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[Tables]

This is a set of cards I've been working on for a while. These ideas are in, I guess, the alpha stage - I'm still creating new ideas and testing them, although me and a friend have started playing with many of these cards. In that way, there's been a little playtesting, but nowhere near enough to have a really good feel for the cards.

Also, because I'm still in the early design stage, I haven't started making images yet. If I do that, it'll be close to when I'm happy to try and make the cards.

The theme of the set, as the name implies, is of a wedding: There's all kinds of celebrations going on, and lots of people are busy with the marriage ceremony itself. And as it's such an important wedding, all kinds of new people have come to the palace, hoping to enjoy the fun, or perhaps make a profit from the experience. But there's also a few shady characters who've turned up...
Mechanically, it's slightly vaguely about being able to do clever and/or sneaky things. Part of that ended up being cards that do something when you buy or gain them (I had that theme before Hinterlands came out...). Other parts are cards that are more powerful under certain conditions, and cards with choices.

What I'm looking for mainly is feedback. Have I missed something about a card that makes it too good? Or too weak? Could a card break the game? Perhaps there's a combo that does. Is the wording bad? I intend to eventually make these cards for use, although that might be a way off yet.

Sect
Action - $1
+1 action
Trash a card from your hand
When you buy this card, gain a curse then return to the action step of your turn, and +1 card, +1 action, +1 buy.

Alright, the cards are in cost order, so we get the craziest card first. I wanted something that could help balance out bad draw luck, but with a cost. Returning to the action step is a pretty funky way of doing that. The card itself is pretty weak: It CAN possibly trash that curse it came with, and maybe trash some Estates, but in general, the card is just going to slow you down. This card has had some testing, and it felt okay to us - it's interesting to try and take advantage of, and better in games which already have a lot of cursing. It has a cost of $1 because, well, spending $1 to try and take advantage of your hand is sometimes worth it. Spending $2 rarely is. It does change how certain trash for benefits cards work which ask for exact costs, but, well, that's just a new thing sometimes.

Merchants
Action - $2
+1 Card
+1 Action
+1 Buy

And then we get to a nice, slightly boring card. Probably the simplest way of getting an extra buy yet, and yet because of it's cheap cost, it can really change things. You're never hurt by having this card, but then again, by the time it could really help, maybe you don't want to buy it? In testing, this felt the right power.

Ceremony
Action - $3
Reveal the top card of your deck and put it into your hand.
If it is an:
Action card: +2 actions
Treasure card: +$2
Victory card: +2 cards
Curse card: Trash a card from your hand.

It's like a Tribute that hits yourself! In fact, there's a certain positive synergy about this card. Building a big actions deck? Well, you're more likely to hit action cards and get more actions. Big money? You're probably going to get more money from it. Greening early? Uh... well, have some more cards? I guess that one doesn't really work... but either way, this is a nice, slightly risky, cheap card. My friend who I've been playtesting with seems to really like it (as in he buys it a lot)... I've bought it a bit less, I think.

Monopoly
Action-Reaction - $3
$2
---
When another player gains or plays the card your monopoly token is on, you may reveal and set aside this card. At the start of your next turn, discard this card and +$3
---
When you gain this card you may place or move your monopoly token onto any kingdom supply pile.

A card relying on other people’s strategies. If this card fails to hit, it’s a terminal silver. If it succeeds, it’s essentially a Gold. How do you make it hit? choose a pile your opponent is likely to play a lot. Most significantly, this will deter others from focusing on a single card, lest you play the game with essentially cheap Golds the entire way. Might be too powerful in multiplayer, especially when there’s a real dominant card in the setup.

Statue
Action - $3
+2 Cards
You may reveal a statue builder from your hand. If you do, +1 action.
---
You may only buy or gain this card if you have a statue builder in play or reveal a statue builder from your hand.
---
Setup: Choose another kingdom pile in the supply costing at most $4 (if possible). Cards from that pile are the statue builder cards.

The full rules for choosing the other kingdom pile are: Choose one costing at most $4 if possible by any means (random recommended). If that can’t be done, choose the cheapest pile. So... just what is this card? It’s a cheap lab, if it works. If not, it’s pretty poor. It might actually be a bit weak at $3, but it’s a very nice card, especially when it comes up in a strange place. Navigators are Statue Builders? Hm, okay, do I get a Navigator to power my Statues or just avoid them? (this one has come up - I managed to build a very slick deck around them). It can really encourage the use of unusual cards, far more than Young Witch might. But it could also make a dominant card even more dominant...

Street Performer
Action - $3
+$2
At the start of your cleanup phase, choose two of your cards other than Street Performers in play and shuffle them into your deck.

This started life as a Chancellor variant (something like, when you discard this, set your deck aside, shuffle your discard pile and place it as your deck, then discard the set aside cards). That was insane, just, totally ridiculous. This is amusing now something of an anti-chancellor - it slows down your next shuffle! But in exchange, you hopefully get two of you better cards twice this shuffle. It’s a bit weak early on, when you’re probably returning coppers and maybe a Silver, but later on, you can really notice the benefit of shuffling a Gold back into your deck. Might want to bump this one’s cost up... so far, it’s seemed okay, a little on the strong side, but we’ll see.

