Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[popsofctown]

Birondelle
4$ - Action
Take 2 Coin Tokens
______________
While this is in play, when you buy a card from the Supply, reveal the top 3 cards of the Black Market deck.  You may buy one of those cards.  Put the rest on the bottom of the Black Market deck in any order.
_______________
Setup: Copy Black Market's setup instructions.

[faust]

I think this is in some ways worse than Black Market. Sure 2 coin tokens > $2, but

- you cannot get a card from the Black Market deck without buying something else first, making it a bad opener.
- you cannot wait to see the prices of the Black Market cards before deciding how many treasures/coin tokens to play.
- you cannot buy and play a card in the same turn.
- the usual draw-to-X/Tactician combos are disabled.

I don't think this should cost more than Black Market, and I'm not sure it's different enough to warrant being a card on its own. Plus, the timing is confusing. It buy a card from the supply -> Birondelle triggers (before gaining the card) -> you buy a card from the BM deck -> the card from the supply and the card from the BM deck are waiting to be gained. Which one is gained first?

[popsofctown]

I don't think this should cost more than Black Market, and I'm not sure it's different enough to warrant being a card on its own. Plus, the timing is confusing. It buy a card from the supply -> Birondelle triggers (before gaining the card) -> you buy a card from the BM deck -> the card from the supply and the card from the BM deck are waiting to be gained. Which one is gained first?

It nests, you gain the card you bought due to the on-buy event first.  There's nothing unintuitive about that.  If you buy a Farmland and trash Sir Vander from your hand, do you gain the Gold first or the Farmland first?  You finish all the stuff related to the on-buy trigger before moving on to the gain in both cases.


I'm getting really tired of "this is too similar to official card to deserve existence" criticisms.  Like, are we really even getting to the point where that criticism is considered valid on a card that reuses a mechanic that has only been explored one time, shares no vanilla bonuses in common, and triggers the unique mechanic off a totally different event?  It's hard to imagine how Hunting Grounds and Worker's Village made it through here.  I am totally down for other feedback, like about the cost, or like you think maybe mechanically it is not good (I note you can rattle off 4 unique disadvantages that Black Market does not have, yet it is too similar to Black Market) but when the radius you're drawing around the design space of existing cards is so huge it seems like you're against fan cards in general and don't want to be in the subforum.  I'm just not getting it.

That's an impersonal use of the word "you" by the way, not for faust in particular.  It's a trend I've seen a lot in the subforum, not just for my cards but other people's cards too.

[GendoIkari]

So normal Black Market allows you to play treasures as part of "you may buy". So I guess this one would too, even though this is in your buy phase after having bought another card. Which would matter for things like Mint and Mandarin.

Also, you can use this in conjunction with regular Black Market, which is interesting... you play this then Black Market. Reveal the top 3 cards, buy one. Do you then reveal the next 3 cards and buy one, then put the newer set of 2 back, then put the older set of 2 back?

[popsofctown]

So normal Black Market allows you to play treasures as part of "you may buy". So I guess this one would too, even though this is in your buy phase after having bought another card. Which would matter for things like Mint and Mandarin.

Also, you can use this in conjunction with regular Black Market, which is interesting... you play this then Black Market. Reveal the top 3 cards, buy one. Do you then reveal the next 3 cards and buy one, then put the newer set of 2 back, then put the older set of 2 back?

No, it says "when you buy a card from the Supply".  Necessary so it doesn't trigger off of itself.  Not triggering off Black Market in a confusing way is a bonus.

Yes, you get to play treasures like Black Market, and you get to change your mind about how many coin tokens to use.

[GendoIkari]

So normal Black Market allows you to play treasures as part of "you may buy". So I guess this one would too, even though this is in your buy phase after having bought another card. Which would matter for things like Mint and Mandarin.

Also, you can use this in conjunction with regular Black Market, which is interesting... you play this then Black Market. Reveal the top 3 cards, buy one. Do you then reveal the next 3 cards and buy one, then put the newer set of 2 back, then put the older set of 2 back?

No, it says "when you buy a card from the Supply".  Necessary so it doesn't trigger off of itself.  Not triggering off Black Market in a confusing way is a bonus.

Yes, you get to play treasures like Black Market, and you get to change your mind about how many coin tokens to use.

Ah, missed the bit about from the Supply; good. How would this allow you to use coin tokens though? Black Market doesn't allow you to spend coin tokens before buying a card. The rules for spending coin tokens are specific in that you can only spend them in your buy phase, before you've bought a card. You wouldn't be allowed to spend coins tokens here after buying a card.

