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[MetaSkipper]

I will confess I have never playtested these cards, but I have tried to put them through the theory wringer. This is probably where I'll put all the cards I come up with, decent or otherwise.

Newest Cards
False Prophet - $4
Action
Reveal your hand. +$3 for each Curse revealed.
Could a Curse-centric deck work? I have no idea, but this is a theoretical start. The big stink with a Curse-centric deck is that Curses already stink AND clog your deck, so you better be getting something out of them.

Pessimism - $2
Action
+2 Actions
You may treat Curse cards as Victory type cards and treat Victory type cards as Curse cards this turn.
...There's gotta be use for this somehow... right?

Blood Money - $4
Treasure
The player to your left may place this card on the top of his deck. If he does, +$4. Otherwise, +$2.
In case the wording is unclear, the effect is mandatory; you cannot refuse to give the other player the chance to take the card. The card goes on top to prevent the game from accelerating into late game too fast, and because there are more ways to force discards than mills from top of the deck (I think). The cost is $4 is to prevent the classic double Blood Money opener into double gambit accepted into Turn 3 Provence.

Deal with the Devil - $1
Victory
At the end of the game, if you have the most Curses in your deck, +4 VP for every Victory type card. Otherwise, +0 VP.
Originally, the card was gonna give +VP per Curse, but then I realized that the player who got the first curse would probably be impossible to catch, outside of some super-Buy strat gambit where you  use an unclogged deck to buy tons of Curses faster than the Curse-clogged deck can.


Mostly Passable Cards
Exploitation – $2
Action
+1 Action
Trash any number of Victory cards from your hand. For each card trashed, +3 Cards per 2 Cost, +1 Action.
Basically, conditional terminal draw. Really strong terminal draw. Most useful early game for trashing Estates and getting an expensive card a bit earlier. Decided that you could use it as a thinner after all. Still trying to figure out if Exploitation + VP is a thing.

General – $5
Action – Reaction
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
You may play an Attack card at no Action cost.
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this and one Attack card from your hand. Set that Attack card aside from your hand. If you do, you are unaffected by that attack, and return that Attack card to your hand at the start of your next turn.
The original General concept, but with a +1 Buy! Because +$1 didn’t really make sense, and +1 Action kinda defeats the free attack idea.

Ambush – $5
Action – Reaction
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, set aside any number of Attack cards from your hand. At the start of your next turn, play those cards.
Shamefully stolen from suggestions with a name change. Still feels a bit funny on the “don’t make reactions that hurt the attacker,” though, since it enables more counter-attacks than had the original attacker not attacked.

Conscription – $4
Action
Trash any number of Treasure cards from your hand. For each card, gain an Action card worth up to $4 more than its cost.
When you want a lot of combo or engine cards early game. Trashed the part about getting an even more valuable Attack card since that would enable you to get any Attack card and trash a Copper, which was kinda silly. This is not quite a better Remake or Remodel or such, since you can only target Treasures, and once you turn them into Actions, there’s no re-Conscripting them.

Cards Under Consideration
Unfair Treaty - $5
Action - Attack
Trash a card from your hand, and gain a card costing up to $2 more. Each other player trashes a card from their hand of equal or greater cost than the card you trashed (or reveals a hand with no such card, and trashes one with the highest cost), and gains a card costing up to $1 more. Each other player may not gain a copy of the card that they trashed.

Border Dispute - $7
Action – Attack
Each player reveals cards from the top of his deck until revealing a Victory card. Place the revealed victory card in your hand. Each other player returns his revealed card to the Supply and gains a victory card at most $3 less. He then discards the other cards. For each card trashed, choose one: Trash a Victory card from your hand, and gain a Victory card no more than $3 more into your hand; or, gain an Estate. Discard the other cards.

Rezoning – $3
Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal two Victory cards. Put those Victory cards into your hand and discard the other revealed cards. You may return any number of victory cards from your hand to the Supply, and gain a Victory card costing up to the sum of the costs of the cards returned.

Mobilization - $3
Action – Reaction
+2 Cards
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand and discard it. If you do, +2 Cards. You may choose to resolve this effect before or after the attack finishes resolving.

Standing Army – $5
Action – Attack – Reaction – Victory
This card is worth 1 VP for every two Attack cards in your deck, rounded down.
Discard a Treasure or Action card. Every other player discards down to two cards.
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, reveal this from your hand and discard it. If you do, you are unaffected by that Attack.

Propaganda - $4
Action – Reaction
+1 Card
+1 Action
-----
When another player plays an Action card, you may reveal this from your hand and discard it. If you do, you may treat that card as an Attack type card.
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand and set it aside. If you do, +1 Card. At the start of your next turn,+1 Action, and return this to your hand.

Cards In Need to Reworking/Scrapping
Unskilled Labor - $2
Action
+1 Card
If an action has already been played this turn, +2 Actions.
The usually-worse-than-Village (but Village Idiot-proof) Village. This is the revised version, as the other version was too close to other cards.

Skilled Labor - $4
Action
+2 Cards
You may play up to two cards that cost less than this at no action cost.
The better-if-you-have-cheap-cards Laboratory. The cost is low so that it isn’t a better Lab. Otherwise, it’d be prohibitively expensive. Price under evaluation.

Mass Production - $6
Action
+1 Buy
For each subsequent buy of the same card this turn, reduce the cost by $1, but never below $1.
Another get-many-cards-now card. Not limited to actions, but you need a lot of money to make good work of it. Comes too late to be useful, though.

[mail-mi]

General
Action – Reaction
$5
+3 Cards
You may play an Attack card at no Action cost.
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this and one Attack card from your hand. Set that Attack card aside from your hand. If you do, you are unaffected by that attack, and return that Attack card to your hand at the start of your next turn.
A not quite Moat-Smithy mix if you run an Attack heavy deck. If you don’t (or can’t) run any attacks, it’s a slightly more expensive Smithy. And then probably worthless, in hindsight. Could knock it down to +2 cards and then $4.

I would recommend making you discard or set aside the General as well, otherwise you can reveal it for each attack card from your hand.

[MetaSkipper]

General
Action – Reaction
$5
+3 Cards
You may play an Attack card at no Action cost.
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this and one Attack card from your hand. Set that Attack card aside from your hand. If you do, you are unaffected by that attack, and return that Attack card to your hand at the start of your next turn.
A not quite Moat-Smithy mix if you run an Attack heavy deck. If you don’t (or can’t) run any attacks, it’s a slightly more expensive Smithy. And then probably worthless, in hindsight. Could knock it down to +2 cards and then $4.

I would recommend making you discard or set aside the General as well, otherwise you can reveal it for each attack card from your hand.

That, in fact, was the original intent of the card. Do you think that would be too strong for the cost? It doesn't sound terribly broken, mechanically. Revealing more attack cards to one attack is, at best, useless, since you've already negated the attack, and if you face multiple attacks and don't have enough attacks of your own, you have to be selective (or suck it up). Maybe if you're going for some handsize manipulation, maybe....

[Marcory]

A couple of issues:

Exploitation: I'm not sure when you'd want this. After all, you don't normally buy Alt-VP cards (except for hybrids like Great Hall and Nobles) except in the endgame when you miss $5, unless you're pursuing Alt VP as a strategy. In that case, you don't want to trash the Alt-VP cards. It does trash your starting Estates, but replaces them with curses; I seriously doubt that a one-time +2 cards is worth that.

The General is strictly worse than Smithy in games without attacks. And in games with attacks, am I really going to want to buy General instead of another $5 attack? After all, General is only a Smithy if it doesn't collide with my Witch. In the early games, the chances of it colliding with my Witch are not high--so I'd rather just have that 2nd Witch--and later on, the curses will be gone and so playing the attack will only draw me 2 cards. There, the overall effect of General+Witch (5 cards) will not necessarily be better than Village +Witch (3 cards, 1 action). And if there are villages, I'm going to want them anyway, so the General's ability won't be all that useful.

Besides, I think that there's a reason that Dominion has no $5 reactions; you want Reactions to be cheap enough that people can afford to buy and use them, while $5 cards must be useful on their own.

General might be OK if it let you play ALL your actions--but you'd have to playtest that in an Attack-heavy deck that also has a strong defense card (Lighthouse, Watchtower, etc).


Conscription seems super swingy--either way worse than Develop, which can at least get you Silver, or way better than Remake. It would be awesome if there are good $2 actions on the board (you could trash 4 coppers and gain 4 Lighthouses), and awful if the only $2 action is a terminal (Duchess, Herbalist, etc). Sure it can gain Goons, but without strong non-terminal $2 actions, I'd almost always rather have Remodel, which is more flexible.

[MetaSkipper]

A couple of issues:

Exploitation: I'm not sure when you'd want this. After all, you don't normally buy Alt-VP cards (except for hybrids like Great Hall and Nobles) except in the endgame when you miss $5, unless you're pursuing Alt VP as a strategy. In that case, you don't want to trash the Alt-VP cards. It does trash your starting Estates, but replaces them with curses; I seriously doubt that a one-time +2 cards is worth that.

The original concept was to be able to trash your victory cards to get a large boost that scaled with the victory card. Early game, you can get an expensive card a bit earlier. “The Dream,” of course, is to get a turn 3 Province. My concern was that you could thin your deck too fast for it to be balanced, although it sounds a bit silly now. Mid and late game, you can turn your Duchies and Provinces into… Provinces, either through money or engine. That’s part of the reason why you get at least +1 Action with the card. There’s also the crazy Exploitation+VP card strat where you don’t really improve your score, but try to quickly burn down the Supply piles. You might only have two or three Provinces, but hopefully your opponent(s) only have one.

The General is strictly worse than Smithy in games without attacks. And in games with attacks, am I really going to want to buy General instead of another $5 attack? After all, General is only a Smithy if it doesn't collide with my Witch. In the early games, the chances of it colliding with my Witch are not high--so I'd rather just have that 2nd Witch--and later on, the curses will be gone and so playing the attack will only draw me 2 cards. There, the overall effect of General+Witch (5 cards) will not necessarily be better than Village +Witch (3 cards, 1 action). And if there are villages, I'm going to want them anyway, so the General's ability won't be all that useful.

Besides, I think that there's a reason that Dominion has no $5 reactions; you want Reactions to be cheap enough that people can afford to buy and use them, while $5 cards must be useful on their own.

General might be OK if it let you play ALL your actions--but you'd have to playtest that in an Attack-heavy deck that also has a strong defense card (Lighthouse, Watchtower, etc).

By ALL your actions, do you mean all Actions or all Attacks? If it’s all actions, sounds pretty strong, even for $5. If it’s all attacks, that sounds… like it needs playtesting.
Suppose we turned down the card draw to +2 Cards. In an attack-less game, it’s a Moat. In a game with attacks, it’s a slightly better Moat if you draw your attacks with it. That could work.
General
Action – Reaction
$3
+2 Cards
You may play an Attack card at no Action cost.
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this and one Attack card from your hand. Set that Attack card aside from your hand. If you do, you are unaffected by that attack, and return that Attack card to your hand at the start of your next turn.

