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[Accatitippi]

I got this idea recently, what do you think about it?

Cloister - 4c Action
You may trash an Action card, a Treasure card, and/or a Victory card from your hand.
If you trashed three cards, gain a Province.

Wording:
The effect I want is:
You may trash an Action card from your hand. You may trash a Treasure card from your hand. You may trash a Victory card from your hand.
Does this wording work? Alternatively, I have "You may trash any combination of one T, one A, and one V from your hand"
Or a "Choose up to three" thing too.
Any suggestions?

Effect: is it worth having (do you like it)? Is it balanced at 4? The obvious comparisons here are Forge and Remodels, this one is a worse gainer than most remodelers but it compensates by clearing junk at almost-Steward speed.
I'd also consider letting Curses in as an additional type, so that it becomes a marginally more useful trasher and gainer in cursing games.

UPDATE: current state of the card:

[Haddock]

I have no idea how to balance this.

I love the idea, and I don't think RR is right to dismiss it straight away as being OP at 4.  The need to trash an action card as well as everything means that even when you have a hand that fits this you're going to have to slowly destroy your deck to make it work.  It's unusual enough that I think the only way to cost it well is to playtest it a bunch.  I don't think 4 is totally horrible starting point.

The combo with fortress is real.

[Accatitippi]

Gain a Province? I think this is overpowered at $4.

Well, we have a 4$ card that goes "trash a gold, gain a Province", and it also does all sorts of other stuff, so I don't think this one is so crazily OP (at least, not for the Province gain alone).
It consumes 4 cards of your hand (1 played, 3 trashed), of which one almost guaranteed nonjunk card, and you even have to line them up.

[LastFootnote]

I think the wording is fine and it's worth testing at $4. My biggest worry is that it won't be fun, but testing is the only way to determine that.

[Roadrunner7671]

Everyone was right, I removed me post. But I am posting again because I still want to view the discussion.

[Haddock]

Nice of you to do that, RR. But I feel bad now. No one felt like you needed to delete your post, it wasn't offensive or anything.

[Roadrunner7671]

Nice of you to do that, RR. But I feel bad now. No one felt like you needed to delete your post, it wasn't offensive or anything.

No, but it was wrong and it would've been the first thing the OP would've seen, so that's okay.

[GeneralRamos]

It sounds like a good starting price to me. A clarification question: do you need to trash the cards in that order? Select all three then trash them at once? I ask because of the on-trashing effects of a number of Dark Ages cards where that might matter (Overgrown Estate, Cultist).

[Infthitbox]

Trashing a Ruined Village, a Copper, and an Overgrown Estate -- the dream. I think its not OP, but I wouldn't have included it in Dark Ages. Overall, I like the card; setting a deck up where its useful is tricky, but obviously rewarding.

[Kirian]

I'll take the opposite view and suggest this is underpowered at $4.

If you're using it as a trasher, it's objectively worse than Steward.  In order to spike a Province, you need either good luck or good drawing... and you still don't want to use that function until the mid-game... and you need an action card you don't mind losing.

Sure, it has ridiculous combos with Fortress and Cultist, but that speaks more to the power of those cards than this one.

[LastFootnote]

Everyone was right, I removed me post. But I am posting again because I still want to view the discussion.

There's no shame in being wrong. And you may end up being right! I would much rather have some feedback that ends up being incorrect in the thread than have confusion due to posts vanishing. I mean it's not so bad that you deleted this one post, but in general I think it's not a great idea.

[GendoIkari]

If you're using it as a trasher, it's objectively worse than Steward. 

Since someone probably will anyway, I'll mention the edge case: If you only have 1 junk card and Steward in hand, you can't just trash the 1 card. With Cloister, you can.

[Kirian]

If you're using it as a trasher, it's objectively worse than Steward. 

Since someone probably will anyway, I'll mention the edge case: If you only have 1 junk card and Steward in hand, you can't just trash the 1 card. With Cloister, you can.

Sure you can.  Play Steward, trash the junk card, attempt to trash the second card, fail because you have no other cards.  Or did you mean you have Steward, one junk card, and a bunch of useful cards?

That being said, this is exactly why I didn't say "strictly" even though I thought about it.

[Accatitippi]

Nice of you to do that, RR. But I feel bad now. No one felt like you needed to delete your post, it wasn't offensive or anything.

