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[NoMoreFun]

There are four common types of attack in Dominion:

1: Mess with their hand (discarder)
2: Mess with their deck (mucker)
3: Destroy their good cards (trasher)
4: Give them bad cards (junker)

Are there any other possible types?

I've seen "Each other player reveals his hand", which is very weak, but could be important in some kingdoms
I've seen "Each other player loses a Coin token/VP token", which is something different, but probably too situational
I've seen durations that stay in play while increasing the price of all cards.
Maybe there's something to be said for the "slowing down" effect of Ghost Ship and Bureaucrat beyond other what other deck muckers (eg Rabble) do, since generally having fewer reshuffles is bad early and mid game. I suppose it's just a variant of "you need more time to get to your good cards", but there's a definite feeling when it takes forever to finally get to use a good card you gained (which happens for both Ghost Ship and Rabble).

There's definitely innovation to be done with combining two or more types in an intuitive and interesting way (eg Swindler).

[NoMoreFun]

Another way to look at attacks is what's negated by attacks

Knights negate the effort you put into getting that nice card
Cutpurse negates your plans of buying the card you had your eye on
Minion can negate the effort you put into setting up a nice hand
Cultist negates your plans to thin out your deck

So what other things can be negated?

[Tables]

Another way to look at attacks is what's negated by attacks

Knights negate the effort you put into getting that nice card
Cutpurse negates your plans of buying the card you had your eye on
Minion can negate the effort you put into setting up a nice hand
Cultist negates your plans to thin out your deck

So what other things can be negated?

Mass Spy negates everyone's ability to have fun?

[Davio]

We can mess with players' points without messing up their decks, just use negative VP-tokens.

An attack like that may seem pretty weak, but Curses can be removed from a deck by trashing, while these tokens stay. So overall the attack may be as strong/weak as regular Cursing. I think it's a tad weaker, because in no way do VP tokens mess with an opponent's deck.

Example:

Charlatan - $4
+1 Card
+$1
+1 Buy

Each other player gains a -VP token.


Torturer is interesting in that it lets the opponent choose his punishment. Maybe you can do something with that.

Example:

Groundskeeper - $5
+$2

Each opponent gains a Copper and an Estate, putting them on top of their deck or reveals the top 2 cards of their deck and trashes one that you choose.

[Awaclus]

Durations that give -buys and -actions to the opponents, along with some benefits to balance them.

For example:

$5 Action - Attack - Duration
+$2
________
At the start of each of your opponents' next turns: he gets -1 action and +4 cards

This particular example might be too strong or too weak, but the point is that it's doable if you really want. Of course, the interaction of an Attack - Duration and Moat or Lighthouse would require an explanation.

@-VP tokens: handing out a -VP token is no different from taking a +VP token.

[RTT]

Another way to look at attacks is what's negated by attacks

Knights negate the effort you put into getting that nice card
Cutpurse negates your plans of buying the card you had your eye on
Minion can negate the effort you put into setting up a nice hand
Cultist negates your plans to thin out your deck

So what other things can be negated?

Swindler negates the plan you had to build your deck

[Awaclus]

Another way to look at attacks is what's negated by attacks

Knights negate the effort you put into getting that nice card
Cutpurse negates your plans of buying the card you had your eye on
Minion can negate the effort you put into setting up a nice hand
Cultist negates your plans to thin out your deck

So what other things can be negated?

Swindler negates the plan you had to build your deck

Goons negates the plan you had to win the game.

[meandering mercury]

We can mess with players' points without messing up their decks, just use negative VP-tokens.

An attack like that may seem pretty weak, but Curses can be removed from a deck by trashing, while these tokens stay. So overall the attack may be as strong/weak as regular Cursing. I think it's a tad weaker, because in no way do VP tokens mess with an opponent's deck.

From the standpoint of winning or losing, making everyone else take a -VP token is equivalent to you alone taking a +VP token. Either way, you end up one point ahead of everyone else.

[Voltaire]

We can mess with players' points without messing up their decks, just use negative VP-tokens.

An attack like that may seem pretty weak, but Curses can be removed from a deck by trashing, while these tokens stay. So overall the attack may be as strong/weak as regular Cursing. I think it's a tad weaker, because in no way do VP tokens mess with an opponent's deck.

From the standpoint of winning or losing, making everyone else take a -VP token is equivalent to you alone taking a +VP token. Either way, you end up one point ahead of everyone else.

Not with multi-player and things like Moat for a few players to stop the attack.

It is a fair point, though. Maybe there's a way to blend them.

[GendoIkari]

I've seen "Each other player reveals his hand", which is very weak, but could be important in some kingdoms

If a card were made an attack because of this effect, I would disagree with that. Looking at your opponents hands could help you make better decisions on your turn, but it in no way slows down or harms your opponents' turns.

Anyway, "cards cost $1 more until your next turn" seems like a good effect if the wording can be figured out correctly. Similarly, you could have "no more than 1 card can be bought per turn until your next turn" or "VP cards cannot be gained until your next turn."

[Witherweaver]

What about something weird, like:

Set opponent's draw deck aside.  At the beginning of your next turn, shuffle the set aside deck into their current deck.*

(This would be for a two-player game, not sure what 3+ would look like.)  Then their deck becomes their hand and discard pile.  If you're good at tracking their deck it could be good, but if you play it randomly you're just as likely to have good cards in the deck as bad cards.  And it in some sense promotes deck shuffling for them, so you have to play it strategically.  They also have to take some care to the state of their shuffles on the turn where they're without their regular draw deck, so that they can get the best cards when they get it back.

Of course playing this card every turn might be a little unbalanced.  Maybe it needs a way to ensure they get a regular turn between them.

*Or perhaps place it underneath, or discard it.

[ftl]

Anyway, "cards cost $1 more until your next turn" seems like a good effect if the wording can be figured out correctly.

If I remember my Secret Histories correctly, that was the original wording of Cutpurse.

Similarly, you could have "no more than 1 card can be bought per turn until your next turn" or "VP cards cannot be gained until your next turn."

A key point would be rephrasing these so that instead of saying "You can't do X", it says "if you do X, something happens".

 Since many cards in Dominion say "gain a card", something that says "VP cards cannot be gained" could result in a contradiction - one card says you cannot do something, the other one says you must do that thing. Dominion does not have a resolution mechanism for that.

"VP cards cannot be gained until your next turn" doesn't seem like a good idea anyway because it could result in an infinite game, if both players have engines that draw their whole deck and play one of those each turn.

[Asper]

Anyway, "cards cost $1 more until your next turn" seems like a good effect if the wording can be figured out correctly.

If I remember my Secret Histories correctly, that was the original wording of Cutpurse.

There are quite some interesting duration concepts in Dominion that were solved without a Duration type. I was baffled when i was told that Treasury is a Copper that stays in play until you buy a Victory card. Bureacrat is a Militia that "makes you discard" a card next turn if discarding one this turn wouldn't have harmed you. Cutpurse makes you lose 1$. Sea Hag is a Curser that makes you discard a card next turn. Ghost Ship is a Militia that lets you draw a card less next turn per junk card discarded.

