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« on: December 21, 2021, 01:56:03 am »
Apologies - judging got delayed due to some work commitments.
Thank you all for your submissions - there were some really cool designs! My comments and the results are below:
JW’s Equine Village *Shortlist*
Equine Village functions either as a village or returns itself to the supply to give a double-Lab effect. Being able to draw a card before deciding whether you need the Actions or the draw is quite nice. Unlike Mining Village which requires trashing itself, in Kingdoms with +Buy you would have the option to buy back your Equine Village if you decide to return it. So unless this is the only village and terminal space in your deck is a concern, I can see this being used for draw fairly often. You still need to add enough economy to your deck so this will by no means be a monolithic strategy. Overall, a solid design.
spineflu's Leyline
The first Leyline you play in a turn will give you +4 cards (but returns itself to the Supply), whereas each subsequent play will only give you +1 card and you get to keep it. Each Leyline also scores 2VP at the end of the game if no other player has the same number of Leylines as you. As far as alt-VP goes, I don’t think a strategy of rushing Leylines gives you enough VP for it to payoff. Having one or two Leylines in your deck at any given time seems fine since you do get some good one-shot terminal draw out of the first play, but I think your deck is likely to fall apart if you have too many Leylines. I think the card needs a buff, preferably to the on-play effects (I’m not a big fan of all-or-nothing scoring, so I would rather not see an increase in the amount of VP that Leyline gives you). The card would probably still be balanced at $4 if each subsequent play gave +2 Cards instead of +1 Card, and will make it more attractive, even without cards like Ironmonger or Sacrifice that will like the dual Action-Victory type.
xyz123's Hunter's Village
Hunter's Village gives you the choice of playing it as a vanilla village or returning it to the supply and gaining a Duchy or 3 Estates. I'm not sure if it was intentional that gaining the Victory cards is not contingent on returning Hunter's Village to the supply and so playing King's Court on it would let you empty the Estates in a 2-player game. You're usually not going to want to pop it until you're ready to green (except in certain situations like Inheritance boards), but the precise moment of when to convert them to points could be interesting albeit probably more straightforward in comparison to deciding whether or not to pop your Mining Villages.
4est’s Corridor *Shortlist*
Corridor is an interesting sifter that can be returned to your hand and played multiple times until you run out of cards in your hand. There are synergies with discard-for-benefit cards as well as draw-to-X cards. In Kingdoms without discard-for-benefit or draw-to-X, I’d be curious how often this would get played more than once per turn due to the hand size reduction. I think it’s a clever design overall, and the return to hand mechanic works well here due to the hand size reduction with each play. It might be overpowered in games where its possible to stick a +1 Card token on it, but those instances should be rare.
mxdata's Student *Shortlist*
Disciple is one of my favourite cards, so it’s nice to see a one-shot version of it. I think the fact that the gaining ability is contingent on returning Student to the supply is a wise design choice, as it prevents broken combos with Command cards and doesn’t make it overly explosive. I think the card will work fine at $4 due to the one-shot nature. This looks fun and I’d be eager to try it out.
NoMoreFun’s Corruption
Corruption is a unique payload card and junker which gives you +$1 for each Corruption token you have. When you gain it, you take a Corruption token, whereas each other player gains a Corruption without taking a Corruption token (since Corruption doesn’t have the Attack type, other players cannot block it with Moat although they can still defend against it with Watchtower). This could be interesting with Talismans, Stonemasons or Duplicates, since you power up your own Corruptions while junking your opponents. The interaction with Messenger could be a bit funky especially in a multiplayer game, where you could empty the Corruption pile quite quickly. In theory, there is no limit on the number of Corruption tokens you can gain, since Corruption gives you the option of returning it to the supply. This does make me slightly uncomfortable even though most games will end before you rack up an absurd amount of Corruption tokens. I could see certain situations where you could power up your Corruption cards almost exponentially each turn.
