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276

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: December 22, 2019, 06:26:56 pm »

Wanted something heavy on theme? Here we go!

Christmas - Event $4
Choose to gain a Grinch; or both a Gift and a card costing up to $4. Each other player that has Naughty gains a Lump of Coal; if they don't have Naughty, they gain a Gift.

An event that acts like a sort of messenger if everyone plays nice, but ends up attacking everyone if they are Naughty. How do you get Naughty?

Naughty - State
When you play an Attack card, take Naughty.

Ah, so you get Naughty by being Naughty. Seems thematic.

So that explains that. But what a Lump of Coal vs a Gift? And what's a Grinch? A Grinch is a laboratory attack (that's where Naughty comes into play). And a Lump of Coal is a better Confusion and a Gift is a weak wish.

      

Gift - Action - $4*
+1 Action

Return this to the Gift pile, if you did, gain a card costing up to $4.

(This is not in the Supply.)

Lump of Coal - Action - $0*
Return this to the Lump of Coal pile.

(This is not in the Supply.)

Grinch - Action Attack - $6*
+2 Cards
+1 Action
Each other player with at least 5 cards in hand discards a Gift or reveals a hand with no Gifts. Then, each other player discards down to 4 cards in hand.
(This is not in the Supply.)

(There are 10 copies of each of these. Seems about right. Sometimes you will run out of gifts to give.)

So yeah, you buy Christmas and everyone gets presents, and hey you get one two, and also get to open one immediately! Or you could get a grinch to take away people's presents. Grinch is a powerful card in that Laboratory is a powerful card. The attack is annoying but amounts to a slightly stronger urchin overall, so not terribly painful. Plus, normally you can only be hit once by it. Of course, playing a Grinch opens you up to other people attacking you by buying Christmases. It's worth noting that giving the other players Gifts is nice, but they have to wait to play the card and then another shuffle to use the card they exchanged the Gift for. So, it is slightly weaker of a boon to your opponents then it may seem. And you, if you're naughty, you don't mind giving them gifts because you can force them to discard them with your Grinches and never even be able to open the Gifts. Now that isn't the Christmas spirit!

So, at first buying Christmas does something positive for the other players. If they stay nice, it keeps doing something positive. But if they get Naughty, then it no longer does. Okay, those are my cards! Always open to feedback.

277

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: December 13, 2019, 04:07:43 pm »

Challenge 54 - The Sweetest Sound
"A person's name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language." – Dale Carnegie

Your challenge is to create a card or card-shaped thing that refers to copies of itself by name.

I thought there were some really wonderful submissions this time. Broadly people went two directions -- cards that work better with more copies of themselves, and cards that work worse with more copies of themselves. There was a lot of fun play with how or when to gain, and also when the copies go away. Overall, I think that of the contests I've judged, these were some of the highest quality submissions over all. Very nice, simple, focused cards!

Reviews of the cards

Refugee Camp by forkofnature

Refugee Camp, Action, $2
+1 Card
+2 Actions
Discard a card.
-
In games using this, when you buy a more expensive card, you may gain a Refugee Camp.

This is sort of like the reverse Border Village! Neat! Don't be fooled, this is much more powerful than necropolis. The main draw back of villages that decrease your hand-size is that you lose a change to draw your drawing cards. Refugee camp at the least sifts, so it gives you a second chance that the card you need is on the top of your deck.
I think this card only costs 2 because it cant cost 3. Strength-wise it is priced closer to what it should be at $3 -- except for the fact that no one ever buys this card, they buy a $3 or more card, and a Refugee camp comes along! So the price is actually perfect, since you end up having to pay $3 or more for it. Nice work!
Normally, the interesting decision about villages is when to sacrifice a buy for them. Beginners buy them too early and too often. But not using your buys on them can end up losing the game if the split goes 3-7 the other way in a strong-engine game. Refugee Camp makes a different decision, it's when you gain them. And you don't have to lose a buy on it, so it's less of a tactical decision. Plus, you don't have to slow down to gain them back and not lose the split too badly. I think that games with Refugee Camp vs games with Village, games with Refugee Camp are just a little simpler tactically. I wonder if you could add some sort on-play affect that makes them more complicated? Or not, some cards need to be simple.

Honestly, I think this is a very cool and unexplored space. Nice work!
This is in the top 5

Raven by Aquila

Raven - Action Reserve, $3 cost.
+1 Card
+1 Action
You may discard a Treasure to gain a Raven. Put this on your Tavern mat.
-
When you gain a Province, you may discard this from your Tavern mat. If you do, each other player gains a Curse.

I am very glad to see Raven make a return! It was originally submitted for a contest I judged and I said this:

I really love the concept here, and I hope you iterate on it and figure out a way to make Raven's self-gaining.

. I do think overall this is an even better submission this time around-- in particular the forcing you to discard a treasure to gain a Raven is very interesting. However, there is one way that this card is not "aligned it is with Dominion precedents" (one of the judging criteria). Donald X has gone on to record to say how divisive attack cards that do not benefit the player playing them are, and has thus avoided them since seaside (even skulk comes with a +buy and a gold). Raven goes further by actually having a clause to hurt the player of the card. I think this is too far this direction. You don't have to remove the discard mechanic, but I think that there's a couple of things you could do here. Perhaps add an on buy mechanic (perhaps overpay) that makes the purchase of a Raven benefit the player. Perhaps Ravens on play could benefit you if you discard a Raven. Something like "you may discard a card. If it's a treasure, gain a Raven. If it's a Raven, +2$" Which effectively turns your second Raven into a Silver. Of course to make this tenable, you'd have to make the Tavern'ing optional as well. You can also remove the can-tripness and give it a static bonus, which might be interesting but it does veer away from rats/magpie cantrip self-gainers a bit.