[Marcory]

Instead of 'vp cannot be gained next turn,' you could have, 'each other player draws and sets aside the top card of his deck. While that card is set aside, when he would gain a Victory card, he gains X instead. During his cleanup phase, he discards the set-aside card.'

X could be a curse or estate or something else.

The set-aside mechanism helps keep track of this effect in multi-player games.

I'm not sure that this attack would be worth buying, though--because gaining VP cards is almost always optional (edge cases for Swindler, Golem+Baron/Remake/Rebuild, or forced trashing of Hunting Grounds). At worse the opponent just buys a gold/silver instead of Province/Duchy--so not much of an attack unless you can play it every turn--but if you can play a given action every turn, you probably have better actions to choose from than this.

[Warfreak2]

How could it not be worth buying? It literally bans your opponent from winning. Even if I can't draw my deck to play one every turn, I could just buy all 10.

[Marcory]

It might be worth buying, but as written, Throne Room-type cards don't work on it, and you can't usefully play more than one per turn. So when these collide, they're dead, even if you have villages. With 10 of these, your deck will get horribly clogged with dead cards. Meantime, your opponent will just buy duchies when he can and then pile out to win. Also, it is of course useless against vp-token cards.

This card would be game-breaking in multiplayer though. If you change it to 'the player on your left/right', then it becomes extremely political.

So this card is either way too good or really bad, with not much in between. That's why I downplayed it.

[NoMoreFun]

Idea:

Everyone gains a decent card (eg a Silver)
You put it in your hand. Everyone else puts it on the top of/bottom of/anywhere in his deck.

You haven't really hurt their deck, since the effect on decks is a wash in the long run and in the short term the deck hasn't really been made worse. You've just slowed them down.

[eHalcyon]

It might be worth buying, but as written, Throne Room-type cards don't work on it, and you can't usefully play more than one per turn. So when these collide, they're dead, even if you have villages. With 10 of these, your deck will get horribly clogged with dead cards. Meantime, your opponent will just buy duchies when he can and then pile out to win. Also, it is of course useless against vp-token cards.

This card would be game-breaking in multiplayer though. If you change it to 'the player on your left/right', then it becomes extremely political.

So this card is either way too good or really bad, with not much in between. That's why I downplayed it.

You say that the other player will buy Duchies when possible... but what if it's never possible?  You can be blocked every turn from getting VP.  That's what Warfreak is saying.

[LastFootnote]

Ransom
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $?
{Vanilla bonuses} Each other player reveals cards from the top of his deck until he reveals a Treasure or Action costing $2 or more. He sets it aside and discards the rest.
In games using this, at the end of a player's Buy phase he may pay any number of Coins. For each $2 payed, he returns a set-aside card to his discard pile.

Shouldn't this thread be in the Variants forum?

[NoMoreFun]

Ransom
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $?
{Vanilla bonuses} Each other player reveals cards from the top of his deck until he reveals a Treasure or Action costing $2 or more. He sets it aside and discards the rest.
In games using this, at the end of a player's Buy phase he may pay any number of Coins. For each $2 payed, he returns a set-aside card to his discard pile.

Shouldn't this thread be in the Variants forum?

I actually did mean to when I made the topic. I'll leave it to the mods to decide.

[Marcory]

This card would need to be priced at $5 or $6, so that it can't be spammed with Workshops. If you're going to buy 10 of them, then the other player has a decent shot of buying 5 duchies--for the win--while you're buying cards that don't help yourself at all. In the meantime, how are you going to regularly get to $5 if you are frequently drawing one or more of these cards dead? It's hard enough to get 5 Labs or Wharves--and those are cards that help you get to $5 to get more of them--but this card hinders you from getting to $5.

If you build an engine that can play one of these cards every turn, then yes, you can guarantee your win--just like you can guarantee a win with a Goons/Masquerade/King's Court pin or almost guarantee it with a Golden Deck (or its Platinum variant). But building such an engine takes a long time--in the meantime, your opponent can be buying reactions (Moat/Lighthouse), or VP chip cards, or Duchies to go for a three pile win, or some other exotic strategy (or he can just go for 3-4 of these, enough to keep you from playing one every turn.)

Remember that on the turns he can't buy VP, he'll be able to buy Gold or good engine parts instead--so when he does have a chance to buy VP, he'll be able to buy a lot of them.

[ftl]

It's pretty easy to build an engine to draw your whole deck and play one particular card each turn. The pin would not be not a rare case at all, it would be fairly common if that card existed.

Engines *already* are pretty powerful; even if the attack you're playing every turn is Militia, it's often worthwhile to build an engine that will play it every turn. This would be oodles worse.

[markusin]

It's pretty easy to build an engine to draw your whole deck and play one particular card each turn. The pin would not be not a rare case at all, it would be fairly common if that card existed.

Engines *already* are pretty powerful; even if the attack you're playing every turn is Militia, it's often worthwhile to build an engine that will play it every turn. This would be oodles worse.

Exactly. You only need 1 of the card to lock your opponent out of VP until you're ready to massively green...except you won't be able to if your opponent also blocks you from gaining VP with an engine of their own. Don't think every game is going to have Moat or Lighthouse a VP-token card. That's 5 kingdom cards out of about 200.

Instead of 'vp cannot be gained next turn,' you could have, 'each other player draws and sets aside the top card of his deck. While that card is set aside, when he would gain a Victory card, he gains X instead. During his cleanup phase, he discards the set-aside card.'

X could be a curse or estate or something else.

The set-aside mechanism helps keep track of this effect in multi-player games.

I'm not sure that this attack would be worth buying, though--because gaining VP cards is almost always optional (edge cases for Swindler, Golem+Baron/Remake/Rebuild, or forced trashing of Hunting Grounds). At worse the opponent just buys a gold/silver instead of Province/Duchy--so not much of an attack unless you can play it every turn--but if you can play a given action every turn, you probably have better actions to choose from than this.

Here's something interesting, but it has the problem referred to above. It did inspire me to suggest something like this:

"Each other player reveals and sets aside the top card of their deck. While a card is set aside this way, when he gains a Victory card, he puts the set aside card into his discard pile."

Maybe insert a sentence at the end stating what happens to the set aside cards at the end of the game, but maybe the card is too wordy the way it's written.

This forces your opponents to put stuff away onto a Native Village mat of sorts, but they can only get the cards back by greening, perhaps prematurely. A good way to punish a player that trashed down too heavily.

[DG]

Attack-duration cards cannot work as they conflict with reaction cards. Even if reaction cards are revealed when the attack is played there are still dubious rulings on outpost turns and possession turns.

Is it an original attacks to force an opponent to set aside some cards from their deck/discard/hand until their next shuffle, after which the cards are put into the discard pile?. Another new attack may be to win the game if a condition is met, such as every opponent having a specific card in hand (although that would be a luck driven attack).

