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[shmeur]

Theme: Sorcery/Curse Interaction
It has 13 cards for obvious reasons:

Salem - Action - $5
+1 Card
+2 Actions
—-
When you gain this, each other player gains a Curse.

Pentacle - Treasure - $5
$3
—
When you gain this, put a Curse on top of your deck.

Broomstick - Action - $2
+2 Cards
—
When this card is discarded from play during your clean-up phase, you may put it back on top of your deck.

Cauldron - Action - $4
+1 Buy
Trash up to 3 cards from your hand.  For each card costing $3 or more, +1 Card or +2 Actions.

Coven - Action - Attack - $3
+2 Actions
Each other player gains a Curse.
—-
When you would gain a Curse, you may discard this from your hand to return the Curse to the supply pile and draw a card instead.

Ouija Board - Action - $3
+1 Action
+1 Buy
Reveal at the top 4 cards of your deck.  Put any Curses in your hand, gaining +$1 per curse.  Put the rest back on top in any order.


Magick Wand - Action - Attack - $3
+1 Action
Each other player with 5 or more cards in their hand discards an Action card or reveals a hand with no Action cards.  If no cards were discarded this way, +1 Action.

Voodoo Doll - Action - Reaction $4
+1 Card
+1 Action
You may trash an Action card from your hand.  If you do, put a copy of it from the supply into your hand.
—
When a card of yours would be trashed, you may reveal this card from your hand.  Trash this instead.

Cemetery - Action - Victory - $4
Trash a card from your hand.  If it is a Curse, +2 Cards.
—
Worth 2 VP for every 3 differently named cards in the trash.

Candle Ritual - Action - Duration - $4
+1 Action
At the start of your next turn: +2 Cards

Charm - Treasure - $3
$2
—
Once per turn, when you buy this, gain a Silver, putting this and the Silver on top of your deck in any order.  Each other player draws a card.

Haunted Castle - Victory - $5
1 VP
—
Worth an addition 1 VP for every 2 Curses in your deck.

Grimoire - Action - $5
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Gain a Curse.  If you do, chose one: +2 Cards OR +1 Buy, +$2.

[faust]

Some commentary.

Salem - Village/IGG. It might be okay on a power level, but I feel that on many boards, this is either ignorable or a must-buy where the player winning the split has a big advantage. I'm not sure if a Salem/Duchy slog is worth playing, but if it is, that will be an awful experience, because unlike IGG, this doesn't even help you reach $5. I guess that makes the slog less automatic though.

Pentacle - I don't think it compares well to Cache, and Cache is not a very strong $5.

Broomstick - Pretty sure this exact card has been proposed somewhere before. It feels a bit too strong for $2.

Cauldron - the TfB aspect seems very ignorable, and other than that this is just a worse Chapel with a buy that you won't need when you want to play this.

Coven - nonterminal Curser at $3? This is pretty much a mandatory double opening. It should at least cost $4, and I'm not sold on the concept. The wording below the line is confusing, it should either be "when you gain" or you need to leave out the "return to the supply" part, because at the point where you would gain something, it's still in the supply imo.

Ouija Board - I really don't think we need a Scout variant. Without Cursers, you will buy this only if it's the only +buy. With Cursers I don't think much changes. The Scout effect is just bad.

Magick Wand - another nonterminal attack. At least this one doesn't stack. But it's pretty cruel for $3. The effect will often be close to Pillage. I think it's too strong.

Voodoo Doll - I think the idea is to use this card's on-play effect to trigger its reaction, and duplicate an expensive action. For that, you need 2 copies of this and the card you want to duplicate in hand. Seems like a lot of trouble for a minor benefit. It also defends against trashing attacks (very weakly), but it is not clear to me how this would interact with Swindler or Saboteur. I think this is too weak. It could cost $2 and would probably be fine. Fun fact: It helps against Looters.

Cemetery - I think Donald X. commented once that counting cards in the trash doesn't work. This is either a cheap Province or completely ignorable. The "trash a Curse" part is sort of arbitrary and will do nothing most of the time, since this gives no way of having Curses in our deck.

Candle Ritual - might be fine. A bit boring and possibly too easy to stack.