Conscription seems super swingy--either way worse than Develop, which can at least get you Silver, or way better than Remake. It would be awesome if there are good $2 actions on the board (you could trash 4 coppers and gain 4 Lighthouses), and awful if the only $2 action is a terminal (Duchess, Herbalist, etc). Sure it can gain Goons, but without strong non-terminal $2 actions, I'd almost always rather have Remodel, which is more flexible.

Suppose you “The Dream” and get Conscription and four Copper. If the card let you get up to $4 more, you could build an engine right then and there, and that’s probably too good for $2, although you will have to spend your next few turns rebuilding your money supply. Up to $3 more, and you can get the workings of the simple vanilla Village-Smithy started, but nothing more expensive, and waiting for Silvers seems too late (without playtesting). There is increasing the cost, but then you’d probably have Silvers already anyway.

[LastFootnote]

I agree with Marcory on pretty much everything. I'll try to critique the cards from scratch, though. Apologies in advance if I'm too harsh.

Exploitation
Action
$2
+1 Action
Trash any number of Victory cards from your hand. For each card trashed, gain a curse. If you do, +1 Action per card. For each VP trashed, +2 Cards.
For any Victory card with variable or otherwise undetermined VP, treat the card as the next cheapest Victory card with a fixed cost. If no card exists, treat it as an Estate. If there are two cards which are next cheapest, you may pick which one.

This card is riddled with issues. As Marcory said, I'm not sure when you'd want it. Usually you're not buying Victory cards until the end, meaning that this is mostly for trashing Estates. You could use it to aid in running out piles at the end of the game, but Apprentice is just a better, more flexible version of that mechanic.

Your long clause does resolve the rules issues, but it's way too much to actually put on a card. Too much text physically, and too much complexity for such a simple idea. In general it's best to key off of card cost rather than how much it's "worth", and that goes for both Treasures and Victory cards.

Finally, cards that self-Curse tend to be really unpopular. You'd have to make the rest of the card way more compelling for that to fly.

Anyhow, yeah. Lots of issues, and once you resolve them, the card is probably going to look a lot like Apprentice.

General
Action – Reaction
$5
+3 Cards
You may play an Attack card at no Action cost.
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this and one Attack card from your hand. Set that Attack card aside from your hand. If you do, you are unaffected by that attack, and return that Attack card to your hand at the start of your next turn.

It's nice when Reaction cards are cheap, especially ones that fight Attacks, since you're more likely to have some bad hands. I don't think a $5 Reaction is out of the question. I don't love how this is exactly a Smithy when there are no Attack cards. It would be nice if it did something else as well. Perhaps +1 Buy?

The idea of using Attacks to block other Attacks is cool, but I don't know if it's that great in practice. It's so much weaker than Moat, and on a $5 card! Perhaps if it gave some other benefit as well. Perhaps you could remove the "You may play an Action card" from the on-play portion and add it to the Reaction? So:

General (or another name, y'know, if you're feeling generous)
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+3 Cards. +1 Buy.
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, set aside any number of Attack cards from your hand. At the start of your next turn, play those cards.

I guess that's a lot different. Just an idea.

Conscription
Action
$4
Trash any number of Treasure cards from your hand. For each card, gain an Action card worth up to $2 more than its cost, or gain an Attack card worth up to $4 more than its cost.

Eh, I'm not a huge fan of this one. It's really swingy, depending on how many Treasure cards you can match it with. Mint is that way, but with this you also get Action cards back? Seems a bit much.

On the other hand, there often isn't a $2 Action card you want many of on the table. When there is, great! Otherwise, meh. Giving up a Silver in hand for a $5 Action is a mixed bag. You lose $2 of buying power, but it's probably worth it if you're also trashing other Treasures from your hand and won't be buying anything anyway. But once all your Coppers are gone, this proposition is less appealing. You'd have to hit at least 2 Silvers at a time for it to be great.

The upshot is that I think this will be really powerful with certain cards available (Candlestick Maker, Spy, etc.), and really awful otherwise. It's OK to have some cards that are niche, but this just seems a little too niche.

[NoMoreFun]

I like the top half of General. A +1 Action that is conditional on what actions can be played; my only concern is that there are quite often games without attacks. Then again in games with attacks, sometimes other cards need help getting attention. Perhaps give it a +buy, or maybe "you may play a card costing less than this from your hand".

[AJD]

General
Action – Reaction
$5
+3 Cards
You may play an Attack card at no Action cost.
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this and one Attack card from your hand. Set that Attack card aside from your hand. If you do, you are unaffected by that attack, and return that Attack card to your hand at the start of your next turn.

It's nice when Reaction cards are cheap, especially ones that fight Attacks, since you're more likely to have some bad hands. I don't think a $5 Reaction is out of the question. I don't love how this is exactly a Smithy when there are no Attack cards. It would be nice if it did something else as well. Perhaps +1 Buy?

I like +1 Buy because the other +3 Cards, +1 Buy, $5 cost card is an Attack. So this'd be strictly worse than Margrave if Margrave's not on the board, but if Margrave is on the board it's not strictly worse anymore. So that's cute.

[eHalcyon]

General
Action – Reaction
$5
+3 Cards
You may play an Attack card at no Action cost.
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this and one Attack card from your hand. Set that Attack card aside from your hand. If you do, you are unaffected by that attack, and return that Attack card to your hand at the start of your next turn.

It's nice when Reaction cards are cheap, especially ones that fight Attacks, since you're more likely to have some bad hands. I don't think a $5 Reaction is out of the question. I don't love how this is exactly a Smithy when there are no Attack cards. It would be nice if it did something else as well. Perhaps +1 Buy?

I like +1 Buy because the other +3 Cards, +1 Buy, $5 cost card is an Attack. So this'd be strictly worse than Margrave if Margrave's not on the board, but if Margrave is on the board it's not strictly worse anymore. So that's cute.

It isn't strictly worse than Margrave if any attack is on the board.  But you're right, it's still cute.

[MetaSkipper]

I was going to write a long post responding to all that criticism (thank you, by the way), but then I got lazy and just decided to update the OP taking that criticism into account, and adding another three cards.

Unskilled Labor
Action
$3
+1 Card
If an action has already been played this turn, +2 Actions.
If you gain a card with this in play, you may return this to the Supply and gain another copy of that card.
The usually-worse-than-Village (but Village Idiot-proof) Village, but with a bonus replacement effect.

Skilled Labor
Action
$4
+2 Cards
You may play up to two cards that cost less than this at no action cost.
The better-if-you-have-cheap-cards Laboratory. The cost is low so that it isn’t a better Lab. Otherwise, it’d be prohibitively expensive.

Mass Production
Action
$6
+1 Buy
For each subsequent buy of the same card this turn, reduce the cost by $1, but never below $1.
Another get-many-cards-now card. Not limited to actions, but you need a lot of money to make good work of it. Probably good in mega-turn decks. No free cards without Highway or somethin’, though.

[Marcory]

Conscription is now an interesting mixture of Workshop and Moneylender. You'd have to test it to see how it works in practice.

Unskilled labor is a decent idea, but as written it allows you to gain a free Colony, free Familiar, free Possession--you name it. You need to tone it down.

Skilled Labor is too strong. It's basically a Trusty Steed when you have strong $3 cards like Ambassador or Masquerade. Plus, you can do something like Great Hall-Oracle for 3 cards and one action, in addition to the 2 cards you already drew. Plus, it doesn't account for Prizes, Mercenary, and Madman. Finally, it needs to specify 'Action cards', to avoid the Black Market problem of putting Treasures into play during your action phase. But it would be fun to try a Poor House-Skilled Labor deck, so this card does have some promise.

I'm not sure when I would buy Mass Production. It's basically a $6 Bridge without the +$1. If you have 4 buys and $15 and play Mass Production, sure, you can spend that $15 to buy 5 Labs instead of 3. But you're not going to get to $15 and 4 buys unless you already have lots of Labs (or other strong engine pieces), so at that point, you'd probably rather have a $6 Gold so that you can buy two Provinces or Platinums. Even if you cut Mass Production down to $4, I'm pretty sure I'd rather have Bridge. If you gave it more buys, it would work better, but that would make 3-piling too easy.

The new General is much better, but I think I'd still prefer any $5 Village (except maybe unimproved City) over General. Villages enable Attacks just as well as General does, and are more flexible. You might change it so that General can chain itself, like Cultist--but that might be way too powerful (you'd have to test it).

If I have $5 and want a Smithy, then sure, I'll pick up Ambush instead. But I'm pretty sure I'd buy Catacombs over Ambush, and Catacombs is the worst of the $5 Smithies.

The problem with Ambush' reaction is that 1) you usually don't have two Attack cards in your hand, so you'd have gotten to play the Attack anyway and 2) most of the time, you would rather have a second $5 attack than Ambush.

[NoMoreFun]

I like +1 Buy because the other +3 Cards, +1 Buy, $5 cost card is an Attack. So this'd be strictly worse than Margrave if Margrave's not on the board, but if Margrave is on the board it's not strictly worse anymore. So that's cute.

Indeed, so the "strictly worse" thing is never an issue. I'd like to see more cards like this. It would be a very interesting way of addressing "power creep".

[MetaSkipper]

Conscription is now an interesting mixture of Workshop and Moneylender. You'd have to test it to see how it works in practice.

Actually, I will say that I have a limit capability to test my own cards, embarrassingly enough. I only own the base set, and my real life compatriots who play Dominion with me are limited. I say this not as an excuse, merely a confession. Outside of asking someone else to test my cards for me (which seems exceptionally jerkface-y), is there a place/way I could test my cards online, or at least digitally?

Unskilled labor is a decent idea, but as written it allows you to gain a free Colony, free Familiar, free Possession--you name it. You need to tone it down.

This is what I get for designing cards late at night. Could limit it to just actions, though that still lets you double up on good actions. I was hoping to open up some unforeseen strats by making it on gain, instead of on buy, but doesn’t really work with my solution. Maybe:

Unskilled Labor
Action
$3
+1 Card
If an action has already been played this turn, +2 Actions.
If you gain an Action card that costs less than this, you may return this to the Supply and gain another copy of that card.
If you buy an Action card with this in play, you may overpay for it. If you do, you may return this to the Supply and gain another copy of that card.

One clause or the other could go (probably should be only one), but the idea of “re-training” unskilled labor should stay. Also, come to think of it, can’t get Harems with this card. Dunno if you should be able to, just struck me funny.

Skilled Labor is too strong. It's basically a Trusty Steed when you have strong $3 cards like Ambassador or Masquerade. Plus, you can do something like Great Hall-Oracle for 3 cards and one action, in addition to the 2 cards you already drew. Plus, it doesn't account for Prizes, Mercenary, and Madman. Finally, it needs to specify 'Action cards', to avoid the Black Market problem of putting Treasures into play during your action phase. But it would be fun to try a Poor House-Skilled Labor deck, so this card does have some promise.

