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tristan

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Re: my cards
« Reply #25 on: October 04, 2015, 03:19:05 am »
0

Now consider Junk Dealer.  Why do you buy it?  Is it for (a) cantrip trashing, (b) cantrip coin, or (c) both?  The answer is actually (a).  While the coin is a nice bonus, it is not the reason you buy Junk Dealer.  The (b) on Junk Dealer is weaker than a straight cantrip coin because your handsize is smaller afterwards.  And in fact, if you wanted it for the coin, the mandatory trashing is actually a liability, especially after you run out of weak cards to trash.  You buy Junk Dealer to deal with junk, and the coin is just a small bonus on top.
I obviously disagree. Of course the main reason you buy Junk Dealer is to trash but its Peddler part is not insignificant. On the contrary, especially when you trash you are in dire need of coins. Trashing is after all a form of investment, you get rid of your Coppers, can buy less strong cards now but far better cards later. If another player does not trash and wins the game it is precisely because he was able to buy stronger cards while you were buys getting rid of your Coppers.
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Awaclus

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Re: my cards
« Reply #26 on: October 04, 2015, 06:05:47 am »
+4

Quote
Given that trashers really only enable engines and aren't actually the thing that makes them tick, I am sure this card would be fine at , but I agree with the people who say it would be really strong at that price point.
Claiming that a mandatory cantrip trasher is a strong 4 implies the claim that either the boni of Junk Dealer as well as Upgrade are fairly insignificant which is obviously utter nonsense or the claim that these cards are strong 5s.
Furthermore it implies the claim that either Ratcatcher would be a decent card at a price of 3 or that the disadvantages of Ratcatcher, waiting 1+ turn(s) and trashing at the start of your turn, are worth a price differential of 2.

It's not a "price differential of 2". Costs are not linear. The difference between 2 and 4 is a lot smaller than the difference between 4 and 5.

And yeah, the bonuses of Junk Dealer and Upgrade are fairly insignificant. Upgrade doesn't even give you a bonus 7/10 of the time you play it for the trashing, and somewhat often you'd rather not have the bonus you do get 3/10 of the time (like when the only $3 is Silver and you don't want Silver, or there are Shelters and Estate is the only $2). It's still a decent $5. Junk Dealer gives you a small bonus that you pretty much always want, and it's certainly one of the strongest cards in the entire game.

I obviously disagree. Of course the main reason you buy Junk Dealer is to trash but its Peddler part is not insignificant. On the contrary, especially when you trash you are in dire need of coins. Trashing is after all a form of investment, you get rid of your Coppers, can buy less strong cards now but far better cards later. If another player does not trash and wins the game it is precisely because he was able to buy stronger cards while you were buys getting rid of your Coppers.

That's not really how it works, though. An engine is the only strategy that wants trashing every time, so if you go for trashing and your opponent doesn't and he wins, the odds are that you went for an engine strategy and he went for another strategy, and that he won because the other strategy was better than the engine.
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tristan

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Re: my cards
« Reply #27 on: October 04, 2015, 08:34:11 am »
0

And yeah, the bonuses of Junk Dealer and Upgrade are fairly insignificant.
A Peddler is never insignificant. Upgrading Estates into Silver or other 3$ cards is also most of the times useful unless you play Upgrade in the middle game and the deck does not feature any half-way decent 3$ Action card.

That's not really how it works, though. An engine is the only strategy that wants trashing every time, so if you go for trashing and your opponent doesn't and he wins, the odds are that you went for an engine strategy and he went for another strategy, and that he won because the other strategy was better than the engine.
Trashing is always useful and has nothing to do with the density of action and treasure cards in your deck. I guess most of us have played ample of base games with Chapel, heavy trashing and BM.
« Last Edit: October 04, 2015, 08:36:07 am by tristan »
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Awaclus

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Re: my cards
« Reply #28 on: October 04, 2015, 09:54:43 am »
+2

And yeah, the bonuses of Junk Dealer and Upgrade are fairly insignificant.
A Peddler is never insignificant. Upgrading Estates into Silver or other 3$ cards is also most of the times useful unless you play Upgrade in the middle game and the deck does not feature any half-way decent 3$ Action card.

