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[Asper]

I'd go so far as to say that the absence of any (reasonably strong) attack buffs Horse Trader enough to overshadow Mill.

I think you meant presence here.

Yup, I did. And thinking about it, the attack strength doesn't really matter that much. Either it's a discard attack and Horse Trader defends against it (where Mill would be greatly weakened, if not even a liability as you don't know what you'll draw), or it's not, and Horse Trader becomes a cantrip with optional discard for +1 Buy, +$3. Obviously Mill does stay nonterminal and keeps its VP, but I don't think that makes up in such cases. However, if the 5$s you want are terminal, that certainly shifts balance towards Mill.

[Willvon]

Thanks to Qvist for the review of the new cards.  Very informative.  When compared with your thoughts on the old cards, it looks like Donald has come up with some excellent upgrades over the previous editions. 

I really look forward to playing with these.  I always play IRL.  So I plan to keep my discontinued cards and still have them in my randomizer deck for future use, except possibly Saboteur.  I really did not like that card.  And for some reason, though my wife loves the card, I have always hated Tribute.  It just felt too much to me like an attack that I couldn't react to or prevent in any way. However, since she likes it, I will probably keep it in the rotation.  After all, it takes a long time to go through the full deck of randomizers.  So seeing it once every few months isn't that big of an issue.

Also the new Promo looks great.  I would imagine that it will eventually be available on BGG like the others.  Does anyone know if that is definitely true?

[Kirian]

I keep three sleeved blanks to mark empty piles. It has a nice visual impact.

I love this idea.

EDIT: Now I wish I'd thought of this as something to include in the second editions.

Well, it could make a nice promo, maybe offering it bundled with a "real" promo card-shaped thing.
A lot of games offer purely aesthetical content as promos, and it usually seems to go over quite well.

(sorry for the necro, I only noticed your edit now)

Asthetical is not a word. Not trying to insult your intelligence, it just drives me crazy when people append -al to words to make them adjectives when the word is already an adjective.

You're just being pedantical.

[JThorne]

I have always hated Tribute.  It just felt too much to me like an attack that I couldn't react to or prevent in any way.

It is (was) absolutely, unequivocally not an attack. In fact, it helps you by cycling your cards more quickly.

This is a critically important thing to understand, because it helps you mentally adjust your attitude toward randomness. What you're doing is "counting the hits" which is the same fallacy that causes people to believe in psychic powers or assign magical explanations to coincidences. You only remember the times that Tribute "skipped" your good cards, and ignore all the times it skipped cards you didn't want, or got you to your good cards one turn quicker, or triggered a reshuffle so that you had access to a recent purchase sooner.

It's the same reason you don't play Millstone in a Magic deck unless your win condition is, specifically, decking your opponent. Otherwise, all you're doing is swapping out one set of random cards for another set of random cards and it has absolutely no effect. Magic newbies who believe that Millstone is a denial card will point to the cards in your discard and say "see, I milled your [X], therefore I denied you that card." No, you didn't. Shuffle luck denied me that card. It had just as much chance of being at the bottom.

It's the same reason Rabble "skipping" cards is absolutely NOT part of the attack. Only putting green on top is relevant in a Rabble attack. The card cycling is actually helpful. I swear I'm going to have to start smacking people at the table if they keep saying "Oh, no! You Rabbled my [X]!" like it mattered. If I've trashed my Estates and I'm engine-building, I BEG people to Rabble so I get my purchases quicker.

[Aleimon Thimble]

I keep three sleeved blanks to mark empty piles. It has a nice visual impact.

I love this idea.

EDIT: Now I wish I'd thought of this as something to include in the second editions.

Well, it could make a nice promo, maybe offering it bundled with a "real" promo card-shaped thing.
A lot of games offer purely aesthetical content as promos, and it usually seems to go over quite well.

(sorry for the necro, I only noticed your edit now)

Asthetical is not a word. Not trying to insult your intelligence, it just drives me crazy when people append -al to words to make them adjectives when the word is already an adjective.

You're just being pedantical.

That joke is simply terrifical.