Also, to be extremely pedantic, if both this and Black Market have the same setup instructions, and both are in the game, then you would technically have to follow both sets of instructions. Meaning that you make a Black Market deck, then you make a Black Market deck again, I guess replacing the first Black Market deck with the second one. But obviously this is a case where common sense would override wording technicalities, and everyone would know intuitively that there's just 1 Black Market deck and you only set it up once.

[popsofctown]

So normal Black Market allows you to play treasures as part of "you may buy". So I guess this one would too, even though this is in your buy phase after having bought another card. Which would matter for things like Mint and Mandarin.

Also, you can use this in conjunction with regular Black Market, which is interesting... you play this then Black Market. Reveal the top 3 cards, buy one. Do you then reveal the next 3 cards and buy one, then put the newer set of 2 back, then put the older set of 2 back?

No, it says "when you buy a card from the Supply".  Necessary so it doesn't trigger off of itself.  Not triggering off Black Market in a confusing way is a bonus.

Yes, you get to play treasures like Black Market, and you get to change your mind about how many coin tokens to use.

Ah, missed the bit about from the Supply; good. How would this allow you to use coin tokens though? Black Market doesn't allow you to spend coin tokens before buying a card. The rules for spending coin tokens are specific in that you can only spend them in your buy phase, before you've bought a card. You wouldn't be allowed to spend coins tokens here after buying a card.

Also, to be extremely pedantic, if both this and Black Market have the same setup instructions, and both are in the game, then you would technically have to follow both sets of instructions. Meaning that you make a Black Market deck, then you make a Black Market deck again, I guess replacing the first Black Market deck with the second one. But obviously this is a case where common sense would override wording technicalities, and everyone would know intuitively that there's just 1 Black Market deck and you only set it up once.

Oooh, I didn't know that.  Just never played a game with coin tokens and Black Market, I guess, and I never bought a box of Guilds.  That removes some of the synergy with the coin tokens I was going for, although, they are probably still helpful.  Since faust doesn't think it's too strong, maybe it's safe to add +buy, and then the tactic of using coin tokens then buying Copper or Pearl Diver will be easier, and you can buy a card from the kingdom if it doesn't pan out.

I agree with your pedantic interpretation, and I agree letting common sense (+ some sort of FAQ, so that the common sense answer is also the "official" answer) resolve it seems best.

[GendoIkari]

Yes, +buy could be good for that. The thing with not being allowed to use coin tokens when you play Black Market is that you simply can't use them, so there's no decision to make. Here, you have to make the difficult decision/gamble on whether or not to spend your coin tokens, not having any way to know if you'll be able to do anything useful with the money you get.

[eHalcyon]

What about this?

When you gain a card [during your Buy phase?], [do the Black Market thing].

This one nests.  After you gain a card from the Black Market, you will immediately trigger it again and get to look at more cards.

If you give it like +2 Buys, you could buy extra Copper just to dig through the deck more quickly.

The biggest problem I see is cost reduction making this too crazy.  There could be a clause with this card that negates cost reduction, but that's heavy handed.  I think it might be worth the novelty though.

For something similar, you could add to your original version something like, "you may spend coin tokens to reveal more cards". 

[popsofctown]

So what about

Halcyondelle
3$ Action
+2$
_____________________
While this is in play, when you gain a card that you bought spending [coin symbol, like it appears on moneylender, without a number written in it], reveal the top three cards of the Black Market deck.  You may buy one of those cards.  But the rest on the bottom of the Black Market deck in any order
______________________
Black Market setup rules

[GendoIkari]

What about this?

When you gain a card [during your Buy phase?], [do the Black Market thing].

This one nests.  After you gain a card from the Black Market, you will immediately trigger it again and get to look at more cards.

If you give it like +2 Buys, you could buy extra Copper just to dig through the deck more quickly.

The biggest problem I see is cost reduction making this too crazy.  There could be a clause with this card that negates cost reduction, but that's heavy handed.  I think it might be worth the novelty though.

WAY too crazy. You can just buy every card in the Black Market deck at once by just playing 5 or maybe 6 Highways.

[GendoIkari]

[coin symbol, like it appears on moneylender, without a number written in it]

Someone needs to install my Chrome extension.

[LastFootnote]

I'm getting really tired of "this is too similar to official card to deserve existence" criticisms.

That's too damn bad! It's a perfectly valid criticism. There's no black-and-white metric for how close to an existing card is too close, but it's a real actual concern that plays a part in making official cards and should play a part in making fan cards, too.