That's not really how it works, though. An engine is the only strategy that wants trashing every time, so if you go for trashing and your opponent doesn't and he wins, the odds are that you went for an engine strategy and he went for another strategy, and that he won because the other strategy was better than the engine.
Trashing is always useful and has nothing to do with the density of action and treasure cards in your deck. I guess most of us have played ample of base games with Chapel, heavy trashing and BM.

A Peddler is not entirely insignificant, but it is fairly insignificant. It helps you hit $5 again, which is nice, but that just compensates for the fact that you had to pay $5 for the Junk Dealer instead of buying another strong $5. Yes, Upgrading Estates into Silvers is useful, but it's not always more useful than just getting rid of the card without getting the Silver, and more often than not, there isn't a $3 card that you just want a ton of copies of. Especially in the early game, it's usually crucial to thin your deck rather than turn complete junk into mildly useful stop cards.

Trashing is usually actively bad for you in alt-VP slogs and rushes, and it's nice in big money and many combos but not nice enough to spend a buy on a card that doesn't really do much for you, such as Chapel. You don't want Junk Dealers over Silvers in most types of big money decks, and you absolutely don't want the cantrip trasher over a Silver in any big money deck except maybe the mass Baker BM thing but that sucks anyway.
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eHalcyon

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Re: my cards
« Reply #29 on: October 04, 2015, 10:10:44 am »
+1

Quote
Given that trashers really only enable engines and aren't actually the thing that makes them tick, I am sure this card would be fine at , but I agree with the people who say it would be really strong at that price point.
Claiming that a mandatory cantrip trasher is a strong 4 implies the claim that either the boni of Junk Dealer as well as Upgrade are fairly insignificant which is obviously utter nonsense or the claim that these cards are strong 5s.
Furthermore it implies the claim that either Ratcatcher would be a decent card at a price of 3 or that the disadvantages of Ratcatcher, waiting 1+ turn(s) and trashing at the start of your turn, are worth a price differential of 2.

Yes to both.  The bonus of Junk Dealer and Upgrade are insignificant compared to the trashing, except in a few rare cases with Upgrade.  The turn delay on Ratcatcher hurts it a lot.
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LastFootnote

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Re: my cards
« Reply #30 on: October 05, 2015, 01:53:12 pm »
0

The +$1 on Junk Dealer is very significant. You would often still buy it at $5 without the +$1 if it were the only trasher on the board. But in order to compete with other trashers, I think it needs the +$1. The moral of the story is that trashers tend to be among the strongest cards in the game.

A cantrip trasher at $4 might be fine power-wise. I mean, it seems unlikely that it would be any more game-breaking than e.g. Forager. Donald tested this card…

Rubbish Heap: Action, $2
+1 Card
+1 Action
You may trash this or a card from your hand.

…and found that it was too strong. But hiking the price up to $4 and/or removing the self-trashing and/or making the trashing mandatory could easily be enough to make it reasonable.
« Last Edit: October 05, 2015, 01:54:49 pm by LastFootnote »
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popsofctown

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Re: my cards
« Reply #31 on: October 05, 2015, 02:45:35 pm »
0

Are trashers supposed to compete with eachother meaningfully?  It seems like they usually don't.  Chapel wrecks every other trasher.  There seems to be a gap between lots of trashers, and it often seems like I pick up whichever trasher is highest on the trasher tier-list and totally ignore the other trashes.  Some trashers seem to only see play when they are the only trasher available, like Develop.  I don't know if I would want to lose the unique feel of a game that has trashing, but only an awful, slow, grindy kind, by adding +1$ or +2$ to Develop so that it is competitive with other trashers.

I think the logic for Junk Dealer isn't that it needs to +1$ to be competitive with other trashers.  I think it's that +1$ means that people aren't dirt poor in games where it is the premiere trasher, so Dominion is a little more fun.
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LastFootnote

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Re: my cards
« Reply #32 on: October 05, 2015, 02:58:20 pm »
+1

Are trashers supposed to compete with eachother meaningfully?  It seems like they usually don't.  Chapel wrecks every other trasher.  There seems to be a gap between lots of trashers, and it often seems like I pick up whichever trasher is highest on the trasher tier-list and totally ignore the other trashes.  Some trashers seem to only see play when they are the only trasher available, like Develop.  I don't know if I would want to lose the unique feel of a game that has trashing, but only an awful, slow, grindy kind, by adding +1$ or +2$ to Develop so that it is competitive with other trashers.

