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401

Dominion General Discussion / Re: What I love about Dominion is...

« on: March 19, 2013, 05:35:32 pm »

...connecting with friends in an easy to play game that is varied and mechanically sound.

402

Dominion Articles / Re: Trader

« on: February 15, 2013, 09:01:32 am »

The final place case where Trader can shine is with cards that give on-buy benifit, such as Border Village, Ill-Gotten Gains, etc.

While it does have some interesting effects with on-buy cards, I'm afraid only Farmland, Goons, Haggler, Hoard, Hovel, Mint, and Talisman yield any sort of effect from this "buy canceling."
Border Village and Ill-Gotten Gains incur their bonus when you gain them-- which you never do when you reveal a Trader.
Furthermore, Trader quite effectively shuts down Ill-Gotten Gains because if any other player avoids even a single Curse by revealing a Trader, piling-out Ill-Gotten Gains won't pile-out the Curses.

403

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Treasure Junk

« on: January 20, 2013, 04:19:50 pm »

I originally parsed the card in the OP as forcing you to take a cheaper Treasure than the one you reveal.  That seems like a potentially interesting balance to an Attack, but I'm not sure it can be worded nicely on a card.

Moneygrubber

Reveal a card from your hand. Gain a Treasure costing at most $1 less than it. (but not less than $0) Each other player gains a Rusted Penny.

$3 ACTION - ATTACK

404

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Mob + Cult

« on: November 24, 2012, 01:53:57 pm »

Cult looks awful to me.
1) Cult isn't bounded. A player could have his entire hand trashed away and not get a turn. It would also be possible to trash a player's entire deck.
2) Even without that, Cult is dangerous because it both steals good cards and weakens the player's next turn in one swoop, being even more variable in multiplayer games since it doesn't hit each player equally.
3) Because players buy different cards, Cult can be extremely political in multiplayer games.
4) In games using Highway/Bridge, Cult can possibly steal others' Provinces.
5) Cult's effect creates a lot of negative tension and high variance. If it hits, the attacker feels great but the defender feels awful, having lost a possibly good card and the attacker having gained it, but if it misses the defender doesn't necessarily feel any sense of relief, the attacker simply feels bad for having whiffed his powerful action.

405

Help! / Re: Huge debate needs help.

« on: November 17, 2012, 01:48:58 pm »

By the way, if you want to try to luck into something awesome, HoP+Mandarin is available.  No support to get it started, but it would be quite fun.  Copper+Silver+Silver+Gold+HoP --> Gain Mandarin, top deck all 5 treasures, buy Province, repeat.  But again, there's no support for taht here.

Copper+Silver+Silver+Gold+HoP is only 4 different cards so you can't gain Mandarin.
You need either Platinum , hoard, or royal seal to make this work.

THere, um, are a couple other cards that could make this work too, but I probably shouldn't Scavenge for such Ill-beGotten ideas. I'll just have to Stash my thoughts away--though now that you've got me started, I guess you'll have to wait to see what I'm Scheming. Though maybe I have Ventured too far, but I'll certainly Cash this in, because I can Bank on that.
And it wouldn't take a Philosopher to figure this out before I Die-ahem.

406

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: What if Dominion was published in 1935?

« on: October 20, 2012, 08:08:52 am »

(I really need a better word than occupation)

Labor.

407

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Mini-Set Design Contest, Challenge #17: +Buy!

« on: October 01, 2012, 08:37:55 pm »

These are my favorites:

Centipede
$6 - Action
+$3
--
While this is in play, when you gain an Action, Treasure, or Victory card that you have not gained this turn: +1 Buy, +$1.

I agree with others that naming all the types probably isn't necessary, but I do rather like the idea, where it technically decreases the cost of every card you purchase by one assuming you only purchase one copy of every card. The combo with Highway and other cost-reducers is obvious. It seems like this would be good for building up some particularly obtuse engines with lots of parts (and those are my favorite kind of decks) or one could grab a Copper to practically turn it into +$4, but that might be a weak use for it.

