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[SirPeebles]

This should be seen an attempt at fixing my Crown Jewels idea.  I figured that starting a new thread would be the least confusing.

Tavern
$5 Action
+1 Card
+2 Actions
---
When you gain this, gain a Legend from the Legends pile.

There are ten Legends.  Each is a victory card which worth 3 VP is a certain condition is met, and grants a free treasure if trashed.  For nine of ten Legends, the condition is to have the most of something (a tie counts as meeting the condition).  For the tenth Legend, the condition is for the game to end on an opponent's turn. This guarantees each Legend is always feasible for at least one of the players.  Moreover, even when your opponent snatches the Legend you had your eyes on, it is still in your best interest to compete with her on the condition to deny her the points, providing fun interaction.  In multiplayer this could turn a bit political, but I don't think it would be so bad.

The Old Peak
$0*  Victory-Legend
Worth 3 VP if you have the most cards in your deck.
---
When you trash this, gain a Treasure.
(This is not in the Supply)

The Old Mine
$0*  Victory-Legend
Worth 3 VP if you have the most Treasure cards in your deck.
---
When you trash this, gain a Treasure.
(This is not in the Supply)

The Old Manor
$0*  Victory-Legend
Worth 3 VP if you have the most Victory cards in your deck.
---
When you trash this, gain a Treasure.
(This is not in the Supply)

The Old Church
$0*  Victory-Legend
Worth 3 VP if you have the most Action cards in your deck.
---
When you trash this, gain a Treasure.
(This is not in the Supply)

The Old Fort
$0*  Victory-Legend
Worth 3 VP if you have the most Attack cards in your deck.
---
When you trash this, gain a Treasure.
(This is not in the Supply)

The Old Cemetery
$0*  Victory-Legend
Worth 3 VP if you have the most Curses in your deck.
---
When you trash this, gain a Treasure.
(This is not in the Supply)

The Old Bridge
$0*  Victory-Legend
Worth 3 VP if you have the most cards costing $5 in your deck.
---
When you trash this, gain a Treasure.
(This is not in the Supply)

The Old Statue
$0*  Victory-Legend
Worth 3 VP if you have the most Legends in your deck.
---
When you trash this, gain a Treasure.
(This is not in the Supply)

The Old Forest
$0*  Victory-Legend
Worth 3 VP if you have the most differently named cards in your deck.
---
When you trash this, gain a Treasure.
(This is not in the Supply)

The Old Mirror
$0*  Victory-Legend
Worth 3 VP if the game ends at the end of an opponent's turn.
---
When you trash this, gain a Treasure.
(This is not in the Supply)

[Fragasnap]

It's an interesting idea. An obvious bookkeeping problem is that we now have to count all of every one of these things in order to compare them. This wouldn't hurt as much if you only had to count one of them, but you have to count some feature for each Legend gained.

Tavern itself confuses me. It's a Village that costs $5 and comes with a maybe Duchy. That's really bad. $5 Villages have a hard time because if you need the +Actions, you can't wait until you're hitting $5 to get them. Engines that need +Action also choke a lot harder on green cards (which Legends are) than money decks do. So who's supposed to buy this and when? Big Money players won't bother with the Action they can draw dead. Engine players don't want the excess green in their deck while they're trying to build up. The best thing about Tavern is that it adds more VP to the table for engine players... but they can't rely on Tavern as their splitter anyway.

I might try increasing all the victory values of Legends to 4VP so that it isn't almost always better to buy a Duchy. I'd also consider giving Tavern a greater connection to Inn by giving it some amount of sifting capability (especially so that engine players can get around the Legends in their deck).

[markusin]

Sifting? Maybe +2 actions, discard 1 card, draw 2? I've always wondered how strong "discard 1, then draw 2" is.

[SirPeebles]

I think you are right about making the Legends worth more.  4 or even 5 VP could make them more exciting.  I also don't think that the counting would be so bad in practice, since either it will be clear who won it, or it will be exciting to see who got more.  But again, that excitement is only there if the payoff is big enough.

[AJD]

$5 Villages have a hard time because if you need the +Actions, you can't wait until you're hitting $5 to get them.