Like, are we really even getting to the point where that criticism is considered valid on a card that reuses a mechanic that has only been explored one time, shares no vanilla bonuses in common, and triggers the unique mechanic off a totally different event?  It's hard to imagine how Hunting Grounds and Worker's Village made it through here.  I am totally down for other feedback, like about the cost, or like you think maybe mechanically it is not good (I note you can rattle off 4 unique disadvantages that Black Market does not have, yet it is too similar to Black Market) but when the radius you're drawing around the design space of existing cards is so huge it seems like you're against fan cards in general and don't want to be in the subforum.  I'm just not getting it.

Villages get to be more similar because there needs to be a certain number of them relative to the total number of cards. Attacks too, to a lesser extent. What card is Hunting Grounds just like, out of curiosity?

Unlike villages, there's no "quota" for black market variants. You could make another one, but it should be more different than this. This is really close to Black Market, except that it's even wordier and more confusing. And Black Market was confusing already!

[GendoIkari]

So what about

Halcyondelle
3$ Action
+2$
_____________________
While this is in play, when you gain a card that you bought spending [coin symbol, like it appears on moneylender, without a number written in it], reveal the top three cards of the Black Market deck.  You may buy one of those cards.  But the rest on the bottom of the Black Market deck in any order
______________________
Black Market setup rules

"Spending " isn't really clear. Why not "when you gain a card that costs at least ?"

Also, would this be the only card that uses double lines for 3 different timings?

[GendoIkari]

What card is Hunting Grounds just like, out of curiosity?

Smithy I would assume. Or Council Room. Or Ranger. Terminal draw in general.

[eHalcyon]

I think "while this is in play during your buy phase" would be simpler and do about as well, plus it avoids ambiguity around 0-cost cards.

But I thought of something closer to your original idea.  Black Market lets you play treasures in the middle of your action phase.  Maybe this card could let you play coin tokens in the middle of your buy phase (after revealing the selection).

@Gendo, I did address the cost reduction problem.

[popsofctown]

Villages get to be more similar because there needs to be a certain number of them relative to the total number of cards.

The reason there needs to be a high frequency of +2 Actions available is because the mechanic is fun and popular.  Other than that, there's no reason Dominion can't have only one source of +Actions greater than 1, and mostly be games where you can only play 1 terminal per turn.


Black Market is similarly a very, very popular card.  There's no reason it shouldn't similiarly inherit a need for increased frequency.  Aside from, maybe it's not a good idea to have too many cards that create setup rules, which is a different line of criticism I accept as having some validity.

[GendoIkari]

I think "while this is in play during your buy phase" would be simpler and do about as well, plus it avoids ambiguity around 0-cost cards.

But I thought of something closer to your original idea.  Black Market lets you play treasures in the middle of your action phase.  Maybe this card could let you play coin tokens in the middle of your buy phase (after revealing the selection).

@Gendo, I did address the cost reduction problem.

Well you'd probably need that text on the card: "You may spend any coin tokens, then buy a card."

I saw that you addressed it; I was mainly pointing out that your addressing would be required. And I don't know if your idea for addressing it could ever be worded well enough. Checking that the card cost at least seems to be good.

[popsofctown]

So what about

Halcyondelle
3$ Action
+2$
_____________________
While this is in play, when you gain a card that you bought spending [coin symbol, like it appears on moneylender, without a number written in it], reveal the top three cards of the Black Market deck.  You may buy one of those cards.  But the rest on the bottom of the Black Market deck in any order
______________________
Black Market setup rules

"Spending " isn't really clear. Why not "when you gain a card that costs at least ?"

Also, would this be the only card that uses double lines for 3 different timings?

Yeah, that draft's a little rough, I'd agree.  Just brainstorming.

It is true that no official card has both a setup section and a "while this is in play" section.  But I think that's the least problematic thing going on

[eHalcyon]

Hey, does it have to be attached to the gain?  Here's an idea:

Farmerinthedelle
$4 - Action
Take two coin tokens.  This turn, when you spend a coin token, reveal two cards from the Black Market deck.  At the end of your turn, shuffle the revealed Black Market cards and put them on the bottom of the Black Market deck.
In games using this, revealed Black Market cards are part of the Supply during your Buy phase.
(Before the game, make a Black Market deck out of one copy of each Kingdom card not in the supply.)

Only one line is needed; the BM setup text is actually a small parenthetical. 

I made it on play like Bridge to save an extra line.  I think the combo with e.g. King's Court is fine.

