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[Vislor]

Has this idea been done before?

$4 Action - During your buy phase you may buy the top card from another player's discard pile.

What do you guys think and should it be any different/improved upon? ie - $5 Action Attack - Each other player reveals and discards the top card of their deck. You may buy it immediately.

[Awaclus]

There are some issues. The first one creates a lot of unnecessary AP, because then it becomes important that you discard your cards in a certain order, and everyone has to discard their cards in the optimal order every turn and that takes a lot of time, but it's relevant only once per shuffle, and that's why no official cards care about the order of the discard pile. Then, both of them have the problem that if you're playing 3+ player games, you usually don't have enough money to buy the cards from all players so you have to choose which player you want to hurt, which is political.

It's also pretty similar to Jester.

[Marcory]

edit: Ninja'd by Awaclus.

This is 1) extremely strong: you could buy a Colony in a 2 player game for a 20-point swing, or you, as 2nd player, could buy the key $5 action that the 1st player just bought and put that player a shuffle behind. (Or you could buy his Chapel). It is also 2) extremely political, in that you can pick whose Province you want to buy.

This concept has also been explored in part by Jester, Swindler, Saboteur, Rogue, and Knights. Jester gives you a card or curses the defender; the other attacks are limited in scope. The worst case scenario with Saboteur is a 4-point hit to the defender (Colony>Province); with Swindler it's a 6-point hit (Province>Peddler/Prince.) The other attacks can't hit Provinces or Colonies except after Bridge/Highway chains, and still need to be lucky (so that they don't hit a Gold instead of a Province).

But your attack could result in a 20-point swing. So it's too strong and too political, IMO.

[Joseph2302]

Has this idea been done before?

$4 Action - During your buy phase you may buy the top card from another player's discard pile.

What do you guys think and should it be any different/improved upon? ie - $5 Action Attack - Each other player reveals and discards the top card of their deck. You may buy it immediately.

Definitely too political. What about instead of buying the top card, you could buy another copy of the card (possibly at reduced value).

Something like $4 Action - During your buy phase, name a card on top of another player's discard pile. You may buy a copy of this card for $3 less (to a minimum of $0).

However, the discard pile thing is a problem too, as then it creates extra rules, such as "When I discard cards at the end of my turn, how do you choose which one goes on top?"

[silverspawn]

I'm pretty sure you can choose the order in which you put cards onto your discard pile during Clean-up, so if everyone plays right, they will just put bad cards on top making Leech extremely weak (and it's political and creates AP and a smuggler variant). Interacting with the top card of discard piles is almost certainly a bad idea.

[Awaclus]

I'm pretty sure you can choose the order in which you put cards onto your discard pile during Clean-up, so if everyone plays right, they will just put bad cards on top making Leech extremely weak (and it's political and creates AP and a smuggler variant). Interacting with the top card of discard piles is almost certainly a bad idea.

If they only have very few bad cards though, you can buy the bad cards and the good cards. Could be worth it.

[Vislor]

I thought it might add an interesting new dynamic to game play...deciding what to leave on top of the discard or even stacking your discard incase of multiple leeches! Maybe make it immune to victory or something? Or dish out a curse to players who leave a victory card on top? Come on, this is not that bad an idea and could easily be improved by all you expert Dominion players!!

[silverspawn]

I thought it might add an interesting new dynamic to game play...deciding what to leave on top of the discard or even stacking your discard incase of multiple leeches! Maybe make it immune to victory or something? Or dish out a curse to players who leave a victory card on top? Come on, this is not that bad an idea and could easily be improved by all you expert Dominion players!!

I'm afraid not.

[faust]

In addition to all the already mentioned points, this card gets ridiculously strong when combined with Spy.

[market squire]

$5 Action Attack - Each other player reveals and discards the top card of their deck. You may buy it immediately.

What if you give the opponents a choice?

Each other player reveals cards form his deck until he reveals a non-Victory card costing $3 or more and discards the rest. He may trash it. If he does, you may gain it. Otherwise, he gains a Copper.

[Vislor]

$5 Action Attack - Each other player reveals and discards the top card of their deck. You may buy it immediately.

What if you give the opponents a choice?

Each other player reveals cards form his deck until he reveals a non-Victory card costing $3 or more and discards the rest. He may trash it. If he does, you may gain it. Otherwise, he gains a Copper.

Glad to see somebody trying to make an improvement...yes that's a nice idea. Or how about making it only hit cards between $3 & $6?

[liopoil]

Pretty sure I'll just take the copper most of the time... and "each other player gains a copper" is weak.

[Vislor]

How about:

Each player reveals the top card of his deck. You may gain it if it costs $4 or less.