Celebration
Action - $4
+1 Action
+$1
You may put a Celebration from your hand onto this card. If you do, +2 cards, +1 action, +1 buy, +$2

I like to think of this as being a mini-festival. If you can get Celebrations together, your net benefit is essentially +1 action, +1 buy, +$3, compared to Festival’s +1 action, +1 buy, +$2, -1 card. So that’s a card and coin better than a Festival. If you can’t, it’s a copper. This one’s had a bit of testing, but it needs more to work out exactly what benefit(s) it gives. Fortunately since it’s just lots of basic bonuses, it should be easy enough to adjust around.

Cobbler
Action - $4
+3 Cards, +1 Action
Put two cards from your hand on top of your deck.

It lets you organise part of your current and next hand. It’s a bit like Secret Chamber’s reaction, in that way. Sound bad? It’s surprisingly powerful. You might also compare it to Warehouse, but... that’s not a hugely fair comparison, discarding and returning to your deck are hugely different after all. This does give you 1 more card in hand compared to warehouse, so I guess it’s essentially a Cantrip. Like Sect, this one helps avoid some shuffle luck, letting you balance part of your hands out. I’d say the most similar comparison this has is with Courtyard, but, this is non-terminal, and you return two cards.

Con Artist
Action-Attack - $4
+1 Action
Each player (including you) may discard a card. If they do, they draw a card.
Each other player reveals their hand. They discard a card you choose and then draw a card.

The first (but not the last) attack, and it’s an interesting one. This started without the second line (with you revealing in the second part), and while that was generally fine, I could see it would very often be totally brutal, completely ruining someone’s hand, especially in multiplayer. So to compensate, it gets a benefit to other players first. First, so the card will still usually hurt. Because of that, it’s easy to damage someone’s hand, but very hard to completely wreck it. In playtesting, this managed to really hurt me one game as it hit my Mystic (coming later!) three times in a row - but I think that was before I added the weakening clause.

Illusionist
Action* - $4
Reveal three cards from your hand. If you reveal exactly one treasure, action and victory card, +1 Card, +1 Action, +1 coin. Return the revealed cards to your hand.
---
When this card is visible, you may choose what type this card has.

Firstly I need to define what makes a card 'visible'. In short it's when someone else can see the card. A card is visible if it is revealed, in play, in the supply or is about to be put into play. This means it can be played during your buy phase, if you want (which could be useful if you draw it dead... and have another action in hand). It's also (supposed to be) visible in any corner case I might have missed that other people could see it (like... on your island mat). Now what does choosing what type it has mean? It means say, if you gained one with an Ironworks, you can choose for it to be an Action-Victory-Treasure card. If you play an illusionist and reveal a Great Hall, a copper, and an illusionist, choose for it to have no type (or be a curse, or whatever). Also as a rules point: You can choose Illusionist to have any type of a card currently in the game. So it can be an attack (if you wanted) only if there's an attack in the game, or a prize only if Tournament is in the game (but that DOES mean you can gain one from winning Tournaments... if you really wanted).

Well that's a lot of rule clarification, but hopefully you can imagine situations this card can do interesting things for you. And if there aren't any... well, it interacts with itself.

Wedding
Action - $4
Choose one: Trash two cards. If you do, gain a Duchy, putting it on your deck. OR Trash two victory cards. If you do, gain a Gold.

I’ve already mentioned this card elsewhere (in a thread with a worrying similar name to this one, I think). And I’ve already mentioned it’s very swingy, which I think I’m going to fix. A possible change is making the trash two victory cards gain something slightly weaker... maybe a card costing $5 or less? I’m not sure.

Mystic
Action-Attack, $5
+3 cards
Choose one: each other player gains a curse, placing it on his Mystic Mat. or each other player puts a curse from his Mystic Mat onto his discard pile.
---
At the end of the game, return all cards on your Mystic Mat to your deck.

Yay, cursing attack . And in terms of actually being an attack, it’s by far the tamest curser so far, splitting the damage of curses into two parts, the -vp, and the actual card. I suspect this will often alternate between the two options, at least until near the endgame. It originally had +1 buy but slightly weaker wording, that didn’t really feel overpowered, but I liked this version more and have enough +buy cards in the set.

Dowry
Action - $5
+2 Cards
+$2

The only other basic card, but still an interesting one. This can be interesting in both an engine (where the +$2 makes up for the small drawing), or as a single card BM deck (I suspect it’d comfortably beat single/double Smithy... with a 5/2 opening). Despite being possibly the 2nd oldest card (behind Cobber IIRC) in the set, it still needs more testing for me to get truly comfortable with it’s effect.

