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[ConMan]

Treasure - $3
$0
Trash a card from your hand or in play. Gain a card costing exactly $2 more than it.
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This costs $1 more for every 2 Coppers you have in play.

The idea started from thinking about alternative costs or buy restrictions, in the same vein as Peddler or Grand Market. I had the idea of "This costs $1 more for every Copper you have in play", but I realised that that becomes almost as bad as a straight Grand Market restriction for about 80% of cases. But $1 for every 2 Copper isn't so bad, and if its initial price is $3 then you can buy it for 5 Copper so it's still a potential opener.

Then I thought "So what could such a card actually do?" and I thought about how the cost-increaser is kind of neat for buying Farmlands, so I realised that it would be a nice self-synergy if it could do the remodelling itself - but that requires it to be a Treasure, to guarantee having Copper in play when you use it. Using it to trash cards in play is mostly so you can trash it to yourself, but you could also pull a trick like trashing a Copper in play to make it easier to buy another copy of it.

I'm not 100% attached to the specific wording of the effect - if it does a straight Remodel it can't really cost $3 even with the restriction, but it could probably do "up to $1 more" or "exactly $1 more" without too much difficulty.

[ConMan]

I've realised that it almost certainly needs to be either up to or exactly $1 more rather than $2 - up to $2 more makes it almost-strictly-better-than Remodel, while exactly $2 more is kind of treading on Farmland's turf. Which is a shame, because a $2 upgrade means that if you can play all your starting Coppers followed by this, you can then turn a copy of it in hand into a Province which is always a neat trick.

[Drab Emordnilap]

I've realised that it almost certainly needs to be either up to or exactly $1 more rather than $2 - up to $2 more makes it almost-strictly-better-than Remodel, while exactly $2 more is kind of treading on Farmland's turf. Which is a shame, because a $2 upgrade means that if you can play all your starting Coppers followed by this, you can then turn a copy of it in hand into a Province which is always a neat trick.

When you first posted this, I was thinking "This is Remodel, but better and cheaper", but it's not actually cheaper. You can't buy it for $4 like you can Remodel.

[ConMan]

When you first posted this, I was thinking "This is Remodel, but better and cheaper", but it's not actually cheaper. You can't buy it for $4 like you can Remodel.

Yep. Well you can, but not as an opening buy in most games. You can buy it for 3 Coppers and a coin token if Baker is present; or 3 Coppers and a coin from Borrow; or if the first player buys Noble Brigand, then you buy Silver, and you draw the Silver in your second hand; or probably a couple of other niche situations.

I think I'd actually want to play with this in a few different games to work out what the right setting for it would actually be. I definitely don't have an intuition for it.

[Spellbound]

Too much better than Remodel since it allows the remodeled card to be played first. It is a $6 imo.

[pedroluchini]

How does it interact with cost decreasers? E.g., if I play 4 Highways and 2 Coppers, how much does this card cost?

[ConMan]

How does it interact with cost decreasers? E.g., if I play 4 Highways and 2 Coppers, how much does this card cost?

I was thinking about that last night, and I suspect the easiest answer is to apply all cost adjustments first, then if that nets to a negative value set it to $0. That way you don't have to keep track of weird cases like playing 4 Highways, then Storyteller playing 8 Copper, then 2 more Highways, or whatever.

Too much better than Remodel since it allows the remodeled card to be played first. It is a $6 imo.

Noted, and another reason why it might be better to go the route of "exactly $1 more" which still lets you play it as a Copper trasher. Then it becomes roughly on a par with Upgrade (it does let you play the card before trashing, it doesn't draw you a card, so it's probably still a bit more powerful). I could up its base cost to $4, but as it is it's about as hard to acquire as a $5 in the early stages of the game so I think it's ok at that level.