There’s the kicker, now, isn’t it? I make it cost too much, it’s effectively +2 Actions. Make it too cheap, it sucks. If I knock it down to $3, I have the problem I originally had with Conscription: it stinks if there’s no value $2 card. Of course, it stinks now if there’s no value $3 card, but that’s much less likely, I figure. I try to limit to, say, non-Attacks, still plenty of great $3 non-Attack cards, plus the clause is meaningless if there’s no attacks in the Supply anyway. I fix the limit so that I can fiddle with the price, and now Bridge and Highway let you play more expensive actions with it (which may not be worse). I can cut it down to +1 conditional Action or +1 Card, but then it’s just a worse Lab or Village, respectively, and as interesting those ideas are, that’s not really what I was going for. Gonna have to mull this one over some more.

I'm not sure when I would buy Mass Production. It's basically a $6 Bridge without the +$1. If you have 4 buys and $15 and play Mass Production, sure, you can spend that $15 to buy 5 Labs instead of 3. But you're not going to get to $15 and 4 buys unless you already have lots of Labs (or other strong engine pieces), so at that point, you'd probably rather have a $6 Gold so that you can buy two Provinces or Platinums. Even if you cut Mass Production down to $4, I'm pretty sure I'd rather have Bridge. If you gave it more buys, it would work better, but that would make 3-piling too easy.

The goal of Mass Production is to basically be a more card-efficient Bridge. Currently, one Mass Production starts saving more money than one Bridge at four copies bought in one turn. I could bring it to around three copies by making the discount $2 per copy, but that’s not the most important point. The problem, as you pointed out, is that you won’t have any +Buys unless you have decent engine already. But what if you had the choice?

Mass Production
Action
$6
+1 Buy
For each subsequent buy of the same card this turn, either reduce the cost by $2, but never below $1; or +1 Buy.

You’ll probably still need an engine to get enough money to fund getting three or more copies, but hopefully just a decent one, not a super-strong one. Obviously, can’t let the cost drop to zero, or you just keep getting copies after that if you want. Could make it scale by $1 again if you’re really worried about too-easy three-piling.

The new General is much better, but I think I'd still prefer any $5 Village (except maybe unimproved City) over General. Villages enable Attacks just as well as General does, and are more flexible. You might change it so that General can chain itself, like Cultist--but that might be way too powerful (you'd have to test it).

Accursed non-conditional Actions! On a more serious note, I suppose I could have General play the attack multiple times, or something like that, but that’s still rather mediocre compared to +1 Action. That said, I’d think General wouldn’t really be competing for the “Village” slot so much as the “Smithy” slot of an engine. In an Attack-focused deck, though, which is really where you should be using General, I can see comparison.

If I have $5 and want a Smithy, then sure, I'll pick up Ambush instead. But I'm pretty sure I'd buy Catacombs over Ambush, and Catacombs is the worst of the $5 Smithies.

The problem with Ambush' reaction is that 1) you usually don't have two Attack cards in your hand, so you'd have gotten to play the Attack anyway and 2) most of the time, you would rather have a second $5 attack than Ambush.

I’ll have you know that if your opponent plays an Attack into your Ambush and four Militia, that’s a Province right there! Ambush suffers from “Needs-Many-Attack-Cards” Syndrome (NMACS) even more than General does. I was considering turning it into a duration – reaction (your opponent would still have a reason to attack; your next hand might not have an attack card), but it seemed too convoluted.

Ambush
Action – Reaction – Duration
$5
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
While this card is in play, you may trigger its reaction as if it was from your hand. On your next turn following the attack, +3 Cards, +1 Buy.
If an attack is played and you do not (or cannot) trigger the reaction, discard this card.
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, set aside any number of Attack cards from your hand. At the start of your next turn, play those cards.

It’s a super-smithy that can trigger twice! Of course, it never does if there’s no attacks in the game. Actually, now that I think about it, it probably actively discourages attacks from being played, even with the discard clause. Just seems like a bad idea, making it a duration.

No more commentary on Exploitation? Don’t force anything, just noticed is all.


More cards for the slaughter!

Mercenary (Yes, I know there’s an official card with that name. Work with me here.)
Action
$3
When you play this card, select any Action card in the Supply not named Mercenary. You may treat this card as the card you choose. During the Buy phase, you may set aside $3 worth or more of Treasure cards. If you do not, during the Clean Up phase, return this to the Supply instead of discarding it.
Maybe the needs of your engine change. Maybe you only need that Moneylender or Black Market this turn. This card is a better any card because it can be that card or a different card. Except you only get to use it once, unless you pay them again.

Deep Spy
Action – Attack – Duration
$3
Every other player gains two Action cards of their choice. After three or more turns, during the start of your turn, every other player reveals cards from their deck until they reveal two Action cards. Trash those cards.
Help them build their decks up, then take them down when they least expect it. Hopefully it doesn’t hurt as much, since they it coming and you gave them those cards in the first place.

Supervisor
$3
Action – Reaction
+1 Card
-----
Whenever you play an Action card, you may reveal this card from your hand and set it aside. If you do, you may increment one of the numerical values by one on the last card you played.
Seemed like a curious card. This does let you do things like turn Throne Room into King’s Court, discard up to five cards with Chapel, or pass two cards with Masquerade. The original wording limited it only to +Cards, +Buys, +$, and +Actions, then I loosened it to allow Workshop to gain up to $5, and then I decided to just let it all out, as it were. No Supervisor chains, though.

[Marcory]

Actually, I will say that I have a limit capability to test my own cards, embarrassingly enough. I only own the base set, and my real life compatriots who play Dominion with me are limited. I say this not as an excuse, merely a confession. Outside of asking someone else to test my cards for me (which seems exceptionally jerkface-y), is there a place/way I could test my cards online, or at least digitally?

Sure you can playtest the cards. Just use the blank cards from your base game. You don't have to write on these cards; you can just give everyone a template of the card to be tested and say, 'for this game, the blank cards are X' (where 'X' is the card described by the template.

If you want to test more than one card, you can announce before the game that a certain 'real' card (say, Spy), is actually 'General' for this game.

And if you buy just one expansion (and you should, even if your budget is limited; Cornucopia and Alchemy can be had for $20 online) then you'll have 20 blank cards and can test 2 cards at once. Then you can label the blank cards 'A' and 'B', and designate at the start of each game which new card is 'A' and which is 'B'.

Finally, you can buy sleeves for your cards, then make paper inserts to go in front of the blank card in its sleeve--then you can have playable cards for testing.

[Marcory]

As for your other cards.

I think that Unskilled Labor's niche is already filled by Squire and Stonemason. This doesn't really add anything that those two cards don't already have.

I think Mass Production is just too expensive. It has an ability that is mostly useful in the early game (gaining cheap Action cards) but at $6 it's not obtainable in the early game. Also, Bridges (and even Highways) are spammable, but $6 cards mostly aren't.

Ambush' reaction is so strong that people would really re-consider an attack engine--which would defeat the point of the reaction (see Donald X's comments on reactions that hurt the attacker). So it's probably a non-starter. For comparison, think how the presence of Ambassador/Masquerade affects whether you buy Cursers, and how Tunnel makes you less likely to Militia/Margrave. You can still use Witches against Moats--if your attack gets blocked this turn, the Curse will still be there for you to give them next turn--but you wouldn't want to risk actually helping your opponent by playing Witch.

Your Mercenary is even more complicated than Band of Misfits, which already has a whole page of rules. In theory, it's nice--but if your engine is strong enough that you can give up $3, then you probably don't need this. At least Hermit replaces itself with an overpowered (if single-use) card when you give up your buy; this doesn't even have that going for it.

I can't think of when I'd want to use Deep Spy. They could gain two of Possession/Grand Market/KC/Goons, and then trash two Pearl Divers. Plus, a 3-turn Duration is hard to keep track of, especially in multi-player or with Outpost/Possession. I already forget about my Caravans and Merchant Ships at times; this one would be a real bear to remember.

Supervisor could get crazy. You could get two Possessed turns, or let your Tactician turn start with 3 actions, or your KC could quadruple a card. Plus, it would have a hard time keeping track of Duration cards--especially if you have to use the same choice you made last turn.

[MetaSkipper]

As for your other cards.

I think that Unskilled Labor's niche is already filled by Squire and Stonemason. This doesn't really add anything that those two cards don't already have.

Have to agree with out, after looking at those. At least I can recycle the name (and maybe the conditional +2 actions).

I think Mass Production is just too expensive. It has an ability that is mostly useful in the early game (gaining cheap Action cards) but at $6 it's not obtainable in the early game. Also, Bridges (and even Highways) are spammable, but $6 cards mostly aren't.

Well, I will say that Mass Production is not supposed to be spammable in the sense like Bridge. You play it once, you have the money to use it well, and that's that. Of course, I suppose you wouldn't have the money to play it well early game, even if I dropped the price. I'll mull it over, but I wouldn't want it to be a straight up better Bridge.

Ambush' reaction is so strong that people would really re-consider an attack engine--which would defeat the point of the reaction (see Donald X's comments on reactions that hurt the attacker). So it's probably a non-starter. For comparison, think how the presence of Ambassador/Masquerade affects whether you buy Cursers, and how Tunnel makes you less likely to Militia/Margrave. You can still use Witches against Moats--if your attack gets blocked this turn, the Curse will still be there for you to give them next turn--but you wouldn't want to risk actually helping your opponent by playing Witch.

Yeah, I like old Ambush better, even if it's too niche. Not every card can be viable. [Insert Scout joke here.]

Your Mercenary is even more complicated than Band of Misfits, which already has a whole page of rules. In theory, it's nice--but if your engine is strong enough that you can give up $3, then you probably don't need this. At least Hermit replaces itself with an overpowered (if single-use) card when you give up your buy; this doesn't even have that going for it.

Yup. Nothing much else to say, really. Might recycle that "pay-or-trash" mechanic, though.

I can't think of when I'd want to use Deep Spy. They could gain two of Possession/Grand Market/KC/Goons, and then trash two Pearl Divers. Plus, a 3-turn Duration is hard to keep track of, especially in multi-player or with Outpost/Possession. I already forget about my Caravans and Merchant Ships at times; this one would be a real bear to remember.

Amusingly, you hit everything I was going to try to avoid, but but ended up not avoiding. Originally, I was gonna have you track what card you gave them, but it seemed a bit convoluted in games with more than two players. It was one card at the time; I made it trash two when I made it trash any two actions instead. Since no one likes a smaller deck, I let the players gain two cards to compensate. I made it trash any two since you could, theoretically, trash the gained card and then there would be no more card to track. The old version also let you just get a card you never wanted, and have it basically be a curse. Without clauses, it would be more or less useless.
The three-turn minimum was actually because I feared players would cash the attack the earliest moment they could instead of letting it stew. The old version required the card to be played for the attack to trigger, where they basically wasted an action. The new version could be cashed your next turn, which seemed a bit silly, where the old one would have to wait for a reshuffle. Players would just gain a card they didn't need, and then watch it be trashed the next turn. If there were "trash this card for benefit," all the better.
The early Deep Spy:

Deep Spy
Action – Attack – Duration
$3
Every other player gains an Action card of their choice. Keep track of the card each player gained. When they play any copy of the Action card they gained, you may make them trash that card. The card's effect is ignored. The action is still spent. You may only trigger this effect once for each other player. This effect finishes after it has triggered for all other players.