Redecorate
Action - $5
Trash this card. Put your deck into your discard pile. Search your discard pile for up to two cards costing up to $6, reveal and trash them. For each trashed card, gain a card costing at most $1 more than the trashed card.

How do you describe this card succinctly? A one shot trash-for-benefit, I guess? Unlike most TfB cards, it’s very open in what you can do (trash any cards in your deck, gain any cards costing up to $1 more), but it IS a $5 one shot. This card can really lead to some interesting strategies - in particular, you can essentially change strategy on the fly, which can cause all kinds of interesting things. You can also use it to gain 6 VPs in the endgame from Duchies, if you time it right... It used to have a no victory card condition. I might change that to an action or treasure card clause, and remove the up to $6 clause. But in playtesting it didn’t seem too bad.

Smelt
Action - $5
+3 Cards
Reveal your hand and trash two Copper cards. If you do, gain a Silver, putting it into your hand. Each other player may trash a Copper from their hand or gain a copper, putting it into their hand.

This started life as a one shot Smithy - +3 cards, trash this card and any number of coppers. It was okay, but you either bought it turns 1 or 2 or never at all (it also cost $4, then $3). Now it’s a smithy with trashing benefits. Unsurprisingly, that was too powerful, and so it got a benefit to other players. So far I managed to have my opponent buy one of these, making me decide I’d use it to trash my coppers, and throne room it, when I had no coppers in hand (7 of about 16 cards in my deck), and then proceed to Redecorate it into a Gold. I was not amused. Still, it won him the game.

Developing Village
Action - $5
+2 Cards
+2 Actions
Discard a card.

I had such a sad when I first saw Inn, as it was this but more interesting. Oh well. I’d say it’s different enough to still exist... just about. The net benefit is just village, but choosing the best 5 of 6 cards (usually) is a lot better than just drawing a card.

Palace
Victory - $6
2 VP
When you gain this card, gain a Duchy.

I had all kinds of visions of this card doing interesting things when I first imagined it. Then... nothing really happened. It just sits there, until the endgame, when it gets bought if you have $6. On top of that, Farmland kinda did what it was trying to do, only a lot better. Darn you Donald and your good card design. I need to find something to replace this, ideally that’s something similar, but a bit different.

Unnamed card
Action - $3
+2 Actions
+1 coin for every two actions in play, including this.

Yeah I haven’t thought of a name for this one. Perhaps unsurprisingly it also hasn’t been tested yet. It’s kinda like a village combined with bank. You might need this in order to play lots of actions this turn, but then it probably won’t give you much (or any) money. And you really need to play a lot of actions for it to provide much money, but if you do, it can provide a lot. The whole idea might just break down in big action chain decks, if this can quickly start giving like $4 or more easily... but I’ll have to see.

So that’s what I have so far. 18 cards, including 2 attacks, 1 reaction, 1 victory card. I’m intending to get up to roughly full Dominion size (~25 kingdom cards), but if I don’t make it, oh well. Still, some feedback and ideas for polish might be nice. Thanks.

[DStu]

As for combos and other thoughts:

Sect
Action - $1
+1 action
Trash a card from your hand
When you buy this card, gain a curse then return to the action step of your turn, and +1 card, +1 action, +1 buy.

You probably thought about them, but combos that come to my mind: Menangerie, maybe Hunting Party, Library/WT, Tactician!!. So the idea would be to get rid of the treasure in your hand (for the cost of $1 and some problems in the future), and then use cards that profit from small handsizes. Going from say 4x Copper + Library to  +1 card +1Action +1buy +3coins + Library sounds really good.
Double Tactician with playing all the treasures, goning back to action phase, playing another tactician, starting every turn with 10 cards. Makes it also easy to trash the Curses.

Ceremony
Action - $3
Reveal the top card of your deck and put it into your hand.
If it is an:
Action card: +2 actions
Treasure card: +$2
Victory card: +2 cards
Curse card: Trash a card from your hand.

[/quote]
In BigMoney, that is strictly superior to Silver for the same price. OK, Swindler is also, but this is worth $3 with very high probability in the first round if you open Ceremony/something. If you hit Copper (most likely case), it's +$3 in total. When you hit Estates it eats the estates and gives +2cards, which is a llttle less than +$2, when it hits the other action it let's you play it. The last two seem quite fine, but giving +$3 in T3/4 with 7/12 probability (3/4 if you open with Silver) I think is too much for letting you double up on it in the first two rounds. So $4 seems better for me, or nerfing the part with the treasure.

[GendoIkari]

I think there's problems with Illusionist... I don't think you could ever gain one from Tournament, because Tournament itself says "Gain a prize (from the Prize pile)." Even if Illusionist is a Prize, it's not in the Prize pile.

Although it benefits great from Ironworks, in normal circumstances it seems like a worse version of +1 card, +1 action, +1$. Although that card doesn't exist, if it did, it would be a balanced (though boring) card at $4. See here.