Wait, why not, as a general matter? Villages don't do much for you before you have the terminals that they're supposed to support. Wouldn't you ordinarily want to buy a couple of terminal draw or payload cards (both of which might help you get to $5) before investing in villages?

[Fragasnap]

$5 Villages have a hard time because if you need the +Actions, you can't wait until you're hitting $5 to get them.

Wait, why not, as a general matter? Villages don't do much for you before you have the terminals that they're supposed to support. Wouldn't you ordinarily want to buy a couple of terminal draw or payload cards (both of which might help you get to $5) before investing in villages?

Poor wording on my part. $5 Villages are competing with your draw cards\payloads. You can't get them fast enough. A lot of draw cards cost $5, so most of the time you're trying to buy $5 cards that you will support with $5 cards so that you can eventually buy $8 cards and then fight over more $5 cards. You don't have that kind of time to support your $3, $4, and $5 Actions with $5 purchases.

Tavern attempts to circumvent the problem by giving you the "Duchies" that you need at the same time as the splitter, but then you're choking on green to quickly since engines tend to hate green.

[SirPeebles]

$5 Villages have a hard time because if you need the +Actions, you can't wait until you're hitting $5 to get them.

Wait, why not, as a general matter? Villages don't do much for you before you have the terminals that they're supposed to support. Wouldn't you ordinarily want to buy a couple of terminal draw or payload cards (both of which might help you get to $5) before investing in villages?

Well, often (but not always) you want the villages in order to play multiple $5 actions, so there can be a clash.  But I think by upping the point value on successful Legends it will help some since you don't need to spend turns/buys on victory cards and don't even need to build up to $8 potentially.  If a successful Legend is worth 5 VP, but then you can really just aim for a deck that makes $5 perhaps.

[GendoIkari]

Wording suggestion... Instead of "if you have the most ___"... use "if no opponent has more ____ than you."

This makes it clear that a tie qualifies, and also makes it clear what it means... "if you have the most treasures" could me misinterpreted as saying "if you have more treasures than anything else."

Also, agreed with the above comments; I think it's bad that these cost $5 to get and give as much VP as a Duchy. They should either cost less, or give more, since the VP is conditional. That or tie it to a different action... Even if it cost $3, throughout the first 2/3 of the game, I'd rather buy regular Village than a Tavern. Free Duchies aren't a good thing early on.

[AJD]

$5 Villages have a hard time because if you need the +Actions, you can't wait until you're hitting $5 to get them.

Wait, why not, as a general matter? Villages don't do much for you before you have the terminals that they're supposed to support. Wouldn't you ordinarily want to buy a couple of terminal draw or payload cards (both of which might help you get to $5) before investing in villages?

Well, often (but not always) you want the villages in order to play multiple $5 actions, so there can be a clash.

Sure, but often you want to wait until you're hitting $5 to buy even $3 villages.

[soulnet]

I think a potential problem is that some Legends are better than others. That may be fine in general (there are clearly better and worse Knights), but it feels a bit wrong when they are better because they combo better with Tavern itself (e.g, as it is now, the one that counts Actions is better than the one that counts Treasures, because Villages want Action decks, not Treasure decks).

[GendoIkari]

Also, the on-trash seems too good. Especially when combined with Watchtower...

$5 to spend and Watchtower in hand? Get a Platinum and a Village with just 1 buy!

Even in games without Platinum, $5 and 1 buy for a Village and a Gold is really good. I would at least limit it to Gold... you could always just say "Gain a Gold" if that's not too strong. Removes Platinum as an option, and in any other game, you were probably going to choose Gold anyway.

[silverspawn]

I kind of liked them more as gems. but regardless, i completely agree with geo that "gain a gold" is better than "gain a treasure"

[soulnet]

Even in games without Platinum, $5 and 1 buy for a Village and a Gold is really good. I would at least limit it to Gold... you could always just say "Gain a Gold" if that's not too strong. Removes Platinum as an option, and in any other game, you were probably going to choose Gold anyway.

Well, non-basic Treasures are definitely an option. Counterfeit, HoP and Quarry are often better than Gold and Potion is sometimes. If Platinum is the problem, just "costing up to $6" will do.