Charm - I like how this can warp openings if you want to. I don't like that it's just a plain old Silver otherwise.

Haunted Castle - seems weak in general, and I don't think it scales well with multiplayer. A card like this should give out Curses or something.

Grimoire - In engines with decent trashing, this is better than Grand Market for $5. That seems broken to me.

In general the set seems at places a bit too vanilla to me. There are some interesting ideas like Charm, but most of the time the cards are just a collection of effects we already know. It also doesn't work as a set I think. It has way too many non-terminals (only 3 cards are terminal, and one of them is a Victory card!) It has two scaling VP cards, that's too much. It could really use some terminal money or some other terminal effect.

[shmeur]

Thank you for the commentary!  You make valid points, though for Coven, the point of its reaction was that you could counteract other Covens with, which makes it not-so-strong.  I wasn't sure how to word the bottom part, but it's essentially a variant on the Trader effect.

[shmeur]

Also, since I didn't really clarify, Voodoo Doll's effect would still make all TFB-type cards take on the name and price of the card.  So remodel Gold, trash Voodoo Doll, gain Province.

[scott_pilgrim]

Thank you for the commentary!  You make valid points, though for Coven, the point of its reaction was that you could counteract other Covens with, which makes it not-so-strong.  I wasn't sure how to word the bottom part, but it's essentially a variant on the Trader effect.

I know what you're saying, but I think it has the opposite effect.  While it's true that the reaction makes opponents' Covens weaker, it makes Coven overall as a card much stronger.  "+2 action, each other player gains a curse" is already broken at $3, and you probably couldn't ignore it anyway, but even if you could, letting it block other Covens makes it absolutely impossible to ignore.  It means that the only way to not lose to Coven is to get Covens.

Also, since I didn't really clarify, Voodoo Doll's effect would still make all TFB-type cards take on the name and price of the card.  So remodel Gold, trash Voodoo Doll, gain Province.

Hmm, this is like a self-comboing Trader-Ironworks interaction.  Do you remember the ruling on that one?  I think this is consistent with the original ruling, but it later got changed to no bonus right?  I'm not actually sure how that would apply here...

Otherwise it's a cool reaction though.

[Spellbound]

Magick Wand is a great counter to fun imo. It can hit something good like Militia or Cutpurse early, and all your opponent can do is complain. It will only cause rage to you, if it doesn't hit, and your opponent, if it hits, as the game goes on.

Ouija Board and Cemetery doesn't accomplish anything worthy of its costs without others playing Cursers.

I don't think Haunted Castle turning Curses into benefits is a good idea since it will discourage others to give Curses, which makes HC not worth buying at all.

Voodoo Doll is clever and I like it. I will test this card soon.

Overall, I think these cards are made to be used together, they are harder to make use of seperately. Some cards like Grimoire and Pentacle are nice. And I like the concept, keep it up

[GendoIkari]

For Pentacle, the wording is unclear and doesn't work. Do you mean that you gain a Curse, and the gained curse goes on your deck? Because simply "put a Curse on top of your deck" doesn't say where that Curse comes from. Check out Sea Hag and borrow from that: "When you gain this, gain a Curse card, putting it on top of your deck."

Coven needs to also have the "Reaction" type, and the wording doesn't work. It says "when you would gain a Curse", but then it tells you to return the Curse to the supply. Because it's "when you would gain" instead of "when you gain", you never actually gain the Curse, so you have nothing to return. You can simply say "when you would gain a Curse, you may discard this from your hand. If you do, draw a card instead." See Trader.

Voodoo Doll is similar to Pentacle, it needs to instruct you to gain the card, putting it in your hand. And the reaction should have an "if you do". And I don't think the reaction works within the rules the way you want it to. If you play Apprentice, trash Province, but use Voodoo Doll to trash itself instead of the Province, then Apprentice will not draw you any cards, because the "it" that it refers to is the card that it trashed, and there was no card it trashed in this case. See the Blue Dog Ironworks/Trader ruling.

Candle Ritual is an interesting Caravan variant, but it's close to being strictly worse than Caravan, just like how Caravan is a weaker Laboratory because a card now is worth more than a card next turn. So this might need to cost .