Finally, it seems like it would be really hard to actually get its benefit. In many setups, you would never be able to play this with 3 cards left in hand, since that relies on a non-self-replacing non-terminal. That means you would be relying on having either a Curse or another Illusionist in hand to make it work. And playing it during the buy phase is only any good if had an action that you didn't play during your action phase.

I'd say at the least it needs some benefit to playing it if it doesn't hit the condition.

Mystic: I'm not sure if +3 cards instead of +2 cards is enough to make this not way worse than Witch. The curse attack's effectiveness is probably 90% the extra card and 10% the VP loss, meaning that you have to play this card twice in order to make it better than Smithy. I like the concept of a curser that you have to play twice, but I think it needs to be better than Witch... what if it cost $6 and gave +2 cards +1 action?


Redecorate: In most situations this seems worse than Remake. Good for turning your $4's into Duchies, but I can't really see what else it is good for... Love the name, though!

Developing Village: Although Inn has the when-buy benefit, once it's in your deck this is strictly better. Even though it decreases your hand size, Inn feels like quite a good card; it's often a good buy even when you don't have specific actions you want to shuffle back in. So, I'm guessing that this is overpowered.

Palace: Gain a Palace, gain a Duchy, gain a Duchess!

As a whole, sounds like a fun set!

[Tables]

Thanks for the feedback.

Sect: Hm... you're right about the potential problem here. It's similar to the Black Market/Tactician setup, but so much easier to do. I can think of one potential cure that might work. 'If you've played at most one treasure card this turn, then gain a curse and...' which still allows some shenanigans, but far fewer.

Ceremony: Being able to get +$3 from a single play certainly did seem powerful in playtesting, but when you put it like that, you're right, it does seem too powerful. I'll try and work something out to weaken it.

Illusionist: Whoops, that was just me misremembering the text of Tournament. It wasn't supposed to be an important part of the card, I'll just remove the comment from my, uh, comments. And are you sure you read the card text correctly? From what I can tell, you seem to be assuming it reveals all of your hand, it doesn't, you choose 3 cards to reveal (or otherwise everything left in hand). I... could make the +1 card a fixed bonus, so even if you can't hit the condition you can risk it to try.

Mystic: Witch is one of the most powerful $5 cards - I'm fine with making a cursing attack that's way worse than it. I realise they're an obvious comparison, but... either way, I think you're actually underrating it a bit. In general, I'd say Witch is probably better, but just like e.g. Torturer, this fits very nicely into a draw engine, which can slow others down as you cycle through your deck, and well in general, +3 cards is a much bigger advantage than +2 cards. If I do decide it's too weak, I'll probably give it a +1 buy again.

Redecorate: You'd be surprised just what this card can do. I can't remember exactly what it did before the current one, but it was similar, but completely bonkers. This one's been tested a few times, and it's seemed okay, actually quite powerful. I think more playtesting with it should reveal exactly how powerful it is.

Developing Village: Hmm... this certainly felt very powerful during playtesting. I think you might be right, but I'll see what else I learn from more playtesting.

Palace: Sounds fun, but that's about it...

[GendoIkari]

Indeed I did think it was "reveal your hand"! Well that's quite different then. You should be able to hit the bonus more often than not... making it more similar to Tournament. Still curious about how it compares to a vanilla +1 card +1 action +1 $. It exchange for not getting the benefit every time, you get the option to play it during buy phase (not as good as playing during action phase), and other benefits with Ironworks (and shutting down your opponent's Tribute). I assume that it can't be a Victory card for Silk Road, and that it's always an Action card for Vineyard?

[rinkworks]

Sect
Action - $1
+1 action
Trash a card from your hand
When you buy this card, gain a curse then return to the action step of your turn, and +1 card, +1 action, +1 buy.

Rules weirdness like this unnerves me a bit.  I'd rather see this same kind of effect done in a more standard way, but I'm not sure I can think of one.  If you ditched the action component, you could approximate the rest of the card with this:

Sect
$1 - Action
+1 Card
+2 Action
+1 Buy
Trash a card from your hand.
Trash this card.
--
When you gain this, put it on top of your deck.


...and then you'd get the rough equivalent without any rules weirdness.  Then again, I guess this misses your design intention, which was to offer a shot at rescuing a bad turn.  So never mind.  I'm still uncomfortable with the rules weirdness, but I have to say, this is one of the best justifications for a $1 cost card I've seen.

Merchants
Action - $2
+1 Card
+1 Action
+1 Buy

I think this is fine, balanced and correctly-costed.  My only concern here is that it might limit the viability of more interesting cards (see The Vanilla Card Problem), although this is far less of a concern for fan cards as for the official cards.

But to pick an example, I have a fan card I'm quite fond of, which is this:

Auction House
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+1 Buy
Trash a card from your hand.

The reason I made the card is that I wanted a cantrip source of +Buy and a non-terminal trasher (of which there are few), and it occurred to me that putting the two together could be more interesting than either piece separately.  The key is that the trashing is mandatory, so if you want that cantrip source of +Buy, you have to be able to benefit from -- or at least not mind -- trashing a card.

