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[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.