Executioner -- $6 (Attack)
Each player gets +3 cards and puts a card from his hand on top of his deck. Then, each other player trashes a Victory card, or reveals a hand with no Victory cards.
Trashing attacks are tough to get right, and even when you balance them, they can be terribly unfun (Saboteur). The fact that this one zeroes in on Victory cards is especially bad: it becomes way too swingy. I appreciate, though, that you've attempted to address this by giving the opponent a sort of hybrid Secret Chamber/Courtyard effect. This gives them a chance to draw Estates and rescue Provinces. But while this weakens the attack, it doesn't do anything about its swinginess. The attack might still trash a Province, after all, and that means that the game can turn on a single (un)lucky play.
So at best, it wins the game, but on average, it helps your opponent more than it hurts, because you're giving them that Secret Chamber/Courtyard benefit and allowing them to trash an Estate. It just seems like it's usually a bad thing to buy and won't make for a very fun game if someone does.
Martyr -- $6 (Action)
+2 cards, +2 actions, +$3, +1 buy
Trash this after playing it.
I like the idea of a one-shot vanilla card. My suspicion is that this one is way too strong, though. I've experimented a little with one-shot vanilla cards, and I found that they need to be a lot weaker than you'd think. A single card or coin can make a world of difference in Dominion, and here you've got humongous boosts across the board. I'm sure it's a must-buy a whole lot of the time, perhaps every time you hit $6. You don't want it to be a must-buy, or the card will narrow the strategy space. It's got to be bad sometimes.
Plunder -- $6 (Treasure)
+1 buy
Worth $2. While this in play, treasure cards cost $2 less, but not less than $0.
This is a neat idea. My one personal caveat is that I don't like cards that foster or force a Big Money strategy, and this pretty much fits that bill. But such cards do exist, and they are perfectly good cards.
This is probably as good a version of the card as any to start testing, but my prediction is that you're going to find it overpowered. Compare it to Quarry: Quarry costs $4 and offers the equivalent discount on Actions rather than Treasures. But it yields only $1 and does not have +Buy. An extra coin would bump the cost up by about $3 (consider the cost difference between the base Treasures). This one is only $2 more AND it offers +Buy as well. But we also have to consider how the power of discounting Treasures compares to the power of discounting Actions. My guess is that discounting Treasures is MORE powerful (because Big Money is available on every board and
almost a winning strategy on many) rather than less. So that's yet another reason why this card is probably overpowered.
When you test, try a few different benchmarks, including BMU and some BM+X strategies. I'm sure some version of this card can work.
Barbarian Horde -- $5 (Attack)
+1 buy
Add a token to the Barbarian Horde mat. Each other player reveals the next 3 cards of his deck and trashes a Treasure card corresponding to the number of tokens on the mat, or reveals no such card and gains a curse:
1-2 tokens: Copper
3-5 tokens: Silver
6 or more tokens: Gold
You get +$ equal to the combined value of the trashed Treasure cards.
I like the idea of a card that attacks different Treasure cards as the game goes on, roughly in sync with which Treasure cards players will be buying over the course of the game. Unfortunately, there are serious scaling issues with the card. Compare with Pirate Ship: you don't get a token for each player that trashes a Treasure. You just get one. Pirate Ship is already superior with more players, because you have a better chance of hitting. But if you could get multiple tokens, that would compound the problem wildly.
With this card, you could get +$6 in 2p. That's pretty great, but maybe it's okay since you have to work to get to that point and aren't guaranteed a hit even then. However, in a 4p game you could get +$18, which is just crazy -- especially since you get a +Buy to help spend it.
Also, do I read this correctly that there's just one shared mat? In that case, 4p scales even worse, because the mat will build up twice as fast as in a 2p game, leading to potential +$18 turns sooner than you can even get up to +$6 in a 2p game. I really think you need individual mats and only a single +$ bonus, or the problems of scale will just be way too crazy. Even then, I'm not convinced it'll be a great card, since it can be trivially defended against simply by not buying Silvers or Golds. And you'd love to be hit by it when it's targeting Coppers.
Beggar Prince -- $5 (Attack)
Each other player with 4 or more cards in hand discards a Treasure card or reveals a hand with no Treasure cards. If any Treasure cards were discarded this way, you get +$1. If any of those treasures were coppers, you also get +1 card, +1 action.