Now, if Merchants and Auction House were to appear on the same board, all the tension designed into the Auction House card is gone, because if you just want the +Buy, you can pick up a Merchants.  You only need to buy Auction House if you are specifically looking for the trashing.

Does that make Merchants a bad card?  Obviously not.  It's unlikely anybody anywhere will ever play Merchants and Auction House in the same game, but even if they were to show up as two different cards in the same official expansion, so what?  They'd appear together a minority of the time, and when they do that'll just be one more game dynamic to savor.  My point is just this:  Think about the other kinds of cards you have designed and might want to design later, and the interactions that will result, and see if Merchants is really the particular card you want to have that does what it does.  It may well be.  Nothing wrong with a pure vanilla card.  I love them.  But it's something to think about.

Ceremony
Action - $3
Reveal the top card of your deck and put it into your hand.
If it is an:
Action card: +2 actions
Treasure card: +$2
Victory card: +2 cards
Curse card: Trash a card from your hand.

I love the idea of Tribute and also played around with a self-Tribute version.  I tried to reduce some of its unpredictability by making a couple of the bonuses universal.  I'm still experimenting, but this is approximately what it looks like at the moment:

Servant
$4 - Action
+$1
Reveal a card from the top of your deck and put it in your hand.
If it is an Action card, +1 Action.
If it is a Treasure card, +1 Buy.
If it is a Victory card, +1 Card.


I haven't finished playtesting on that, so I haven't decided if it's balanced or not.  Your version seems harder still to gauge.

Monopoly
Action-Reaction - $3
$2
---
When another player gains or plays the card your monopoly token is on, you may reveal and set aside this card. At the start of your next turn, discard this card and +$3
---
When you gain this card you may place or move your monopoly token onto any kingdom supply pile.

That's a cool idea.  Its effectiveness probably depends on the board.  When Menagerie and Harvest and Black Market are the key cards, you may not get very much use out of it.  But when someone is building a Laboratory deck, a Minion deck, a Scrying Pool deck, or basically any engine deck where there is only one kind of Village, Monopoly is a Gold for the low low price of $3.

So I'm not sure if it's balanced, but my suspicion is that it's close, at any rate.  I wouldn't be surprised at either $3 or $4 being the right cost.  The fact that it has a consolation prize strengthens the card considerably.

Statue
Action - $3
+2 Cards
You may reveal a statue builder from your hand. If you do, +1 action.
---
You may only buy or gain this card if you have a statue builder in play or reveal a statue builder from your hand.
---
Setup: Choose another kingdom pile in the supply costing at most $4 (if possible). Cards from that pile are the statue builder cards.

Another fun idea.  I suspect it's not actually any more likely to encourage play with weaker cards than Young Witch is, however, largely because you have to collide these in your hand to make them work -- and when you DO make them work, the end result is that you get an extra card to replace the bad one you bought to make them work.  It's not nearly enough of a bonus compared to what other cards requiring collisions give you (+$4 for Baron, +$4 for Fool's Gold, 4 Golds for Treasure Map, a Prize for Tournament).  Admittedly, whereas Treasure Maps are useless separately, your Statue card has a trivial use separately, and your statue-builder card might be strong enough on its own anyway.  But I think I'd rather see something better, mostly in the collision case but possibly also in the consolation prize case.  Menagerie might be a good model here, although I'd understand if you'd not want to mirror those exact bonuses.

Street Performer
Action - $3
+$2
At the start of your cleanup phase, choose two of your cards other than Street Performers in play and shuffle them into your deck.

This seems fine to me.  It's probably stronger than its $3 cost would indicate when you get it near the end of your deck, but this is counterbalanced by it being potentially useless if it shows up near the top.  I like its level of situationality:  with strong terminals or an early Platinum, this could be great; otherwise, maybe not a good card to invest in.

Celebration
Action - $4
+1 Action
+$1
You may put a Celebration from your hand onto this card. If you do, +2 cards, +1 action, +1 buy, +$2

I'm fairly confident that this is overpowered.  I realize I was just saying that cards activated by collisions should be pretty great, but this is really great.  When they collide, you get a grand total of +2 Cards, +2 Actions, +1 Buy, and +$3?  Split that in half, since you're using up two card slots to get that, and it's as if you hand both a Grand Market and a Peddler in hand.  Let's compare with the other collision-activated cards, three of which have the same $4 cost:

- Baron offers +$4, far inferior to Celebration's benefit.  Admittedly, you start out with three copies of the card that Baron wants to collide with, which boosts Baron's power level a bit, but this is offset and then some by the very short window of time when Baron is useful.  Eventually, your Estates get trashed or spaced out, and you rarely want to buy Estates just to feed your Baron.  By contrast, Celebration remains useful throughout the entire game, and you certainly don't mind getting more copies of Celebration to increase the likelihood of collision.