This card differentiates itself from BM in a few ways.  You lose out on pseudo +Buy, but you get coin tokens and can potentially dig a bit further through the BM deck.  If you just spend both coin tokens immediately, you get to see 4 cards instead of 3.  They also stack when you play multiples, so you can reveal even more.  I made the card return "shuffle" instead of "any order" just to prevent a lot of potential AP if you have to order a dozen cards.

You lose out on tricks with playing treasures in the action phase and potentially drawing and playing the new card, but you gain some tricks that come from treating the cards as part of the Supply.  For example, you could gain them with HoP, Border Village, Farmland, Ball.

Random clarifications -- I think it should also trigger when you pay coins to Butcher (which also opens up the possibility of getting BM cards through gainers like Ironworks).

[GendoIkari]

Hey, does it have to be attached to the gain?  Here's an idea:

Farmerinthedelle
$4 - Action
Take two coin tokens.  This turn, when you spend a coin token, reveal two cards from the Black Market deck.  At the end of your turn, shuffle the revealed Black Market cards and put them on the bottom of the Black Market deck.
In games using this, revealed Black Market cards are part of the Supply during your Buy phase.
(Before the game, make a Black Market deck out of one copy of each Kingdom card not in the supply.)

Only one line is needed; the BM setup text is actually a small parenthetical. 

I made it on play like Bridge to save an extra line.  I think the combo with e.g. King's Court is fine.

This card differentiates itself from BM in a few ways.  You lose out on pseudo +Buy, but you get coin tokens and can potentially dig a bit further through the BM deck.  If you just spend both coin tokens immediately, you get to see 4 cards instead of 3.  They also stack when you play multiples, so you can reveal even more.  I made the card return "shuffle" instead of "any order" just to prevent a lot of potential AP if you have to order a dozen cards.

You lose out on tricks with playing treasures in the action phase and potentially drawing and playing the new card, but you gain some tricks that come from treating the cards as part of the Supply.  For example, you could gain them with HoP, Border Village, Farmland, Ball.

Random clarifications -- I think it should also trigger when you pay coins to Butcher (which also opens up the possibility of getting BM cards through gainers like Ironworks).

The stacking might be an issue, since it's quadratic stacking like Bridge has. Playing 1 lets you look at 4 cards. Playing 2 lets you look at 16 cards. Playing 3 lets you look at 36 cards...

[eHalcyon]

Hey, does it have to be attached to the gain?  Here's an idea:

Farmerinthedelle
$4 - Action
Take two coin tokens.  This turn, when you spend a coin token, reveal two cards from the Black Market deck.  At the end of your turn, shuffle the revealed Black Market cards and put them on the bottom of the Black Market deck.
In games using this, revealed Black Market cards are part of the Supply during your Buy phase.
(Before the game, make a Black Market deck out of one copy of each Kingdom card not in the supply.)

Only one line is needed; the BM setup text is actually a small parenthetical. 

I made it on play like Bridge to save an extra line.  I think the combo with e.g. King's Court is fine.

This card differentiates itself from BM in a few ways.  You lose out on pseudo +Buy, but you get coin tokens and can potentially dig a bit further through the BM deck.  If you just spend both coin tokens immediately, you get to see 4 cards instead of 3.  They also stack when you play multiples, so you can reveal even more.  I made the card return "shuffle" instead of "any order" just to prevent a lot of potential AP if you have to order a dozen cards.

You lose out on tricks with playing treasures in the action phase and potentially drawing and playing the new card, but you gain some tricks that come from treating the cards as part of the Supply.  For example, you could gain them with HoP, Border Village, Farmland, Ball.

Random clarifications -- I think it should also trigger when you pay coins to Butcher (which also opens up the possibility of getting BM cards through gainers like Ironworks).

The stacking might be an issue, since it's quadratic stacking like Bridge has. Playing 1 lets you look at 4 cards. Playing 2 lets you look at 16 cards. Playing 3 lets you look at 36 cards...

Could drop it to 1 coin token and put in a cap.  I figure in practice you would just dig until you found one thing you liked and then save the other coin tokens, but I can see how it could get out of hand.

[GendoIkari]

Hey, does it have to be attached to the gain?  Here's an idea:

Farmerinthedelle
$4 - Action
Take two coin tokens.  This turn, when you spend a coin token, reveal two cards from the Black Market deck.  At the end of your turn, shuffle the revealed Black Market cards and put them on the bottom of the Black Market deck.
In games using this, revealed Black Market cards are part of the Supply during your Buy phase.
(Before the game, make a Black Market deck out of one copy of each Kingdom card not in the supply.)