No, but it was wrong and it would've been the first thing the OP would've seen, so that's okay.

Well, it was the fist thing I saw, and hey, after some hours to recover from the shock I'm already starting to feel better! 
I submitted the card for review, and that implies it receiving negative criticism. I didn't agree with your criticism, so I counterargued, and didn't feel any worse for that.


Everybody, thanks for posting your opinions.
My biggest concern is that it will just be bought for the trashing without ever using it to gain Provinces, which is dull. It's hard to estimate the feasibility of a semi-tactical Province gain in the mid-late game, so I guess I'll have to test it to find out.
I think I'll have it be able to trash Curses too, so that it can at least compare with Steward, and avoid being utterly awful in cursing games.

[Jorbles]

I think it being utterly awful in Cursing games is fine. I don't think you should strive to have a card be good on every board. It's better that certain cards hard counter it. Also how would you change the wording? The card is a lot stronger if it can trash 3 cards and one of them doesn't have to be an Action.

[Accatitippi]

I think it being utterly awful in Cursing games is fine. I don't think you should strive to have a card be good on every board. It's better that certain cards hard counter it. Also how would you change the wording? The card is a lot stronger if it can trash 3 cards and one of them doesn't have to be an Action.

"You may trash an Action card, a Treasure card, a Victory card, and/or a Curse card from your hand.
If you trashed three or more cards, gain a Province."

The reason for the suggested change is that the more I think about it, the more I believe Kirian is right, and that Cloister as is is weak(-ish?).
I don't want to make it work on every board, but cursers are the strongest (and least countered) attack class in the game, having cards that work ok-to-well against them is something I actively try to achieve.
If it is so much stronger when you can avoid trashing Actions to gain Curses, then your opponent is free to skip the curser altogether. If I find it is so powerful that it hard counters cursers, I'll take that part away.

[GendoIkari]

If you're using it as a trasher, it's objectively worse than Steward. 

Since someone probably will anyway, I'll mention the edge case: If you only have 1 junk card and Steward in hand, you can't just trash the 1 card. With Cloister, you can.

Sure you can.  Play Steward, trash the junk card, attempt to trash the second card, fail because you have no other cards.  Or did you mean you have Steward, one junk card, and a bunch of useful cards?

That being said, this is exactly why I didn't say "strictly" even though I thought about it.

Right, I meant if you have other cards in your hand you want to keep. Which really wouldn't be that uncommon I'd guess.

[Kirian]

I think it being utterly awful in Cursing games is fine. I don't think you should strive to have a card be good on every board. It's better that certain cards hard counter it. Also how would you change the wording? The card is a lot stronger if it can trash 3 cards and one of them doesn't have to be an Action.

"You may trash an Action card, a Treasure card, a Victory card, and/or a Curse card from your hand.
If you trashed three or more cards, gain a Province."

I think that wording could be ambiguous (Island comes to mind).  How about:

You may trash an Action card.  You may trash a Victory card.  You may trash a Treasure card.  You may trash a Curse.  If you trashed an Action and at least two other cards, gain a Province.

[Drab Emordnilap]

"You may trash any number of cards from your hand that don't share any card types. If you trashed at least three, gain a Province."

[Kirian]

"You may trash any number of cards from your hand that don't share any card types. If you trashed at least three, gain a Province."

So I can't trash Hovel and Fool's Gold?  I think that creates some problems (though minor).

[enfynet]

You may trash up to 3 cards from your hand. If none of them share a type, gain a Province.

[Roadrunner7671]

Everyone was right, I removed me post. But I am posting again because I still want to view the discussion.

There's no shame in being wrong. And you may end up being right! I would much rather have some feedback that ends up being incorrect in the thread than have confusion due to posts vanishing. I mean it's not so bad that you deleted this one post, but in general I think it's not a great idea.

It was unhelpful, and I do not strive to be unhelpful. I will restate what I said later (maybe) in a longer and more informative post, but the one sentence post I had was not cool.

[GeneralRamos]

Meh, I personally don't care for how limited some of the above solutions to the "ambiguity" problem make it. I think it'd be fine to be able to check two boxes with one card. "Trash up to 3 cards from your hand. If you trashed a Victory, Treasure, and Action card this way, gain a Province."

[Drab Emordnilap]

You may trash up to 3 cards from your hand. If none of them share a type, gain a Province.

OK, I trashed a copper. Can I have a Province now?