- Treasure Map offers four Golds, which is probably a better prize overall.  But it's a one-shot.

- Tournament offers a Prize or a Duchy, which may or may not be better overall.  The Duchy probably isn't.  The Prize probably isn't if you get it near the end of the game and only get one or two uses out of it.  In any case, you need to collide it with a Province, and it usually takes quite a bit of work to get up that high, to the point where you even CAN activate it.  The extra time not only means you get less use out of its Prizes, but it also makes it harder to collide once you're able to, because by then your deck is probably fatter than it was early on.

- Fool's Gold offers essentially the exact same consolation prize, but the second copy offers +$4.  Simulations have shown that Fool's Gold is an absurdly powerful card even without trashing.  It's important to remember that with N Fool's Golds, you get N-1 activations, whereas with N Celebrations, you only get N/2 activations.  But I suspect this isn't enough to make Fool's Gold more powerful than Celebration is.

My guess is that a Celebration rush, wherein you buy nothing but Celebrations except for a trasher if available, wins every game.  I'd be curious to see how many turns a pure Celebration rush gets to 4 Provinces.  11 turns, maybe just 10?

Anyway, of course you're right that it should be easy to balance this card once you get a handle on how the current version clocks in.

Cobbler
Action - $4
+3 Cards, +1 Action
Put two cards from your hand on top of your deck.

Quite powerful, yes -- substantially stronger than Courtyard, which is already a great $2 card, but substantially weaker than Cartographer.  $4 is probably right.  I regularly play with a fan card that's a terminal Silver version of this idea and costed at $3.  It's more situational than this would be, but it's fun.   The only drawback is a bit more AP than the usual Dominion card.  The AP might be mitigated in a non-terminal version, I don't know, but it's not a prohibitive problem in any case.

Con Artist
Action-Attack - $4
+1 Action
Each player (including you) may discard a card. If they do, they draw a card.
Each other player reveals their hand. They discard a card you choose and then draw a card.

Targeted discard is brutal, and on a non-terminal it's just going to be too ugly to contemplate.  I'd really recommend finding a way to do a terminal version of it instead.  The replacement card is a big deal, but I'm not sure it's enough of one.  It's also super-swingy:  you'll usually hurt your opponent's hand, sometimes badly, but once in a while you'll make it better.  It's still an ugly card, though.  Some people will enjoy it, but others may not.

Illusionist
Action* - $4
Reveal three cards from your hand. If you reveal exactly one treasure, action and victory card, +1 Card, +1 Action, +1 coin. Return the revealed cards to your hand.
---
When this card is visible, you may choose what type this card has.

[/quote]

Cool idea.  The type rule REALLY makes me nervous about potential unresolvable rules conflicts/ambiguities.  Maybe it'll be fine, but I foresee a lot of headaches trying to pin down exactly how this should behave in every possible situation.

The other thing about this card is that the Peddler effect is about a $4 card when you get it unconditionally, so attaching a condition to it weakens it considerably.  Even with this card's type-morphing helping you to activate it, the reward is still just a reward that the $4 level should have given you outright.

So is the combo potential of the type-morphing power enough to bump it back up to a $4 cost?  I'm not so sure.  There are going to be sweet interactions with things like Crossroads and Tribute and your own Ceremony, but not very many, I think.

Wedding
Action - $4
Choose one: Trash two cards. If you do, gain a Duchy, putting it on your deck. OR Trash two victory cards. If you do, gain a Gold.

[/quote]

The only issue I see here is the one you've already identified:  trashing two Estates for a Gold in the opening winning the game against someone who keeps drawing this with Copper.  Other than that, I suppose the power level is right, but it's a little hard to gauge.

Mystic
Action-Attack, $5
+3 cards
Choose one: each other player gains a curse, placing it on his Mystic Mat. or each other player puts a curse from his Mystic Mat onto his discard pile.
---
At the end of the game, return all cards on your Mystic Mat to your deck.

I kind of like that.  It's probably balanced exactly as it is, too.  The decision on the second play is very interesting:  is it more important to junk the opponent's deck, or is it more important to spend the curses and keep them out of your own deck?

It might need a small buff, like a +1 Buy or something, because it feels slightly weaker than Torturer.  But maybe not.

Dowry
Action - $5
+2 Cards
+$2

I'm quite confident this is balanced at $7.  Usually your average card value is going to be more than $1, sometimes upwards of $2, making this generally equal to or better than a terminal +$4.  That's a whole lot more power than you want to pack into a $5 card.

Interestingly, Trusty Steed started out exactly like that, but then Donald added the other options to make it more interesting.  Still, +2 Cards, +$2 is usually Trusty Steed's best option, so Dowry can still be considered a prize-level card.

Redecorate
Action - $5
Trash this card. Put your deck into your discard pile. Search your discard pile for up to two cards costing up to $6, reveal and trash them. For each trashed card, gain a card costing at most $1 more than the trashed card.

Man, tough to gauge this one.  Interesting idea, having a Remodel variant with perfect aim.  The constraint against instant Province creation is probably very important.