Maybe some hybrid could work.

Supervisor could get crazy. You could get two Possessed turns, or let your Tactician turn start with 3 actions, or your KC could quadruple a card. Plus, it would have a hard time keeping track of Duration cards--especially if you have to use the same choice you made last turn.

Suppose the old version of the card.

Supervisor
$3
Action – Reaction
+1 Card
-----
Whenever you play an Action card, you may reveal this card from your hand and set it aside. If you do, you may increment one of the +Cards, +Actions, +Buy, or +$ by one on the last card you played.

Remodel + Supervisor + Duchy = Province seemed a bit strong, so removed the $ threshold part. The core four, though, seem reasonable. Of course, this makes this a dead card with several cards.


I've thinking of a mechanic, but I'm not sure it's a good idea. Basically, expend multiple actions when you play a card, get bonus. My worry is that it makes "Village Idiot" decks too strong. For an unrealistic example:

+$1
You may expend additional actions when you play this card. For each action expended, +$1.

Now this is a particularly terrible example, since it deliberately gives what most Village Idiot decks don't have: money. But suppose the following card:

Statistician
Action - Duration
$6
Reveal three cards. You may expend additional actions when you play this card. If you do, reveal two more cards for each extra action spent, and increment the bonus chosen by 1.
If the majority of the reveal cards are…
Action cards, +2 Cards next turn.
Treasure cards, +2 Buys next turn.
Victory cards, +$2 next turn.
If there is a shared majority or tie between several card types, you may select only one effect.
An amusing idea that came to me. Tries to give you what it thinks you want based on your deck. Lots of action cards? Probably wants more cards so that the engine can keep going. Treasure cards? Probably Big Money that wishes it could buy more per turn. Victory cards? Probably very late game, more money to counteract a diluted deck.

Of course, there are probably some inherent flaws with the card. At least this card is likely to give a Village Idiot deck more cards or more buys, neither of which it find useful.

After that probably unhelpful dissertation, my question is: does giving bonuses on "overpaying actions" overbuff Village Idiot decks?

[Marcory]

After that probably unhelpful dissertation, my question is: does giving bonuses on "overpaying actions" overbuff Village Idiot decks?

Village Idiot decks are bad not because you end up with too many unused actions but because of the opportunity cost of all those Villages. For every unnecessary Village you buy, you could have had a Silver or strong $3 card instead. If you buy too many $4 and $5 Villages, you're depriving yourselves of the Smithies, Council Rooms, Attack cards, etc that you need to make your engine work better than that of your opponent(s).

The 'overpaying actions' card you're thinking of exists as Diadem, the Prize from Cornucopia. I rarely find a use for it, not least because the race for Provinces in a Tournament game makes it harder to build the engine that would make Diadem work, even if they are in the kingdom. Diadem is usually the 4th or 5th best Prize (after Followers, Trusty Steed, and Princess, not necessarily in that order), and often you'll want Duchy by the point in the game that Diadem becomes the best Prize left.

Think about it: Diadem basically turns your basic Villages into Bazaars (turning the leftover +1 action into $1). That's nice--but a deck full of Bazaars won't win you the game, even if Bazaar is itself a decent card.

I don't want to be harsh, but before you think propose more fan cards, you should look over the Wiki and see what real cards have been made (or play on Goko and see for yourself how these cards work). Most of your ideas are already in use in the other expansions.

[MetaSkipper]

Don't worry about being harsh; no one learned anything by only being told positive feedback.

Perhaps I should take a break and actually learn the game before I keep making cards. (Kappa)

[MetaSkipper]

I had originally planned to hold off on making cards until I knew the game better, but an idea struck me and I had to get it down.

Misinformation
Action - Reaction
$2
+2 Cards
-----
When revealing a card from your deck or hand, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, you may treat that card as an Action, Treasure, or Victory card. Set this card aside. You may use its effect while set aside, discard this card if you do. Return this card to your hand at the start of your turn.

I had considered making it "you may treat that card as any card" or "you may treat that card's name as any name," but this seemed most appropriate.

[Marcory]

I think I have a general idea of what this card is supposed to do, but I'm not sure how the wording gets me there. How, for example, do I use the 'effect' of a Victory card? And you really need to specify that the cards come from the supply.

As written, I can open, say, Menagerie/Misinformation. When they collide, I can treat Misinformation as a Platinum, Gold, or the best Kingdom card.

Misinformation then effectively stays in my hand for the rest of the game, and I can use it as whatever awesome action card (or Gold/Platinum) that I want, as long as I have a card that reveals it

That's super overpowered (especially for $2), unless I can't trigger it at all, in which this card is worse than Moat. After all, even Band of Misfits can only function as an Action card and gets discarded during cleanup.

[eHalcyon]

I think I have a general idea of what this card is supposed to do, but I'm not sure how the wording gets me there. How, for example, do I use the 'effect' of a Victory card? And you really need to specify that the cards come from the supply.

As written, I can open, say, Menagerie/Misinformation. When they collide, I can treat Misinformation as a Platinum, Gold, or the best Kingdom card.

Misinformation then effectively stays in my hand for the rest of the game, and I can use it as whatever awesome action card (or Gold/Platinum) that I want, as long as I have a card that reveals it

That's super overpowered (especially for $2), unless I can't trigger it at all, in which this card is worse than Moat. After all, even Band of Misfits can only function as an Action card and gets discarded during cleanup.

I think you are misinterpreting it, but the wording is a bit confusing.  My understanding -- when you reveal a card X, you can reveal Misinformation.  Then you can treat card X as if it had the type Action, Treasure or Victory, regardless of its actual type.  Then you set aside Misinformation (not X).  You can use the reaction from the set aside Misinformation, after which you have to discard the set aside Misinformation.  So you can use Misinformation's reaction twice and discard the card, or you can use it once and have it return to your hand like Horse Traders.

As to the purse, you can use Misinformation to give a boost to Scrying Pool, Scout, Loan... anything that reveals cards and cares about type.

I think this card is too complicated and wordy for what it does though.  Maybe if it had a more concise wording.

[MetaSkipper]

Yeah, eHalcyon's interpretation is correct, though I can see the potential confusion now with "this card" and such. Don't think I could make it shorter and more understandable, though. I could specify "this Misinformation" and "the revealed card" and such, but that kinda makes it longer. The set aside clause is kinda needed for accountability if I want to be able to use it twice. I could remove the clause and give it only one use,  but it sounds too weak then, though it does buff it against attacks like Thief, since there's no limitation when it's not your turn.

EDIT: Well, it's not shorter, but hopefully no more confusion.

Misinformation
Action - Reaction
$2
+2 Cards
-----
When revealing a card from your deck or hand, you may reveal this card from your hand. If you do, you may treat the revealed card as an Action type, Treasure type, or Victory type card. Set this Misinformation aside. You may use Misinformation’s effect while set aside, discard it if you do. Return Misinformation to your hand at the start of your turn.

And while we're at it:

Unfair Treaty
Action - Attack
$5
Trash a card from your hand, and gain a card costing up to $2 more. Each other player trashes a card from their hand of equal or greater cost than the card you trashed (or reveals a hand with no such card, and trashes one with the highest cost), and gains a card costing up to $1 more. Each other player may not gain a copy of the card that they trashed.

On one hand, this card could be disastrously swingy if the hands align. Trash a curse, opponent only has Colonies in hand. (It was even worse when you could gain the cards your opponents trashed through this card.) On the other hand, that seems far too unlikely to be a problem. I suppose late game, you could run into trash Gold, force trash Province, though. The Attack status could go, but ehh.

[Rush_Clasic]

For Misinformation, you have to deal with the fact that certain oddities are bound to come up. Herald reveals a Province, you put it in play to clear it out of the way. Now you have a Province in play. Does this do something that destroys the game? Not really. It just has an undesriable feel. I'd just make it give all card types to cut down on words; it creates some nombos with Shanty Town and such, but it's a lot cleaner. Furthermore, as a reaction, it requires a lot of busywork, especially online. It loses some flare to do this, but just make it an action with a "while in play" ability. I'd also make it a cantrip since it's a card that wants to interact heavily with other cards.

Misinformation - $2
Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
-----
While this is in play, cards being revealed from your hand and deck have all card types.

[MetaSkipper]

For Misinformation, you have to deal with the fact that certain oddities are bound to come up. Herald reveals a Province, you put it in play to clear it out of the way. Now you have a Province in play. Does this do something that destroys the game? Not really. It just has an undesriable feel. I'd just make it give all card types to cut down on words; it creates some nombos with Shanty Town and such, but it's a lot cleaner. Furthermore, as a reaction, it requires a lot of busywork, especially online. It loses some flare to do this, but just make it an action with a "while in play" ability. I'd also make it a cantrip since it's a card that wants to interact heavily with other cards.

Misinformation - $2
Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
-----
While this is in play, cards being revealed from your hand and deck have all card types.

The card would play a bit differently with this interpretation. I was a little apprehensive at first, to be honest, but as I think through it, it's not that different.

First and foremost, can't defend against Thief, Bureaucrat, Fortune Teller, or such if it's not a reaction. Not a huge loss, but it was one of the purposes when I theory-ed (theoried?) up the card.

Secondly, some combos become nombos, as you said. Shanty Town, as you gave, as well as Poor House. Walled Village confirmed dead if you bought anything. Adventurer becomes "Draw two cards," which is awful value. Loan becomes "Trash your next topdeck." Venture and Golem becomes "Play your next card/two cards," respectively. Can't fish for cards that you want, which was the other purpose I had. Venture is actually kinda funny, since it now lets you play actions in the buy phase.

On the flip side, some cards because really good with this interpretation. (Note: Most of these combos were still possible with the old interpretation. It's just that there's now no limit on them.) Scout becomes "Draw four," which isn't bad, but maybe not what you want. Ironmonger becomes Super-Peddler. Scrying Pool becomes "Draw your deck," which seems kinda silly. Library becomes "Draw whatever cards you want, up to a hand of seven," although maybe not, since you're not actually revealing the cards with the wording used on the card. Scrying Pool and Library are examples why I only let you use it twice so that you couldn't over-use it.

So in the end, I'm still a bit on the fence on losing the ability to fish for cards on your turn with certain cards. Some combos are stronger now, some are weaker now. I don't think losing it as a defensive reaction is that bad.

