in a lot of decks.

429

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Contest week 9: too COOL for school

« on: May 07, 2021, 12:05:20 pm »

Frozen Mine
Action - Reaction
You may trash a Treasure you have in play, or in your hand, to gain a Silver to your hand.
----
When you gain a card, you may play this from your hand to set that card aside with 4 Ice tokens on it.

A mini-Mine that has some utility. Early game it upgrades your Coppers to Silver, later it freezes Green and Junk to keep the deck clean. Probably not a card I would ever buy more than one of. Feedback is welcome.

This seems too cheap. It can mostly mimic the benefits of a mine while providing some benefit in the later game. Also, you probably don't need the in play clause because it's very rare to have treasures in play during action phase (mine just allows trashing from hand).

You do need the "in play" because of the reaction that lets you play it when you gain a card.

But I also agree that it's too cheap. I would think it needs to cost at least $4. Otherwise it's almost a no-brainer to open with 2 of them.

Mine would be weak at $4, and without the Reaction this is significantly weaker than Mine.
About the Reaction, being able to quais-Exile green you gain is pretty sweet in the endgame, but the ability to Mine Coppers into Silvers is largely irrelevant back then.

So I don't know how strong it is but it is definitely far below the power level of a $5. So it is a $2, $3 or a $4.

430

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Contest week 9: too COOL for school

« on: May 07, 2021, 03:45:39 am »

I like this version. The vanillas, Lost City with a Village on top look crazy at first but Archive is a DoubleLab and not overpowered due to the delay. Managing to draw into this during the very turn you discard it would be pretty sweet.
In general that is a nice feature of these cards, unlike Durations they get discarded at the start of the turn.

431

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Contest week 9: too COOL for school

« on: May 07, 2021, 01:31:42 am »

Frozen Village
Action
$5
Freeze this with 3 Ice tokens
-
When you remove an Ice token from this, +1 Action

Essentially a sort of quasi-Duration card using the Ice mechanic.  On the turn you play it, you get no benefit, but on the next 3 turns, you get a Village effect at the start of turn

This looks weaker and more expensive than Fishing Village.

Fishing Village only lasts one turn, though, and this lasts 3

This provides net +2 Actions, spread over 3-4 turns (depends on whether you draw into it the turn you discard it), whereas Fishing Village provides net +2 Actions +2 Coins, spread over 2 turns.

432

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Contest week 9: too COOL for school

« on: May 07, 2021, 01:15:39 am »

Frozen Village
Action
$5
Freeze this with 3 Ice tokens
-
When you remove an Ice token from this, +1 Action

Essentially a sort of quasi-Duration card using the Ice mechanic.  On the turn you play it, you get no benefit, but on the next 3 turns, you get a Village effect at the start of turn

This looks weaker and more expensive than Fishing Village.

433

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up!

« on: May 05, 2021, 03:04:40 pm »

What war? The situation you describe is not an equilibrium because all those Pirate Fleets make the players stop buying Silvers which makes the Pirate Ships glorified Ruined Villages.

All that Pirate Ship does is potentially hurt other players early on. Now this can be nasty, the attack is harsh as it trashes from your hand and yes, it can screw up your T4/T5 $5 purchase. But so what, you just buy another Silver!Those Pirate Ships achieve nothing for the active player. You are building up a common resource, once the mat is full of Silvers everybody can profit from it and buy cheap terminal Golds. And it takes forever until you pass the „terminal Gold“ threshold.

That is why I pointed out that you gotta think twice about the player scaling and/or the communal mat. The card is salvageable if you get rid of one or both (hard to say) elements.

434

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Contest week 9: too COOL for school

« on: May 05, 2021, 01:25:47 pm »

I agree that it's a weaker version of Exile and that a Necropolis that does this is weaker than bounty hunter and Sanctuary. But Bounty Hunter and Sanctuary are both very strong, so I think that's fine. You can have deck thinning that's much weaker than either of them without having something too weak to be playable. I tend to like weak trashers and junkers.

I think it is a $2 or $3. Take Raze, after the first shuffling, I’d rather lose that VP for some draw and sifting than not. Of in many other situations, your card is better than Raze as you always get an extra Action and can pseudoexile green. But I think this opening situation illustrates the serious weakness of a non-drawing card.
Plus, my hunch is that you might need two copies to keep the junk and green permafrozen.

435

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up!

« on: May 05, 2021, 01:20:07 pm »

Pirate Fleet
$3 - Action-Attack
Each other player trashes a Silver from their hand (or reveals a hand with none).
Choose one: +1 Action and add a token to the Fleet Mat; or +$ equal to the number of tokens on the Fleet Mat divided by the number of players (rounded down).

The type of token you use doesn't matter - it's just a tracking mechanism.  This card also requires a communal Fleet Mat.

But a Pirate Ship variant for $3?  And you can even build up its value and use the coins in a single turn without a Village!  It always has the option to increase value (rather than being dependent on trashing a Treasure from an opponent), and it can also trash Treasure from an opponent's hand.  That seems too good - what's the catch?