I do love this card a lot, and I think it poses a ton of interesting decisions. If my opponent is stocking up on Ravens, can I build up a way to quickly empty duchies and ignore provinces? Is it worth sacrificing $ here to gain another Raven? I was really glad to see this come back!

Hoist by spineflu

Hoist • $5 • Action - Reaction
+1 Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Put any revealed Hoists into your hand. You may discard any of the other revealed cards, then put the rest back in any order.
-
At the start of Clean-up, you may reveal and discard this from your hand for +1 Card when drawing a new hand.

Wow. Every Hoist you don't play is sort of like top-decking an experiment next turn. It's also nice because next turn you have a bigger hand and in those bigger hands, your more likely to have other draw cards that the hoists will be nice sifters for! Really interesting decision -- do I play all my hoists? Or Do I keep them for a bigger hand next round? I have two hoists in my hand. Do I play them hoping to draw more, or do I keep them in hand. Keeping them in hand isn't free, of course. You sacrificed a card this hand for them.I can see in certain decks they function a bit like weak Den of Sins. If you have a 20 card deck with 5 cantrips and 5 Hoists, then each turn you likely see all 20 cards and keep the 5 Hoists in hand for next turn starting with 10 to draw the last 10 cards, rinse and repeat. I am a sucker for sifters like this. It is very strong but not too strong. I actually think this is an improved Cartographer. It's more interesting in every way. It will, just like Cartographer, be slow, but I think it's worth it.
Really nice work!
This is in the top 5

Rabbit by grep

Rabbit - $3 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
If you have an even number of Rabbits in play, +$1 and gain a Rabbit.

I think the best part of design here is the "even number" gaining. Without command cards, this means you need to spend at least two gains on a Rabbit before they start multiplying. If you did it on odd it would be probably two strong and multiple too fast. (and of course, thematically this is hilarious and fun). However; by also putting the +1$ on the even event, the card is weakened substantially. I wonder if the money bonus could happen with odd numbers? It would be a lot stronger. Right now, even if I buy 2, I have to wait for them to line up, just to get a half-merchant. When I do line them up, I gain a 3rd one which helps me, but still I only have the equivalence of 1 merchant in my deck. Even if I manage to get all 10, I spent most of the game with them not lining up, and only by the end of the game am I getting the equivalent of $5. I would bet that player who buys 2 early Rabbits is significantly worse off than a player who buys 2 early merchants. I don't think the price difference of $1 is enough here. It just isn't strong enough to be worthwhile. Of course there are some unusual situations. Command cards let you play them with 0 in play which is nice. I think this card could be better by putting the $ bonus on odd Rabbits. You might even be able to price it $4 at that point.

I also wanted to point out that Rabbits was the name of a runner-up. I don't know if you saw my post earlier in this thread, but it is. I think we should try to avoid duplicate names in this thread if we can.

Loner by NoMoreFun

Loner
Action - $4
+2 Cards
+1 Action
This turn, at the start of Clean-up, if you have exactly one Loner in play, gain a Loner. Otherwise, return all Loners in play to the supply.

Yes, yes, very nice. This is a card that very elegantly refers to itself, both for gaining, and for anti-synergy. Well-done! I'm pretty sad buying an experiment for $4, so you have to be careful about playing your last Loner. Strategically, you probably want to count to make sure you always have at least 1 left in your deck. So perhaps you play all but 1 in your hand. But maybe the next two cards in your deck can dramatically change this turn!! These are interesting and complicated decisions. I'm a sucker for cheaper-lab alternatives. This is a very good one.
This is in the top 5

Censure by Fragasnap

Censure
Types: Action
Cost: $3
+1 Card, +1 Action. The player to your left may reveal a Censure or Province from their hand. If they don't, +1 Card and then discard a card.

I think that I'm fine ignoring Censure in most games. I probably only pick it up when I have $3 and don't want any other card. Which, you know, some cards have to be a Pearl Diver, but they are less interesting cards. Even less interesting it encourages opponents to pick up further Censures. I think the concept of "your opponent may block with a copy of this card" is really really interesting, and I'd be curious to see where you could go with it. It just doesn't work so strongly for me on this Fugitive-like card. Personal opinion, you know.

Storeroom by [TP] Inferno

Storeroom
$2
Action
+1 Action
Gain a Storeroom. Do this twice: +2 Cards, then discard 2 cards.

Storeroom is already the name of a Dominion card. You should rename this. This card is also a sifter, with the interesting complication of having it gain more of itself. Sifters are good when you have a few good cards to get to, but more sifters mean you have to sift through the sifters themselves in order to get to the good card. So it hurts itself in an interesting way. Nice! The sifting is a little powerful and slow, in a bad way. Ever throne room a cellar? So much AP. This card gives you AP on a single play. I think if you made it +1 card, Discard a card, +3 cards, discard 3 cards, it wouldn't cause as much AP, since the first discard should be easy. I think you can make this card stronger because the real cost of this card is buying it too-early. So people are likely to buy it late, which means costing it low isn't as consequential, so you could investigate a way to make this stronger on play to also make it more captivating. I'm a sucker for sifters, but I could only pick this up late, and sifters are most valuable with asymmetric decks but later in the game your deck is more symmetrical. Not that all cards need to be valuable turn 1! But sifters as a concept want to be valuable turn 1.
Certainly you made an interesting card that generated a lot of discussion.