[Rush_Clasic]

Reactions should really either be on all the time or single use. It's the two simple ways to deal with them. As for the craziness, you're right. My suggestion then would be to make it a duration:

Misinformation - $2
Action - Duration
+1 Action
Now and next turn: +$1
-----
Once a turn while this is in play, you may have a card revealed from your hand or deck become the type of your choice.

[silverspawn]

Reactions should really either be on all the time or single use. It's the two simple ways to deal with them. As for the craziness, you're right. My suggestion then would be to make it a duration:

Misinformation - $2
Action - Duration
+1 Action
Now and next turn: +$1
-----
Once a turn while this is in play, you may have a card revealed from your hand or deck become the type of your choice.

you can lose track of the card (discard it, shuffle your deck, draw it again), so it can't stay the type forever. you have to limit it to the time it's revealed

[MetaSkipper]

After some thought, further revision.

Misinformation
Action
$2
+1 Action
+1 Card
Twice this turn while this is in play, you may treat a card revealed from your hand or deck as the type of your choice.

I think the card's strength comes from being able to use it twice in one turn (you might not get a revealing card next turn, and you might really want that fishing power), so removed the shenanigans with setting aside and all that. Since it's no longer a Duration, I think making it a cantrip is fine. Worst comes to worst, you have to count reveal-lies alongside counting actions. "Treat" is used instead of, say "turn," so that it only happens while the card is revealed. Still can't defend against attacks, but that's fine. If we really wanted that:

Misinformation
Action - Reaction
$2
+1 Action
+1 Card
Twice this turn while this is in play, you may treat a card revealed from your hand or deck as the type of your choice.
-----
Whenever you reveal a card from your hand or deck outside of your turn, you may reveal this Misinformation and set it aside. You may treat up to two revealed cards as the type of your choice. The cards may be treated as different types.

We kinda have that reveal ambiguity ugliness back, but I have a feeling it'd be necessary if we were gonna make it a reaction. Maybe it should be discard on reaction, instead of set aside?

[silverspawn]

[...]

you have 3 vanilla bonuses, that takes up a lot of space on a card. I don't think the reaction fits on a card, in fact I'm almost entierly sure it does not.

this version:

Misinformation
Action
$2
+1 Action
+1 Card
Twice this turn while this is in play, you may treat a card revealed from your hand or deck as the type of your choice.

will fit, but i see a big powerlevel issue. +2$, +1 action, +1 card is an activated conspirator, a double peddler, or a grand market without the +buy. If i had to guess a valid price, I'd pick $7, and that's without the additional effect, which is quite good.

[MetaSkipper]

The card costs $2; it doesn't give $2. Man, everything I do is ambiguous, it seems.

[Rush_Clasic]

Don't put the cost right beneath the type line. That's where abilities go on your standard card. You aren't gonna fight human intuition there. I thought the same thing when I fist saw your cards.

you can lose track of the card (discard it, shuffle your deck, draw it again), so it can't stay the type forever. you have to limit it to the time it's revealed.

Right. Perhaps my wording is ambiguous to that. The card is convoluted, so any workable version is gonna be a wording mess.

"Once a turn while this is in play, you may have a card become the type of your choice for as long as it is revealed from your hand or deck."

[silverspawn]

The card costs $2; it doesn't give $2. Man, everything I do is ambiguous, it seems.

oh - apologies. you didn't write +2$, so my bad. I'm just used to the price being in the same line as the title of the card

[MetaSkipper]

Cost doesn't go under card type. Gotcha.

As for making sure the effect only matters during the reveal, I think the use of "treat" works. The card isn't actually becoming a different type, so you can't use it in some shenanigans; you're just saying it is for the sake of a given effect. Similar idea to Rush_Classic's but less wordy, though maybe more ambiguous.

I'm not sure how you would resolve a forced play like Herald or Golem with the "new" interpretation (change type only during the "reveal phase"). Suppose I force play a Province with Herald+Misinformation. Since the card is only an Action card during the "reveal phase," it ceasing being an Action when the effect of the card actually resolves to play the card. In reality, it's probably not that bad (just put the card into play), but it's still a bit silly. Then again, this card is kinda doomed to be silly.

[MetaSkipper]

In honor of me finishing my first two standardized tests, more cards! I have also updated the OP.

Unfair Treaty - $5
Action - Attack
Trash a card from your hand, and gain a card costing up to $2 more. Each other player trashes a card from their hand of equal or greater cost than the card you trashed (or reveals a hand with no such card, and trashes one with the highest cost), and gains a card costing up to $1 more. Each other player may not gain a copy of the card that they trashed.

Border Dispute - $7
Action – Attack
Each player reveals cards from the top of his deck until revealing a Victory card. Place the revealed victory card in your hand. Each other player returns his revealed card to the Supply and gains a victory card at most $3 less. He then discards the other cards. For each card trashed, choose one: Trash a Victory card from your hand, and gain a Victory card no more than $3 more into your hand; or, gain an Estate. Discard the other cards.

Rezoning  - $3
Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal two Victory cards. Put those Victory cards into your hand and discard the other revealed cards. You may return any number of victory cards from your hand to the Supply, and gain a Victory card costing up to the sum of the costs of the cards returned.

Mobilization - $3
Action – Reaction
+2 Cards
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand and discard it. If you do, +2 Cards. You may choose to resolve this effect before or after the attack finishes resolving.

Standing Army - $5
Action – Attack – Reaction – Victory
This card is worth 1 VP for every two Attack cards in your deck, rounded down.
Discard a Treasure or Action card. Every other player discards down to two cards.
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, reveal this from your hand and discard it. If you do, you are unaffected by that Attack.

Propaganda - $4
Action – Reaction
+1 Card
+1 Action
-----
When another player plays an Action card, you may reveal this from your hand and discard it. If you do, you may treat that card as an Attack type card.
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand and set it aside. If you do, +1 Card. At the start of your next turn,+1 Action, and return this to your hand.

[GendoIkari]

Rezoning  - $3
Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal two Victory cards. Put those Victory cards into your hand and discard the other revealed cards. You may return any number of victory cards from your hand to the Supply, and gain a Victory card costing up to the sum of the costs of the cards returned.

I have no idea about the balance of this, but I like the concept. An interesting variant on Forge.

Mobilization - $3
Action – Reaction
+2 Cards
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand and discard it. If you do, +2 Cards. You may choose to resolve this effect before or after the attack finishes resolving.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of good reasons to give that choice. Resolving after an attack finishes should almost always be better. For most attacks, it wouldn't normally matter (various edge cases aside such as reshuffling to draw the 2 cards). For discard attacks, you would want to draw after. And the "resolve this later" clause isn't really well-defined in the game rules, you can't finish resolving a card during a later time like that. I would probably just use the Horse Traders "set aside and draw on next turn" wording.

Propaganda - $4
Action – Reaction
+1 Card
+1 Action
-----
When another player plays an Action card, you may reveal this from your hand and discard it. If you do, you may treat that card as an Attack type card.
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand and set it aside. If you do, +1 Card. At the start of your next turn,+1 Action, and return this to your hand.

"When another player plays an Action card" is a bad event to have a reaction to. It means that in games using this, players need to play their actions cards extra slowly, to give time in between each one to see if you are going to react to it or not.

[MetaSkipper]

Rezoning  - $3
Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal two Victory cards. Put those Victory cards into your hand and discard the other revealed cards. You may return any number of victory cards from your hand to the Supply, and gain a Victory card costing up to the sum of the costs of the cards returned.

I have no idea about the balance of this, but I like the concept. An interesting variant on Forge.

If you're curious why the cost is so low, it's because it probably won't swing your points too much. Three Estates into a Duchy and two Duchies into Province doesn't get you any extra VP. Four Estates or Duchy and two Estates into Province give a whopping two and one extra VP, respectively. Mostly a way to parse down the deck and, if you're ahead, end the game faster.

Mobilization - $3
Action – Reaction
+2 Cards
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand and discard it. If you do, +2 Cards. You may choose to resolve this effect before or after the attack finishes resolving.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of good reasons to give that choice. Resolving after an attack finishes should almost always be better. For most attacks, it wouldn't normally matter (various edge cases aside such as reshuffling to draw the 2 cards). For discard attacks, you would want to draw after. And the "resolve this later" clause isn't really well-defined in the game rules, you can't finish resolving a card during a later time like that. I would probably just use the Horse Traders "set aside and draw on next turn" wording.

The primary use of drawing before is to fish for a response like Moat, though that's probably borderline edge case, since you'd probably want a bunch of Mobilizations for that and need something like Moat. The other big use is drawing cards before you get something bad stuck at the top of your deck, if you don't have any draw in your hand, perhaps.

Propaganda - $4
Action – Reaction
+1 Card
+1 Action
-----
When another player plays an Action card, you may reveal this from your hand and discard it. If you do, you may treat that card as an Attack type card.
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand and set it aside. If you do, +1 Card. At the start of your next turn,+1 Action, and return this to your hand.

"When another player plays an Action card" is a bad event to have a reaction to. It means that in games using this, players need to play their actions cards extra slowly, to give time in between each one to see if you are going to react to it or not.

I remember reading that. Forgot about that. That said, I don't really think that there would be that much extra time spent, since using the draw effect on the first action card played and the last is pretty much the same, bar discard attacks. I will try to think of a way to capture the spirit of the card (letting you "overreact" to your opponent) without "react to any action card" or similar.

[MetaSkipper]

It's been a long while, but just theory-ed up a card.

Auction House - $5
Action
Whenever you play an Action card, draw a card.

And the curious variant.

Auction House - $7
Action
+1 Action
Whenever you play an Action card, draw a card.

I'll confess, I haven't put quite as much thought into these. Just something I thought up.

[Marcory]

You need to add, 'while this is in play', otherwise it doesn't work at all.

As it is, though, this is a 'rich get richer' card. If you're already playing 3-4 actions a turn, you've probably got a decent enough engine that you don't need this. And if you aren't playing that many actions, this isn't that good (esp. the $5 version).

[Awaclus]

You need to add, 'while this is in play', otherwise it doesn't work at all.

Actually, it works. In fact, the magician himself would probably be surprised by the effectiveness.

[MetaSkipper]

Man, this thread is old. But I have new card ideas, so I might as well make use of it, right? These new cards are Curse-centric, but if you want to make fun of critique my older cards, be my guest.

False Prophet - $4
Action
Reveal your hand. +$3 for each Curse revealed.
Could a Curse-centric deck work? I have no idea, but this is a theoretical start. The big stink with a Curse-centric deck is that Curses already stink AND clog your deck, so you better be getting something out of them.

Pessimism - $2
Action
+2 Actions
You may treat Curse cards as Victory type cards and treat Victory type cards as Curse cards this turn.
...There's gotta be use for this somehow... right?

Blood Money - $4
Treasure
The player to your left may place this card on the top of his deck. If he does, +$4. Otherwise, +$2.
In case the wording is unclear, the effect is mandatory; you cannot refuse to give the other player the chance to take the card. The card goes on top to prevent the game from accelerating into late game too fast, and because there are more ways to force discards than mills from top of the deck (I think). The cost is $4 is to prevent the classic double Blood Money opener into double gambit accepted into Turn 3 Provence.