Phoenix
$5 - Action
+1 Buy
--
While this is in play, Action cards you buy are immediately played.
--
(Rules clarification: This would allow you to play action cards during the buy phase, but only those you are purchasing. This is not optional and does not require leftover actions.)

This is interesting and I'd like to see how it plays out, but I can't imagine that it would be even decent since you have to buy more copies of the card you want to play (and you can't particularly afford to buy lots of terminal cards) and +1 Buy is an extremely weak effect on a card that doesn't aid you in purchasing any cards. I would like to see this changed into a Woodcutter plus, with some terminal coin and perhaps a reduced cost since playing Action cards in your buy phase often won't lead to much benefit since you mostly have to buy non-terminal actions whose non-terminal aspects will not be of any assistance and card draw is useless at that point. It still might have some clever interactions which would be fun to explore.

Defender
$3 - Action-Victory
+1 Action
+1 Buy
--
Worth 1 VP
--
When you buy this, if this is the first card bought this turn, +1 Buy.

I like Victory variants, and though the set already has a few, it is practically a sub-theme at this point. The non-terminal buy means this is usually about as useless as an Estate in hand, but it is a vanishing card (in that it provides actions and doesn't draw cards) which would help "draw until you have x cards in hand" cards. And it would also be a welcome sight on a great many tables simply because it has a buy that is easily integrated into an engine.

Gravitar
$3 - Action
+2 Buys
Gain a Silver.
--
While this card is in play, when you buy a Victory card, +$3.

This is similar to Centipede, but more focused. I still like gaining coins when buying cards, but I think this is much less interesting since this can only be used to hasten purchasing Victory cards-- which mostly means it would work exceptionally well for Feodum (particularly with that Silver gain) and Silk Road, though its interaction with cost reducers is probably not as bad as Centipede's would be since it doesn't provide you with as many buys as unique cards you purchase. At the same time, the two buys are also hard to use for the same reason that Phoenix's buy has such a hard time, but if you have at least $2, you will be able to buy at least 3 Estates, which is not too shabby for a $3 card.

408

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Mini-Set Design Contest, Challenge #17: +Buy!

« on: September 20, 2012, 04:24:30 pm »

Official Non-Examples: ...  Workshop, Black Market, Possession, and other sources of "pseudo-buys" (as they are sometimes called), because that's not good enough.

I believe this argument has made my day. +1, sir.

409

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Mini-Set Design Contest, Challenge #18: Reaction Card!

« on: September 20, 2012, 04:22:23 pm »

On another note, it occurred to me when writing this that "Tunnel" didn't need to be a Reaction card.  Why does "When you discard this other than during Clean-up..." require a Reaction type to work, when "When you gain this" and "When you trash this" and so forth do not?

Gaining and trashing cards are public knowledge. When I play Cellar, I only have to show you that I'm discarding 4 cards, not what those cards are. As such, Tunnel needs to react to its own discard in order to become public knowledge for the purpose of its effect.

410

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Mini-Set Design Contest, Challenge #16: Treasure Card!

« on: September 17, 2012, 08:41:18 pm »

Please Please Me
$5 - Treasure
Worth $1
When you play this, it's worth an additional $1 per Estate missing from its Supply pile.

Hard to judge, but might be too strong.  Strategy is to load up on these and start draining Estates (even better with Baron, Watchtower).  Soon enough, all that junk doesn't matter because just one of these is enough to get you to Province, maybe even Colony -- especially with more than 2 players.

I think equal opportunity fixes this balance issue, but makes the card less valuable because one player can't afford to buy out Estates to make Please Please Mes more valuable because the other player will simply buy them himself and get the same benefit but without the clogging Estates. Since the person trying to make Please Please Mes more valuable will always be in a worse spot than the player simply mooching off the other, no one will buy this card.