Jedi by majiponi

Jedi
cost $3 - Action - Attack
+1 Action
Each other player reveals their hand.
Choose one: Draw until you have 6 cards in hand; or each other player discards their hand and draws 5 cards.
---
When another player plays a Jedi, you may reveal this from your hand, to be unaffected by that Jedi.

This card is slow (since you have to look at all the cards potentially multiple times) and you make a decision each time, and it's non-terminal. Donald X learned that spy was bad for this reason. This is also political. You see everyone's hand and then you choose your action. If I play with Ali and Briggs, and Briggs has a bunch of bad cards in their hand, and Ali has a bunch of good cards in their hand, what i choose to do is political. And Dominion is meant to be not political. Notice how Minion doesn't let you see your opponent's cards before making the choice. The one part of design that is very good is that this card lowers your hand count, which incentivizes you to draw back up to 6. However, that ability is strong enough (first play is a lab), that I don't think $3 is the right cost for this.


Bivouac by Kudasai

Bivouac - Action - $5
+1 Action
+$2
You may play a Bivouac from your hand. At the start of Clean-up this turn, if you have 3 or more Bivouacs in play, discard them all. Otherwise, put them all onto your deck.

I think you have over-estimated the value of being able to top-deck your Bivouacs. Starting with two Bivouacs is basically like you starting your turn with a Silver and a Festival that doesn't have a +buy. Not that inspiring of a start. Plus, if you use these in an engine, you have a lot more than 2 in play so you don't even get the benefit. They start to look even more like really sad Festivals. Villages are meant for engines, and therefore villages that don't draw really need strong bonuses to make them compelling in engines, especially ones costing $5. +2$ isn't nearly as helpful to an engine as the +buy does for festival, and again, the top-deck isn't so strong. Fishing Village doesn't decrease your hand-size next turn, and it gives you money too the next turn, and it's appropriately cheap--making it a strong engine enabler. If your village doesn't enable engines, it isn't doing it's job as a village. I think you could potentially weaken this and cost it $4. Perhaps allowing you to choose to reveal a Bivouac from your hand to either play it, gain $, or gain a buy. If you keep the +2$ and non-terminality then this still costs $5.


Millstone by Something_Smart

Millstone
$4 - Treasure
$1
Choose one: return this to the Supply for +$2, or gain a Millstone.

Cats by Gazbag

Cats
$4 Action
+2 Cards
Choose one: Gain a Cats; or +1 Action and return this to the Supply.

I'm actually going to talk about these cards together because, well they both break down to the same, very interesting concept:

Get a mild bonus and choose to either return this to the supply for a stronger bonus; or gain another copy of this card

I love this concept, I think it makes really interesting decisions--do you make this turn weaker (both cards offer a pathetic $0 or $1 card costing bonus if you choose to gain another) to make other turns better? And when is the right time to gain the strong bonus? Plus when you gain the strong bonus, you lose the card itself, how humiliating! I love these decisions--very interesting and complicated. Nice work.

Millstone: Ultimately, in the beginning of the game copper is actually not that horrible, so it probably doesn't hurt to use it, but you gained this at the expense of a silver. Pretty strong drawback. And spiking up to use the $3 early isn't as strong as it seems. $4 for a spoils is about right, but it's not fun to buy a $4 cost just to buy a $5 later with it. It's like a feast in a sense, though non-terminal. I'm thinking you could probably have it self-trash for a +buy to make it a little more fun to get the stronger benefit from.

Cats: This card functions a lot differently than Millstone because Experiments help you continue to draw. I also like that you get to see your next card before choosing whether to trade this for an action. I'm a sucker for cheap labs. It does seem strong, though. Basically, in the begining of the game, +2 cards is roughly equivalent to +2cards, +1 action, so this card doesn't have a strong enough drawback (Millstone does only generate +1$, which is a better drawback of not returning the card). Even so, this seems fun to play with, so  This is in the top 5


Islet by  popsofctown

Islet
6$ Action - Victory
You may set an Islet from your hand aside on your Island mat.  If you do, set this aside on your Island mat.
--
Worth 4 VP

Ah, yes. An excellent Seaside addition, combing the treasure map concept with the Island. When I originally designed this contest, I imagined more people might go for Treasure Map concepts, this was one I definitely didn't think of at all. You have to gain two Islets to have them go away, and line them up. I do think this is appropriately costed, since Distant Lands requires an entire shuffle and play for them to have value, while this one is instantly valuable. But you still want to buy them early so you can play them and get them out of your deck. Interestingly enough, I think that this is a strong enough alt VP that I could play around the Ravens submission with this. I like this a lot. Focused, well-priced, and introduces a ton of alt-vp.
This is in the top 5

Bicycle by mad4math

Bicycle
$5 Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Bicycle. Put 3 of the revealed non-Bicycle cards into your hand, and discard the rest.

Hm! Buying one of these is essentially look through your whole deck, pick your 3 most useful cards right now. That's actually incredibly strong. Too strong, I'd say. Since the more Bicycles you have in your deck, the worse they are, Bicycle should have some mechanic for gaining more. Having them port-themselves was a very very good suggestion. I also think they could gain a Bicycle on play. That way you have to be careful about when you buy it.
Hm, there's essentially two types of games with Bicycle. Ones where it's the only hand-size increaser, and one's where it's not the only hand-size increaser. In games where it's the only, you just buy 1 and go big money. On games where it's not, it's incredibly powerful since you just pick your engine parts you need and use those to draw the next Bicycle. So, in that case, having them self-gain is probably too good for that use-case.
I wonder what this card would look like if it only drew 2 cards (letting you put the Bicycle in hand, probably) and it would be cheaper, of course. I think this could avoid it being way too powerful when you only have a few.
I do love that you designed a card that is very strong but you don't want to buy a lot of. It's like Chapel in that regard.


