Street is the only one we've spent much time on, since we have them in rotation with all other cards, and that's how the randomizers were drawn.
Street's constant effect, as I said, is a very interesting addition, and something I like having in rotation. The active effect of +2 cards, cards cost 1 less, was rarely seen as worth it.
That was probably partially because, being given the excitement of two buys every turn, people didn't want to lose that, and partly because -1 cost antisynergizes with fewer buys.
I'm not saying it's underpowered, that's just how it played. Also, given your "in games using this" effect, it still benefits the game even when no one is buying it.
I am happy for any of Greed to be included among the other cards with which you are playing.
Your report is similar to how I have seen other players use it. Most players seem reluctant to give up their second free buy despite not using it every turn. I am not sure if there is any benefit that could be reasonably afforded to wrest players of this loss aversion.
I like some of your ideas (Countess's on-play effect is cool), but your implementations are plagued with all these little exceptions. I would strongly prefer Countess's bottom to just read "In games using this, Victory cards cost $1 more" and Inquisitor's bottom to read "In games using this, when you gain a Victory card, put it on top of your deck". Much simpler to remember.
I will cover these two suggestions individually.
Countess has not been tested with a simpler "in games using this." I am remorse to see fun $4 alternate Victory cards become useless on boards with Countess, even if there are a limited number of them. I do not believe that it is hard to remember, but for the simplicity garnered from the rules of the card (namely in the event that a $4 Victory\Attack card is created), it may be worth making
Feodum,
Gardens,
Island, and
Silk Road useless in those rare events that they appear with Countess.
Inquisitor on the other hand originally had the suggested simpler "in games using this." The problem was that playing from behind became completely impossible with it, especially because gaining Estates was such a losing proposition. Also,
Ambassador games were hell. Seeing as the effect was mostly changed so that it would not top-deck Estates, would it be sufficiently semantically simpler if Inquisitor's effect read "In games using this, when you gain a Victory card that is not an Estate, put it on top of your deck"?
As a Treasure that deals out Curses, I think [Idol] needs to be compared to IGG. IGG costs the same, has a worse on-play ability, and only deals out a single Curse. Sure, the opponent gains the Curse immediately with IGG, whereas it is delayed with Idol, but I still think Idol is stronger, and IGG is not such a bad card. I would think Idol could get away with just yielding $1.
I appreciate this analysis and have considered it myself. While Idol certainly has a stronger on-play than
Ill-Gotten Gains, you analysis omits what makes
Ill-Gotten Gains a top 10 card:
Ill-Gotten Gains is a rush card. Emptying the
Ill-Gotten Gains pile necessarily empties two piles (
Trader or Blacksmith aside). While Idol might end up being stronger than
Ill-Gotten Gains (seeing as
Witch, being an unconditional $5 Curser, is considered stronger), these two Treasures do not compare to one another. Comparisons to
Witch and
Mountebank are much more apt, but still hard to make because of how Idol makes Curses more painful for the owner of it, which brings up:
I'm not sure I like the concept of the card. In games with trashing, you either ignore this (with strong trashing) or get lots of these to win the split (you don't care about the negative points from Curses, since you'll have trashed most of them when the game ends). So here I don't think changing the Curse -VPs has much of an impact.
Strong trashing does not equate to ignoring a Curser (possibly unless that strong trashing is
Hermit). Fast trashing to the point that Curses can be fully removed from players' decks is actually fairly rare.
Rat Catcher and
Hermit are probably the safest bets to give the precision necessary to trash all Curses. Feel free to grab 4 or 5 Idols and lose more than a Duchy's worth of points from that one lingering Curse though. 2 Idols have proven sufficient in most games to win the Curse split and come out ahead in points, though we have not seen anyone think rushing Idols would be particularly effective in playing with it.
In games without trashing, this will most likely create a horrible slog. It's a junker, it's a treasure in your deck, so it discourages engines. But it also discourages buying Golds. So you'll play a game where each of you just gets Silvers and some Action cards, hoping to spike $8. That doesn't spell fun to me.
I am confused by this argument. Idol is a junker\treasure, so it discourages engines? The way Idol has played, it has been even better in engines because players don't have to have +Actions to play them. If you decide to ignore an engine or whatever combination of Actions are available then you are just buying Silvers and hoping to spike $8, which is why Big Money is so awful in Idol games and you have to play an Action centric deck and (in the case of slow trashing) likely work to toss out Idols and Golds before the game ends.