[Accatitippi]

I have always hated Tribute.  It just felt too much to me like an attack that I couldn't react to or prevent in any way.

It is (was) absolutely, unequivocally not an attack. In fact, it helps you by cycling your cards more quickly.

This is a critically important thing to understand, because it helps you mentally adjust your attitude toward randomness. What you're doing is "counting the hits" which is the same fallacy that causes people to believe in psychic powers or assign magical explanations to coincidences. You only remember the times that Tribute "skipped" your good cards, and ignore all the times it skipped cards you didn't want, or got you to your good cards one turn quicker, or triggered a reshuffle so that you had access to a recent purchase sooner.

It's the same reason you don't play Millstone in a Magic deck unless your win condition is, specifically, decking your opponent. Otherwise, all you're doing is swapping out one set of random cards for another set of random cards and it has absolutely no effect. Magic newbies who believe that Millstone is a denial card will point to the cards in your discard and say "see, I milled your [X], therefore I denied you that card." No, you didn't. Shuffle luck denied me that card. It had just as much chance of being at the bottom.

It's the same reason Rabble "skipping" cards is absolutely NOT part of the attack. Only putting green on top is relevant in a Rabble attack. The card cycling is actually helpful. I swear I'm going to have to start smacking people at the table if they keep saying "Oh, no! You Rabbled my [X]!" like it mattered. If I've trashed my Estates and I'm engine-building, I BEG people to Rabble so I get my purchases quicker.

I agree that one shouldn't buy a Rabble variant (or Tribute) for the purpose of denying cards to their opponent, but I do not agree with you on "smacking people at the table if they keep saying "Oh, no! You Rabbled my [X]!" like it mattered."
Having a key card skipped by Rabble can hurt a lot in many situations. Rabble is about as likely to make your opponent skip their Traveller as to make them fast-forward to it, but the two results are not equivalent.

[JThorne]

First impressions of the new cards, having played a few games with them:

Harbinger

It suffers a bit from Settlers Syndrome: If you're engine-building, it's a do-nothing card, because a huge amount of time you have no discard pile. At least Settlers works with sifting because it increases your handsize once you've discarded a Copper and pulled it back. Sifting and Harbinger is almost completely useless.

It might end up being a decent card in Slogs or Rushes to re-use key cards, on the other hand. I used it in a Rebuild game to topdeck Rebuilds or sometimes Silvers if I needed to hit $5 for another Duchy.

Merchant

Nothing to report yet. It hasn't been a key card in any kingdom we've played so far, but I can't imagine it won't be. We just had another Peddler game that came down to Peddler mania, even with only a trash-one (Then again, two Foragers and Bonfire will turn your entire deck into a Peddler party pretty darned quick.) Merchant will have its day.

Vassal

My new favorite terminal Silver. Oh, wait. It's not usually terminal. Seriously, it does an amazing impression of Conspirator. All you have to do is get it a little help, and there are a LOT of cards that help it, including the new kids: Sentry and Secret Passage! It's so great playing a terminal Silver, turning up a Cantrip and then continuing on your merry way.

Also, it's a very happy King's Court target, even without deck manipulation. But then again, what isn't a happy KC target?

Poacher

Very interesting card. I watched several players buy at least two, and nobody wanted to be the first to pile something out. We ended up with several one-card piles. I'm going to watch for TfB the next time it appears, because I feel like I might start the Poacher rush, then TfB mine and buy the last one just to inflict Oases on opponents.

Bandit

Gain a gold is interesting. In 4P, everyone's so paranoid about losing treasure that they all play treasureless engines if possible. Definitely a huge upgrade over Thief, but you'll have to ask yourself how much Gold you want.

Sentry

I had high hopes for this card, but I'm having second thoughts. At first, I though it would be a better trasher than Junk Dealer, and it emphatically is NOT. It has only two cards to choose from, and JD has five. Getting it to match up with junk is surprisingly difficult, especially because it's a $5 and you've bought four keepers by the time you play it even once.