Strawberry Fields
$3 - Treasure
Set aside a Victory card from your hand. This card is worth half the cost of that card (rounded up) in $, otherwise this is worth $0.
--
During your buy phase, you may buy any set aside Victory card at half its cost (rounded up) in $, you do not need to play this card to buy it.
--
When the game ends, any Victory cards that are still set aside by this card are not returned to your deck.
--
(Rules clarification: Getting back the Victory card works like buying it from supply, it uses a buy and you put it into the discard pile. You can just buy any Victory card you choose, provided that you can afford it and have enough buys. You can use multiple buys to gain as many Victory cards. You can put Vineyard aside, but it'll give you $0, and you can buy it back at $0.)

Assuming the set aside cards are only available for the player of the particular Strawberry Fields, I think this is my favorite card of the ones in this ballot-- though I must confess that I can't imagine myself being happier with its actual name rather than "Strawberry Fields."
It's such a fruity name for such a fruity card.

411

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Pet peeve rant

« on: September 07, 2012, 07:23:06 pm »

Another pet peeve is the text "that costs $x more than this card" (or with "less" instead of "more"). If your card costs $4 and x=1, why not just say "that costs up to $5." This wording is simpler and easier and they are almost always the same. Only use this phrasing if absolutely necessary, which is usually not true. Maybe sometimes they will be slightly different with Highway, Bridge, BoM, etc., but it usually doesn't matter - plus, let those cards catch a break!

This actually matters a lot. If Border Village said "up to $5", then having one Highway/Bridge in play would allow you to empty the Border Village stack in 1 buy.

Sure, I'm not saying in all cases - it's the right thing on Border Village, and I'm sure other circumstances may warrant it. But, no other official card has this wording (that I can find), and most of the fan cards would be fine with "up to $5", etc. If it needs to be "up to $2 more than this", that's fine, but most don't have that need.

Band of Misfits feels left out.

why does BoM have that wording, anyway? just so you don't have to deal with the infinite regression of BoM as BoM as BoM as BoM ad nauseam? does that actually make a difference? I don't know that dominion rules have a way to handle infinite loops as of right now since to my knowledge no such method exists, but it's not a hard one to add intuitively. you can just borrow the Magic rule of "okay we get it you can do this infinite times now tell us how many you're actually gonna do it for so we can move on." and there's no actual upside to playing BoM as BoM a million times before you decide its actual target. is it just for power reasons, to prevent it from being big expensive stuff with a couple highways/bridges?

I would guess Band of Misfits/Highway would probably be absolutely broken if Band of Misfits read "up to $4". Band of Misfits can be strangely powerful because of its utility, so preventing it from turning into whatever it wants when Highway is on the table is probably a good check against it. Furthermore, it can be confusing enough to track what each Band of Misfits is currently in play as, so ensuring that the pool is limited could probably save some headaches. (Though the Secret Histories do speak of a card that could somehow increase the price of Band of Misfits and another expansion is on the way, so we can't count it out. I'm really just playing devil's advocate. I'd love to see Band of Misfits turn into any action it wants to)

By the by, every reaction that is only revealed from your hand by strict definition already creates an infinite loop, they are simply built to avoid any benefit from this loop. (You can reveal Moat any number of times, but you're protected from the attack the first time, so why bother the second? You can reveal Trader any number of times, but you're already gaining a Silver after you reveal it once, so why bother the second? You can reveal Watchtower any number of times, but after the first time it will have lost track of the card you're gaining, so what's the point in revealing it twice? and so on...)

412

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Pet peeve rant

« on: September 07, 2012, 07:47:41 am »

Another pet peeve is the text "that costs $x more than this card" (or with "less" instead of "more"). If your card costs $4 and x=1, why not just say "that costs up to $5." This wording is simpler and easier and they are almost always the same. Only use this phrasing if absolutely necessary, which is usually not true. Maybe sometimes they will be slightly different with Highway, Bridge, BoM, etc., but it usually doesn't matter - plus, let those cards catch a break!

This actually matters a lot. If Border Village said "up to $5", then having one Highway/Bridge in play would allow you to empty the Border Village stack in 1 buy.