[Davio]

We can mess with players' points without messing up their decks, just use negative VP-tokens.

An attack like that may seem pretty weak, but Curses can be removed from a deck by trashing, while these tokens stay. So overall the attack may be as strong/weak as regular Cursing. I think it's a tad weaker, because in no way do VP tokens mess with an opponent's deck.

From the standpoint of winning or losing, making everyone else take a -VP token is equivalent to you alone taking a +VP token. Either way, you end up one point ahead of everyone else.

Not with multi-player and things like Moat for a few players to stop the attack.

It is a fair point, though. Maybe there's a way to blend them.

Well, they're not strictly equal.

As mentioned, attacks can be blocked. Also, the -VP token supply would be limited to the number of Curses, unlike the regular VP tokens, for which you can get substitutes once you run out of tokens.

[popsofctown]

Contraband attack?

[Davio]

Adding some more choice attacks could be nice.

Some Attack - $4
Some bonus

Each other player may discard a card.
If they didn't, they gain a Curse.

If they did and the discarded card is:
A Victory card, they gain a Ruins.
A Treasure card, they gain a Copper.
An Action card, they gain a Silver.


Of course these bonuses can be tweaked, but the idea is that the attacked player can mitigate the strength of the attack by paying some tribute. And if they happen to have terminal collision, the attack could even help them.

Discarding a Nobles yields a Ruins and a Silver. Discarding Harem yields Ruins + Copper.

[silverspawn]

Adding some more choice attacks could be nice.

Some Attack - $4
Some bonus

Each other player may discard a card.
If they didn't, they gain a Curse.

If they did and the discarded card is:
A Victory card, they gain a Ruins.
A Treasure card, they gain a Copper.
An Action card, they gain a Silver.


Of course these bonuses can be tweaked, but the idea is that the attacked player can mitigate the strength of the attack by paying some tribute. And if they happen to have terminal collision, the attack could even help them.

Discarding a Nobles yields a Ruins and a Silver. Discarding Harem yields Ruins + Copper.

I think I would like that card.

How about this:

Traitor - Attack - 5$
+1 Action
Each other Player discards a Card. Choose one of the discarded Cards. If it's a...
... Treasure Card, +2$ or you gain a Coin Token
... Victory Card, +1 Card or you gain 2 VP Tokens
... Action Card, +2 Actions or every Card costs 1 less this turn
... Curse, chose any of the options above
Each Player who has less than 3 Cards in his hand discards his hand and draws 3 new Cards.

Or this:

Propaganda - 6$
Choose a Pile of Kingdom Cards from the supply, then trash this. After each other Player's turn, if the chosen pile isn't empty and he didn't gain a card from it that turn, he gains a Copper. Whenever you gain a card from the chosen pile, take a Coin Token.

[AJD]

So that it doesn't get too strong in 3+ Player games. The wording on that is really tricky though.

"Each other player discards a card. Choose one of the discarded cards. If it's a..."

[AJD]

(Note there may be political issue here, though, where player 3 may feel they have to discard the same type as player 2 did just to give you fewer choices.)

[silverspawn]

So that it doesn't get too strong in 3+ Player games. The wording on that is really tricky though.

"Each other player discards a card. Choose one of the discarded cards. If it's a..."

I was thinking so much about how to phrase it... but I didn't get this idea. That's perfect.

(Note there may be political issue here, though, where player 3 may feel they have to discard the same type as player 2 did just to give you fewer choices.)

Hypothetically yea, but I doubt that anyone would discard anything but the card he needs the least, unless he has to draw new anyway, in which case he would always discard the same card as the Player before him.

The funny thing about this card is that if your opponent discards a Hovel, you don't get shit.

Unless you add:

... Hovel, +∞buys, +∞actions and each other player gains 10 curses and 10 ruins.

[florrat]

Traitor - Attack - 5$
+1 Action
Each other Player discards a Card. Choose one of the discarded Cards. If it's a...
... Treasure Card, +2$ or you gain a Coin Token
... Victory Card, +1 Card or you gain 2 VP Tokens
... Action Card, +2 Actions or every Card costs 1 less this turn
... Curse, chose any of the options above
Each Player who has less than 3 Cards in his hand discards his hand and draws 3 new Cards.

So a nonterminal attack which is brutal when played three times in a turn, which gives a lot of options, and has VERY strong "vanilla" bonuses... for $5... This might need a nerf.

[eHalcyon]

There is such a thing as too many choices.

Also, there is a practical issue -- the cards simply don't have enough space to support all that text.  Take a look at Ironmonger:



It's already full.  It only addresses three card types and it only gives each of them one line.  Adding in the Curse type is a stretch already.  Making them give anything more than vanilla bonuses is pretty much impossible because then each card type will need two lines.  Giving each card type a choice between two bonuses... it's just not going to happen.

[silverspawn]

Also, there is a practical issue -- the cards simply don't have enough space to support all that text.  Take a look at Ironmonger:
It's already full.  It only addresses three card types and it only gives each of them one line.  Adding in the Curse type is a stretch already.  Making them give anything more than vanilla bonuses is pretty much impossible because then each card type will need two lines.  Giving each card type a choice between two bonuses... it's just not going to happen.

Are any of these cards going to happen? I wasn't really trying to make something that fits onto a card. But you're right, it woudln't fit.

How about this one:
Confusion - 3$
+1 Action
Return this and any number of copies from your hand to the supply, then put a card from your hand on top of your deck.

When you buy this, you may choose not to gain it. If you do gain it, gain a Coin Token and you may put it on top of your deck. Either way, each other player gains one, putting it into his hand.
When you trash this, discard a Card.
Whenever you have to shuffle and this is in your discard pile, after you finished shuffling, gain a ruins.

I know that Confusion was originally the name of a dead card without any effect that didn't make it into the game. It should also fit onto a standard sized card.

So a nonterminal attack which is brutal when played three times in a turn, which gives a lot of options, and has VERY strong "vanilla" bonuses... for $5... This might need a nerf.

maybe... terminal?
It's weird because it seemed completely fine when I made it, but you're right it's too strong. If you hit copper, which you'll probably do in most cases, it's already +2$ -1$, so in a way as good as a gold. Too strong for a card that excels when you have lots of it.

[dondon151]

Confusion - $4

Each other player names a card and reveals the top card of his deck. If the revealed card is not the named card, he hurts himself in his confusion.

[SirPeebles]

How about this one:
Confusion - 3$
+1 Action
Return this and any number of copies from your hand to the supply, then put a card from your hand on top of your deck.

When you buy this, you may return it to the supply. If you don't, gain a Coin Token and you may put it on top of your deck. Either way, each other player gains one, putting it into his hand.
When you trash this, discard a Card.
Whenever you have to shuffle and this is in your discard pile, after you finished shuffling, gain a ruins.

But if you just bought it, it is already in the Supply. (or Black Market deck)

Edit:  You could reword it to "When you buy this, you may trash it..."