I think the logic for Junk Dealer isn't that it needs to +1$ to be competitive with other trashers.  I think it's that +1$ means that people aren't dirt poor in games where it is the premiere trasher, so Dominion is a little more fun.

Trashers absolutely are supposed to compete with each other meaningfully. A lot of discussion went on about whether to further weaken Amulet (it once had +$1 at the top), and well it had to compete with other trashers, so it stayed strong.

Chapel is an anomaly. Develop isn't a "trasher" in the way I'm talking about; I should have said "deck thinner". You can use Develop as a deck thinner of course, but it's not a very good one. It's primarily a remodel.
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tristan

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Re: my cards
« Reply #33 on: October 06, 2015, 08:03:52 am »
0

I think that the difference trashing and mandatory trashing matters quite a bit.
Let's take Upgrade. Some folks here claimed that its bonus is insignificant but IMO the advantage of the card is that you can still play it in the later part of the game and use its remodel ability. Junk Dealer on the other hand can become a dead card respectively quite risky to play.
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eHalcyon

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Re: my cards
« Reply #34 on: October 06, 2015, 04:06:50 pm »
+2

I'm not saying that the bonuses on Junk Dealer and Upgrade are insignificant, period.  I'm saying that in the grand scheme, they are usually insignificant compared to the trashing.  I even called out Upgrade specifically as having some rare cases where its bonus matters more!  But by and large, the trashing matters more. 

Cantrip trashing + a small bonus sits comfortably at $5.  Cantrip trashing alone might work at $4, but it would be extremely powerful, possibly too powerful.  The card in the OP is cantrip trashing with a bonus.
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GendoIkari

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Re: my cards
« Reply #35 on: October 06, 2015, 04:48:12 pm »
0


Cantrip trashing + a small bonus sits comfortably at $5.  Cantrip trashing alone might work at $4, but it would be extremely powerful, possibly too powerful.  The card in the OP is cantrip trashing with a bonus.

With multiple bonuses. The setting aside instead of trashing is pretty significant I think. It's an extra 3 points at the end of the game compared to trashing usually. Then there's the other ability to get a lot of money. It's really powerful. It might work at ; though I think its bonuses are at least as good as Upgrade and Junk Dealer.
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tristan

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Re: my cards
« Reply #36 on: October 07, 2015, 01:55:48 am »
0


Cantrip trashing + a small bonus sits comfortably at $5.  Cantrip trashing alone might work at $4, but it would be extremely powerful, possibly too powerful.  The card in the OP is cantrip trashing with a bonus.

With multiple bonuses. The setting aside instead of trashing is pretty significant I think. It's an extra 3 points at the end of the game compared to trashing usually. Then there's the other ability to get a lot of money. It's really powerful. It might work at ; though I think its bonuses are at least as good as Upgrade and Junk Dealer.
It is only worth an extra 3 VP if there are no Shelters and no Cursers. For e.g. with Cursers, Shelters and no other trashers this very card leads on average, compared to a normal trasher, to an extra - 5VP / - 7VP (depends on the # of players).

But this is just a special case, on average setting aside is most likely better than trashing. This is why I consider the vanilla version of the card to be a strong 4 and the version with the bonus (Gain for each differently named set aside card. Discard all set aside cards.) a strong 5 which is again why I am not happy with the card yet.
« Last Edit: October 07, 2015, 01:57:49 am by tristan »
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tristan

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Re: my cards
« Reply #37 on: October 07, 2015, 02:00:29 am »
0

Cantrip trashing + a small bonus sits comfortably at $5.
I disagree. You gotta differentiate between mandatory and normal cantrip trashing (or something like Upgrade which is a mandatory trasher but due to its Remodel ability it doesn't force-trash good cards during the later part of the game). A cantrip trasher might be a strong 4 or a weak 5 but a mandatory cantrip trasher is a balanced 4 IMO.
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eHalcyon

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Re: my cards
« Reply #38 on: October 07, 2015, 04:03:11 am »
0

Cantrip trashing + a small bonus sits comfortably at $5.
I disagree. You gotta differentiate between mandatory and normal cantrip trashing (or something like Upgrade which is a mandatory trasher but due to its Remodel ability it doesn't force-trash good cards during the later part of the game). A cantrip trasher might be a strong 4 or a weak 5 but a mandatory cantrip trasher is a balanced 4 IMO.