The wording on Charm isn't clear, like when exactly does each other player draw a card. I assume you mean for it to also only happen once per turn, when you gain the Silver, but that's not completely clear. Maybe it could just have an "if you do", or combine them into one sentence.

[GendoIkari]

Cemetery - I think Donald X. commented once that counting cards in the trash doesn't work. This is either a cheap Province or completely ignorable. The "trash a Curse" part is sort of arbitrary and will do nothing most of the time, since this gives no way of having Curses in our deck.

That goes for counting the number of cards in the trash, but here it is counting differently-named cards in the trash, which I think is fine. It's like Forager.

[GendoIkari]

Hmm, this is like a self-comboing Trader-Ironworks interaction.  Do you remember the ruling on that one?  I think this is consistent with the original ruling, but it later got changed to no bonus right?  I'm not actually sure how that would apply here...

Otherwise it's a cool reaction though.

Correct, due to the currently ruling on Trader/Ironworks, this card simply doesn't work. When a trash-for-benefit checks to see what benefit it should give, it checks which card it actually trashed. If it didn't actually trash any card, then you get no benefit. And when you reveal this as a reaction, the TFB never ends up trashing anything, that event was replaced.

[GendoIkari]

I don't think Haunted Castle turning Curses into benefits is a good idea since it will discourage others to give Curses, which makes HC not worth buying at all.

I don't agree with this; because it's only 1 point for every 2 Curses. Curses are still really bad. They still clog your deck, which is the worst thing about getting Cursed. You need to get at least 6 of these before you might think a Curse is a good thing to have in your deck (when you have 4 of them, a Curse is like an Estate, which is still a junk card).

[Ghacob]

Perhaps the bottom of Voodoo Doll could read:

When you trash a card, you may reveal this card from your hand. Put the trashed card into your hand. Trash this.


Hopefully that wording is clear enough and the timing works
This also has the side effect of getting benefit from deck trashers

[GendoIkari]

Perhaps the bottom of Voodoo Doll could read:

When you trash a card, you may reveal this card from your hand. Put the trashed card into your hand. Trash this.


Hopefully that wording is clear enough and the timing works
This also has the side effect of getting benefit from deck trashers

Yes, something like that. Except I think you need "gain" somewhere in there, because I don't know if you can just "put" a card somewhere to change ownership of it. "Put" is only used on official cards when talking about cards you've gained already. And also needs "if you do", because the effect only happens IF you reveal the card.

"When you trash a card, you may trash this from your hand. If you do, gain the trashed card, putting it into your hand."

I think it's clear that "the trashed card" refers to the first card that was trashed, and not the Voodoo Doll even though that was also a trashed card. If it's not, then it needs to be a little wordier:

"When you trash a card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, gain the trashed card, putting it into your hand, and trash this."

[AJD]

Perhaps the bottom of Voodoo Doll could read:

When you trash a card, you may reveal this card from your hand. Put the trashed card into your hand. Trash this.


Hopefully that wording is clear enough and the timing works
This also has the side effect of getting benefit from deck trashers

Yes, something like that. Except I think you need "gain" somewhere in there, because I don't know if you can just "put" a card somewhere to change ownership of it.

This is what Fortress does.

[Ghacob]

Perhaps the bottom of Voodoo Doll could read:

When you trash a card, you may reveal this card from your hand. Put the trashed card into your hand. Trash this.


Hopefully that wording is clear enough and the timing works
This also has the side effect of getting benefit from deck trashers

Yes, something like that. Except I think you need "gain" somewhere in there, because I don't know if you can just "put" a card somewhere to change ownership of it.

This is what Fortress does.

That's what I based my wording on
...
I just realized that aforementioned wording needed an "If you do"

[GendoIkari]

Perhaps the bottom of Voodoo Doll could read:

When you trash a card, you may reveal this card from your hand. Put the trashed card into your hand. Trash this.


Hopefully that wording is clear enough and the timing works
This also has the side effect of getting benefit from deck trashers

Yes, something like that. Except I think you need "gain" somewhere in there, because I don't know if you can just "put" a card somewhere to change ownership of it.

This is what Fortress does.

Oops! I'm wrong then.