[SirPeebles]

A lot of on-trash abilities are nuts with Watchtower.  We all pointed that out when Dark Ages was released, but we dealt with it.  There aren't all that many boards with Watchtower, Platinum, and [Fan Card], and when they do align there is just a sneaky thing you can do to get early Platinums with a Watchtower and a $5 hand.  That's not so terrible. 

As for the Gold, if Watchtower had been a Silver instead you'd have a $7 hand, but I'm allowing a Village and Gold with that hand.  Doesn't sound insane to me.  That's what combos do.

[pacovf]

I really like the idea, but am not convinced by the implementation. I agree that a village that self-junks doesn't really work very well with any existing strategy paradigm. Tavern, as is, only seems to work as a slog card, and then it compares unfavourably to straight duchy. One of the possibilities is indeed to up the value of legends. I would instead (or also) opt for boosting the tavern itself a bit.
For example, add "Reveal the top three cards from your deck. If at least one of them is a Legend, put them in your hand; otherwise discard them". (flavour: local heroes choose to embark on an adventure when they hear the rumours of a legendary site; otherwise they just get drunk)

By the way, do you get to choose the legend you gain, as in tournament, or do you just take the one on top of the pile, as in knights?

[silverspawn]

A lot of on-trash abilities are nuts with Watchtower.  We all pointed that out when Dark Ages was released, but we dealt with it.  There aren't all that many boards with Watchtower, Platinum, and [Fan Card], and when they do align there is just a sneaky thing you can do to get early Platinums with a Watchtower and a $5 hand.  That's not so terrible. 

As for the Gold, if Watchtower had been a Silver instead you'd have a $7 hand, but I'm allowing a Village and Gold with that hand.  Doesn't sound insane to me.  That's what combos do.

i agree, it's not terrible if you can gain platinum. But I like "gain a gold" better anyway, not because treasure is broken, but because "gain a gold" is shorter, more elegant and mostly identical.

[shark_bait]

Since Legends have an on-trash clause shouldn't either Tavern or Legend(s) have the ability to trash?  That ensures that the trash clause would always be possible.  This is akin to Graverobber and Rogue both gaining from the trash but ensuring that cards can get into the trash.

[pacovf]

Yet there's squire, market square, cultist, hunting grounds, catacombs, fortress...

[GendoIkari]

Yet there's squire, market square, cultist, hunting grounds, catacombs, fortress...

Sir Vander from Black Market...

[SirPeebles]

Yet there's squire, market square, cultist, hunting grounds, catacombs, fortress...

Sir Vander from Black Market...

Rats, Overgrown Estate, ...

The only card who can trigger its own on-trash clause is Sir Vander.

[soulnet]

Since Legends have an on-trash clause shouldn't either Tavern or Legend(s) have the ability to trash?  That ensures that the trash clause would always be possible.  This is akin to Graverobber and Rogue both gaining from the trash but ensuring that cards can get into the trash.

The difference is that getting from trash is central to GR and Rogue (also Forager needs to be a trasher), but the on-trash are usual just pluses but the cards make sense without them anyway.

[shark_bait]

Okay, you guys are right.  It's not necessary. 

[mail-mi]

what if you made them cost more than 0* (say 4* or even 5*) for TFB purposes?

[ehunt]

I love this idea! Old Fort is just unconditional points if there are no Attack Cards out; that's fine though.
To me the interesting thing about these cards is what they do to the end-game (and thus, to the middle-game). The "treasure piņata" is only going to come in handy once in a while, and the cards would be less complicated if it was scrapped altogether. Maybe a VP boost for a successful card would make them more tempting (alternatively, have you considered +4/+1 instead of +3/+0)?

Tavern should have a sifting effect to compensate for the extra junk in the deck; that also fits thematically with Inn. (My buff to Tavern just turned it into Inn, so someone else should find a buff.)

[dondon151]

Why not make the Legend gain conditional and reduce the number of Legends?

Or you could do a bit of a Tournament thing and allow Tavern to gain a Legend on-play pending a condition.

I mean, as a village variant, it's just so bad...