What "normal" cantrip trashing are you talking about?  Junk Dealer and Upgrade are both mandatory trashers that sit comfortably at $5.  The only other cantrip trasher is Rats, which isn't really a trasher at all.  Upgrade absolutely does force you to trash cards during the late game.  It sounds like you are misunderstanding how the official cards work.
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Asper

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Re: my cards
« Reply #39 on: October 07, 2015, 04:11:18 am »
0

eHalcyon said what i wanted to say about Upgrade.

I think you also underestimate the use cases of setting aside cards. It allows picking up any Victory card and keeping its points without it clogging your deck. There's a reason Island removes itself from your deck and is terminal. Your card isn't, and while it's not worth VP, you can use it as often as you want. I think that even just a cantrip setting aside stuff would be okay for $5.
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tristan

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Re: my cards
« Reply #40 on: October 07, 2015, 04:12:54 am »
0

Cantrip trashing + a small bonus sits comfortably at $5.
I disagree. You gotta differentiate between mandatory and normal cantrip trashing (or something like Upgrade which is a mandatory trasher but due to its Remodel ability it doesn't force-trash good cards during the later part of the game). A cantrip trasher might be a strong 4 or a weak 5 but a mandatory cantrip trasher is a balanced 4 IMO.

What "normal" cantrip trashing are you talking about?  Junk Dealer and Upgrade are both mandatory trashers that sit comfortably at $5.  The only other cantrip trasher is Rats, which isn't really a trasher at all.  Upgrade absolutely does force you to trash cards during the late game.  It sounds like you are misunderstanding how the official cards work.
Gee, of course all of this is conceptural. There doesn't exist a non-mandatory cantrip trasher (except for, very losely speaking, Ratcatcher which has the disadvantage of having to be played at the beginning of your turn) but we talk about a hypothetical, the balanced price of a hypothetical mandatory or non-mandatory cantrip trasher.
The disadvantage of mandatory cantrip trashers is that it is either a dead card as you do not wanna trash anything anymore or a risky choice (with Lookout this risk decision occurs earlier). Upgrade is a quasi non-mandatory trasher as it remodels at the same time so it dampens (if you trash a good Action card you still got it out of your current shuffle cycle so it does hurt you but not as much as having to trash the good Action card) the disadvantage of being mandatory.


I think you also underestimate the use cases of setting aside cards. It allows picking up any Victory card and keeping its points without it clogging your deck.
Obviously enabling earlier greening (at the cost of not getting rid of the negative Vps of Curses) is one of the points of the card.

Quote
There's a reason Island removes itself from your deck and is terminal.
Island also provides VPs. Without the 2VPs it is probably worth 0 or 1.

Quote
I think that even just a cantrip setting aside stuff would be okay for $5.

Could be. I am probably gonna print the card as it is and test it with and without the bonus. As the bonus is without the cantrip and probably will only be applied once during the game it is tricky to evaluate. It all depends on how often 'gifting you a bunch of coppers to buy an extra Province in the endgame' occurs.
« Last Edit: October 07, 2015, 04:24:27 am by tristan »
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Asper

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Re: my cards
« Reply #41 on: October 07, 2015, 07:43:24 am »
+1

It doesn't just enable "earlier" greening, but getting points without what "greening" implies at all, namely clogging your deck. It's very similar to Distand Lands in that respect. Compare Distand Lands to Duchy/Cantrip-Island: Distand Lands gives one more point and does not need two cards to connect. At the same time, it costs an additional card, an action and is worth nothing if not played before the end. Admittedly, the first card you buy, the cantrip, doesn't give points - but it offers strong deck thinning, which is actually worth much, much more. After thinking a bit more about this, i tend to say that even for $5, it might be brokenly powerful.
« Last Edit: October 07, 2015, 07:57:55 am by Asper »
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tristan

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Re: my cards
« Reply #42 on: October 07, 2015, 08:17:36 am »
0

It doesn't just enable "earlier" greening, but getting points without what "greening" implies at all, namely clogging your deck.
As I said, it enables earlier / more frequent greening and makes alt-VP more attractive at the costs of not getting rid of the negative VPs of set aside curses.