House by pubby

House
$4 Action
The player to your left names their favorite card. If they name House, they win the game.

This card is unlikely to be any one's favorite because it takes away pretty much all strategy. If someone's true favorite card is House, it means they really don't like Dominion. Which could be really helpful for me with my friends to make sure they actually enjoy the game I love so much, or if they're just humoring me. So I could buy this card and play it force them to tell the truth. And if they don't name House, whatever card they name, I could make sure we play with next time so they have more fun. So this card is really good, this means it is my favorite card -- ARGH OH NO!!!

Fertile Village by grrgrrgrr

Fertile Village (Action, $4)
+1 Card
+2 Actions
You may discard an Action, to gain another Fertile Village.

This was received a while after the 24 hour submission deadline, but who cares, I'll let it in the contest anyway!
I think this is a great example of a 4-cost village. You can gain your second village, but at the harsh expense of discarding an action, which the whole reason you bought this card was so that you could play more actions! I love this complicated focus and synergy. I don't have much to add, but I think that most often the best move will be not discarding Actions. The ability to know when it is time to gain another Fertile Village is a tricky one that will distinguish good from great Dominion players. Nice work! Of course, cards you don't care to play that turn  (ruins, sometimes necropolis, sometimes encampment) will strengthen this card. This card was incredibly close to the top 5, but there can only be 5. I can easily see this card making it in a Dominion expansion.


Final Results
The top 5 are: Refugee Camp, Hoist, Loner, Cats, Islet.
These are all wonderful. This is very hard.

Right now, Loner feels more tricky than Cats, in an interesting way. It's a lot less powerful, whereas Cats can be strong, in the beginning of the game getting +2 cards is probably equivalent to a Lab anyway. So Cats can't be the top card. Refugee Camp modifies the game in a way I can't be convinced I love, though the concept is rad, it just isn't my favorite. This leaves Hoist, Loner, and Islet. At some point I just have to go with my gut, though I keep swinging around each time.

First place
Loner by NoMoreFun

Loner
Action - $4
+2 Cards
+1 Action
This turn, at the start of Clean-up, if you have exactly one Loner in play, gain a Loner. Otherwise, return all Loners in play to the supply.

Second place
Hoist by spineflu

278

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: December 11, 2019, 11:11:36 pm »

24 hour warning post!

279

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: December 11, 2019, 12:56:24 pm »

Totally unenforceable since the judges change, for sure! We can’t consider outside fan expansions because we can’t know all of them. This thread being as internally consistent as possible is a nice ideal to strive for. sure, Cozener is an exception to that rule, but we’ve done a good job avoiding duplicate names, and I believe we should try to continue doing so.

According to my records this is not quite 24 Hours. I’ll make a separate post for that when it hits.

280

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: December 11, 2019, 08:28:32 am »

As a note, in order to win the contest, a card needs to be designed such that players could actually use it when playing the game. As it is right now, the fan submission "storeroom" by [TP] Inferno conflicts with the Dark Ages storeroom, so it should have a name change. To allow people to play with all previous and winners, I'd rather you not use names of previous winners or runner-ups. To that end, I'd like to remind @Grep know that "Rabbits" was the name of a previous runner up in contest 45 (plural is hardly a difference), so I hope you feel comforting using a new name.

The back and forth between pops and segura is feeling slightly little more combative than helpful. Of course this has absolutely no bearing on my judging, I just wanted to give a moment of reflection of whether each of you think the conversation is worth continuing in this thread. Of course, totally your choice!

281

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: December 06, 2019, 10:29:35 am »

Would a split pile that refers to the other entry count? (i'm thinking Sauna/Avanto)

No. But if ONE of the cards in the split pile named itself it would count. Like  Bad avanto: you may play a bad sauna from your hand. Bad sauna: you may play a bad avanto from your hand if you do gain a bad sauna. Bad sauna refers to itself so it qualifies.

282

Weekly Design Contest / Weekly Design Contest -- Challenge 54: The Sweetest Sound

« on: December 05, 2019, 11:38:49 pm »

Thank you, pst!!!

Challenge 54 - The Sweetest Sound
"A person's name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language." – Dale Carnegie

Your challenge is to create a card or card-shaped thing that refers to copies of itself by name. Examples of cards that do this are Rats, Treasure Map, Magpie, Cultist, Port.  Edit: spineflu reminded me that Gladiator/Fortune also qualifies since Gladiator refers to itself.

Cards that do not count are Death Cart and Raze (they both use the wording "this." If your card wants to refer to itself like those do, precedence in Dominion is to use the word "this," and so those entries won't count. Knights do not count, as they refer to a type, not the name of a card. You can use the self name in negation-- Dumb Chapel: "Trash a card. If it's not a Dumb Chapel, gain a card from the trash." Obviously this is a very bad card design. Just to show an example.

I will judge this card based on how elegantly the card needs to refer to copies of itself. Command cards more effectively use a type. It would not be an elegant solution for Captain to say "Play a non-Captain action" since using the Command type solves the problem better. Ideal cards will be cards that have a convincing reason to refer to copies of itself.

I will also judge this based on balance, fun-ness, and how aligned it is with Dominion precedents (no politics, etc).