[eHalcyon]

Also, there is a practical issue -- the cards simply don't have enough space to support all that text.  Take a look at Ironmonger:
It's already full.  It only addresses three card types and it only gives each of them one line.  Adding in the Curse type is a stretch already.  Making them give anything more than vanilla bonuses is pretty much impossible because then each card type will need two lines.  Giving each card type a choice between two bonuses... it's just not going to happen.

Are any of these cards going to happen? I wasn't really trying to make something that fits onto a card. But you're right, it woudln't fit.

How about this one:
Confusion - 3$
+1 Action
Return this and any number of copies from your hand to the supply, then put a card from your hand on top of your deck.

When you buy this, you may return it to the supply. If you don't, gain a Coin Token and you may put it on top of your deck. Either way, each other player gains one, putting it into his hand.
When you trash this, discard a Card.
Whenever you have to shuffle and this is in your discard pile, after you finished shuffling, gain a ruins.

I know that Confusion was originally the name of a dead card without any effect that didn't make it into the game. It should also fit onto a standard sized card.

So a nonterminal attack which is brutal when played three times in a turn, which gives a lot of options, and has VERY strong "vanilla" bonuses... for $5... This might need a nerf.

maybe... terminal?
It's weird because it seemed completely fine when I made it, but you're right it's too strong. If you hit copper, which you'll probably do in most cases, it's already +2$ -1$, so in a way as good as a gold. Too strong for a card that excels when you have lots of it.

It depends on what you mean by "happen".  If you mean "officially printed as a future Dominion card", then probably not.  But fan cards are presumably made with the intent that they could potentially be played IRL by interested parties.  People will do this by printing card art and then slipping them into card sleeves.  So the practical matter of whether the card text could fit on an actual card really does matter.

FWIW, that criticism wasn't aimed at your Traitor specifically.  It also applies to Davio's card (which might just fit, but it would be tight) as well as many Ironworks-style choice cards that have been submitted to the on-going Treasure Chest design contest.

As for Confusion, I'm not sure that will fit on a card either.  But ignoring that...

At first glance, it's a different version of IGG.  You buy it in order to junk your opponents' decks.  In this case, Confusion itself is the junk card.  You have the option of keeping the copy you buy to get a benefit (coin token).

Wording issue: "when you buy this, you may return it to the supply" is technically impossible.  When you buy it, you have not actually gained it and it is still in the supply.  A fix would be, "When you buy this, you may choose not to gain it.  If you do gain it, take a coin token..."  Still a bit awkward, but it works as you intended.

Is this card worth buying?  That will depend on how badly it hurts opponents.  So let's say that another player buys a Confusion.  Now I have to put one in my hand.  On my turn, I can play it (and since it's non-terminal that's no big deal) but then I have to put a card on top of my deck.  Note that multiple Confusions go away in one fell swoop, as well they should -- stacking would be really annoying.

So in most cases, this is just a mini-Ghost Ship.  That is actually an extremely mild attack.  Extremely weak, certainly not worth a $3 buy.

Players also have an option to not play it.  The penalty is that it will cause you to gain Ruins when you reshuffle, if it is in your discard.  Practically speaking, this is not so good either.  It means that every time I shuffle, I have to reveal my entire discard to other players and find every copy of it there.  I can't just look through it myself either; I have to reveal my discard for accountability.  That slows the game down a lot.  I can't think of a good way to fix this.

If you ever try to trash the card, you have to discard a card.  This seems unnecessary.  I'm already using an action to trash this Confusion, when I could have been trashing something else.  In some cases, maybe it doesn't matter much or maybe it's even a bonus (e.g. Remodel into a $5), but that's fine.  You could probably leave out the entire on-trash effect, saving space and design complexity.

Going back to the choice of keeping the card... you get a Coin token and you may put it on your deck.  Is the coin token worth junking your own deck?  Note that the Confusion you would gain yourself does not go into your hand.  That actually makes it more damaging to you than anyone else.  If you put it on top of your deck, then your next hand is automatically cut to 4 cards (not counting Confusion) and possibly down to 3 cards (if you choose to play Confusion and have to discard something).  That's a bigger hit than the others face, since they would only be dropped down to 4 cards.  And if you choose not to top-deck it, then you've effectively given yourself a Confusion and a Ruins.  Not good.  That's probably never worth the coin token.  You could streamline the card even more by omitting the option and simply having the buyer leave it in the supply every time.

One final issue is how this pile scales with number of players.  It is a junk card, but it is not like other junk cards.  If you look at Curses and Ruins, these piles will scale.  In a 2p game, there are 10.  In a 4p game, there are 30.  So does the Confusion pile scale as well?  Is it still a kingdom card?  If it doesn't scale then the pile runs out far more quickly than other such junk cards.  Granted, the scaling might matter less since these cards will (usually) keep returning to the supply instead of staying in decks or getting trashed.  So there's that.



Hmm... this card concept could probably be written in a much simpler manner and achieve nearly the same effect.  The effect of gaining a Confusion into your hand is basically a choice between a discard attack or gaining a Ruins.  A difference is that the Confusion would be a persistent threat of gaining Ruins until you accept the discard attack.  But even so, there is something to be said for removing excess complexity.  So you could rephrase a lot of it as:

When you gain this, return it to the Supply.  Each other player chooses one: he discards down to 4 cards in hand; or he gains a Ruins.

Again, it's not exactly the same, but it's close and it's much simpler and more concise.  It could be reworded slightly different to have the player put cards on top of his deck instead of discarding, but that's a small change.

Phrased this way, I recognize another potential issue -- this is an on-buy discard attack that is always on the board.  I recall that Donald X. mentioned in a Secret History (one of the last ones, for all the outtakes, I think) that he tried a Militia variant that attacked when you bought it, like Noble Brigands.  Apparently it didn't pan out because the ever-present threat was just too oppressive.  That doesn't mean that a concept like this wouldn't work, but it's something to keep in mind.  If you want to refine this concept, it would be worth finding that particular discussion from Donald X. to mull over.

[Awaclus]

At least 11 lines should be possible to fit in.

[NoMoreFun]

What about a card that may or may not be an attack.

For example:

Polytechnic
Action/Attack/Looter - $6
+4 cards
Each player (including you) discards any number of cards and gains an action card costing in coins up to the number of cards he discards this way.

You've got to know when to hold, and know when to fold (and get a cool $5 action).

[Witherweaver]

What about a card that may or may not be an attack.

For example:

Polytechnic
Action/Attack/Looter - $6
+4 cards
Each player (including you) discards any number of cards and gains an action card costing in coins up to the number of cards he discards this way.

You've got to know when to hold, and know when to fold (and get a cool $5 action).

So this is only an attack when Ruins are out?  Why not make it "gain a card"? Too powerful?

[NoMoreFun]

What about a card that may or may not be an attack.

For example:

Polytechnic
Action/Attack/Looter - $6
+4 cards
Each player (including you) discards any number of cards and gains an action card costing in coins up to the number of cards he discards this way.