That said, I do have to say that the discard/inspection/topdecking capability is perhaps the most important thing about this card. It enables Vassal, Mystic, Wishing Well, Herald, Tunnel, etc., it skips the green, and it's non-terminal. It's actually a pretty great utility card. It's just not an elite trasher.

Artisan

Came up in a Rebuild game. Believe it or not, it wasn't relevant. Maybe it's because I just didn't try hard enough to hit $6, but after buying some Rebuilds you really have to hammer the Duchy pile. I really wanted to Artisan a bunch of Duchies, too, but I won without an Artisan at all. That said, it's a great $5-gainer, and if you don't have extra actions, putting the gained card on top is especially nice to avoid the collision. That seems to be predominant play for this card so far: Gain/topdeck the gained card.

Lurker

Nobody in my playgroup is sold on this so far, but the interesting thing is that as soon as one player buys one, others jump in and buy one to try to snipe the trashed actions. No one has yet built an engine and subsequently bought two at once.

Diplomat

Hasn't been great so far. Some tried handsize-decreasing to enable it, but it's been difficult to get it to match up with handsize-decreasers because you don't want too many of those. It could theoretically work with optional handsize-decreasers like Mill.

Mill

Money for green is relevant. However, it's not good if there is other sifting, because you're already discarding your green. For example, I tried one Mill in an engine that also had Embassy. Nope.

Secret Passage

Possibly my favorite new card. I love that it enables so many other cards that care about the specific location of a card in your deck, especially ones that care about the SECOND card in your deck. I can't tell you how many times I've looked at a top-decking card and thought about how it might work with Herald or Wishing Well...nope.

I also really like sifters that don't decrease your hand size. Forum and Archive are great. Secret Passage is right up there.

It's also relevant to smooth out draws; sometimes you bottom-deck a green card or several, knowing that you're going to get your draw components quicker and re-draw the green anyway, but after you have your engine pieces in hand, rather than tripping on them along the way. Or you can put the green second from the top and turn your Vagrant into the Lab it so desperately wants to be but usually isn't.

You also have to love that it enables new cards like Sentry and Vassal.

Courtier

A bit underwhelming. Flexibility is good, though, and it's been relevant even in games without multiple-identity cards. Gold gaining can be quite good. Sometimes you really need a +buy that badly, and sometimes you really need $3 that badly. It's almost always worth buying one. ONE. Don't get carried away.

I have to say it can be hard to evaluate cards depending on the type of game you're playing. Courtier and Bandit, for example, get quite a bit better in a Palace game. You can lose out on points by not having enough Silvers!

Patrol

I would buy Smithy at $5. +3 cards is just that good. Sifting Green while you're at it is great. This card slaps Scout's stupid face right off. No surprise there.

[JThorne]

Rabble is about as likely to make your opponent skip their Traveller as to make them fast-forward to it, but the two results are not equivalent.

Ah, but they ARE equivalent, in that they are, as you say, equally likely. Therefore, the play of Rabble is not the determining factor that denied you your Champion. Shuffle luck is. The shuffle was just as likely to have put it at the bottom as in Rabble range, but players react as though it was the Rabble that denied them their Champion. It wasn't. It was the shuffle. Yes, the result is the same, but it's the reaction that's wrong, in that it's a mental error that causes people to believe that Rabble's cycling is part of the attack.

And, in fact, in a Traveler game, Rabble is usually more helpful than not, because it gets you back to your upgraded Travelers more quickly so that you can upgrade them again. Travelers love cycling, and Rabble cycles your opponents!

[AdrianHealey]

Rabble is about as likely to make your opponent skip their Traveller as to make them fast-forward to it, but the two results are not equivalent.

Ah, but they ARE equivalent, in that they are, as you say, equally likely. Therefore, the play of Rabble is not the determining factor that denied you your Champion. Shuffle luck is. The shuffle was just as likely to have put it at the bottom as in Rabble range, but players react as though it was the Rabble that denied them their Champion. It wasn't. It was the shuffle. Yes, the result is the same, but it's the reaction that's wrong, in that it's a mental error that causes people to believe that Rabble's cycling is part of the attack.