After thinking a bit more about this, i tend to say that even for $5, it might be brokenly powerful.
I seriously doubt that it is overpowered at 5 without its bonus. You'd often rather want an integrated Peddler (Junk Dealer) or early in the game transform an Estate into a Silver instead of preserve one VP (Upgrade). The card only becomes better than trashing once you actually do green. Earlier it is strictly worse than existing cantrip trasher.
« Last Edit: October 07, 2015, 08:19:07 am by tristan »
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GendoIkari

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Re: my cards
« Reply #43 on: October 07, 2015, 09:41:18 am »
+1

I definitely think you're wrong about Upgrade not being a full mandatory trasher. Are you forgetting that it's gain is "exactly" more, not up to? If you draw a hand of 4 good cards plus an Upgrade, it's a big risk to play that Upgrade. If you don't draw a junk card that you want to trash, then you've now taken a good card out of your deck, and probably even worse, out of your current hand. You can't just replace it; you have to get something costing more. So sure, you can turn a good into a Gold. But that's just a consolation at that point. You can't just trash a Province with it to save your current hand, because you can't gain a Province in return.
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Drab Emordnilap

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Re: my cards
« Reply #44 on: October 07, 2015, 01:15:28 pm »
0

Through all of the back and forth in this thread, one post stood out to me above all others as being the most true -- that it's time to print it out and try different versions to see firsthand how powerful they are. :)
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eHalcyon

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Re: my cards
« Reply #45 on: October 07, 2015, 01:29:16 pm »
+4

Gee, of course all of this is conceptural. There doesn't exist a non-mandatory cantrip trasher (except for, very losely speaking, Ratcatcher which has the disadvantage of having to be played at the beginning of your turn) but we talk about a hypothetical, the balanced price of a hypothetical mandatory or non-mandatory cantrip trasher.
The disadvantage of mandatory cantrip trashers is that it is either a dead card as you do not wanna trash anything anymore or a risky choice (with Lookout this risk decision occurs earlier). Upgrade is a quasi non-mandatory trasher as it remodels at the same time so it dampens (if you trash a good Action card you still got it out of your current shuffle cycle so it does hurt you but not as much as having to trash the good Action card) the disadvantage of being mandatory.

So, since all of the existing cantrip trashers are mandatory, I think it's safe to say that "normal" cantrip trashing is mandatory.  Having it be optional would be a bonus.

Look, I'll lay out how existing and some theoretical cantrip trashers compare.

Basic
+1 Card
+1 Action
Trash a card from your hand.

This would be a top-tier powerful $4 card, possibly too powerful to exist at that price.  It would have worked at $5 (probably being just slightly below average at that price, which is still balanced).  It might be powerful enough that it should cost $2, like Chapel.  That said, it's probably more interesting to not have it at all, for the same reason there's no basic $4 Peddler.

Junk Dealer

This is a very powerful $5 card.  It ranked 11 in the 2014 rankings, trending way up from its first appearance on the 2013 list.  It could still move up more.  Trashing is the big thing here. 

The +$1 is a nice little bonus, but it is only a bonus.  The trashing is the main point.  The bonus is consistent, always useful, but never spectacular.  If you trash down successfully, you rarely want to play it late game (though sometimes you may take a risk).

Upgrade

This is also a powerful $5 card.  It ranked 15 last year, trending upwards from previous years even as more cards get added to the competition.  What are we to make of that?  Two possibilities spring to mind, and I think the real answer is a mix of both.  First, people are still underestimating how powerful trashing (especially cantrip trashing) really is.  As players improve in their understanding of the game, they rank the card higher.  Second, each subsequent expansion makes engines even better, so trashing is actually getting more powerful.