You're not just helping yourself - you're building up the Fleet Mat for everyone (similar to Trade Route).  And you can't trash an opponent's Gold, Platinum, or Kingdom Treasures - only Silver.  But using the coin option is terminal and you don't get +Buy, so you don't want to fill your deck with too many of them (but you also don't want your opponents getting too many of them).

So especially in 3+ player games, you will mostly want to skip Silver and find other ways to get up to $5 and $6 cards.  But you can't ignore the Pirate Fleet, or your opponents will be able to cash in.  Can you let them build it up, but then buy a few of the cards and cash in yourself later in the game when it's more valuable?  Timing is important.

This looks weaker than Pirate Ship due to the scaling:
Alice and Bob buy Silvers, Charlie buy Pirate Fleet. He trashes some Silvers, so Alice and Bob might have to rebuy (although Silver is most of the times just an early stepping stone for better stuff, so they might not care or even appreciate it). After he had trashed NINE Silvers, the card actually becomes worthwhile as a terminal Gold ... but then everybody can buy it!

This needs to get rid of either the scaling or the communal mat aspect to become worthwhile.

436

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Contest week 9: too COOL for school

« on: May 05, 2021, 07:34:36 am »

Btw, I quite like this mechanic. In fact, my expansion had something very similar but without using the mechanic. Unfortunately, the card kind of sucked and I eventually took it out. But I think the fault was not with the extended-discard idea but with the fact that the card was too weak and did nothing else. To improve on that, I made this one a sort of Village. On the one hand, it's a pretty shitty trasher, but on the other, having your +Actions and deck thinning on the same card should be quite nice.

This looks like a weaker version of Exile, or in other words, among all cards so far this ihre closest implementation of freeze to Exile. I think it is a bit too weak, a Necro that Exiles seems far worse than Sanctuary and Bounty Hunter and this card is nearly strictly worse than Exile.
One trick though is freezing Curses that you got early. With Exile they are forever in nirvana, here you might be able (it is not easy to pull off though) to freeze them and later trash them.

437

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Contest week 9: too COOL for school

« on: May 05, 2021, 06:36:35 am »

On the contrary, it is absolutely necessary as you can also freeze a card twice, thrice, four times and so on.

I don't really understand. Can you give a case where 'once' will make difference?

you can't freeze a card twice from your hand since it will not be in your hand anymore. Does it mean 'once' as in you can't freeze with two scouts?

„Freeze x y times“ is a compact wording I use and prefer to „put y Ice tokens on x“ or whatever.

The problem with the compact version of the wording is that it's ambiguous and goes against existing cards like King's Court... [do X] [three times] is already used to mean the same as [do X][do X][do X]. In this case, the "X" would be "freeze the card", which as far as I can tell from the original expansion is defined to mean "set it aside".

It could work fine if "freeze X" were defined to "if X is not set aside, set it aside. Either way, add 1 ice token to it". That definition could work fine, and in that case "freeze X three times" would have the same effect as "freeze X with 3 ice counters on it". But as it is, "freeze X three times" seems to mean something different than the normal "do X three times" means.

„Freeze card x y times“ means literally the same as „put y Ice tokens on card x“. It is a crystal clear wording and has nothing to do with KC. That card says „play an Action card three times“.

It is basically the same as +x Coffers vs. take x Coin tokens. Both wordings are fine and unambiguous but one is shorter.

438

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Contest week 9: too COOL for school

« on: May 04, 2021, 11:46:25 am »

On the contrary, it is absolutely necessary as you can also freeze a card twice, thrice, four times and so on.

I don't really understand. Can you give a case where 'once' will make difference?

you can't freeze a card twice from your hand since it will not be in your hand anymore. Does it mean 'once' as in you can't freeze with two scouts?

„Freeze x y times“ is a compact wording I use and prefer to „put y Ice tokens on x“ or whatever.

439

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Contest week 9: too COOL for school

« on: May 04, 2021, 10:19:58 am »

On the contrary, it is absolutely necessary as you can also freeze a card twice, thrice, four times and so on.

440

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up!

« on: May 04, 2021, 06:58:40 am »

I think that this card is too automatic. Sure, at first it is worse than Candlestick Maker and costs more but worse case is that you gotta play it 4 times before you get at a MonsterTreasure. If somebody competes, you only gotta play it once or twice.
Gold gainers aren't brilliant, but a MonsterTreasure gainer at $3 is pretty sweet. And then in the endgame you even get some moderate pile control on top.

The Old Sapphire pile will burn out quickly anyway, so I'd simply leave it at +2 Coffers. That is already $5-$6 level strong, no need to make the card universal (Buys, Coffers, any deck wants 2 or 3 of those).

441

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Contest week 9: too COOL for school

« on: May 04, 2021, 06:51:47 am »

Winter is coming. It is like Stables, but you gotta discard the good stuff and the good stuff cannot be redrawn this turn (this includes Clean-up and thus your next hand).