Deal with the Devil - $1
Victory
At the end of the game, if you have the most Curses in your deck, +4 VP for every Victory type card. Otherwise, +0 VP.
Originally, the card was gonna give +VP per Curse, but then I realized that the player who got the first curse would probably be impossible to catch, outside of some super-Buy strat gambit where you  use an unclogged deck to buy tons of Curses faster than the Curse-clogged deck can.

[XerxesPraelor]

False Prophet is basically a hard counter to cursers. It does need to line up properly, so it's not completely one but that means it might not be good enough to incentivize buying curses.

Pessimism is the sort of card that would work great in a CCG, but not so much in Dominion, because the range of cards that it has any effect on is pretty small, so most of the time it's just a necropolis for $2, which will disappoint people when there's nothing in the kingdom to combo with it.

Blood Money is political, but potentially interesting in a two-player game. It's pretty similar to silver though, as the times when you would want to top deck it are pretty limited. (getting a silver next turn compared to the difference between copper and gold isn't much)

Deal with the Devil is interesting, but it turns almost every game into a race to see who can get curses fastest, as just 4 of them are worth 64 victory points if they fire.

[MetaSkipper]

False Prophet is basically a hard counter to cursers. It does need to line up properly, so it's not completely one but that means it might not be good enough to incentivize buying curses.

Well, in theory, in order to make an effective False Prophet deck, you only need three Curses (four if you're shooting for Colonies), False Prophet (duh), and an effective enough draw engine. It's relatively cheap, since the core parts cost only $4 and $0. The main weakness is that Curses naturally set you back in points and are (more) dead in hand than some combo pieces. But it might work.

Pessimism is the sort of card that would work great in a CCG, but not so much in Dominion, because the range of cards that it has any effect on is pretty small, so most of the time it's just a necropolis for $2, which will disappoint people when there's nothing in the kingdom to combo with it.

Yeah, I looked through the types of cards that could interact with Pessimism, and it's not a very extensive list. I tried something similar with Misinformation, but... interactions are finicky things.

Blood Money is political, but potentially interesting in a two-player game. It's pretty similar to silver though, as the times when you would want to top deck it are pretty limited. (getting a silver next turn compared to the difference between copper and gold isn't much)

What if Blood Money put itself into the hand instead of on the top of the deck? Would that be more meaningful?

Deal with the Devil is interesting, but it turns almost every game into a race to see who can get curses fastest, as just 4 of them are worth 64 victory points if they fire.

...You know, I totally forgot that Deal with the Devil would proc on itself. Maybe I should make it all Victory cards not named Deal with the Devil.

[MetaSkipper]

Some monetary manipulation with these cards.

Hidden Transaction - $5
Action
+1 Buy
Reduce your second purchase by the number of remaining Buys + 1.
Finally, those extra buys can be put to use. It's rare one stacks buys intentionally, though. In theory, one could open with a Copper (or Curse, if you're into that) purchase and then buy on the cheap... if you're okay with clogging your deck a wee bit.

Bullion - $4
Action
You may treat any played Treasure card’s value as its cost as opposed to its stated card text. For each card, at the end of your turn, when you would discard that Treasure card, trash it instead.
Some curious anti-synergy with Copper. If you use this card to trash Coppers, you get no money. Stinks.

Debasement - $3
Action
Reduce the cost of all Treasure cards by $1, to a minimum of $0. Increase the cost of all other card types by $1. You may buy one Treasure card without a Buy cost.
I mean, if you wanna stack Debasements and then buy six Golds for free... you go right ahead. I suppose you could open with it, hope for a collision with four Coppers and then get two Silvers instead of one?

[ConMan]

Bullion - $4
Action
You may treat any played Treasure card’s value as its cost as opposed to its stated card text. For each card, at the end of your turn, when you would discard that Treasure card, trash it instead.
Some curious anti-synergy with Copper. If you use this card to trash Coppers, you get no money. Stinks.

Alternatively, why not word it like a cross between Salvager and Forge?

Trash any number of Treasure cards from your hand. For each card trashed this way, +[Coins] equal to its cost.

It works the same for all the basic treasures, although I admit it does have a different effect for most of the special ones (particularly if they care about cards in play, have an effect on being played or being in play, or have a Potion cost). That said, either way I'd say this is a bit too powerful for $4.

[GeeJo]

Hidden Transaction - $5
Action
+1 Buy
Reduce your second purchase by the number of remaining Buys + 1.
Finally, those extra buys can be put to use. It's rare one stacks buys intentionally, though. In theory, one could open with a Copper (or Curse, if you're into that) purchase and then buy on the cheap... if you're okay with clogging your deck a wee bit.

The intention of the card is crystal clear, but it's a tough effect to word properly within the rules in a way that for example a computer would understand. By the time a card is bought, it's already paid for. And temporarily reducing the cost after your first buy but before the third introduces weird effects with things like Messenger. Also, "Hidden Transaction" would be the longest card name in the game, requiring a smaller font on the title line. I'd go with something simpler and more emotive like

Bullion - $4
Action
You may treat any played Treasure card’s value as its cost as opposed to its stated card text. For each card, at the end of your turn, when you would discard that Treasure card, trash it instead.
Some curious anti-synergy with Copper. If you use this card to trash Coppers, you get no money. Stinks.

In practical terms and to avoid confusion with treasures like Coin of the Realm (which is set aside and lost-track-of before the trashing) and Counterfeit (where treasures values are fiddled with twice), as well as avoiding a reword to take into account treasures already played through Storyteller/Black Market, I'd go with ConMan's wording. I'm not sure whether it's stronger or weaker than Salvager (since Salvager can trash non-treasures, but only one, and comes with an extra buy). $4 isn't a bad place to start playtesting it, but I'd definitely keep an eye on it.

Debasement - $3
Action
Reduce the cost of all Treasure cards by $1, to a minimum of $0. Increase the cost of all other card types by $1. You may buy one Treasure card without a Buy cost.
I mean, if you wanna stack Debasements and then buy six Golds for free... you go right ahead. I suppose you could open with it, hope for a collision with four Coppers and then get two Silvers instead of one?

With this wording, Harem, Relic, Fool's Gold, and Coin of the Realm don't change in price, as their "treasure reduction" is offset by the extra cost of their other type. This doesn't seem intended, so maybe change the wording to



Also, I have no idea what kind of art would suit Debasement (maybe just copy Counterfeit's art?), so I just went with the spare Bribe image I had left over.

[Drab Emordnilap]

Hidden Transaction - $5
Action
+1 Buy
Reduce your second purchase by the number of remaining Buys + 1.
Finally, those extra buys can be put to use. It's rare one stacks buys intentionally, though. In theory, one could open with a Copper (or Curse, if you're into that) purchase and then buy on the cheap... if you're okay with clogging your deck a wee bit.

The intention of the card is crystal clear, but it's a tough effect to word properly within the rules in a way that for example a computer would understand. By the time a card is bought, it's already paid for. And temporarily reducing the cost after your first buy but before the third introduces weird effects with things like Messenger. Also, "Hidden Transaction" would be the longest card name in the game, requiring a smaller font on the title line. I'd go with something simpler and more emotive like

After the first time you buy a card this turn, all cards cost $1 less per Buy you have remaining.

The first time you buy a Treasure this turn, +1 Buy.

[eHalcyon]

After the first time you buy a card this turn, all cards cost $1 less per Buy you have remaining.

That's not the same.  It is way, way stronger.

[Drab Emordnilap]

After the first time you buy a card this turn, all cards cost $1 less per Buy you have remaining.

That's not the same.  It is way, way stronger.

How is it different? Oh, because it affects your 3rd and upward Buy. I get it.

I then submit:

"The first time you buy a card this turn, +$1 per Buy remaining."

I understand this lets you split up the "discount", but it also means you can avoid saying "for the purposes of", which is the scariest phrase I've heard today.

[GendoIkari]

I understand this lets you split up the "discount", but it also means you can avoid saying "for the purposes of", which is the scariest phrase I've heard today.

Even scarier than "pure victory card!" 

[MetaSkipper]

Well, I must thank you all for the feedback. (And the card images! How you spoil me so.) On the point of Hidden Transaction/Bribe, I will say it is an important point that the second transaction and only the second transaction get reduced. Also, the reduction really should be 1 + number of remaining buys, otherwise one copy does nothing by itself. I will think about that when I go back and finalize my wording. Also, the "free Treasure" clause of Debasement stacks for each copy you play in a turn.

I'm about to scare some people with the card text of these next cards. There's a vague theme of Victory cards/points here. There's also some older cards of mine I'd like to take another look at.

Sprawl - $6
Victory
4 VP
If the game ends due to three cleared piles, 7 VP instead.
I'm not sure if there's a difference between "7 VP instead" and "+3 VP," at least practically, but feel free to disprove me.

Hidden Claim - $5
Action – Duration
Until the start of your next turn, whenever another player gains a Victory Card worth $8 or more, gain +2 VP.
Hidden Claim - $4
Action – Duration
Until the start of your next turn, whenever another player gains a Victory Card worth $8 or more, gain an Estate.
The +VP card is slightly more expensive because it doesn't clog your deck. It won't help you come back, but if you're neck and neck, might give you an edge or force your opponent to cede Province tempo.

Unified Front - $6
Action
If you have no cards remaining in your deck or discard pile, +3 VP.
Put that over-efficient draw engine to use!

Rezoning – $3
Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal two Victory cards. Put those Victory cards into your hand and discard the other revealed cards. You may return any number of victory cards from your hand to the Supply, and gain a Victory card costing up to the sum of the costs of the cards returned.
An older card. Main purpose is to parse down a deck. You'll get marginal gains if you combine Estates into Duchies and some other cases.

Standing Army – $6
Action – Attack – Reaction – Victory
This card is worth 1 VP for every two Attack cards in your deck, rounded down.
Discard a Treasure or Action card. Every other player discards down to two cards.
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, reveal this from your hand and discard it. If you do, you are unaffected by that Attack.
Another old card. If you get all ten Standing Armies, you get a not-too-shabby 50 VP. If you get only nine, though, you're left with the much less impressive 36.

Border Dispute - $7
Action – Attack
Each player reveals cards from the top of his deck until revealing a Victory card. Place the revealed victory card in your hand. Each other player returns his revealed card to the Supply and gains a victory card that costs at most $3 less. He then discards the other cards. For each card returned to the supply, choose one: Trash a Victory card from your hand, and gain a Victory card that costs no more than $3 more into your hand; or, gain an Estate. Discard the other cards.
Okay. Calm down. It is rather complex, but it's not as complex as the card text would have you believe. The following is the rough order of operations.