Sure, I'm not saying in all cases - it's the right thing on Border Village, and I'm sure other circumstances may warrant it. But, no other official card has this wording (that I can find), and most of the fan cards would be fine with "up to $5", etc. If it needs to be "up to $2 more than this", that's fine, but most don't have that need.

Band of Misfits feels left out.

413

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Alchemy and Dark Ages

« on: September 04, 2012, 07:08:06 am »

Death Cart, Scrying Pool, Rats

Everyone hated me that night.

414

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Hypothetical Treasure Chest Expansion Composition

« on: August 26, 2012, 07:10:59 am »

Why make things so clear cut? I would hope a Treasure Chest expansion would combine themes and ideas such as Potion-cost Duration cards and Prizes that award VP tokens.

415

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: August 22, 2012, 09:06:42 pm »

Jack of all Traders
$4 - Action-Reaction
Gain a Silver.
Look at the top card of your deck; discard it or put it back.
Draw until you have 5 cards in hand.
You may trash a card from your hand that is not a Treasure.
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a number of Silvers equal to its cost in coins.
----------------------
When you would gain a card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, instead, gain a silver.

Trader of all Jacks

Gain a Silver. Look at the top card of your deck; you may discard it. If you do, gain a Silver, putting it on top of your deck. Otherwise: Put it back and gain a Silver. Gain Silvers, putting them into your hand until you have 5 cards in hand. You may trash a card from your hand. If you do, gain a Silver and a number of Silvers equal to its cost in coins. When you would gain a card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, instead, gain a Silver.

$4 ACTION - REACTION

416

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Mini-Set Design Contest, Challenge #12: Non-Terminal Draw!

« on: August 22, 2012, 05:47:01 pm »

And your tests don't seem that fast to me.  Did those tests actually manage to pick up any Provinces on the way?

The first two grabbed about 5-6 Wilders and only managed to grab a single Gold, let alone picking up Province. The third test grabbed one Province when it hit multiple Golds before, but had fewer Wilders in it. Luck of the draw, really.
Regardless, you're grabbing Duchies that won't necessarily push the game to its end. Smithy-Big Money will be grabbing its fourth, maybe its fifth Province (30VP) by the time Wilder-Rush has built up 24VP, and Wilder's economy hasn't taken nearly as big a hit as Smithy-Big Money's has. If Wilder-Rush can grab one Province and Smithy-Big Money let Wilder have all the Duchies, then it has to manage to get 7 Provinces into its deck to beat Wilder-Rush. Again though, this is assuming completely idiotic one-dimensional strategies that don't properly react to what's happening on the board.

The problem with doing these Solitaire tests is that people won't just sit back and let you scoop up Duchies. It's the same thing with Duke games. You can't really test it solitaire because a good opponent won't let you take all 8 Duchies. And if they do, they better hope they have a way the can end the game before you pile drive Dukes.

With Wilder, it's the same. They will play Attacks to slow you down, or there will be a better strategy on the board that can surpass the Wilder strategy. And if the best strategy on the board is using Wilder to grab Duchies, that's fine. It just then comes down to skill of what to buy and what support to add on and the luck of the draw.

I'd prefer to have fewer cards that completely dominate the board and every strategy is going to be built around it. A Wilder rush has a much slower start to its economy, but if it is uncontested, it will grab 24 points of Duchies and can pretty quickly turn around and start buying Provinces. And that's without support to it. Of course, plenty of strategies could scoop up 6 of the Provinces while the Wilder player does his thing, but the fact that my hands were still drawing $4-$6 worth of Treasure after I owned 15 Victory cards (when most engines start seriously choking with 7 Victory cards in them without a plan to get around them) seems an issue.
Yes, cards exist in Dominion that every player practically has to grab (cursing attacks, mainly), but if I'm only going to vote one card from this list in, it's not going to be a one card engine, and non-terminal draw is the easiest design space to accidentally create a card that becomes a one-card engine.

I will give Wilder that it is unique and decently fun to play with (and less time consuming than Hunting Party to boot), but I am worried for its strength and would like to see some extensive non-solitaire testing before I would vote for it. It might just need to be bumped up to $5 to make it harder to rush.