[Awaclus]

You may trash up to 3 cards from your hand. If none of them share a type, gain a Province.

OK, I trashed a copper. Can I have a Province now?

Trashing nothing would work, too.

[Accatitippi]

I've tested it once, and it went over quite well. It was the only trashing. I went for an engine using Cloister exactly as I'd use Steward (a bad idea, in hindsight), and my opponent went for Smithy BM, which won 5-3 Provinces. Cloister was very frustrating to use in the midgame, clearing one copper at a time without any benefits. I never got the Province gain, but I didn't really set up for it either, since I had trashed my Estates. I had the option of milling a Province at a certain point but I was behind so I didn't. Upgrading Duchies could have been cool but I bought them too late (or the game ended too early).
So, I think the card has potential, and I'm going to go on testing it. I've buffed it by letting it trash Curses (using Drab's wording) and by making it a terminal copper, to avoid hurting you too much in the midgame.
Also, I renamed it to Abbey to fit the art I found:

[Accatitippi]

I've played a few more times with it, it's all right, and the Province gain is occasionally very useful and neat.
I believe it's still clearly underpowered, though, when you compare it to other tfb cards at the same price point.
Fact is, if Curses aren't around, you'll have trouble finding Victory cards to feed into this, since Estates are pretty much the only thing it can trash efficiently, and are thus long gone.

I'm not sure about what to do about it. Lowering the price to 2 could work, and shouldn't break anything, and it would make it more competitive against other trashers just in virtue of its opening-friendly price. And then I can be content having it as a cute little trasher that is situationally powerful.
Another option could be putting a bigger carrot at the end of the tfb stick. I was thinking "gain two differently named Victory cards", so that you can still feed good victory cards into it and get out some value. But here, I'm afraid that it might create degenerate strategies, mini Rebuild-style. Also, the interaction with Colonies and some alt-vp migt be toxic.

I'm not yet sure what way to go, and I'd love to hear your thoughts and/or suggestions about possibilities beside those I wrote above.

[tristan]

If it is too weak, why not simply make it a cantrip or +2 Cards to increase the chance of hitting 3 different types?

[ThetaSigma12]

I've played a few more times with it, it's all right, and the Province gain is occasionally very useful and neat.
I believe it's still clearly underpowered, though, when you compare it to other tfb cards at the same price point.
Fact is, if Curses aren't around, you'll have trouble finding Victory cards to feed into this, since Estates are pretty much the only thing it can trash efficiently, and are thus long gone.

I'm not sure about what to do about it. Lowering the price to 2 could work, and shouldn't break anything, and it would make it more competitive against other trashers just in virtue of its opening-friendly price. And then I can be content having it as a cute little trasher that is situationally powerful.
Another option could be putting a bigger carrot at the end of the tfb stick. I was thinking "gain two differently named Victory cards", so that you can still feed good victory cards into it and get out some value. But here, I'm afraid that it might create degenerate strategies, mini Rebuild-style. Also, the interaction with Colonies and some alt-vp migt be toxic.

I'm not yet sure what way to go, and I'd love to hear your thoughts and/or suggestions about possibilities beside those I wrote above.

I made a version that costs $2. I like it this way as it somewhat self-synergies. Now you are guaranteed to have a cheap action to throw at it. I'm fine with this being a niche card. If it's too niche you can still change it to +2 cards or +1 cards.

[schadd]

i tried a couple games of village/wharf abbey, and lemme tell ya. this is not an easy card. that said, i think the best that engine can do is 4 provinces on t12-13, and you can weakly mill provinces or take more time to build. it may be a better card than bridge, but probably not. i think its ideal environment is ironworks/$4 draw, like worker's/smithy or advisor and some other stuff.


it is maybe garbage as payload if there aren't buys, so maybe give it one of those.


it could cost 5 maybe if it were +2 cards but it can't be less than that because that card is masquerade++.


it seems pretty cool. its place in the game is not easily intuited from the card text.

[tristan]

it could cost 5 maybe if it were +2 cards but it can't be less than that because that card is masquerade++.

While Masquerade does trash it is not strictly better or worse than a card which merely trashes. For example owning Masquerade disincentives everybody, including yourself, from buying junkers.
That said, the difference is obviously not that huge but the main issue is that Masquerade costs 3$ and not 4$. So an Abbey, a card that costs 4$, with +2 cards is totally fine.