• All players reveal cards until they reveal a Victory card.
• All other players return their revealed Victory Card to the supply, and gain a Victory card that cannot cost more than $3 less than the returned card.
• You add the revealed victory card to your hand. For each card the other players have returned, you may Trash a Vicory card from your hand and gain into your hand a Victory card that cannot cost more than $3 more OR gain an Estate.
• Discard all the other revealed cards.

...Okay, the wording needs work. A lot of work.

[eHalcyon]

Sprawl -- I would say, "If the Province pile is not empty".  With some player counts, the game ends on 4 piles instead of 3.  This doesn't account for Colony, but there are many official cards that just look at Province.

Hidden Claim -- "Worth" is used for treasure value.  You want to use the word "cost".  The $5 version is significantly stronger than the $4 version (which is more like a self-attack than a beneficial card).  Note that this card isn't actually a Duration because there's nothing to keep it in play until your next turn.

As it is, I don't think it's a good design.  If no other player buys a Province or Colony while it's in play, then the card was entirely useless, a waste of an action.  But if you get 3+ in play (or use KC, because you didn't use "while in play" wording), it's legitimately bad for players to buy a Province because you'll get the same VP or more without adding a junk card to your deck!  It's thus both extremely weak yet (potentially) overbearing and oppressive.

Unified Front -- This is a win-more card that is basically useless in any other context.  If I already have an over-drawing engine, I probably don't need this card to win.  That said, there's another bad use case -- a trashed-down deck that does nothing but play this card.  Let's both trash down to KC-KC-UF-UF-Chapel and make 18 points every turn while doing nothing else.

Rezoning -- Is there a particular reason you are returning cards to the supply instead of just trashing them?  It's OK either way.  I suggest the following though: "...and gain a Victory card costing up to $1 more than the total cost of the trashed/returned cards".  Now you can do Estate+Estate=Duchy or Estate+Duchy=Province for a nice net gain.  Duchy+Duchy=Colony is also pretty interesting, with net 4VP gain.  Up to $2 more would enable some other tricks with alt VP.

Standing Army -- The attack is way too powerful, even with the initial discard requirement.  The VP is no good either.  If you read the secret history for Intrigue, you'll see that Duke started out as a self-counting card.  The problem is that it's either too good if you get a lot of them or too weak if you don't get enough.  The solution was to count a different card.

Border Dispute -- As written, you just steal everybody else's VP cards by putting them into your hand.  What you actually intend is probably too powerful.  Each play is very easily a 4-6+ point swing, even more with more players.  It would also be really slow to resolve and I am not sure the text even fits on a card.

[ConMan]

Ok, going to mostly comment on wording and any obvious issues this run through ...

Sprawl - $6
Victory
4 VP
If the game ends due to three cleared piles, 7 VP instead.
I'm not sure if there's a difference between "7 VP instead" and "+3 VP," at least practically, but feel free to disprove me.

+VP is generally used to refer to what happens when you play a card like Monument and gain points in the form of VP tokens. If you were to actually get 3 VP tokens at the end of the game due to a card being in your deck, I would find that ... weird. For a card that has two possible VP values depending on an end-game condition, check Distant Lands:

Worth 4VP if on your Tavern mat at the end of the game (otherwise worth 0VP).

Also, in terms of making the game tempo interesting, I'd like to see what happens if it goes the other way around (because you might try to use your big spends to buy this rather than Provinces, only to see your opponent stop buying Provinces and start emptying piles).

Hidden Claim - $5
Action – Duration
Until the start of your next turn, whenever another player gains a Victory Card worth $8 or more, gain +2 VP.
Hidden Claim - $4
Action – Duration
Until the start of your next turn, whenever another player gains a Victory Card worth $8 or more, gain an Estate.
The +VP card is slightly more expensive because it doesn't clog your deck. It won't help you come back, but if you're neck and neck, might give you an edge or force your opponent to cede Province tempo.

Don't need the gain in front of +2 VP, and it should read "costing $8 or more". Also, the difference in effect is much bigger than a $1 price point - if I have 3-4 of the first version of these out, my opponent is probably not going to buy Provinces unless he's already finishing the game; if I have 3-4 of the second version, my opponent will be cackling with glee as he junks my deck with all the Estates.

Unified Front - $6
Action
If you have no cards remaining in your deck or discard pile, +3 VP.
Put that over-efficient draw engine to use!

So, getting involved in a land war in Asia, I see. If you can draw your deck and play multiple copies of this, then what incentive do you have to bring the game closer to its end? If both players Prince 5 copies of this each then trash their entire deck, why would either of them bother to do anything on their turns?

Standing Army – $6
Action – Attack – Reaction – Victory
This card is worth 1 VP for every two Attack cards in your deck, rounded down.
Discard a Treasure or Action card. Every other player discards down to two cards.
-----
When another player plays an Attack card, reveal this from your hand and discard it. If you do, you are unaffected by that Attack.
Another old card. If you get all ten Standing Armies, you get a not-too-shabby 50 VP. If you get only nine, though, you're left with the much less impressive 36.

Reaction should probably just be "you may discard this from your hand". Probably shares most of the problems that a card worth X VP for every copy of itself does.

Border Dispute - $7
Action – Attack
Each player reveals cards from the top of his deck until revealing a Victory card. Place the revealed victory card in your hand. Each other player returns his revealed card to the Supply and gains a victory card that costs at most $3 less. He then discards the other cards. For each card returned to the supply, choose one: Trash a Victory card from your hand, and gain a Victory card that costs no more than $3 more into your hand; or, gain an Estate. Discard the other cards.
Okay. Calm down. It is rather complex, but it's not as complex as the card text would have you believe. The following is the rough order of operations.

• All players reveal cards until they reveal a Victory card.
• All other players return their revealed Victory Card to the supply, and gain a Victory card that cannot cost more than $3 less than the returned card.
• You add the revealed victory card to your hand. For each card the other players have returned, you may Trash a Vicory card from your hand and gain into your hand a Victory card that cannot cost more than $3 more OR gain an Estate.
• Discard all the other revealed cards.

...Okay, the wording needs work. A lot of work.

It sure does. At the very least, the second sentence needs to be "Place your revealed Victory card in your hand" to confirm that you don't get everyone else's. I'll let someone else work out the rest of the issues.

[GendoIkari]

I don't know if Hidden Transaction / Bribe can be balanced. It suffers from that problem whose name I forget, where a card is normally hugely underpowered, but can be way overpowered in specific circumstances. The thing is as it is now, it's essentially a terminal Copper if you can't combo it with anything. Actually worse than that, because you must buy 2 cards on your turn to get the terminal Copper effect. And it's hard to play 2 on a turn, though if you do, it's like playing 2 Silvers. So it has a Bridge kind of scaling there. But then, if you play a bunch of Market Squares and then one, then Market Square becomes Market. Market becomes Grand Market. Woodcutter becomes terminal Gold. Workers Village becomes Bazaar plus.

[MetaSkipper]

Ok, going to mostly comment on wording and any obvious issues this run through ...

Sprawl - $6
Victory
4 VP
If the game ends due to three cleared piles, 7 VP instead.
I'm not sure if there's a difference between "7 VP instead" and "+3 VP," at least practically, but feel free to disprove me.

+VP is generally used to refer to what happens when you play a card like Monument and gain points in the form of VP tokens. If you were to actually get 3 VP tokens at the end of the game due to a card being in your deck, I would find that ... weird. For a card that has two possible VP values depending on an end-game condition, check Distant Lands:

Worth 4VP if on your Tavern mat at the end of the game (otherwise worth 0VP).

Also, in terms of making the game tempo interesting, I'd like to see what happens if it goes the other way around (because you might try to use your big spends to buy this rather than Provinces, only to see your opponent stop buying Provinces and start emptying piles).

I'll get to the other criticism later, but I ran some math and theory in my head for Sprawl in a head-to-head. Note: I managed to mix up cost and VP value while I was making this card, so the cards were technically balanced for a 5 VP Duchy and an 8 VP Province. The intent was that Sprawl was always worse than Province, VP-wise, but you should be able to stay ahead by having more Sprawls than Provinces. Nevertheless, I'll just theory out the card as written and in reverse, as suggested.
Other Note: Throughout this, I will sometimes say you need X Y's to win. That really means you need an advantage of X in Y's, but I'm writing this after I wrote much of this and I'm lazy.

Card as Suggested
7 VP if ends on three-pile, 4 VP if ends on Provinces

If you think the game will end on Provinces, buy Provinces (6 vs 4). If you cannot afford a Province, buy Sprawls (4 vs 3).

If you think the game will end on three-pile, you need six Sprawls to match seven Provinces. (If your opponent gets eight Provinces.... the game is over on Provinces.) If you take one Province, you need five Sprawls to beat six Provinces; however, that makes it more likely that the game will end on Provinces.

Card in Reverse
4 VP if ends on three-pile, 7 VP if ends on Provinces

If you think the game will end on Provinces, and you buy no Provinces, your opponent will end up with 48 VP. You need at least seven Sprawls to be ahead at 49 VP.

If you are competing for Provinces, are ahead in by at least 2 points (1 if you have turn advantage), and have tempo, buy Provinces. The game will be closer to ending on Provinces and your opponent will be unable to catch up.
If you are competing, are behind or tied, and have tempo, buy Sprawls. You will gain more points if you trade Sprawls for Provinces. If your opponent buys Sprawls as well, you delay the endgame so you can catch up. It is also easier to gain two Sprawls in a turn than two Provinces.
If you do not have tempo but are competitive in points, buy Sprawls. Similar logic.

If there are no more Sprawls and you have more, buy Provinces to end the game faster.
If there are no more Sprawls and they split 4-6 against you, you can come back if you have three more Provinces. Otherwise, aim to three-pile.
If there are no more Sprawls and they split 3-7 against you, you need a five Province advantage.
If they split 2-8, you must have an eight Province advantage.
If they split 1-9, you cannot come back on Provinces alone. Either stall for time or aim to three-pile. If you try to force a three-pile too late, however, your opponent will simply gain an insurmountable lead in Provinces anyway.


If you think the game will end on three-pile, and you buy no Provinces, your opponent can have, at most, 42 VP. Even if you have all ten Sprawls, that is still only 40 VP. If your opponent buys six  Provinces, you need to have at least four more Sprawls than he Provinces. If your opponent buys five, four, or three; you need three more. If your opponent buys two, one, or none; you only need one more.

If you are competing for Provinces, you need at least two Sprawls to overcome a 3-4 split in your opponents favor.

If you are competing for Sprawls, it is wiser to attempt to end by Provinces if your opponent cannot gain a Sprawl advantage of more than two in the time you can gain a Province advantage of four. (Technically, you only need three, but an advantage of 5-2 still leaves one Province left.)
You can also try to gain eight Provinces for six Sprawls. This is too easily blocked, however.


That's... a lot of math. And I'm not even done thinking.

[eHalcyon]

I don't know if Hidden Transaction / Bribe can be balanced. It suffers from that problem whose name I forget, where a card is normally hugely underpowered, but can be way overpowered in specific circumstances.