You've got to know when to hold, and know when to fold (and get a cool $5 action).

So this is only an attack when Ruins are out?  Why not make it "gain a card"? Too powerful?

Yes as you can always gain a province.

Ruins are out because it's a looter.

[Witherweaver]

What about a card that may or may not be an attack.

For example:

Polytechnic
Action/Attack/Looter - $6
+4 cards
Each player (including you) discards any number of cards and gains an action card costing in coins up to the number of cards he discards this way.

You've got to know when to hold, and know when to fold (and get a cool $5 action).

So this is only an attack when Ruins are out?  Why not make it "gain a card"? Too powerful?

Yes as you can always gain a province.

Ruins are out because it's a looter.

Well it could be non-victory card.  I hadn't realized they defined the Looter type to get ruins out before.  I guess that makes sense.

[NoMoreFun]

What about a card that may or may not be an attack.

For example:

Polytechnic
Action/Attack/Looter - $6
+4 cards
Each player (including you) discards any number of cards and gains an action card costing in coins up to the number of cards he discards this way.

You've got to know when to hold, and know when to fold (and get a cool $5 action).

So this is only an attack when Ruins are out?  Why not make it "gain a card"? Too powerful?

Yes as you can always gain a province.

Ruins are out because it's a looter.

Well it could be non-victory card.  I hadn't realized they defined the Looter type to get ruins out before.  I guess that makes sense.

Then they could gain Coppers.
This card has a problem where "folding" is often the best strategy, which can feel like being locked out.

[silverspawn]

[Wording issue: "when you buy this, you may return it to the supply" is technically impossible.  When you buy it, you have not actually gained it and it is still in the supply.  A fix would be, "When you buy this, you may choose not to gain it.  If you do gain it, take a coin token..."  Still a bit awkward, but it works as you intended.

oh yea, that's true.

Is this card worth buying?  That will depend on how badly it hurts opponents.  So let's say that another player buys a Confusion.  Now I have to put one in my hand.  On my turn, I can play it (and since it's non-terminal that's no big deal) but then I have to put a card on top of my deck.  Note that multiple Confusions go away in one fell swoop, as well they should -- stacking would be really annoying.

So in most cases, this is just a mini-Ghost Ship.  That is actually an extremely mild attack.  Extremely weak, certainly not worth a $3 buy.

yea, if you do it to hurt your opponent, it's an "effective" card reducing of one, so it does exactly half as much as a ghost ship. but: it can't be countered and it returns to the supply after your opponent got rid of it, so you can do it over and over again. it'll shine if your opponent tries to end the game early, and you're going for a slower deck with a high payoff. Just buy one of those every turn, and you'll buy yourself some extra time.

Players also have an option to not play it.  The penalty is that it will cause you to gain Ruins when you reshuffle, if it is in your discard.  Practically speaking, this is not so good either.  It means that every time I shuffle, I have to reveal my entire discard to other players and find every copy of it there.  I can't just look through it myself either; I have to reveal my discard for accountability.  That slows the game down a lot.  I can't think of a good way to fix this.

i thought that's completely fine. Online it'll do it itself and offline you just have to remember how many of those you have in your deck. In most cases, it wont be more than one, so it wont take much time. It certainly isn't worse than stash

If you ever try to trash the card, you have to discard a card.  This seems unnecessary.  I'm already using an action to trash this Confusion, when I could have been trashing something else.  In some cases, maybe it doesn't matter much or maybe it's even a bonus (e.g. Remodel into a $5), but that's fine.  You could probably leave out the entire on-trash effect, saving space and design complexity.

I don't want this card to be trashed. It's supposed to be an everlasting option throughout the game.

Going back to the choice of keeping the card... you get a Coin token and you may put it on your deck.  Is the coin token worth junking your own deck?  Note that the Confusion you would gain yourself does not go into your hand.  That actually makes it more damaging to you than anyone else.  If you put it on top of your deck, then your next hand is automatically cut to 4 cards (not counting Confusion) and possibly down to 3 cards (if you choose to play Confusion and have to discard something).  That's a bigger hit than the others face, since they would only be dropped down to 4 cards.  And if you choose not to top-deck it, then you've effectively given yourself a Confusion and a Ruins.  Not good.  That's probably never worth the coin token.  You could streamline the card even more by omitting the option and simply having the buyer leave it in the supply every time.

I thought it was useful in a lot of cases. The first one is if you need the sheme-effect for next turn, either because there's a potion without enough support, a KC without any action cards or a single treasure map. In all of those cases, you'll be more than happy to spend $3 if it a) let's you sheme your key card, b) slows down your opponent and c) gives you a coin token.

Another case is: you're playing a junked BM deck and struggle to get to 8. Simply buy a Confusion twice in a row, slow down your opponents, make it even less likeley that they ever reach 8, and get 2 coin tokens. Then buy the province with 6+2.

Then there are the games where the first one to get to $7 and buys a KC wins. If you know how the remainder of your drawing pile looks like, you can buy a Confusion, put it on top of your deck; next turn use it to top deck your biggest money card; then in the following turn get the KC.

Or imagine if you want to boost vineyards/gardens/fairgrounds. With the reshuffle thing my primary goal was to delay the disadvantage that you get if you leave it in your deck as long as possible. You buy it, then you use your remaining drawing pile, then you reshuffle, and only once you reshuffle again the ruins is in your drawing pile. So you can buy some Confusions, have the coin token and attack benefit, and let them generate nice ruins in your kingdom that make your vineyards all the more attractive. It's +2 action cards if triggered once, and +2 differently named cards for fairgrounds.

One final issue is how this pile scales with number of players.  It is a junk card, but it is not like other junk cards.  If you look at Curses and Ruins, these piles will scale.  In a 2p game, there are 10.  In a 4p game, there are 30.  So does the Confusion pile scale as well?  Is it still a kingdom card?  If it doesn't scale then the pile runs out far more quickly than other such junk cards.  Granted, the scaling might matter less since these cards will (usually) keep returning to the supply instead of staying in decks or getting trashed.  So there's that.

yea, you gave the answer yourself, it's supposed to never run out, because it always returns to the supply.

Hmm... this card concept could probably be written in a much simpler manner and achieve nearly the same effect.  The effect of gaining a Confusion into your hand is basically a choice between a discard attack or gaining a Ruins.  A difference is that the Confusion would be a persistent threat of gaining Ruins until you accept the discard attack.  But even so, there is something to be said for removing excess complexity.  So you could rephrase a lot of it as:

When you gain this, return it to the Supply.  Each other player chooses one: he discards down to 4 cards in hand; or he gains a Ruins.

Again, it's not exactly the same, but it's close and it's much simpler and more concise.  It could be reworded slightly different to have the player put cards on top of his deck instead of discarding, but that's a small change.