Smelt
Action - $5
+3 Cards
Reveal your hand and trash two Copper cards. If you do, gain a Silver, putting it into your hand. Each other player may trash a Copper from their hand or gain a copper, putting it into their hand.

Cool.   Is +3 Cards too much of an improvement over Trading Post to make up for only being able to get rid of Coppers?  Maybe not, with the benefit to the opponents.  I'm not confident I can gauge this one without trying it out, but I do really like this variation on the concept.  And I think there should be more non-attack interactive cards in the game anyway.

Developing Village
Action - $5
+2 Cards
+2 Actions
Discard a card.

You probably nailed the cost on this one.  You're right that this feels like only a small improvement over the regular Village, but I share your suspicion that it's a lot more powerful than the bonuses on any of the $4 Village variants.

Unnamed card
Action - $3
+2 Actions
+1 coin for every two actions in play, including this.

That's a neat way to get around how niche a card a non-self-synergizing version would be.  Hard to predict its power level, since it feeds on itself exponentially, but I like the idea.  If you playtest/refine it, please let us know how it turns out.

[GendoIkari]

Sect
Action - $1
+1 action
Trash a card from your hand
When you buy this card, gain a curse then return to the action step of your turn, and +1 card, +1 action, +1 buy.

Rules weirdness like this unnerves me a bit.  I'd rather see this same kind of effect done in a more standard way, but I'm not sure I can think of one.  If you ditched the action component, you could approximate the rest of the card with this:

Sect
$1 - Action
+1 Card
+2 Action
+1 Buy
Trash a card from your hand.
Trash this card.
--
When you gain this, put it on top of your deck.


...and then you'd get the rough equivalent without any rules weirdness.  Then again, I guess this misses your design intention, which was to offer a shot at rescuing a bad turn.  So never mind.  I'm still uncomfortable with the rules weirdness, but I have to say, this is one of the best justifications for a $1 cost card I've seen.

Why not just something more like Outpost? Outpost already messes with the rules of what to do during cleanup, so all you have to do is:

Sect
Action - $1
+1 action
Trash a card from your hand
When you buy this card, gain a curse, +1 card, skip your cleanup step this turn, and take an additional turn after this one.

I think this has identical functionality to his original card, but the rules are no weirder than Outpost.

[Tables]

Thanks for the detailed comments, rinkwork. I'll certainly bear your comments in mind, especially regarding Statue, Merchants, Ceremony, Dowry and Sect.

Oh, and regarding Illusionist: The end of the game DOES count as it being visible (should mention that). So it can be whatever type you want it to be in the endgame. It might make it a bit too powerful with Silk Roads... but I'd have to see.

Sect: I like that idea. It's almost the same as the original card (you lose excess +actions and +buys, and duration cards activate) but it's much cleaner rules-wise, as you said. I might try it out.

[AJD]

My only comment at the moment is that it seems like it would be a pain if every time someone plays Illusionist someone else has to ask "is that an Attack?" Presumably the answer is always no—declaring it an Attack has no benefit for the person playing it, and would allow everyone else to use their Horse Traders and Secret Chamber—but I think the rules would still require it to be asked.

(Also, instead of "visible", perhaps it's better to be more explicit: "when this is in play or revealed, and at the end of the game", for instance.)

[Tables]

Hm. I get what you're saying, I think like with things like cleanup most people would take to saying e.g. 'Playing illusionist as an action-treasure...', which implies it isn't an attack. You'd have to be pretty anal to ask every time.

For visible, it's a term defined seperately in the rules. Like pass, or gain. In your case, I'd also need to add 'about to be played' as you can play it during your buy phase. And to be honest, "when this is in play, about to be played, revealed, or at the end of the game you may choose what type this card has" is a bit long winded. I'd rather use my (what I personally feel is) intuitive shorthand. But we'll have to see.

[Kahryl]

Illusionist is terrible as it is now.  As others have mentioned, it would be balanced at $4 without the effect.  I like the basic idea though. How about this?

Illusionist - $5

Reveal up to three cards from your hand. For every card revealed..
If it's a victory card, +1 card
If it's a treasure card, +$1
If it's an action card, +1 action

This goes along with the whole "strike a card for its essence" theme that Ironworks and Tribute have.  But unlike Ironworks I think it would be actually interesting and useful, and unlike Tribute you can control and set it up.

Depending on how you play it, it can be a laboratory, a village, peddler, a smithy, a silver... probably worth $5 for that flexibility AND the possibility of extra goodies with hybrid cards.

[Tables]

I'm not sure I follow what you mean by 'the effect'. Without having to reveal cards? Well, yeah. Without being able to choose it's type? That's the entire point of the card. The actual effect is just a thing that combos with it. I do need to test it, see exactly how good it is, see how often you can activate it etc.. That's one that hasn't been playtested yet, after all.