If you submit or update an entry, please make it the first non-quoted thing in your post so it's easier for me to see! If you want to make your submission and respond to people in one post, make the submission first. Also it would help if you included image and raw text. Of course, none of this is required, it just makes my job easier.

283

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: December 04, 2019, 01:37:40 pm »

my submission:

Redistribute - event - $4
The player with the most wealth tokens discards down to 3 cards.
The player with the least wealth tokens gains a card costing up to $5
—
In games using this, each player gains a wealth token whenever they gain a card costing $5 or more.

According to the wording, ties mean no one gets the benefit. If player a had 4 wealth tokens, player b 3, player c 3, Then buying redistribute simply attacks player a and no one gains a card costing 5.

Here’s an event to help you catch up in a 3 or more player game. The reason it doesn’t work so well is that in a 2 player game, it’s a little too strong since the second player can for $4 get a $5 and attack your opponent. But in a 3 or 4 player game, ties on wealth tokens are much more common, which greatly weakens the event.

I’ve been trying to think of a fun “blue shell” card for a while. Here’s the closest I’ve gotten.

You can only purchase it if you have already gained a $5. This is to make a 5/2 opening vs someone’s 4/3 not absolutely horrible. It also means you still have to strategize to get up to $5 and can’t ONLY rely on this event to boost you up. I’ve realized that the three player or more restriction actually elegantly solves this problem!

Open to feedback, of course!

284

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: November 28, 2019, 01:19:05 pm »

Friends
cost $3 - Action - Attack
+$2
Each other player except your friend discards down to 4 cards in hand.
You may pass a card from your hand to your friend.
---
When games using this, the player on the opposite side of the table is your friend. When scoring, add your friend's vp to your vp.

Three broad sets of issues here:
1. Are friends a reflexive property? If A is my friend, am I A's friend? If it is reflexive, then whoever goes earlier in the game has a massive disadvantage. Their score will be the same as someone else with fewer turns and according to tie breaking principles that person going later will win. Or if they have the same number of a turns, it is a tie. The first turn player can never win a game with this card, they can only hope to tie. This card really only works if friendship is non-reflexive. As in A is B's friend, B is C's Friend, C is A's friend.

2. What happens with odd players? How do you define "opposite side of the table." Is it literally opposite side of a table? What if we aren't playing at a table (I normally play on the ground)? What if you are playing online? What if there's a table but everyone is on the same side?

3. As it's written, it depends on what order you score people. If my score gets doubled from my friend, and then my friend calculates their score, then they get the points from my friend's friend AND me.

You can resolve all these problems with something like "the player to your left is your friend, when scoring, add the value of all the victory card's in your friend's deck to your vp." Now this unambiguously works for any number of players, any table arrangement, makes sure that player 1 can still win, resolves the scoring-order ambiguity, works with variable cost victory points (gardens are worth differently in their deck than yours), and also thoroughly addresses the contest requirements. It also incentivizes victory point and landmark scoring since that will not pass off to the player that you are their friend. I might recommend changing from "friend" to something that is more one-way, like "crush" or "idol"

If you do this, the card passing gives you an interesting incentive to pass provinces to your friend. You want their score high, but you don't want their engine strong or they can give those provinces to their friend instead. Ha! I could see this continually happening, with cheaper victory cards being passed around all game. I think this is a really interesting concept, but you'll need to address the three issues I mentioned by modifying card text. Another solution to making reflexive-friendship work (one I don't like as much) is redefining Dominion as a team-based game. Instead of a tie -- you'd have two winners. Of course, this breaks down entirely when you have an odd number of players. You could also use the "value of all the victory card's in your friend's deck" to make reflexivity work, but again, it breaks down with odd number of players.

285

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: November 27, 2019, 11:34:31 am »

If there's time I'm slightly modifying my submission.

King - Action - $5
Choose one: discard a card to play a card from the Arms pile twice and trash it; or you may play an Action card from your hand twice.
-
Setup: Create an Arms pile by adding an extra Kingdom Action card pile to the game. These cards are not in the supply.

Now you have to discard to play the Arms card. I didn't realize that without discarding it's sort of like a throne room with +1 card which I didn't want. This weakens it slightly in the Arms choice, in a good and logical way. It's like you turned a card into the arms card.

This addresses Segura's feedback. If the Arms is a pearl diver, it's a pretty weak target. You end up with the exact same number of cards in your hand as before you played the pearl diver, only one action stronger. It is still nice and strong sometimes, but the Arms card will run out. You probably only get to use it's power 4-6 times in a 2 player game.

286

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: November 26, 2019, 03:02:30 pm »

This was edited. The original submission did not have a discard. It's totally possible the original submission (identical minus the discard part) is being the one that was judged since I'm editing at the last minute

King - Action - costs 5
Choose one: discard a card to play a card from the Arms pile twice and trash it; or you may play an Action card from your hand twice.
-
Setup: Create an Arms pile by adding an extra Kingdom Action card pile to the game. These cards are not in the supply.

Here's a throne room that can throne room a unique card each game. Sometimes this will be very powerful depending on what the Arms pile is. However, it's limited, you only get 10 usages of King'ing the Arms pile before it's gone. Or sometimes less (Rats, Magpie) or more (Port, Victory-Action cards w/ more than 2 players).  Of course there's some funkiness, if Catapault/Rocks is the supply pile, then you can play a treasure in your action phase! Well, throning a Rocks for $2 and gaining a silver when you trash it is not so powerful.