I think it was back during the design contests, WanderingWinder coined the term "Fancy Balance Issues".

[GendoIkari]

I don't know if Hidden Transaction / Bribe can be balanced. It suffers from that problem whose name I forget, where a card is normally hugely underpowered, but can be way overpowered in specific circumstances.

I think it was back during the design contests, WanderingWinder coined the term "Fancy Balance Issues".

That was it, FBI!

[MetaSkipper]

Amusingly, this is a card I developed for the Really Bad Cards thread, and then I realized there wasn't anything excessively bad about it. Well, maybe there is, but I can't find it.

Economies of Scale - $5
Action
+1 Card
While this card is in play, if you have six or more cards in your hand, when you play an Action card, +1 Action or +1 Card.

[GendoIkari]

Amusingly, this is a card I developed for the Really Bad Cards thread, and then I realized there wasn't anything excessively bad about it. Well, maybe there is, but I can't find it.

Economies of Scale - $5
Action
+1 Card
While this card is in play, if you have six or more cards in your hand, when you play an Action card, +1 Action or +1 Card.

A few bad things...

1. On a board with no villages, it does nothing.

2. It's hard to get it to do anything even after that... you have to play a village, then this and a Lab/some card draw, and THEN your other actions will be extra good.

3. When you do get it to work, it's maybe too good. It basically ensures that you will draw your deck and play all your terminals.

[MetaSkipper]

Well, while I was away, an expansion was released, another one is one the way, and two existing sets are facing changes. So, instead of doing the reasonable thing and fading into obscurity, I went to designing more cards.

Double Counting - $6
Action - Duration
At the start of your next turn, +$ equal to the amount of money spent this turn, unless an Attack card is played or another player plays three Action cards. At the start of your next turn, choose one: You may not play Treasure cards until the end of your turn; or you may not play Action cards until the end of your turn.
The ability to guarantee at least the same amount of money spent is probably strong enough to be as expensive as Gold, although at that price point, about the only thing that you would use it for are securing multiple Golds or Provinces in a row. The next-turn limitation and built-in reactability are limiting features, although I'm not sure if it's too easy to play three action cards reliably by the time this would come into play.

Accrual Basis - $2
Action - Duration
Resolve the effects of Duration cards that take place on your next turn (and only on your next turn) on this turn. Until the start of your next turn, resolve the effects of Duration cards that take place on this turn on your next turn.
Originally, this card was going to have all actions that take place on turns other than this one resolve on this turn, but that was messy in the case of "until the end of the game" Durations.

Full Faith and Credit - $4
Treasure
If there are eight or more Full Faith and Credit cards in the Supply, $0.
If there are three to seven Full Faith and Credit cards in the Supply, $1.
If there are two to zero Full Faith and Credit cards in the Supply, $3.
When this card would be trashed, return it to the Supply instead.
Part of me is concerned that this is just an enabler of Big Money. Instead of ramping up from Coppers from Silvers to Golds, you just buy these which eventually turn into Golds once enough are bought, and so they don't really clog the deck. On the other hand, for most of the game, they're horrifically overpriced Coppers, especially if only one player is going for them. The $4 price point is meant to make it impractical to mass buy, and prevent opening with Two Full Faith and Credit.

Currency Exchange - $5
Action
+$2
Each player reveals their hand. Each player may gain a copy of any Treasure revealed in this manner.
You know, this card sounded better in my head. Now it just sounds overpriced for the too undesirable an effect of giving everyone at the table the best treasure.

Reverse Mortgage - $3
Action
Discard any number of Victory cards from your hand. +1 Coin token for each card discarded in this manner.
I think this card is ultimately going to suffer from "no one wants Victory cards until the end" syndrome. But it sounded cool.

Quantitative Easing - $6
Treasure
+1 Card
+$2

Interest Rate Reductions - $6
Treasure
+1 Action
+$2

Now, these cards got me thinking. Treasures, by and large, give you some amount of money or Buys, either directly or practically. Despite my best efforts, I could not find a Treasure that gave card draw. Coin of the Realm sort of gives actions, but not on its own turn without edge cases. Treasures are not engine pieces.
So why not make a Treasure with draw, or actions? Quickly I identified that Treasure cards have a hidden +1 Action, by virtue of not consuming an Action. But then what was the difference between Bazaar and a theoretical card, given below?

Printing Press - $??
Treasure
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1

At first I couldn't find it, but then I realized Printing Press is slightly (or much) stronger because you can't draw it dead, ever, because it's a Treasure. How much of a cost increase that warrants, though, I'm not sure. There are also more cards that interact with Actions than Treasures (I think).
Anyway, Quantitative Easing is $6 because it sounds like it's worth $2 more than Conspirator, which is effectively the same with the trigger. Interest Rate Reductions is $6 because it's like Festival, but never being dead in the hand is a bit better than +1 Buy.

[loneXolf]

Well, while I was away, an expansion was released, another one is one the way, and two existing sets are facing changes. So, instead of doing the reasonable thing and fading into obscurity, I went to designing more cards.

Double Counting - $6
Action - Duration
At the start of your next turn, +$ equal to the amount of money spent this turn, unless an Attack card is played or another player plays three Action cards. At the start of your next turn, choose one: You may not play Treasure cards until the end of your turn; or you may not play Action cards until the end of your turn.

Seems hard to track, Also this becomes useless vs engines or when attack cards are in the kingdom.

Accrual Basis - $2
Action - Duration
Resolve the effects of Duration cards that take place on your next turn (and only on your next turn) on this turn. Until the start of your next turn, resolve the effects of Duration cards that take place on this turn on your next turn.

Text seems weird so you get double effects of all duration cards or is this some type of attack? Also this card is worthless if it's the only duration in the kingdom.

Full Faith and Credit - $4
Treasure
If there are eight or more Full Faith and Credit cards in the Supply, $0.
If there are three to seven Full Faith and Credit cards in the Supply, $1.
If there are two to zero Full Faith and Credit cards in the Supply, $3.
When this card would be trashed, return it to the Supply instead.

This card will only be useful in workshop games since it takes too long for this card to be useful. Idk maybe it's worth decking out this pile out however your opponents will also start buying this card when they see you are going for them.

Currency Exchange - $5
Action
+$2
Each player reveals their hand. Each player may gain a copy of any Treasure revealed in this manner.

How is this card not just not just a much better mint without the trash effect? Also this card lets engines keep up with the gold count of big money decks.

Reverse Mortgage - $3
Action
Discard any number of Victory cards from your hand. +1 Coin token for each card discarded in this manner.

Seems weak in most cases, since you need a lot of victory cards to make the most of this card. And this card is bad with most of the mixed type victory cards.

Quantitative Easing - $6
Treasure
+1 Card
+$2

Seems to be only useful in big money decks, and I see venture being better in more kingdoms also is this card better than gold for big money?

Interest Rate Reductions - $6
Treasure
+1 Action
+$2

How are +1 actions on treasure cards useful? You can't play actions during your buy phase and only a few cards let you play treasures during the action phase such as black market and storyteller.

Printing Press - $??
Treasure
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1

Same notes as above. "How are +1 actions on treasure cards useful? You can't play actions during your buy phase and only a few cards let you play treasures during the action phase such as black market and storyteller."

[MetaSkipper]

Double Counting - $6
Action - Duration
At the start of your next turn, +$ equal to the amount of money spent this turn, unless an Attack card is played or another player plays three Action cards. At the start of your next turn, choose one: You may not play Treasure cards until the end of your turn; or you may not play Action cards until the end of your turn.

Seems hard to track, Also this becomes useless vs engines or when attack cards are in the kingdom.

You know, I was worried letting it go unchecked would be too strong. Would making it unstoppable (at least, within its own terms) be too powerful?

Accrual Basis - $2
Action - Duration
Resolve the effects of Duration cards that take place on your next turn (and only on your next turn) on this turn. Until the start of your next turn, resolve the effects of Duration cards that take place on this turn on your next turn.

Text seems weird so you get double effects of all duration cards or is this some type of attack? Also this card is worthless if it's the only duration in the kingdom.

The card reverses when the effect of a Duration card happens. If it happens on this turn normally, it happens on your next turn. If it happens on your next turn normally, it happens on this turn.

Full Faith and Credit - $4
Treasure
If there are eight or more Full Faith and Credit cards in the Supply, $0.
If there are three to seven Full Faith and Credit cards in the Supply, $1.
If there are two to zero Full Faith and Credit cards in the Supply, $3.
When this card would be trashed, return it to the Supply instead.

This card will only be useful in workshop games since it takes too long for this card to be useful. Idk maybe it's worth decking out this pile out however your opponents will also start buying this card when they see you are going for them.

Could test it at $3, but making it too cheap makes it too compelling a buy, perhaps.

Currency Exchange - $5
Action
+$2
Each player reveals their hand. Each player may gain a copy of any Treasure revealed in this manner.

How is this card not just not just a much better mint without the trash effect? Also this card lets engines keep up with the gold count of big money decks.

Mint doesn't let everyone else get a Gold. Engines keeping up with Big Money might be a sticking point, though.

Reverse Mortgage - $3
Action
Discard any number of Victory cards from your hand. +1 Coin token for each card discarded in this manner.

Seems weak in most cases, since you need a lot of victory cards to make the most of this card. And this card is bad with most of the mixed type victory cards.

Could up the Coin token count. I wouldn't say most Victory cards have play effects to have anti-synergy with.

Quantitative Easing - $6
Treasure
+1 Card
+$2

Seems to be only useful in big money decks, and I see venture being better in more kingdoms also is this card better than gold for big money?

Venture is probably the better card for most decks, if they're in the same kingdom. Quantitative Easing is probably stronger in Big Money. I think Quantitative Easing will be better than Gold earlier on, then gets worse as the game goes on, value wise. For just hitting $8, though, Gold might be better.

Interest Rate Reductions - $6
Treasure
+1 Action
+$2

How are +1 actions on treasure cards useful? You can't play actions during your buy phase and only a few cards let you play treasures during the action phase such as black market and storyteller.

> check rules
> realizes you can't play Treasures during the Action phase
> FeelsBadMan

Printing Press - $??
Treasure
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1

Same notes as above. "How are +1 actions on treasure cards useful? You can't play actions during your buy phase and only a few cards let you play treasures during the action phase such as black market and storyteller."

>Still FeelsBadMan

[loneXolf]

- $5
Action
+$2
Each player reveals their hand. Each player may gain a copy of any Treasure revealed in this manner.

How is this card not just not just a much better mint without the trash effect? Also this card lets engines keep up with the gold count of big money decks.

Mint doesn't let everyone else get a Gold. Engines keeping up with Big Money might be a sticking point, though.

Ah I misread this card when I first reviewed it, sorry. I thought the effect was: Each player reveals their hand, choose a treasure to gain a copy of from the revealed cards.

New Review - Currency Exchange seems bad since it's pretty much a 5 cost terminal action, that only gives +2 coins and a effect everyone can benefit from.