[Tables]

Card updates. I've done some more thinking and a little playtesting, and the following cards are updated:

Sect
Action - $1
+1 action
Trash a card from your hand
---
When you buy this card, gain a curse, +1 card. Skip this turn’s cleanup phase. Take another turn after this one.

This is actually quite different in a few ways, and this probably makes it a tad weaker, but nicer rules wise. Firstly, treasures and actions in play won't actually do anything (they don't re-produce money). So don't play your treasures! Also duration cards activate, and you lose excess buys/coin/action etc.

Ceremony
Action - $3
Look at the top two cards of your deck. Reveal one and put them both into your hand.
If you revealed an:
Action card: +1 actions, discard a card.
Treasure card: +1 buy
Victory card: +1 cards. Put one cards from your hand on top of your deck.
Curse card: Trash a card from your hand.

Having thought about rinkwork's advice, this is a very similar idea but a lot more interesting. Now it's benefits can depend on what you draw: It could be a cantrip sifter, draw+buy, or Courtyard, or if you get multi-type cards, some combination. This might even be too weak now, but at least you get some control over the benefit.

Community
Action - $3
+2 Actions
+1 coin for every two actions in play, including this.

Not a change, but it got a name. I'm happy with how this played. We ended up building a deck that used these to give like +$6 coin, but it took far too long. And if you use it early for just +2 actions, you aren't getting as much money as you could. It needs some proper playtesting (as in, where we don't go for near identical decks) but I'm pretty sure it's at exactly the right power level.

Wedding
Action - $4
Trash two cards. If you do, choose one: gain a Duchy, putting it on your deck OR gain a silver.

This card has had a strange development. It started as something like (shortened version) 'reveal 5 cards from your deck and any victory cards in hand. Trash any number of victory cards, gain a victory card giving [restriction on types that basically meant trash 3 estates, gain a Duchy]'. Then it changed to something very similar to the version I posted (I think it allowed the Gold to be top-decked and the Duchy wasn't, which was massively overpowered in many cases). Now it's this. I think this should work better.

Dowry
Action - $6
+2 Cards
+$2

Just a price increase. A sort of middle ground between rinkwork's thoughts and my own, it could still be adjusted later.

And new cards!

Mercenary
Action - Attack $5
+$1
Each other player reveals the top card of their deck. If it is an action or treasure card costing $3 or more, they trash that card and may gain a card costing at most $1 less than it. If they do not trash the revealed card, they discard it or put it back, your choice.
Each other player discards down to 4 cards in hand and gains a copper.

The attack version of JoaT. It has a weak saboteur or spy effect, followed by a weak discard, followed by a weak junking. Together it makes a card that's not quite as dominant as JoaT but seemed pretty decent in general. It seemed to be about the right level of power.

Mysterious Gift
Treasure - $0
$1
---
When this card is trashed or revealed, reveal you hand and discard all the revealed treasure cards.
---
When you buy this card, +$3 and buy an action card.

I love my strange card costs, right? Actually, I was thinking of making Sect cost $2*, costing one less during your buy phase (but not less than 0). But I digress. It's a copper with a penalty. What an amazing idea. But of course it has a powerful benefit as well, letting you grab expensive actions when you otherwise couldn't afford them. Opening Cartographer/Mysterious Gift/Mercenary sure was fun, though. This card is probably at it's strongest in big turn engines, or heavy action engines, as the potential discard effect will hopefully cause little damage, and grabbing power actions early is a big plus. Turn 1 Forge anyone?

[GendoIkari]

Mysterious Gift could be suicide on a fair number of boards... any board with no way to trash it, but ways to reveal it (which I think are a great number of boards). Basically, if it's in your deck, and there is anything out there that reveals cards (including any "reveal your hand" effects, including Bureaucrat, Cutpurse, etc), then you risk pretty much losing your turn.

On a board with a way to trash it early, or no "reveal" cards, it's a really powerful opener. If you had 5/2, now you have 5/5. If you had 3/4, now you have 6/4... with Goons around, that's crazy.

Basically, I think it would be either way overpowered, or worthless, depending on the board. I really love the idea, though. Just thinking about the possible options with it is great. Just not sure how to make it balanced.

[Tables]

Yeah, I can certainly see what you mean. Most of those times, the risk is offset by the potential to lose your treasures, unless you can build a deck which doesn't really care about that (Library/coin actions maybe?). But occasionally it's clearly overpowered. Other times, it's clearly a bad buy. It also currently has some rule/timing awkwardness attached (it reacts during other actions... how do you resolve them? Thief is a good example, just think about it). So I might change its condition to something more general (along the lines of 'In games using this, any player may do X to make every other player reveal their hand. If they have a Mysterious Gift in hand, do Y')

Also, a possible change to Mystic I may use: "Choose one: each other player gains a curse, placing it on his Mystic Mat. or each other player puts all of the curses from his Mystic Mat onto his discard pile." This obviously makes the card more powerful, but also makes for a potentially interesting negative Native Village style preparation. Maybe.