(EDIT: Added response to eHalcyon)

417

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Mini-Set Design Contest, Challenge #12: Non-Terminal Draw!

« on: August 22, 2012, 04:21:56 pm »

You can only get the Duchies if you don't hit any Victory cards. And in decks this card really shines in (Gardens/Silk Road/Duke) you are most likely going to hit Victory cards, especially if you keep getting more from itself.

Three tests buying nothing but Provinces, Gold, Wilder, and Silver (in that order of preference).
First test: Four Duchies by turn 8, eight by turn 11. Next three turn values:$0, $6, and $5.
Second test: Four Duchies by turn 7, eight by turn 14. Next three turn values: $5, $8, and $4.
Four Duchies by turn 12, eight by turn 16 (with an accidental Province). Next three turn values: $7, $6, and $5.

Of course, three tests aren't conclusive, but getting numbers anywhere near this are disconcerting.

418

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Mini-Set Design Contest, Challenge #12: Non-Terminal Draw!

« on: August 22, 2012, 03:09:35 pm »

Wilder
$4 - Action
+1 Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal one that isn't a Victory card or a Curse. Put the revealed cards into your hand. If you didn't reveal a Victory card or a Curse, gain a Victory card costing up to $5, putting it on top of your deck.

Seems weak. Gaining a duchy is not so hot, unless you're doing an alternate VP push, where it is very very very good. But you wouldn't want this in any other kind of deck, early on, and you probably won't really pick it up later. I don't think I like the idea anyway.

I disagree WW. This is a very similar to Scrying Pool in where you draw cards until you draw one that isn't a certain type. In this case, that type (or should I say, types) is Action and Treasure. In addition to this, it has a nice "gain a Duchy to the top" ability if you don't have a deck brimming with Victory cards or Curses. Since the Duchy is gained to the top, you can play a second Wilder to ensure you draw 2 cards. I think this card is actually very good, but not too good. It can really shine in heavy cursing games as well as Duke rush and Gardens rush.

I disagree with both: This card is not clever and is not weak, this card is overpowered. When we see cards like Secret Chamber, Cellar, and Embassy that help us work around all the junk in our decks cards like Duke, Gardens, and Silk Road become much more viable.
Wilder however, is the alternate VP strategy with sifting in one card. Stockpile Wilders to gain Duchies and to easily sift through them.

419

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Castle

« on: August 21, 2012, 09:02:59 pm »

I like Throne Room variants. Example: You could play a Castle, revealing a Smithy to draw 3 cards, and then play that Smithy. Because you draw in the middle of this, you could use Castle to play the Smithy in order to draw a Village and then actually play the Smithy, this is better than Throne Room. In addition, it gets around the entire issue of drawing it without an Action because it turns into a cantrip when you can't want to use its Throne Room effect.
I think I would like to see this tested at $5 as an Action (nix the Victory points). The balance of the Victory cards that you need to win and Action and Treasure cards that you need in order to buy Victory cards is a delicate one, and I think the strength of this Action will be difficult to view while playing it as a Victory card too.

Quick clarification though: When Castle is played as a copy of a card, it takes on all processes of that card. For example: If that card is trashed when played (such as Feast) then Castle will be trashed instead, correct? Does Castle take on the name, types, or cost of that card or will it still be considered an Action card worth $5 named Castle? Furthermore, does Castle's "playing" another card count as 2 Actions towards Conspirator's activation, or is it only one?

Castle

+1 Action You may reveal an Action card from your hand that is not a Castle. If you do, play this as if it were a copy of that card. Otherwise: +1 Card.

$5 ACTION

420

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Treasure Card: Tax

« on: August 16, 2012, 09:04:29 am »

Since Tax provides money on play, not on purchase, in a great many games, this is largely going to be a Copper, even with its catch gaining cards that cost $3. I would remove its crazy multiplayer scaling by having it only count cards you have gained and the player to your left.

