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[Fangz]

How does that make a difference? Still massively too powerful, probably even at $5.

[Matt_Arnold]

How does that make a difference? Still massively too powerful, probably even at $5.

It's not intended to make it less powerful. It solves the fact which was pointed out earlier, that if your opponent buys Grail with their 3-4 opening split, and you have a 2-5 opening split, you're screwed. With this change, your opponents' opening Grail means you now you have $3 instead of $2, enough to buy Grail, plus your 2nd turn might draw it.

If you're really concerned with the card's power, I could make it this:

Grail
Cost: $3
+$1
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an Action. Discard the other revealed cards. Play the revealed Action.
---------------------------
In any cleanup phase when you clean up one or more Grails, each other player reveals cards from his deck until he reveals a Treasure, putting it into his hand. He discards the other revealed cards.

[popsofctown]

That might be balanced, but it's poor design.  It heavily discourages sprinkling and limits the card to chaining strategies.

[Deadlock39]

There are lots of cards out there that will screw one player or the other over if the splits don't match.  I don't really think that is something that needs to be 'fixed' in the design of any card.

[popsofctown]

The earlier version was overpowered anyway.  You buy four of them before the second reshuffle and you have 4 terminal golds in your deck already.  It gets worse from there.

[Deadlock39]

Yeah, I never really felt like speaking up in here before, but in my opinion, the originally proposed version of the card is enough different from Golem to justify existing, but I believe it is almost identical in power.  It does not compare to Throne Room because Throneing an action takes up two cards from your hand and this takes only one, which is huge.  I would price it at $4P ($6 if you really don't want the Potion, but I don't think it works as well there).  I think it would be a reasonable card at that price point.

[Kahryl]

This card is way, way better than Throne Room.  It's pretty much just like a Golem except that it plays the first action found twice instead of the first and the second once each.

I guess it's slightly inferior to Golem because you generally want a healthy variety of played actions over one played twice.  I'd price it at $6.

What the OP missed in his original analysis is that Throne Room doesn't effectively increase the number of actions you get to play.  If you play Throne Room with another action in your hand, then you've spent two action cards to play two actions.  Throne Room basically just turns itself into a clone of another action card with a "+1 action" tacked on.  Royal Scepter on the other hand turns itself into TWO clones of another action, since it's taking it from your deck, not your hand.

[rinkworks]

Tried some more playtests with Royal Scepter at $6, this time deliberately using a money strategy with only one or two key action cards for the Royal Scepters to find.  Turns out, being able to play a double Torturer every 3 out of 4 turns is pretty powerful.  Who'd have thought?

It's really weird how you may blind spots you can have with this game.

I still need to test some more, but it seems like $6 is probably good, with the caveat that on some boards it's a must-buy at $6 and others it's terrible.  I don't suppose that's a bad thing, necessarily.

[Matt_Arnold]

I think I fixed Grail.

GRAIL
Type: Action
Cost: $4
Gain a Copper, putting it in your hand.
You may trash any number of Treasures from your hand.
For each Treasure you trash this way: Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an Action. Play the Action. Discard the other revealed cards.

[def]

I doubt it. One play of it midgame, where you already accumulated some actions (for example 4 Bridges), in a hand with, let's say three Coppers, does not only trash 3 Coppers (plus the one you gained), a thing you gladly do with Chapel, but also lets you play every Action in your deck at the same time, which could be game-changing (curse attacks, said Bridges, etc.)

[Matt_Arnold]

Sounds pretty awesome to me.

[WanderingWinder]

Sounds pretty awesome to me.

Sounds incredibly powerful to me. If it just said to dig for the next action and play it, it would be roughly as strong as scheme. As is, it's much, much better, and it barely costs more.
So yeah, it's pretty awesome, in the way that a 4-cost gold would be pretty awesome.

[Matt_Arnold]

If there is anything you think it needs for improvement, I'm interested to hear it. Gains up to two Coppers and may only trash one. What have you. Etc, etc. Incremental improvement is not difficult to do-- go ahead, try it, you'll probably come up with something interesting.