[market squire]

Pretty sure I'll just take the copper most of the time... and "each other player gains a copper" is weak.

It was just an example for a penalty. Could also be "a card of your choice" (so that you give out copper when curses run out), or how about denying him a benefit:

Each other player discards the top card of his deck. He may put it into his hand. If he does, you may gain a copy of it.

[soulnet]

Pretty sure I'll just take the copper most of the time... and "each other player gains a copper" is weak.

It is not that weak, as Copper can be as bad as Curse and there are plenty more Coppers in the pile... Of course, just "each other player gains a Copper". But a Witch that deals out Coppers instead of Curses is a pretty nice Attack.

[Vislor]

I'd like to keep the theme of a leech being something that drains something important from someone else rather than giving something out.

[Vislor]

Also, I like the idea that leech and gardens would work well together....you have a garden full of leeches and somehow that works out nicely for you!

[liopoil]

Each other player discards the top card of his deck. He may put it into his hand. If he does, you may gain a copy of it.

Well then it just cycles them, and is actually helpful for them if it is a card you don't want to gain as they just draw a card for free.

How about:

Each other player reveals the top five cards of their deck and trashes one you choose costing from 3 to 6, and discards the rest. They may put the trashed card into their hand. If they do, you may gain a copy of the trashed card.

[silverspawn]

I'll be that guy and say that there's no point trying to make this concept work. don't try to make something work for the sake of making it work; you don't get good cards that way. try to make something work if it's cool in some way and just has problems. that said

Each other player reveals cards form his deck until he reveals a non-Victory card costing $3 or more and discards the rest. He may trash it. If he does, you may gain it. Otherwise, he gains a Copper.

This is not really an alternative of the original idea, it's more of a saboteur variant. And it's still political. Play 3P, reveal a silver. I'd rather just lose this silver than gaining a copper, but I don't want you to have it. Is helping one of you worth helping myself? -> political.

Each player reveals the top card of his deck. You may gain it if it costs $4 or less.

this is a Rogue/Jester variant. it sounds okay, though worse than those two, because it's much swingier.

Each other player discards the top card of his deck. He may put it into his hand. If he does, you may gain a copy of it.

another Jester variant. if it hits
-> green cards/bad cards, it's useless vs Jesters junking
-> good non-Victory cards, it's weaker because you help your opponent
-> okay non-victory cards, it's slightly weaker

[market squire]

I'll be that guy and say that there's no point trying to make this concept work. don't try to make something work for the sake of making it work; you don't get good cards that way. try to make something work if it's cool in some way and just has problems.

I don't see your no point. Rogue, Jester, Thief and others exist - why would it be impossible to make another card in this sphere?

Maybe we should get clear about the general concept without having it on a specific card text. I'd say it is, "you can steal other player's cards." It needs some restrictions so that it is not too swingy nor too political. Then we could have a nice new Attack!
OTOH, maybe Rogue is sufficiently answering that concept idea. Could the concept get different enough from Rogue?

[silverspawn]

The concept that I think has no future is referencing the top card of a discard pile. Stealing other people's cards can certainly work (though it has already been done with Rogue).

[luser]

Each player reveals the top card of his deck. You may gain it if it costs $4 or less.

this is a Rogue/Jester variant. it sounds okay, though worse than those two, because it's much swingier.

It is worse than smugglers. It would be nuts in four player leech/gardens game and useless otherwise.

[Awaclus]

It is worse than smugglers.

Smugglers doesn't attack your opponents.

[Vislor]

Rogue is pretty poor IMO. It only attacks once if you're lucky...most of the time there's something in the trash which you have to gain.

I quite like this concept: reveal the opponents' top card - you may gain/trash it if it costs $4 or less. What's wrong with that?? I'm gonna play test this:

Leech $4 - ACTION-ATTACK

All other players reveal the top card of their deck and trash it if it costs $4 or less. You may gain any or all of the trashed cards.

It may end up trashing copper and curses/ruins, but them's the breaks!

[Awaclus]

Rogue is pretty poor IMO. It only attacks once if you're lucky...most of the time there's something in the trash which you have to gain.

I quite like this concept: reveal the opponents' top card - you may gain/trash it if it costs $4 or less. What's wrong with that?? I'm gonna play test this:

Leech $4 - ACTION-ATTACK

All other players reveal the top card of their deck and trash it if it costs $4 or less. You may gain any or all of the trashed cards.

It may end up trashing copper and curses/ruins, but them's the breaks!

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that. If it's fun and balanced, it should be good, and playtesting is the only way to find that out.

EDIT: And yes, Rogue is pretty poor as an attack, it's mostly useful as a gainer or not at all.