This is a pretty interesting one. Sort of a Super-Cutpurse, where instead of a terminal Silver, you get a Peddler effect. Plus it hits Silvers and Golds as a failsafe, but actually you don't want to hit those -- because even though that does hurt your opponents pretty bad, it means the benefit to you is a mere terminal Copper, which is pretty horrible. For that reason, I would test +$2 instead of the +$1. That might make using Beggar Prince in the early game too powerful, though, so you'd have to watch out for that possibility.
With either version, I could see using one of these early and, like Cutpurse, trashing it or just ignoring it by the middle game.
Plague -- $5 (Action)
+2 cards
Choose a supply pile where cards cost $7 or less. Trash up to 3 cards from it.
Supply trashing is probably useful a lot less than most people think. I doubt it's worth having its own card. But if it does have its own card, I suppose $5 is as good a price for it as any. It sounds pretty high to me, but if you want to do it at all, it's probably worth doing at $5. Still, compare it with Moat, another card that offers a terminal +2 Cards. Its other benefit is probably useful more often and is stronger when it is.
Propagandist -- $5 (Attack--Duration)
+$2
While this is in play, keep the most expensive card you bought on this turn in front of you until the start of your next turn. Each other player must buy or gain at least 1 copy of the card you bought, if he plays any cards that enable him to do so during his next turn.
I love the idea of mini-Possessing your opponents' buy phases. That's great.
This implementation of the idea, however, has some logistical problems stemming from the fact that purchased cards go immediately into your discard pile. That means that by the time you reach the end of your buy phase -- the soonest point at which it can be determined what the "most expensive" purchased card is -- your purchased card(s) can be almost ANYWHERE:
(1) The top discard of your discard pile (default behavior)
(2) On top of your deck (Nomad Camp)
(3) Anywhere in your deck (Inn)
(4) Anywhere in your deck or discard pile (play Black Market, buy something, then play Venture, triggering a reshuffle)
(5) In play (play Black Market, buy a Treasure card, then play Venture, which finds it and plays it)
(5) In your hand (play Black Market, buy a Treasure card, then play Adventurer, which finds it and draws it into your hand)
(6) In the trash (buy something, reveal Watchtower)
So what do you do? Do you pull it out of play, or scour your deck for it, or whatever? If you pull it out of the trash to leave it out, does it go back into the trash afterwards, or does it go into your deck? It'll be a rules nightmare trying to untangle all the possibilities and very difficult to play in practice even if you did.
There's another problem, too: what happens if all three of your opponents in a 4p game have a Propagandist out? Do they all take effect? If so, which one takes precedence? I'd suggest only having the card affect the player to your left, but then it's a targeted attack. In a 3p game where one player races the Propagandists and the others leave it alone, the winner will probably be determined solely by seating order.
I like the idea overall, but I don't know how to make it work.
Agitator -- $4 (Action)
When you buy this, all other players with 5 or more cards in hand discard a card.
When you play this, remove it from your deck and add it as the top card in any supply pile. The cards beneath it are not available until it is bought. If no player buys it by the start of your next turn, remove it from the pile and trash it.
I've seen several different incarnations of the idea of putting cards on top of supply piles, blocking them until they're uncovered. I haven't tested the idea, but my suspicion is that it sounds better than it plays. But by all means, try it out. However, I'm pretty sure you need a vanilla bonus on this, or it will almost never be worth playing. Attack cards nearly always have a supplemental benefit on them, because you need to be advancing the game even as you're setting it back. +$2 seems like a good idea at this price point, and then Militia will still be the better card most of the time.
It should still be a weakish card overall, though, or else the game will degenerate into a race to see who can blockade the Agitator pile before the other player(s) have a chance to buy one.
Haunted Village -- $4 (Action)
+2 actions
Reveal the next 3 cards in your deck. Choose one and put it into your hand. Discard the others.
I've
playtested this exact card very extensively. It doesn't look like it, but it's a strong $5 card. I love it, but it's a power card. It's more than being able to draw the best card of 3 -- you get to skip the weaker ones entirely. The result is that you can make almost any engine fire more quickly, be resilient to cursing, and not require trashing. To make it a solid $4 Village, have the player return the other two cards to the top of the deck. I've playtested that one extensively too. When you still have to play the other two cards, the benefit is much smaller and thus more comparable to the other $4 Villages.
Profiteer -- $4 (Duration)
+$1
While this is in play, after your buy phase has ended you may reveal any Treasure cards from your hand. Put them in front of you, face-up. At the start of your next turn, add them to your hand.
I like the idea. It's kind of a Super-Haven. I wonder if it's too strong for $4, but playtesting will tell.
(continued)