I'd say this is a little on the powerful side, depending on what the Arms pile is. You're pretty unhappy if Treasure Map is the arms. On the other side, having a cheap Altar is pretty strong, even if it self-trashes. Don't forget that the pile runs out quickly and everyone has access to it. There's some interesting strategy here -- maybe you have a card in your hand you want to double, but you'd rather take away your opponent's access to the last Arms card.

I do appreciate feedback, but well, I only came around to an idea I liked this morning, so there's limited time.

287

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: November 23, 2019, 11:04:55 am »

the / is confusing. I think you mean the total number of dvictory and treasure cards supply piles. I said supply piles because castles has so many differently named victory cards.
But what about treasure-victory cards, do they count twice? You’d have to explicitly clarify say so “this card costs 1 more for every treasure and/or victory supply pile”
Or “this costs 1 for every treasure and/or victory card visible in the supply” which has the neat affect of it costing less when a pile runs out

288

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: November 11, 2019, 05:30:59 pm »

Submission

Clairvoyant - Action ($3)
Name a card. Reveal up to 4 cards from your deck. If you revealed exactly one copy of the named card, put all the revealed cards into your hand. Otherwise, put one of them onto your deck and
discard the rest.

Clairvoyant will be tricky to use, but in early game it’ll excel at drawing cards you know you only have one copy of (or at worst case will help you cycle towards it). The problem is that it’s termianl so, naming an action card won’t help. Naming a silver you purchased T1 or T2 could work great. In mid game, it becomes a lot harder to let you draw cards unless you know what’s in your deck very well. A previously played clairvoyant can help with that — put a card you don’t have many copies of on top of your deck!

Definitely open to feedback on this one. Took me a while to come up with an idea I liked, so didn’t have time to make the graphic yet.

289

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: October 31, 2019, 03:24:07 pm »

Here's my submission this week: Plough, which adds in the Heirloom, Savings.  Plough is a Lost City variant which only gives +Actions when you have an odd number of cards in your hand, meaning it won't typically activate when it's the first card you play from a starting hand of 5 cards (because Ploughs work best if you use them in the right season).  Thankfully, it comes with Savings, a Copper that lets you Save a card from your hand for next turn (and thus providing the odd handsize for activating Plough).  Savings also can allow non-standard openings if you draw it turn one, can keep bad cards out of your shuffles, and you can always Save a dead Plough.  The downside of course is that you can only use Savings' ability (and economy) every other turn.

I love these cards!!! I think that these would be ideal for a split pile as you would definitely buy savings (or a savings like card).
All of the heirlooms are cards that either need to be 1 copy of, or are much more interesting if you start with them. Pouch is a bit of a counter-example, though.

Savings doesn’t fit as an heirloom as well, but it’s such a cool card and plough is too.

One way you could make it more heirloomy is by forcing it to set aside, but that would suck if it turned a 2/5 into 2/4. Not sure a way around that. You could make it give +1 if you set aside a treasure? But then it’s less heirloomy. Hmmmm

290

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: October 31, 2019, 09:42:00 am »

Gild
Types: Action
Cost: $5
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a Gold.
Heirloom: Ingot

Ingot
Types: Treasure, Heirloom
Cost: $3
$1. When you play this, if you have a Gold, Silver and Copper in play, you may trash this, to move your +$1 token to an Action Supply pile. (When you play a card from that pile, you first get +$1.)

I like Ingot a lot. I mostly worry that Gild will speed the game up too often that the +$1 token won't matter. I might take notes from Altar and make Gild cost $6.  It would be a weaker $6 for sure, but I worry it would be domineering as a $5 in how it doesn't increase your stop-density.  Comparisons to Mine are not warranted as this turns Coppers and even Estates into Gold, which is wildly better. Comparisons to Dismantle might make more sense, but not quite because Dismantle actually floods your deck when you're trashing Estates, so this remains wildly better than that official card too.  I think it is unique enough, but plays largely against Ingot.  I'm not sure how I'd feel better about it without complicating Gild's pure simplicity.

Thanks for kicking up the discussion! I thought about Altar and the $6 cost and I think it would lead to frustrating one-sided games more often and so the gameplay would be worse than a $5 cost. The change I would make is something like this:


What I'm thinking regarding Gild is that it isn't blatantly mispriced or unbalanced in its current form and I don't think you can really prove either way without playtesting so I'd rather keep the cleaner version for this contest and if Commodore disagrees with me I can live with that. But to expand a bit I think the main risk of Gild being too strong would be it  enabling boring money strategies, Ingot helps prevent this as it is both easier to trigger in, and gives more benefit to, the more exciting Action chaining decks.
 
I also realised Ingot had the wrong cost so I've edited it in the original post to cost $0.

This compares very favorably to bandit. I wonder if you could put the benefit other players on every play rather than just on gain? It’s a nice other player interaction.

291

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: October 30, 2019, 11:23:29 am »

This version of your submission is much better overall.  You are probably underselling Fur Trader's ability to discard your hand for a $5 gain early in the game.  Most Kingdoms I buy Fur Trader would probably be for that Reaction.  The key interaction between the two is probably using Pelt to trash a Silver and Fur trader to gain a $5 (functionally out of $4 in the form of Silver being trashed and a Fur Trader being discarded).  It still costs a Buy most of the time, so I wouldn't call it overpowered.  Fur Trader -> Workshop+ around draw is a fine idea, but playing Fur Trader is probably really bad. 
I recommend a slight buff by having Fur Trader "gain a card costing exactly $1 more per card discarded" so you can typically block Curses by discarding 1 card.  I might make Fur Trader gain 2 Silvers with no hand shenanigans so you can more easily align Pelt.