I wouldn't like the card at all if it worked that way, because the goal of this card was to have something that's skill dependent, situational yet useful in a lot of different cases, and never runs out.  If you do it like that, neither of those goals is achieved. It's just a junker, neither something new nor something very exciting or complex. And it most certainly doesn't want to be a discard, because on-deck is something very different to discarding, it's what I call the difference between "effective" and "uneffective" hand size reducing.

Phrased this way, I recognize another potential issue -- this is an on-buy discard attack that is always on the board.  I recall that Donald X. mentioned in a Secret History (one of the last ones, for all the outtakes, I think) that he tried a Militia variant that attacked when you bought it, like Noble Brigands.  Apparently it didn't pan out because the ever-present threat was just too oppressive.  That doesn't mean that a concept like this wouldn't work, but it's something to keep in mind.  If you want to refine this concept, it would be worth finding that particular discussion from Donald X. to mull over.

Maybe... never heard about that.

[eHalcyon]

yea, if you do it to hurt your opponent, it's an "effective" card reducing of one, so it does exactly half as much as a ghost ship. but: it can't be countered and it returns to the supply after your opponent got rid of it, so you can do it over and over again. it'll shine if your opponent tries to end the game early, and you're going for a slower deck with a high payoff. Just buy one of those every turn, and you'll buy yourself some extra time.

I'm not sure about this.  In rush strategies, losing one card doesn't really hurt.  Rush strategies usually operate by gaining cards quickly, using gainers like Ironworks or +Buy to run out cheap cards.  Either way, 4 card hands are enough.  Having to buy one of these every turn is far more likely to slow you down than your rushing opponent.

i thought that's completely fine. Online it'll do it itself and offline you just have to remember how many of those you have in your deck. In most cases, it wont be more than one, so it wont take much time. It certainly isn't worse than stash

It is absolutely worse than Stash.  Stash has a unique back card for this very reason.  You can flip the discard over and easily find the Stash cards.  You can't just remember how many are in your deck because some could be in your hand, or set aside on a mat (NV, Island).  In games with 3+ players and Masquerade, it is impossible to track because it's not public knowledge which cards are passed.

I don't want this card to be trashed. It's supposed to be an everlasting option throughout the game.

Sorry for being a bit unclear.  My point was that trashing the card is a weak enough choice that you would very rarely do it.  In the majority of cases, it's easier to just play it and return it to the supply.  Therefore, there is no reason to punish players for trashing it -- there is already enough disincentive.  Leaving off the text makes the card cleaner and less cluttered.  It also allows the possibility of the card sometimes being worth trashing, which is interesting, e.g. "Maybe I should try to trash these things away so you can't keep attacking me by buying them."

I thought it was useful in a lot of cases. The first one is if you need the sheme-effect for next turn, either because there's a potion without enough support, a KC without any action cards or a single treasure map. In all of those cases, you'll be more than happy to spend $3 if it a) let's you sheme your key card, b) slows down your opponent and c) gives you a coin token.

Another case is: you're playing a junked BM deck and struggle to get to 8. Simply buy a Confusion twice in a row, slow down your opponents, make it even less likeley that they ever reach 8, and get 2 coin tokens. Then buy the province with 6+2.

Then there are the games where the first one to get to $7 and buys a KC wins. If you know how the remainder of your drawing pile looks like, you can buy a Confusion, put it on top of your deck; next turn use it to top deck your biggest money card; then in the following turn get the KC.

Or imagine if you want to boost vineyards/gardens/fairgrounds. With the reshuffle thing my primary goal was to delay the disadvantage that you get if you leave it in your deck as long as possible. You buy it, then you use your remaining drawing pile, then you reshuffle, and only once you reshuffle again the ruins is in your drawing pile. So you can buy some Confusions, have the coin token and attack benefit, and let them generate nice ruins in your kingdom that make your vineyards all the more attractive. It's +2 action cards if triggered once, and +2 differently named cards for fairgrounds.

Barring a few edge cases, you don't know what your hand will be in the next turn so there's no way to know if you'll want the Scheme effect.  It's actually much worse than a Scheme effect too, because it effectively cuts you down to a 3 card hand.

Unless there is only like one Province left, it's probably not worth junking your own deck more just to get a coin token.  Again, you end up slowing yourself down more than your opponents.  You also have to consider the opportunity cost.  Instead of junking your own deck (or hurting your next hand) to get a coin token, you could actively improve your deck by buying Silver or some other action card!

The example with the KC... if you hadn't topdecked the confusion, you could very well have drawn $7 in that hand.  Instead, you are saying to kickback a big treasure into another hand that itself might not reach $6.  Yeah if you had very detailed knowledge of your deck contents this could work, but there's no way to know the order of your deck for the next two hands.  You could be sabotaging yourself rather than helping yourself!

As for the alt VP example, the problem here is that you also confer the advantage onto your opponents.  Yes, you get a way to obtain more cards... but so do your opponents.  So why should you buy this at all?  My point is that the advantages do not outweigh the disadvantages.

Hmm... this card concept could probably be written in a much simpler manner and achieve nearly the same effect.  The effect of gaining a Confusion into your hand is basically a choice between a discard attack or gaining a Ruins.  A difference is that the Confusion would be a persistent threat of gaining Ruins until you accept the discard attack.  But even so, there is something to be said for removing excess complexity.  So you could rephrase a lot of it as:

When you gain this, return it to the Supply.  Each other player chooses one: he discards down to 4 cards in hand; or he gains a Ruins.

Again, it's not exactly the same, but it's close and it's much simpler and more concise.  It could be reworded slightly different to have the player put cards on top of his deck instead of discarding, but that's a small change.

I wouldn't like the card at all if it worked that way, because the goal of this card was to have something that's skill dependent, situational yet useful in a lot of different cases, and never runs out.  If you do it like that, neither of those goals is achieved. It's just a junker, neither something new nor something very exciting or complex. And it most certainly doesn't want to be a discard, because on-deck is something very different to discarding, it's what I call the difference between "effective" and "uneffective" hand size reducing.

As I said, you could modify my rewrite to top-deck instead of discard.  The choice I put onto this version effectively matches the choices created by your version -- each other player ends up choosing between junk or a smaller hand.  That is exactly what your Confusion does.

Not sure what you mean by "effective" and "uneffective" hand size reduction.  A top-deck attack like Ghost Ship differs from a discard attack like Militia in that top-decking slows down the opponent's deck cycling.  This is better in the early game, when you want to cycle your good cards back into your deck, but worse in the late game, when you want to keep Victory cards from cycling back in.  If forced to top-deck, you can't choose Victory cards with impunity because they'll show up in your next hand.  But you can also take advantage of it by using it as a sort of Scheme, so that's a wash.  The anti-cycling is the main difference.

[markusin]

There is a difference between discarding down to 4 and top-decking junk: The junk top-decking does not give you a choice as to what card is lost in the next hand. Think about how Sea Hag can make you discard another Sea Hag, or Minion, or Spy/Fortune Teller.