Only one line is needed; the BM setup text is actually a small parenthetical. 

I made it on play like Bridge to save an extra line.  I think the combo with e.g. King's Court is fine.

This card differentiates itself from BM in a few ways.  You lose out on pseudo +Buy, but you get coin tokens and can potentially dig a bit further through the BM deck.  If you just spend both coin tokens immediately, you get to see 4 cards instead of 3.  They also stack when you play multiples, so you can reveal even more.  I made the card return "shuffle" instead of "any order" just to prevent a lot of potential AP if you have to order a dozen cards.

You lose out on tricks with playing treasures in the action phase and potentially drawing and playing the new card, but you gain some tricks that come from treating the cards as part of the Supply.  For example, you could gain them with HoP, Border Village, Farmland, Ball.

Random clarifications -- I think it should also trigger when you pay coins to Butcher (which also opens up the possibility of getting BM cards through gainers like Ironworks).

The stacking might be an issue, since it's quadratic stacking like Bridge has. Playing 1 lets you look at 4 cards. Playing 2 lets you look at 16 cards. Playing 3 lets you look at 36 cards...

Could drop it to 1 coin token and put in a cap.  I figure in practice you would just dig until you found one thing you liked and then save the other coin tokens, but I can see how it could get out of hand.

Right, I was forgetting that you would spend the coin tokens 1 at a time, and reveal more cards each time you spend 1. That's a good bit more powerful than what was in my mind, which is that you'd spend a few coin tokens then reveal a lot of cards. I guess the possible issue is that it's pretty easy to make sure you get any 1 card you want in the entire BM deck.

[eHalcyon]

Right, I was forgetting that you would spend the coin tokens 1 at a time, and reveal more cards each time you spend 1. That's a good bit more powerful than what was in my mind, which is that you'd spend a few coin tokens then reveal a lot of cards. I guess the possible issue is that it's pretty easy to make sure you get any 1 card you want in the entire BM deck.

If it's a problem, we could also make it non-stacking and immediate reveal.  That moves it even further from the card in the OP though (sorry pops!).

Whatthedelle
$4 - Action
+1 Buy
Take two coin tokens.  You may pay any number of coin tokens.  For each coin token you paid, reveal 2 cards from the Black Market.  At the end of your turn, shuffle all revealed Black Market cards and put them on the bottom of the Black Market deck.
While this is in play, revealed Black Market cards are part of the Supply.
(Before the game, make a Black Market deck out of one copy of each Kingdom card not in the supply.)


So now you do have to pay for each reveal, and it's a bigger payment than before too because now you don't get the +$1 from the coin token.  If the nerf is too big, it could be 3 cards per coin token instead of 2.  Immediately revealing the cards opens up more combo potential with regular gainers.  (I modified that bottom clause a bit; it used to say "during the Buy phase" which would have ruled out action gainer shenanigans even with Baker, oops.)

[faust]

Villages get to be more similar because there needs to be a certain number of them relative to the total number of cards.

The reason there needs to be a high frequency of +2 Actions available is because the mechanic is fun and popular.  Other than that, there's no reason Dominion can't have only one source of +Actions greater than 1, and mostly be games where you can only play 1 terminal per turn.


Black Market is similarly a very, very popular card.  There's no reason it shouldn't similiarly inherit a need for increased frequency.  Aside from, maybe it's not a good idea to have too many cards that create setup rules, which is a different line of criticism I accept as having some validity.

I don't believe this is true. Villages are a core mechanic of Dominion. It is part of the design of Dominion - Village existed before Dominion rules were finished. Many cards only work as well as they do because there are Villages. For example, terminal draw without Villages would be bad design - either it completely dominates the board (you don't buy many other action cards for fear of terminal collision) or it's irrelevant.

Black Market is a gimmick. A cool, funky card that adds something unique to the game it's in. It's fun to play with it, but part of the reason it is so popular is that not every game has it.

You can of course go ahead and do a Black Market variant. But it feels meh. If Black Market and Birandelle are in the game, I'm going to think "meh, couldn't this one slot instead have another card that adds something new to this game?"

It also seems a bit uncreative. Why do you slavishly keep to the exact wording of Black Market when you could do other, new, exciting stuff? eHalcyon's proposal to put the cards into the supply seems already more intruiging. And once you're there, why restrict it to the buy phase? It could just put cards in the supply on play, with all the wacky consequences that has.