Thank you for your feedback. I decided to not do that buff for a few reasons. One, the card is pretty strong already it nearly guarantees being able to afford a $5 in all the cases that horse traders can. It doesn’t come with a +buy, but that power is non terminal, so, I don’t want to strengthen that power more. It can always turn curses into copper and if you discard two, curses into 2 costs. That’s strong enough defense. Also, I really like the exoticness of buying one card and gaining a cheaper card. Like buy a mint, reveal fur trader to instead gain a conspirator. And I think it’s a very rare but interesting interaction I wouldn’t want to remove. Plan, too! there’s other cool combos. It allows you to actually use contraband — player names a 5 cost you want? No problem, buy a gold and reveal a fur trader to instead gain that 5 cost. Etc

292

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: October 29, 2019, 01:45:31 pm »

Updated entry
Contest #49: Make a Card with a Custom Heirloom

               

Fur Trader | Action - Reaction | $4
Gain a Silver to your hand. Put a card from your hand onto your deck.
-
When you would gain a card, you may reveal this from your hand. Discard any number of cards to instead gain a card costing up to $1 more per card discarded.
Heirloom: Pelt

Pelt | Treasure - Heirloom | costs $2 | worth $1 money
$1

You may trash a Silver from your hand to gain a card costing up to $4.

Made pelt into a situational upgrade instead. It seemed a little more interesting than what I had, and it still combos with Fur Trader, and works by itself without fur trader. For example, your jack of trades in an engine finally has a way to turn the silvers into engine components. I added a top-decking ability to fur trader to slightly weaken it, but also give it some strategic depth. Fur Trader is now a really good card for terminal collisions it gives you the option to put the terminal onto your deck if you play it, and if you don't play it (let's say you had 3 terminals collide), you can use the those unused action cards as discard fodder when gaining a card.

293

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: October 27, 2019, 04:59:26 pm »

Hm, would you say the same about bureaucrat? Perhaps I should bump the price up to $4?

Bureaucrat gaining onto deck is weaker because it displaces another card in your next hand; gaining to hand doesn't displace anything.

I think as it is it's somewhere between $4 and $5; the reaction essentially serves as a discard for money like Secret Chamber, but it can also be used to avoid curses and such (and it makes gainers like Workshop a LOT more powerful). The reaction is definitely the more interesting part and it'd be cool to see that more accessible so maybe nerf the silver gaining somehow and make it $4.

Thank you, I totally agree and I appreciate your perspective. I actually think it'd be interesting to make the on-play lower hand size -- less synergy could be interesting. I'm thinking one of these variants:
1. Gain a silver to your hand, put a card onto your deck.
2. Put a card onto your deck, gain a silver to your hand.
3. Gain a silver to your hand, discard a card.
4. Discard a treasure card, gain a silver to your hand.
5. +1$ gain a silver to hand, discard 2 cards. (kind of horse traders)
Costing it 4 for all of these.
I'm leaning towards 1 right now.

Any thoughts?

294

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: October 27, 2019, 11:35:03 am »

Explorer is pretty weak, but Fur Trader still looks really strong when you compare it with Explorer.

Hm, would you say the same about bureaucrat? Perhaps I should bump the price up to $4?

295

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: October 27, 2019, 10:32:21 am »

THIS IS AN OLD ENTRY, see further down the thread for an updated submission
Contest #49: Make a Card with a Custom Heirloom

               

Fur Trader | Action - Reaction | $3
Gain a silver to your hand.
-
When you would gain a card, you may reveal this from your hand. Discard any number of cards to instead gain a card costing up to $1 more per card discarded.
Heirloom: Pelt

Pelt | Treasure - Heirloom | $2
+$1

If you have a silver in play, you may trash this to gain a card costing exactly $3.

The clear idea here is the reaction in fur-trader. Everything else spiraled out from that. It's kind of like an upgrade, except you upgrade cards as you buy them. On the other hand, it's a little like a fusion of a vault/artisan. Yes, you get to discard the fur-trader if you want, so whenever you activate your pelt, if you still have your fur-trader in hand you can reveal and discard it to gain a card costing $4. It also allows you to turn curses you are attacked with into coppers, or, if you're willing to discard, even turn a curse into a helpful $2 action!

The part in the above is a fun idea we haven't seen in a while that I'm a little partial to. It also has synergy with itself (if you have two fur-traders in hand, play one and reveal the other to gain a not-silver instead!)

Pelt is useful and interesting regardless of whether you buy a fur-trader. A fur trader does incentivize you to wait a little bit to activate it, since you could gain a $4 or $5 cost if you have enough cards in your hand. Fur trader of course helps you activate the Pelt.

I'm open to feedback! I originally had +2 cards for the fur trader above-the-line benefit, but I changed it to make it a little more narrow.

296

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: October 21, 2019, 12:19:39 am »

Here's my quick made submission:

Kind of like a miser, you can save up during a year of plenty and make your next YoP better (diminishing returns on YoP when you start cashing them in though).  Hope it's clear what it does.

I think to make it more clear you should say "turn one Copper on your Tavern mat face down. At the end of your turn, flip it face up." That is more align with Dominion cards that specifically instruct rather than imply what to do. "Keep it down for the turn" is satisfied by keeping it down for the turn and next turn and forever, technically. So, it'd be a little clearer to instruct the turning back of the Copper.

I think this card is very cool!

Necromancer uses the same "turn it face down for the turn" wording.