[silverspawn]

It is absolutely worse than Stash.  Stash has a unique back card for this very reason.  You can flip the discard over and easily find the Stash cards.  You can't just remember how many are in your deck because some could be in your hand, or set aside on a mat (NV, Island).  In games with 3+ players and Masquerade, it is impossible to track because it's not public knowledge which cards are passed.

Does anyone really care about that? I don't play dominion offline which people who're cheating. So you only need to know how many of those you have in your deck, and that number will usually be very low, mostly zero because you want to get rid of them in the turn you get them.
I really don't see this being a problem.

I'm not sure about this.  In rush strategies, losing one card doesn't really hurt.  Rush strategies usually operate by gaining cards quickly, using gainers like Ironworks or +Buy to run out cheap cards.  Either way, 4 card hands are enough.  Having to buy one of these every turn is far more likely to slow you down than your rushing opponent.

meh, i mostly just meant if one guy starts buying provinces and the other one tries to get a really cool engine working. At least I had countless of those games in the past.

The biggest problem here is that the sheme effect can actually be of help to your opponent, if he draws too much money in one turn, so it's a double edge sword... you still only give him 4 cards each turn instead of 5 though. It could still be tweaked to a top-deck gain instead of inhand, but I think that would be to strong, because then you effectively reduce his hand to 3 every turn, and there's nothing he can do about it unless there's trader or watchtower on the board.

Not sure what you mean by "effective" and "uneffective" hand size reduction.  A top-deck attack like Ghost Ship differs from a discard attack like Militia in that top-decking slows down the opponent's deck cycling.  This is better in the early game, when you want to cycle your good cards back into your deck, but worse in the late game, when you want to keep Victory cards from cycling back in.  If forced to top-deck, you can't choose Victory cards with impunity because they'll show up in your next hand.  But you can also take advantage of it by using it as a sort of Scheme, so that's a wash.  The anti-cycling is the main difference.

discard is uneffective because you can simly discard bad cards that you don't need. top deck is reliable damage beause if you topdeck bad cards you draw them next turn, and if you topdeck good cards you dont have them this turn. yea, you can distribute your power between the two turns, but you always have less power overall.

As for the alt VP example, the problem here is that you also confer the advantage onto your opponents.  Yes, you get a way to obtain more cards... but so do your opponents.  So why should you buy this at all?  My point is that the advantages do not outweigh the disadvantages.

you're assuming that both players go alternative vp every time, which isn't the case at all. if both players do it, then there's no point.

Barring a few edge cases, you don't know what your hand will be in the next turn so there's no way to know if you'll want the Scheme effect.  It's actually much worse than a Scheme effect too, because it effectively cuts you down to a 3 card hand.

if you are really good at the game you know it every time your drawing pile is getting thin. and yea, it's obv not as good as sheme. but i still see it being useful a lot of times, though there's no way to proof this without playtesting it.

Unless there is only like one Province left, it's probably not worth junking your own deck more just to get a coin token.  Again, you end up slowing yourself down more than your opponents.  You also have to consider the opportunity cost.  Instead of junking your own deck (or hurting your next hand) to get a coin token, you could actively improve your deck by buying Silver or some other action card!

You don't have to topdeck it, and if you don't you aren't slowing yourself down at all, at least not until you reshuffle your deck twice. In games with large decks there are a lot of turns within the spawn of the second last reshuffle to the end. I remember several games in the past where i would've bought Confusion, just to get a coin token for the next turn. Although, obviously, it'd be sad if that's its main purpose.

Another reason which I just thought of today is simply to avoid a reshuffle, if the drawing pile consists of 4 cards only and your precious mountebank is one of them.

[eHalcyon]

On the Stash thing -- yes, people will care.  People don't have to cheat -- they just have to forget.  It's very possible.  You say that the number will usually be zero because people want to get rid of them immediately, and I agree -- which is a major argument for just getting rid of the option entirely.  If it's an option that would be used almost never, then it's not worth cluttering up the card text.

On the rush thing -- Provinces aren't a rush strategy where you try to end the game early.  It's actually typically slower than an engine!  And the engine player doesn't have time to buy these to slow down the Province player, because he needs to be buying engine parts.  And yeah, I agree that having opponents topdeck it would be far too powerful.

On the "uneffective" -- it's not reliable damage though.  If you force me to topdeck one card, it could damage me.  But it might also let me put back a good card that I didn't need this turn (an extra terminal I couldn't play, or maybe a Silver I didn't need to buy what I want).  It's a wash, just like how discard might let them discard a bad card that doesn't matter.  The anti-cycling is thus the biggest difference.

On the alt VP -- I'm assuming that both players try to play the best strategy on the board.  If the alt VP strategy is strong, then both players will go for it.  If it isn't, then neither will.  Yes, sometimes it's not clear.  But the presence of a Looter strongly encourages both players to pursue Vineyards/Fairgrounds.  Similarly, junking opponents will encourage them to go for Gardens.  In other words, it's pretty reasonable to assume that players will mirror the alt VP strategy if Confusion is on the board.

On the scheme effect -- my point was that you can't track your deck well enough to make the opportunity cost worthwhile.  You can track your deck contents, sure, but for this to be a good choice you'd have to know your next TWO hands.  You'd have to know that the next one has a card you want to scheme, and that the hand after that will be improved enough with that schemed card.  You need that much success because of how huge the opportunity cost is.  I think you are underestimating it -- for you to want to keep the Confusion you buy, you have to weaken your current turn (buying Confusion instead of something that would help your deck more) AND your next turn (topdecking Confusion to effectively lower your next hand size) AND potentially a future turn after that (if you keep Confusion in your deck, so it shows up again) AND potentially multiple turns after that (if you end up with Ruins because of it).  That's a lot to pay for an uncertain reward.

On slowing yourself down -- yes, you do slow yourself down more.  Again, the hand-size attack hurts you more than your opponents.  They would get cut down to 4, but you get cut down to 3 (Confusion taking up a spot in your next hand, plus the card you would have to topdeck from playing Confusion).  And if you don't play Confusion, it still slowed you down (being in that hand) and will continue to slow you down after ONE reshuffle (being in a future hand).  The Ruins just means it will hurt some more in the shuffle after that.

[silverspawn]

On slowing yourself down -- yes, you do slow yourself down more.  Again, the hand-size attack hurts you more than your opponents.  They would get cut down to 4, but you get cut down to 3 (Confusion taking up a spot in your next hand, plus the card you would have to topdeck from playing Confusion).  And if you don't play Confusion, it still slowed you down (being in that hand) and will continue to slow you down after ONE reshuffle (being in a future hand).  The Ruins just means it will hurt some more in the shuffle after that.

no, you don't. the top deck on buy is optional, you can just gain it on your discard pile, then your next hand is unaffected and you still get the coin token.

and it's after 2 reshuffles, because after the first reshuffle, the ruin is in your discard pile. you need to reshuffle again to get it into your drawing pile

On the Stash thing -- yes, people will care.  People don't have to cheat -- they just have to forget.  It's very possible.  You say that the number will usually be zero because people want to get rid of them immediately, and I agree -- which is a major argument for just getting rid of the option entirely.  If it's an option that would be used almost never, then it's not worth cluttering up the card text

it's like the 3 estate option on hunting grounds. in most games you don't need it, but when you do it's crucial.