Tax

$1 When you play this, Choose one: +$1 for each card you and the player to your left gained this turn; or gain a card costing up to $3

$5 TREASURE

I think this would generally be too weak anyway. There are those fun games where you play Trader to trash a Province and suddenly have a $9 Treasure in your hand, but most of the time this is just a gimped Workshop that produces one coin.

421

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: For when the Dark Ages previews come out - card analysis game

« on: August 06, 2012, 09:39:34 am »

Initial impressions of the cards:

Graverobber: Graverobber looks to be a great way to handle trash gaining. It encourages trashing those good actions, particularly at the end of the game because it can "Expand" them into the Victory cards you need but then other players get free shots at the cards you junk. I'm not certain it will be worth $5 on every board, since it is a terminal action that you would likely want to use to gain terminal actions, but it will be good when it is. Trashing $5 cards (perhaps other Graverobbers even, if previous trash for benefits are any indication) into Provinces will probably be one of its strongest uses, but bumping a $3 action into Goons is perfectly viable when it shows up... oh, and Dukes. Is anyone else happy to see a card that makes Saboteur stronger?
I think Graverobber will be strong, but primarily in the mid to late game, only sometimes in the early game dependent upon what $5-$7 actions are available.

Poor House: Poor House is a $1 and it doesn't even suck like you'd think it would! I've played plenty of games in which I have very little treasure in any given hand, so I know I'd buy it sometimes. It will be particularly funny in games with Remake, namely that Remake will be made a lot weaker in the opening since the Coppers it would normally trash will be turning into terminal Poor Houses instead. But at least it makes the Poor Houses better by clearing out your deck of Treasures. Also: Subtraction on a card? What is this?
I think Poor House is going to be really strong when there are good trashers, but probably not so good in the opening. Also this pile can go fast since it only costs $1.

Sage: I love cards that search through your deck and Sage will probably be no exception. Digging like this (at this point I wonder why Mr. Vaccarino didn't define "digging" in Dominion jargon) tends to be a bit more powerful than one gives it credit for. It will probably be a real life saver in Mountebank games, but on average, it's just a better cantrip. Skipping Coppers, Curses, and Estates is really nice, likely hoping to cut straight to engine components, but it does have the opportunity cost of Silver. Sage\Tournament could possibly be pretty cool, but Sage does sift through your $0 Prizes.
I think Sage is going to be very nice to have and might be able to push draw engines forward a bit in games, particularly those with strong junking Attacks.

422

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Mini-Set Design Contest, Challenges #5 and #6!

« on: July 25, 2012, 08:38:32 am »

I like the idea of alternate Curses, so I like Jannings, as well, in principle. Yes, it is strong (possibly too strong), but I disagree with previous comments and other threads that it is confusing, or alternate curses can never be playable. If an attack card says “gain a curse” and the Jannnings pile is out, you would have to gain a regular curse, otherwise you would not be satisfying that line of the attack card. I think it is a benefit, not a detriment or broken feature, that it’s a curse that doesn’t clog – it brings down the power level of attacks (which too often are must buys), and there may be an interesting dynamic in a 3-4 player game where you get a couple of rounds of non-clogging curses which doesn’t make the early game so swingy (e.g. not such a big deal that the player to your left flipped your Sea Hag with his Sea Hag). There are only 10 in the supply. Also, can the player being cursed take advantage of the extra Silver and end the game quickly before getting clogged with regular curses and down even more VP than normal attacking games?

I actually have played with a Curse that acts similarly to Great Hall. It was worth -2VP instead of -1VP though, in order to attempt to balance the fact that it doesn't clog your deck and it was pretty strong even for the increased negative VP.
The biggest issue then is that it may as well be named "Useless Lump" in the great many games that don't involve cursing cards, which is why Jannings suggestion of a card that could be useful to buy without Cursing cards is probably necessary.

I like that Powell goes hunting for Treasure. You could use this ability to set up a slick Powell-Venture chain, or make sure your Loan hits a Copper by playing Powell-Loan. I like that there are possibly many ways to utilize the card. As far as those who are mentioning a “broken” Tunnel interaction – what about Golem-Tunnel with no other actions in your deck? This “break” already exists. It’s just a shame the trick doesn’t work with Chancellor.