And, in fact, in a Traveler game, Rabble is usually more helpful than not, because it gets you back to your upgraded Travelers more quickly so that you can upgrade them again. Travelers love cycling, and Rabble cycles your opponents!

The net anticipated value of the rabble is a derivative of how many cards you do or do not want to see skipped. The net value of the rabble, after the outcome is revealed, can differ.

[faust]

Poacher

Very interesting card. I watched several players buy at least two, and nobody wanted to be the first to pile something out. We ended up with several one-card piles. I'm going to watch for TfB the next time it appears, because I feel like I might start the Poacher rush, then TfB mine and buy the last one just to inflict Oases on opponents.

This seems weird (though I kinda get the psychological effect). I think with everyone having the same amount of Poachers, you generally want to be the one that ends a pile first. It's like inverse City: With City, you don't want to end a pile first beause then your opponent will be profiting first; with Poachers, they will suffer first.

[Accatitippi]

Rabble is about as likely to make your opponent skip their Traveller as to make them fast-forward to it, but the two results are not equivalent.

Ah, but they ARE equivalent, in that they are, as you say, equally likely. Therefore, the play of Rabble is not the determining factor that denied you your Champion. Shuffle luck is. The shuffle was just as likely to have put it at the bottom as in Rabble range, but players react as though it was the Rabble that denied them their Champion. It wasn't. It was the shuffle. Yes, the result is the same, but it's the reaction that's wrong, in that it's a mental error that causes people to believe that Rabble's cycling is part of the attack.

But it was Rabble that denied their Champion.
Consider:
Case A: Champion is somewhere in the shuffle, you don't get Rabbled. You'll definitely see Champ in X turns (where x is the number of turns between two shuffles.
Case B: Same deck, but Champion got skipped by Rabble. You are only guaranteed to see Champ in the next X+Y turns, where Y is the number of turns before you shuffle after being Rabbled. This is assumes that no further Rabbles are played.

For the sake of Champ-playing, B is definitively worse than A. Thus, a play of Rabble just denied you a card. It was random and kind of unpredictable, but it is definitively relevant.
If I know that the last three cards in your deck contain your Champion, I'll be very happy to play a Rabble, for example.

And, in fact, in a Traveler game, Rabble is usually more helpful than not, because it gets you back to your upgraded Travelers more quickly so that you can upgrade them again. Travelers love cycling, and Rabble cycles your opponents!

Aye, I agree, but sometimes the pain of luckily skipping a Traveller can be worth the risk of free cycling your opponent.
It's like a lottery, where if you win they slow down by a bunch of turns, and if you don't they get there half a turn earlier.
How likely you are to hit is a function of how thick their deck is, it might be worth it or not, but winning or losing at the lottery have significantly different outcomes.

Or, to put it another way: assuming no other Village but Champion, would you buy a Smithy to get to Champion earlier (ignoring the other benefits of Smithy)? Each Smithy you play provides 3 cards of cycling, but if you draw your Travellers you're waiting an extra shuffle, just like being hit by Rabble. I think that in a vacuum you want the Smithy because of the future mega-Champion benefit and because you can track your deck and be smart, but would you be happy to give your opponent the choice of when to make you play it or not?

[Jeebus]

Also, you could say that same about a Swindler that happened to hit your $5 cost card: It was not the Swindler attack, but shuffle luck that placed that card at the top right then. (The difference between Rabble and Swinder in general is of course that Swindler is more likely to hurt, but we're talking about a specific play of the card.)

[Thanar]

Well, it could make a nice promo, maybe offering it bundled with a "real" promo card-shaped thing.
A lot of games offer purely aesthetical content as promos, and it usually seems to go over quite well.

Asthetical is not a word. Not trying to insult your intelligence, it just drives me crazy when people append -al to words to make them adjectives when the word is already an adjective.

You're just being pedantical.

That joke is simply terrifical.

The funniest thing for me about this sub-thread is that "aesthetical" is in fact a word: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/aesthetical

It's just that the meaning of aesthetical ("of or relating to aesthetics, relating to the philosophy or theory of beauty") is different from the meaning of aesthetic ("of or pertaining to the appreciation or criticism of the beautiful") - the right word to use in the post that started this whole thing.