You’re absolutely right!! My comment is retracted

297

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: October 20, 2019, 09:09:17 pm »

Here's my quick made submission:

Kind of like a miser, you can save up during a year of plenty and make your next YoP better (diminishing returns on YoP when you start cashing them in though).  Hope it's clear what it does.

I think to make it more clear you should say "turn one Copper on your Tavern mat face down. At the end of your turn, flip it face up." That is more align with Dominion cards that specifically instruct rather than imply what to do. "Keep it down for the turn" is satisfied by keeping it down for the turn and next turn and forever, technically. So, it'd be a little clearer to instruct the turning back of the Copper.
edit: retracting this, see conversation after this 

I think this card is very cool!

298

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: October 18, 2019, 12:27:52 am »

My Entry:




The first play of this will basically be ruined village, but it becomes strong when stacked.
In the second play it can be a Laboratory (Moat), in the third play it can be a Bustling Village (Village), in the fourth play it can be +3 Cards, +1 Action (Smithy), and from the sixth, it can be Goons with +Action! (Although Lost Arts are the easier way)
In first play, Ruined Library can also be used as a cantrip.

Another purpose is providing pseudo-villages in the kingdom with no village. Playing two successors as nothing-Perl Diver works like a Necropolis.

This looks extremely weak. Yes, the second play is a Lab (if Moat or Faithful Hound happen to be there) but the first play cancels out that effect completely. Then the Bustling Village effect is something you have to pay $9 and 3 Buys to get. If this is the only Village in the kingdom, I suspect playing Money will be more effective a lot if not most of the time.

But it can turn any terminal into non-terminal, and that's pretty good. But yeah, you'll need low cost +cards or you discard your hand just playing successors. Or a draw-to-x could pair with these cards extremely well.

This concept is so cool. You can have a monolithic strategy that results in you playing almost all the cards in the supply. Dope! I wonder if you could strengthen it slightly to give +1 card if it's the first successor you have in play?

Falconer
Types: Action, Command
Cost: $3
The player to your left reveals a non-Command Action card from their hand (or reveals they can't). Choose one: +1 Card and +1 Action; or play the revealed card, leaving it there.

Delegate
Types: Action, Command
Cost: $3
Each other player reveals their hand. Play a revealed non-Command, non-Duration Action, leaving it there. If you couldn't, +2 Cards.

The old "play Actions from another player's hand" trick doesn't work very well because you stop if from working by not buying Actions, so the question is how you general combat a largely Treasure-centered strategy in the design of the card.
4est's Falconer gets around it by making it a cantrip instead of the worst Action in the player to your left's hand.  I think the limitation is huge.  If you play Falconer terminally they can reveal a terminal card the you can't play.  If you play Falconer non-terminally, they reveal a minimally useful non-terminal, again making Falconer of only marginal use.  I think a strong money-centric Strategy will make Falconer a waste of time.
Gubump's Delegate instead turns into a Moat instead of the best Action in any other player's hand.  Hitting anyone's any card means that this scales poorly into multiplayer.  The save of Moat is probably even worse than Falconer's cantrip, so I would likely still run good money against Delegate.
I recommend the catch for not having an Action to play be better than the Action play, honestly.  Me revealing an Action to your Command-card should make your Command card worse.

Fallbacks make these cards less interesting I think. What if instead of fall-backs, you made them more likely to hit? What about a militia first? Does the opponent kept their crappy action cards around for you to use or discard all their action cards? If so they have a bad turn. But if they leave their good action cards, well then oh no! Or you could make each opponent draw a card, choose an opponent to reveal their hand and you choose one. Just a few ways of making it not scale uncontrollably with multiple players and making it more interesting than adding a fall-back.
Make it cheaper/weaker and if it doesn't hit, it doesn't hit. Sometimes smugglers doesn't hit.

299

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: October 18, 2019, 12:10:28 am »

Developer - $4 - Action-Command
Trash a card from your hand. The player to your left names a cheaper and a more expensive non-Command Action card in the supply. Play both in either order, leaving them in the supply.

Imagine if Develop instead of gaining immediately played those cards. And they didn't have to cost exact $1 different. But throw in the fact that your opponent gets to choose which cards you play. This has to be the most bonkers splitter of all time. Yeah, you can play more than one terminal card with this, but you don't really get to choose what they are. Games where this is the only splitter/village are definitely going to be interesting. You do have some power -- In games with only non-terminal 2-costs (fishing village, pawn, etc), trashing a silver is guaranteed to be non-terminal. Of course, you do lose the silver.

It is intentional that you probably only get one action out of trashing a copper, and unless there are ruins, you only get one action out of trashing an estate -- but at least it's a 3-cost action or higher! You get a lot of milage out of trashing 4 costs, your opponent has to let you play a 5 cost or better. That's the big reason for this to cost 4. Also it's potentially incredibly strong in certain kingdoms and so I'd rather avoid the opening 2 of them.

The compelling reason this needs to be a command is to prevent the self-play of this which could cause you trash valuable cards in your hand. And to help prevent infinite loops with other Commands!

I anticipate that developer is a high-skill card to master. You have to purposefully position your deck such that the worst choice your opponent makes for you is still a good one. It's a fun little game-theory-esque challenge.

300

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest Thread

« on: October 08, 2019, 08:56:57 am »

Congrats Aquila!!

Also, thank you spineflu and scolapasta for the feedback on rephrasing the card...I hope it’s clearer now! I apologize for not being to find an image ( My google skills aren’t high) if anyone has one off-hand, I’d appreciate it greatly!