Powell doesn't cost a prohibitive $4P and isn't terminal. Powell/Tunnel can start generating Golds for you as early as turn 3 while Golem/Tunnel will, best case scenario, be able to get 2 Golds at turn 5 (assuming the daft opening of Potion/Tunnel, requiring transcedant shuffle luck), let alone that your Golems can later collide to your detriment and aren't producing $1 on their own.
If Powell was worded to get around this issue, I would like it too.

423

Mini-Set Design Contest / Re: Mini-Set Design Contest, Challenges #5 and #6!

« on: July 24, 2012, 10:13:48 am »

I'm late to commenting, I guess.

Hardy
$2 - Action
+1 Action
Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck. Put the revealed cards costing at most $2 into your hand. Put the other cards back on top in any order.

Rings of Apothecary, but doesn't choke on the starting green nor copies of itself. I was intrigued and briefly playtested a strategy relying entirely on this: Without the +1 Card from Apothecary, drawing copies of itself is mostly irrelevant unless there are other $2 cards to pull the Provinces it can't draw off the top of the deck.

Mix
$4 - Action
+$2
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Trash the Curses, discard the Victory cards, place all Actions on the top of your deck in any order, place all Treasure cards on the bottom of your deck in any order.

Interesting. I like that it can encourage draw engines by pooling Actions together, but it sticks all the Treasures you want to draw with the engine on the bottom of your deck. Trashing the Curses might be too strong in games with strong Cursing cards though. I'd have to see this card's praxis to get a feel for it. Also, I can only assume we resolve the card types in order, otherwise I have to tear my Harems apart so I can discard them and put them on the bottom of my deck simultaneously.

Jannings
$3 - Treasure-Curse
Worth +$2
You may trash one action card you have in play immediately. If you do, gain a Gold on your deck.
--
Worth -1 VP
--
(Rules clarification: This is a Curse as well as a Treasure. It is a kingdom card and does not replace the Curse pile. It may be gained by a player from cursing attacks instead of a regular Curse. It may be revealed and discarded as a Curse as a response to Mountebank.)

I'm all for challenging the traditions in Dominion with new Curse type cards, but this is not the way to do it. While the victory point penalty is a big part of Curses, the space they uselessly occupy in the deck is even more important. This however is in many cases better than Silver. If this were a $5 Treasure and not a Curse, I would still sometimes buy it to trash cheap actions and gain Golds. With only a -1VP penalty, this is much too good to be a sometimes replacement for Curse.

Chase
$2 - Action
Look at the top 4 cards of your deck.  Reveal and discard up to 3 of them.  Put the rest back in any order.  If you revealed an..
Action card, +1 Card
Treasure card, +1 Action
Victory card, +$1

Clever. Its bonuses are never better than Peddler, excluding the cycling, though the deck ordering can happen before the draw which is pretty strong for a $2. I'd want to see this in an actual game to really be able to judge it.

Reid
$3 - Action
Count how many cards you have in play, including this. Look at that many cards from the top of your deck. You may discard any of those cards.
Choose one: +2 Cards or +2 Actions.

I really like unbounded cards like this one and getting to look at the cards before you draw is nifty, but I can't support this card simply for the possiblity of a player needing to order seven or more cards on top of his deck. Talk about analysis paralysis.

Ford
$3 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Look at the top 5 cards of your deck.  Discard all duplicates.  Put the rest back on top in any order.
--
(Rules clarification:  You discard cards that are duplicates of other revealed cards, not cards that are duplicates of cards in your hand.)

This card would be really fun for cycling with a deck consisting of unique engine parts and for Cornucopia's Menagerie and Harvest. The fact that it could enable some obtuse engines is enough for me to vote for this card.

Nagel
$5 - Treasure-Reaction
Worth $1
Gain a Silver, placing it on top of your deck.
--
If this card is trashed in any way, reveal it and gain a Gold on top of your deck.