[eHalcyon]

On slowing yourself down -- yes, you do slow yourself down more.  Again, the hand-size attack hurts you more than your opponents.  They would get cut down to 4, but you get cut down to 3 (Confusion taking up a spot in your next hand, plus the card you would have to topdeck from playing Confusion).  And if you don't play Confusion, it still slowed you down (being in that hand) and will continue to slow you down after ONE reshuffle (being in a future hand).  The Ruins just means it will hurt some more in the shuffle after that.

no, you don't. the top deck on buy is optional, you can just gain it on your discard pile, then your next hand is unaffected and you still get the coin token.

and it's after 2 reshuffles, because after the first reshuffle, the ruin is in your discard pile. you need to reshuffle again to get it into your drawing pile

If you decline to top-deck, the Confusion is still in your discard.  After one shuffle, the Confusion itself goes into your deck.  That Confusion is junk that effectively Minion/Militias the hand it comes up in, so it slows you down.  The Ruins that comes after is just icing.

[silverspawn]

On slowing yourself down -- yes, you do slow yourself down more.  Again, the hand-size attack hurts you more than your opponents.  They would get cut down to 4, but you get cut down to 3 (Confusion taking up a spot in your next hand, plus the card you would have to topdeck from playing Confusion).  And if you don't play Confusion, it still slowed you down (being in that hand) and will continue to slow you down after ONE reshuffle (being in a future hand).  The Ruins just means it will hurt some more in the shuffle after that.

no, you don't. the top deck on buy is optional, you can just gain it on your discard pile, then your next hand is unaffected and you still get the coin token.

and it's after 2 reshuffles, because after the first reshuffle, the ruin is in your discard pile. you need to reshuffle again to get it into your drawing pile

If you decline to top-deck, the Confusion is still in your discard.  After one shuffle, the Confusion itself goes into your deck.  That Confusion is junk that effectively Minion/Militias the hand it comes up in, so it slows you down.  The Ruins that comes after is just icing.

alright, so it hurts after one reshuffle, not two. but it still hurts after one reshuffle, not in your next turn.

you could tweak it so confusion itself goes onto your discard pile too after you shuffle it into your deck... which in consequence would mean that you never shuffle it into your deck, which means you also can't leave it on your discard pile. that would be pretty confusing.

[SirPeebles]

I just noticed this post from Donald

Anatomy of an Attack

There are basically six kinds of attacks in Dominion. And I've only done four of them! Mostly there are four.

The way to see the kinds of attacks is to look at, well, what there is to attack. What is there? There are decks. You can attack those three ways. There are hands. There's really just one way to hurt them. There's what you can do on your turn. And there are scores, separate from cards. So:

1. Give them a card they don't want.
2. Make them lose a card they do want.
3. Put their deck in an order they will not be fond of.
4. Make them discard.
5. Make their turn worse.
6. Lower their score.

All of the attacks so far fall into one or more of the first four categories. Witch is #1, Bureaucrat is #3 and #4, and so on. You can also do things to other players that they do want to happen, but man, that's not attacking.

Let's look at these in more detail.

1. Give them a card they don't want.

For example, Witch and Swindler.

The beauty of Cursing is its simplicity. It takes very little space to say "each other player gains a Curse," leaving lots of room for more stuff that the card can do. You can also potentially give players other cards they don't want, such as Coppers or even Estates, often just as simply.

2. Make them lose a card they do want.

For example, Thief and Saboteur.

This is the hardest kind of attack to make. It has to be that there isn't too much variance in how it hits the other players - no making one player lose a Province while another loses a Copper. It has to be good enough to play - trashing Coppers and Estates is usually not what you're after. It can't generate a ridiculous game state too easily - some of the early cards in this category would by themselves lead to a game where everyone had just 5 cards and could not get ahead. And finally it has to be that the text actually fits on the card. With all of those other conditions to meet, it's tricky.

Ultimately, there usually isn't much room to define these attacks by the extra stuff they do; they often end up defined by how they handle the problems above. And then some people don't like them. My stuff, my precious stuff! So I do these less often than the other attacks.

3. Put their deck in an order they will not be fond of.

For example, Spy and Bureaucrat.

This is kind of like making them discard in advance. It ends up hurting them either next turn or this turn, depending on whether or not they draw some extra cards this turn. As you can see, there are two main ways to do it: either look at what's on top and muck with it, or put something specifically on top.

Spy-type cards tend to be wordy, and reminiscent of Spy. There is more flexibility to the Bureaucrat style of hurtful deck ordering, but still not a lot.

4. Make them discard.

For example, Militia and Bureaucrat.

Just making another player discard a card doesn't work. Discard one card and you don't even feel it. You tend to feel it at two. At discard three cards, so much for your turn. But you can get up to "discard three" if you ever do "discard one" - by playing it three times (or having three people play it once). So the simplest kind of discarding just doesn't work.

Which is why Militia says "discard down to 3." That keeps it right around the magical "feel it" level of pain. Bureaucrat manages a different approach; you can only discard (or in this case, put on your deck) so many victory cards. Sometimes it misses. Bureaucrat would still be scary if it didn't also gain you Silver; that Silver helps keep you from just building a deck that plays Bureaucrat three times every turn, so that the other players are stuck drawing their Estates constantly.

Discard-based attacks don't take much text, so there is a fair amount of variety possible with them, with the non-discarding part. The discarding part itself can't vary so much, but there are a few things you can do there.

5. Make their turn worse.

How can you even do this? The answer lies in Duration cards. Duration cards can do stuff like "until your next turn, each other player can't..." and so forth.

Seaside originally had some attacks like that. In the end it didn't get any. They make Duration cards in general a little harder to understand. Those attacks were turned into similar things that didn't require this trick. I could still do this kind of thing someday, but I wouldn't expect it for a while.

6. Lower their score.

Making each other player lose one point is just like gaining one point yourself. Score-lowering only makes sense if it keys off of something specific to your opponents - for example, each other player loses one point per action card in their deck. That one would be a mess to add up at the end.

Cards like this may be possible, but all of the ones I've tried out so far have died. They fluctuated between being too weak, too strong, and too much work to deal with.

There you have it! Six kinds of attacks, you heard it here. Seaside has the first four:

Ambassador - #1 - Cursing
Cutpurse - #4 - Discarding
Ghost Ship - #3 and #4 - Deck ordering and discarding
Pirate Ship - #2 - Trashing
Sea Hag - #1 and #3 - Cursing and deck ordering

Deck ordering made it into two attacks, as this is after all the next turn expansion.

Embargo is an honorary attack, falling into the fabled category #5, but it punishes you too, at least if you didn't pick carefully.