As before, trashing is the primary function.  The TfB effect is a double-edged sword.  When you trash Coppers, it is no bonus at all (unless Poor House is on the board, in which csae it is usually a major drawback that rules out Upgrade entirely!).  When you trash Shelters, it is usually slightly negative (you may have to gain an Estate, or a weak $2 action that could interfere with terminal draw).  When you trash Estates, it can be a really nice bonus (gaining $3 engine components) or a drawback (gaining Silver when you'd actually prefer nothing at all, which is not uncommon).

Usually the Upgrade bonus is worse than the Junk Dealer bonus, since the former is nothing ~70% of the time and mixed for the other ~30% (with the 70% nothing skewing up in the face of Curses, Ruins).  Sometimes, however, you can get major work out of it.  In the late-game, you can trash $4s into Duchies and $7s into Province.  Sometimes you can even make ridiculous and amazing Upgrade chains (especially with Fortress and a $7 around).  But this is uncommon.  There's a reason why Junk Dealer ranks above Upgrade.

Rats

This barely qualifies for this list.  It is a mandatory trasher, but it always gains another Rats (until the pile runs out).  In effect, you are just trading (hopefully junk) cards for more Rats.  Since your deck size never decreases, it doesn't play the same way as the other cantrip trashers.  The Rats gain is a huge negative here.  But that negative can sometimes be a positive, especially if there are other TfB around.

Ratcatcher

Very new, so jury is still out on this one.  However, here are some salient points:

- The trashing is delayed by at least one turn.  This is a huge drawback, slowing down the trashing a lot, especially in the early game.

- It is more likely to  miss the first shuffle than not, since it misses if drawn on turn 4 or 5.  It will miss even more shuffles as you trash down.

- You can only use it at the start of your turn.  This limits your options.

- You can only play it every other turn at most.

- To be fair, it has a nice late-game advantage.  If you're done trashing with it, you can just leave it in the Tavern forever (or until you draw that stray Curse).

- Even if it is extremely powerful, note that the $2 cost is the same as the cost for Chapel.  Chapel is not a weak card.  The $2 price point means that everybody can open with it without the 5/2 player being horribly set back.

Non-Mandatory
+1 Card
+1 Action
You may trash a card from your hand.

This would probably be a $5 card.  Early game, it is slightly worse than Junk Dealer and about on par with Upgrade in that the bonus (over the basic cantrip trasher) is nothing or neutral.  Whether you prefer this or Upgrade will likely depend on Shelters or the presence of a good $3 action.  Late game, this card is free to play.  It doesn't have the same high potential as Upgrade, but it is consistently non-harmful.  At this point of the game, it will often be better than Junk Dealer.

Set-Aside
+1 Card
+1 Action
Set aside a card from your hand.

This is the card from the OP.  It is almost certainly a strong $5 card, easily beating Upgrade and quite possibly beating Junk Dealer as well.

Early game, this is on par with Upgrade as well as the Basic and Non-Mandatory trashers.  All of these cards get nothing out of removing Copper, and are ~neutral with Shelters/Estates.

Now, the drawback.  The -VP from Curses will still apply at the end of the game.  But you still remove them from your deck, which is the biggest problem of Curses anyway.  It's also partially off-set in that you will usually get to keep the 3VP of your starting Estates.  And then there are all the games without Cursing, where those 3VP are just net positive.

But the bonus is even bigger than that.  Since you set aside cards, you can slim down and still take advantage of cards like Gardens, Silk Road, Fairgrounds.  Most importantly, you can set aside other Victory cards, like Duchies and Provinces.  You can maintain a slim deck even while greening, which means you can green much earlier.  This is an incredible bonus in the mid-game, and it effectively keeps you from ever reaching a late-game state since you'll just maintain your slim mid-game deck!
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Asper

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Re: my cards
« Reply #46 on: October 07, 2015, 02:12:46 pm »
0

My point is that "once you actually do green" with this card is practically "whenever you please". Play a few games with Distant Lands to see what i mean, and then consider the fact this is likely stronger than it.