I like this idea: Simple and to the point. I have tested it as Big Money + Nagel against Big Money and Nagel handles the end game better due to the inflation of Silvers in the deck, but it seems to struggle earlier because Nagel itself is a $5 Copper.

Edna
$3 - Action
Choose one: trash a card from your hand, gaining a number of Coppers equal to its cost in coins, putting them into your hand; or trash any number of Coppers from your hand, gaining a card with cost exactly equal to the number of Coppers you trashed.

This is a fun idea either for Copper flooding in a Salvager style effect or for removing Coppers. The ability to trash any number of Coppers might be too strong-- but it would only be particularly notable in games using Mountebank anyway. This is a clever way to get around using the Coppers you trash.

Marlene
$3 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Trash a card from your hand.
Gain a card costing less than the trashed card; put it in your hand.

With so many cards gaining to hand in this submission list, I'm happy to see one that gains a card that costs less. I would only be able to see this as being situational, but the fact that this is a cantrip makes it quite effective for either removing Coppers from your deck or transforming Estates into Coppers.

Ethel
$5 - Action
Trash a card from your hand. If it is a...
- Treasure card, gain a Treasure card costing exactly $3 more, and a Victory card costing exactly $2 more;
- Victory card, gain a Treasure card costing exactly $1 more and put it into your hand.
Each other player may reveal and set aside a Province. At the start of his turn, he discards it and gets +$1.

Looking at Mine, I don't think this should cost $5 since it generally only turns Estates into Silvers, but that Treasure card trashing is pretty clever, gaining Victory cards which could be turned into more Treasures in the hand. Plus a lower cost might enable an Ethel-rush sort of strategy to ensure you are drawing Ethels with your Victory cards.

Mae
$3 - Action
Trash a card from your hand.
If it is worth:
At least $1: +1 Card
At least $3: +1 Action
At least $5: +1$
At least $7: +1 Buy
At least $9: +1 VP

I am fond of this idea, but the bonuses seem to assume card prices are linear, which is not the case. What am I even supposed to be trashing with this? Trashing Silver to make this a cantrip? Trashing a King's Court for a Market's effect? With increased bonuses, I could see this as being fun, but it would probably end up being a more complicated version of Apprentice or Salvager anyway.

Corinne
$4 - Action-Victory
+1 Buy
You may trash a Victory card from your hand. If you do, +2 VP and gain a differently named Victory card costing up to the cost of the trashed card.
--
Worth 1 VP for every 2 Estates in your deck (rounded down).

Baron's best friend here. The action effect could be made useful by buying more Estates with the extra buy or, paradoxically, by clearing out starting Estates, though it can cause you to gain more Estates by trashing different Victory cards. Thinking about it, it might be faster than it initially appears.

424

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $4 cards - Part 3/3 posted

« on: July 23, 2012, 09:48:40 am »

JoaT dropped to #2?  But it DoubleJoaT dominates Sea Hag...

Double Jack dominating Sea Hag says nothing about which is actually a better card, only that when both are on the table, you'll probably go Double Jack rather than Sea Hag.
Jack of All Trades is a soft-counter to practically every Attack, so a strategy relying upon slowing down opponents is not going to bother a Double Jack strategy. That is not to say that Double Jack is the fastest thing in the world, simply the hardest to slow down and I've played plenty of games wherein slowing down opponents is not even an option.

425

Dominion General Discussion / Re: The Best Dominion Cards List 2012 Ed.2: $4 cards - Part 2/3 posted

« on: July 22, 2012, 03:53:55 pm »

But wait!  There's more!  Say you're running a deck that needs +Buy but isn't a Village-based engine.  Why, then Worker's Village may still be the ideal source of +Buy due to way that, as a cantrip, it slips so seamlessly into most decks.  Only a couple other cards can do that, and they're harder and a lot harder to obtain, respectively:  Market at $5 and Grand Market at $6 with a special restriction.

(hamlet)

Pawn!

Hand size decreasing! (not cantrips)