442

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up!

« on: May 02, 2021, 03:46:25 am »

This looks extremely weak. The time in which no Supply piles are empty is usually longer than the time in which 2 or more piles are empty. So this is a terminal trasher for a long time. We know from Trading Route how bad that is.

443

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up!

« on: May 01, 2021, 12:08:34 pm »

I love this card but it is significantly stronger in 2P than in 3P.

444

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: More Dominon Fan Card Ideas

« on: May 01, 2021, 09:30:45 am »

Kingdoms in which TR variants, Herald, Scrying Pool, Golem, Ghost or any of the other cards that want you to have Actions appear, plus the Kingdoms in which you have an ordinary engine are a zillion times more likely than the Village/Smithy semi draw engine semi BM you describe. More often than not, there are some nice terminals you want to throw into the mix. In other words, your situation is quite artifical. Smithy BM or ordinary engine is more infinitely more likely than Village/Smithy but no other terminals.

While it is beyond crystal clear to me that the card is weaker than Bazaar, I nonetheless think that adding a Key to the City as assisting splitter that can increase consistency is worthwhile.

445

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up!

« on: May 01, 2021, 01:21:25 am »

Barter Town - $5
Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Trash a card from your hand to pick a type it has. For each differently named card of that type in the trash, +1 Card. Then, discard that many cards.

Junk Dealer variant. Can act as a super sifter if the trash is set up properly. Everyone with a Barter Town benefits from a full trash. Feedback appreciated.

Edit: Thinking of giving it a +Buy, because it feels like it may need it. Not sure.

This is a cantrip trasher with a Fugitive on top (and the potential to be stronger, Forum or more). Fugitive is stronger than Junk Dealer‘s Peddler, although the relative value of sifting as opposed to economy decreases with good trashing in the Kingdom.
So I think it is fine.

446

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up!

« on: May 01, 2021, 01:08:14 am »

So you point is that the card is strong at its price if no pile ever empties (except for the last turn). I think that is ridiculous, it is an obvious $2 power-wise. If you go heavy on the Improve option, you limit the supposed late game craziness of the card as you just got rid of it.

447

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: More Dominon Fan Card Ideas

« on: May 01, 2021, 12:57:58 am »

Although I like the flavour of it, Key to the City looks nearly strictly worse than Bazaar.
Booming Town feels like an official card. Sure, it does not reinvent the wheel but which village actually can nowadays?

Key to the city can't be drawn dead. Bazaar can.

That's a pretty small benefit considering that Key to the City is a Peddler instead of a Peddler + Village for the same cost. Not to mention that its "+1 Action" effect is worse than an actual +1 Action, since it doesn't let you continue your Action phase.

Well, vanilla-wise it is a Bazaar as you don’t need an Action to play the card itself. But the Candlestick Maker - Ducat debate illustrated that, all other things being equal, an Action is preferable to a Treasure.

I don’t think that the Villa style effect that mathdude pointed out, i.e. the card allowing you to flip from 0 Actions back to 1, compensates for the general weaknesses of Actions relative to Tressures.

448

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up!

« on: April 30, 2021, 02:37:47 pm »

Does this count as fitting this weeks challenge?

Decision making concerning Projects revolves around IF and WHEN to buy it. Stuff with green like Road Network and Crop Rotation has the focus on when, timing is tricky with those.
Your card makes the timing utterly trivial. You will never buy it early (which can make sense with the two aforementioned Projects) and always (it is a more flexible, automatic Prince and usually stronger than Citadel) buy it when one pile is empty respectively about to empty.

How is edit 2?

I really liked the second version. Sure, in some Kingdoms Buys are easy to come by early and at 5/2 without any decent 2 this is also automatic. But more often than not, it provides agonizing decisions.

Version 2 is miles better than the current/original version which flips from worthless to stronger than the most powerful official Project once a pile empties. That is simply too much of a power shift. No other official card does this. With Prince or Citadel you gotta think, they are not automatic and I guess everybody here bought them when it was wrong (Prince is trickier than Citadel). This is not the case with your card, it is so powerful that you absolutely have to buy the Project once a pile is empty (unless it is really later in the game and Duchy or an $6 Alt-VP is superior).

449

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: More Dominon Fan Card Ideas

« on: April 30, 2021, 02:29:43 pm »

Although I like the flavour of it, Key to the City looks nearly strictly worse than Bazaar.
Booming Town feels like an official card. Sure, it does not reinvent the wheel but which village actually can nowadays?

450

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up!

« on: April 30, 2021, 07:00:29 am »

Does this count as fitting this weeks challenge?

Decision making concerning Projects revolves around IF and WHEN to buy it. Stuff with green like Road Network and Crop Rotation has the focus on when, timing is tricky with those.
Your card makes the timing utterly trivial. You will never buy it early (which can make sense with the two aforementioned Projects) and always (it is a more flexible, automatic Prince and usually stronger than Citadel) buy it when one pile is empty respectively about to empty.