AJL828’s Smelter
Smelter is a terminal draw card that gives you the option of returning itself or an Action card from your hand to the supply for +2 Actions. It can be a helpful way of cleaning out Ruins from your deck and cards like trashers or cursers that have outlived their usefulness, but in many cases returning Action cards to the supply for what basically amounts to a Necropolis effect will be an act of desperation. I’m not sure it’s a card you really want to build your deck around unless you recognize that it is a terminal draw card with insurance against terminal collisions. I think I would have liked this better at $2, although I don’t think it can cost that much given that you can “buy” Horses for $2 with Ride.
arowdok's Year of the Horse / Healthy *Shortlist*
Year of the Horse lets you gain 2 Horses and gives you Healthy, a State which allows you to exchange a card you gain for a Horse. As such, Healthy can provide some protection against junkers and in Kingdoms with +Buy, it will essentially let you convert an extra Buy into a Horse for free since you can buy a Copper or Curse and exchange it for a Horse. I think the utility of Healthy will be more limited in Kingdoms without +Buy or junking attacks. Nevertheless, it’s a neat concept and I’m curious to see your other Zodiac-themed cards.
jakav's Collector
Collector is a cantrip that can be placed on the Tavern mat for +$2, which is quite a nice effect. However, the card is gained onto your Tavern mat and getting it off your Tavern mat requires you to buy a Treasure costing $3 or less, which in most cases will be a Silver. This looks interesting on a $3/$4 open especially if there are good $2-cost cards available, since you could buy Collector on Turn 1 and then a Silver on Turn 2 to call Collector for +$1 and +1 Buy and buy the $2-cost card. Collector will be useful for spiking price points after the first shuffle. Because of the way the card is gained and called, you could conceivably try to stockpile them on your Tavern mat and call multiple Collectors with a single Treasure buy in order to minimize the number of Silvers or other cheap Treasures in your deck. I’m not sure the card needs to say “return this to your Tavern mat” rather than “put this on your Tavern mat” like the official Reserve cards do, and in fact creates unnecessary ambiguity.
Snes’ Barmaid
Barmaid is a cheap Reserve card that can be called when you buy a card to let you topdeck it. If it happens to be the second card you have bought in a turn, you can return Barmaid to your Tavern mat. This ability lets you keep Barmaid out of your deck or to call it again to let you topdeck the third card that you buy. I think the card is pretty weak even for $2, since most other cards that give you a topdecking ability (e.g. Tracker, Royal Seal, Way of the Seal) aren’t limited to a single card, and Tracker and Way of the Seal allow you to topdeck cards you gain during your Action phase as well. In Kingdoms without +Buy, Barmaid becomes even weaker.
Gubump’s Wine *Shortlist*
Wine is an interesting $4-cost Silver variant. The on-play effect gives you +$4, but in order to keep it in your deck you would need to pay $2 when discarding it from play. It is helpful in the opening to for spiking price points and synergizes well with certain other cards e.g. Mandarin, Herbalist, Crown, and Counterfeit. As mxdata pointed out, there is also an interesting interaction whereby you can use coins generated in the Night phase to retain Wine.
The Alchemist’s Travelling Merchant *Shortlist*
Travelling Merchant is a Smithy variant that can be returned to the Supply for +1 Action and +1 Buy. Like AJL828’s Smelter, this is a draw card with insurance against terminal collisions, but I think Travelling Merchant looks more appealing since it gives you the opportunity to buy it back if you decide to pop it and have sufficient economy in your deck. This is a simple yet solid design.
LastFootNote’s Redistrict
Redistrict returns itself to its pile then let’s you trash a card from you hand and then gain a card costing exactly $1 more than it and then a card costing exactly $2 more than it. The Remodeling effect is not contingent on returning itself to its pile and so Redistrict can be throned or activated via Command cards. You would hope to collide it with one of your Estates or Shelters, but even if you can’t, you can at least trash a Copper and gain another Redistrict, so I like the price point for that reason.
Xen3k’s Yule Cat and New Sock
Yule Cat sits on top of New Sock in a split pile and if there are still copies of Yule Cat in the supply, it gives you $2 and +1 Action. If there are no copies of Yule Cat, the card becomes a terminal card that gives $2 and each other player must reveal a New Sock from their hand and if they don’t, they gain a New Sock and discard down to 3 cards in hand. New Sock is a temporary junk card that is returned to the Supply when played. It normally gives you $1, but you can also choose to take your -1 Card token for +$1. I’m not sure that there is sufficient incentive for players to buy up enough Yule Cats to reveal New Sock, especially in a 2-player game. Sure, if you have King’s Court around and need some Action-based economy I can see it happening, but having more than one Yule Cat in your deck will likely take up precious terminal space once New Sock gets revealed and even if you have the +Actions, the attacks don’t stack anyway.
RESULTS
Runners up:
4est's Corridor
The Alchemist's Travelling Merchant
Winner:
mxdata's Student
Congratulations, mxdata!
Quote from: DemonologistDemonologist • $4 • Action