Also, you keep talking about Curses. Now i know when we came in contact with trashing, we all first saw Curses as the main target. I can say it took me a considerable time to grasp that trashing Coppers and Estates was actually a good thing to do. Now several years passed and i'll just say this: Trashing is NOT about Curses. What about the -3 point Junk Dealer will ALWAYS cost you when comparing the two? Curses are in every other game, but you actually think Shelters are more relevant than games without Cursers? Or rather, games without Cursers you want to play yourself. I mean, all ten Curses? You plan to trash down and not use the new potential of your deck to play a Curser yourself? Ten plays, that's quite a few shuffles for such a thin deck.
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tristan

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Re: my cards
« Reply #47 on: October 07, 2015, 03:24:17 pm »
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What about the -3 point Junk Dealer will ALWAYS cost you when comparing the two? Curses are in every other game, but you actually think Shelters are more relevant than games without Cursers? Or rather, games without Cursers you want to play yourself. I mean, all ten Curses? You plan to trash down and not use the new potential of your deck to play a Curser yourself? Ten plays, that's quite a few shuffles for such a thin deck.
I read this three times and still have no idea what you are talking about.

Anyway, this card will stay at 5 as I consider a mandatory cantrip trasher to be balanced at 4. Without intending to be rude, the argument brought forth that a mandatory cantrip trasher is an superstrong 4 or even a 5 is utterly ridiculous given that it would be strictly inferior to Junk Dealer and Upgrade which are also priced at 5.

If somebody has constructive input concerning the other cards I'd appreciate it.
« Last Edit: October 07, 2015, 03:27:39 pm by tristan »
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eHalcyon

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Re: my cards
« Reply #48 on: October 07, 2015, 03:48:07 pm »
+1

Anyway, this card will stay at 5 as I consider a mandatory cantrip trasher to be balanced at 4. Without intending to be rude, the argument brought forth that a mandatory cantrip trasher is an superstrong 4 or even a 5 is utterly ridiculous given that it would be strictly inferior to Junk Dealer and Upgrade which are also priced at 5.

If somebody has constructive input concerning the other cards I'd appreciate it.

If you think that a mandatory cantrip trasher isn't super strong at $4, you might not properly appreciate the power of a trim engine.

I never said that it would be appropriate to price such a card at $5.  It wouldn't be, due to the existence of Junk Dealer.  But that just means that it probably shouldn't exist at any price, much like the Lab+discard card that Donald X tested at $4.  It should be noted that the basic cantrip trasher is absolutely not strictly inferior to Upgrade, which I explained very clearly above.  And it actually isn't strictly inferior to Junk Dealer either, because of Storyteller.

Given how you refuse to seriously consider the very constructive input everybody has given about your Upgrade variant, I don't know if you'd actually appreciate more feedback.  :-\
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Asper

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Re: my cards
« Reply #49 on: October 07, 2015, 03:55:10 pm »
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What about the -3 point Junk Dealer will ALWAYS cost you when comparing the two? Curses are in every other game, but you actually think Shelters are more relevant than games without Cursers? Or rather, games without Cursers you want to play yourself. I mean, all ten Curses? You plan to trash down and not use the new potential of your deck to play a Curser yourself? Ten plays, that's quite a few shuffles for such a thin deck.
I read this three times and still have no idea what you are talking about.

Anyway, this card will stay at 5 as I consider a mandatory cantrip trasher to be balanced at 4. Without intending to be rude, the argument brought forth that a mandatory cantrip trasher is an superstrong 4 or even a 5 is utterly ridiculous given that it would be strictly inferior to Junk Dealer and Upgrade which are also priced at 5.

If somebody has constructive input concerning the other cards I'd appreciate it.

If you trash your starting Estates, you are three points behind compared to when you set them aside. Considering that the use of Shelters is far less likely than a game without Cursers, and that even in a game with Cursers you are unlikely to get all Curses, i find it implausible to declare the fact that set-aside cards still contribute to your score a disadvantage.

Also, as eHalcyon pointed out,  the fact that a card is too weak for $5 doesn't mean that it can't be too strong for $4.
Edit: Or to try and capture his point more accurately, it's not even about being too weak for $5, just about being weaker than an existing $5. Which leaves quite some room.
« Last Edit: October 07, 2015, 03:59:55 pm by Asper »
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