Reading for extra credit: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/aesthetic-or-aesthetical/

[Orange]

Sentry

I had high hopes for this card, but I'm having second thoughts. At first, I though it would be a better trasher than Junk Dealer, and it emphatically is NOT. It has only two cards to choose from, and JD has five. Getting it to match up with junk is surprisingly difficult, especially because it's a $5 and you've bought four keepers by the time you play it even once.

I concede that it is stronger earlier than later (as are all trashers), but it is still superior to Junk Dealer by a wide margin.  Trash two vs trash one is powerful, plus I'm not sacrificing buying power the turn I play it like Chapel or Ambassador, for instance.

[Chris is me]

Sentry

I had high hopes for this card, but I'm having second thoughts. At first, I though it would be a better trasher than Junk Dealer, and it emphatically is NOT. It has only two cards to choose from, and JD has five. Getting it to match up with junk is surprisingly difficult, especially because it's a $5 and you've bought four keepers by the time you play it even once.

I concede that it is stronger earlier than later (as are all trashers), but it is still superior to Junk Dealer by a wide margin.  Trash two vs trash one is powerful, plus I'm not sacrificing buying power the turn I play it like Chapel or Ambassador, for instance.

You're really not sacrificing buying power with Junk Dealer either, and you really don't trash two cards THAT often with Sentry. I thought it would be superior to Junk Dealer too, but it really doesn't seem that way unless you have some way of controlling the top of your deck.

[madeofghosts]

I really like the name Sentry for that card. Like it's a bouncer keeping the crap cards out and letting the good ones through.

[AJD]

Sentry

I had high hopes for this card, but I'm having second thoughts. At first, I though it would be a better trasher than Junk Dealer, and it emphatically is NOT. It has only two cards to choose from, and JD has five. Getting it to match up with junk is surprisingly difficult, especially because it's a $5 and you've bought four keepers by the time you play it even once.

I concede that it is stronger earlier than later (as are all trashers), but it is still superior to Junk Dealer by a wide margin.  Trash two vs trash one is powerful, plus I'm not sacrificing buying power the turn I play it like Chapel or Ambassador, for instance.

You're really not sacrificing buying power with Junk Dealer either, and you really don't trash two cards THAT often with Sentry. I thought it would be superior to Junk Dealer too, but it really doesn't seem that way unless you have some way of controlling the top of your deck.

Yeah, the one game I've played with Sentry so far, I think I trashed maaaybe two cards in total the first three times I played in. (Bad shuffle luck, mainly—but note it's a lot more likely to miss reshuffles than Junk Dealer, too.) On the other hand, it was great for setting up my Vassal.

[trivialknot]

I've also found Sentry to be less powerful than it first appears.  At first it's faster than upgrade or junk dealer, but becomes slower once your deck is less than 50% junk.  I reached the 50% point faster than I expected, by the 4th shuffle?  Which means you only get about one play of Sentry where it is the better trasher.

Of course Junk Dealer eventually becomes a dead card, where Sentry is at least a mini cartographer.  All in all I think it is about the same level as Junk Dealer.

[Limetime]

I've also found Sentry to be less powerful than it first appears.  At first it's faster than upgrade or junk dealer, but becomes slower once your deck is less than 50% junk.  I reached the 50% point faster than I expected, by the 4th shuffle?  Which means you only get about one play of Sentry where it is the better trasher.

Of course Junk Dealer eventually becomes a dead card, where Sentry is at least a mini cartographer.  All in all I think it is about the same level as Junk Dealer.

but sentry gets you too that point way faster than jd.

[Chris is me]

I've also found Sentry to be less powerful than it first appears.  At first it's faster than upgrade or junk dealer, but becomes slower once your deck is less than 50% junk.  I reached the 50% point faster than I expected, by the 4th shuffle?  Which means you only get about one play of Sentry where it is the better trasher.

Of course Junk Dealer eventually becomes a dead card, where Sentry is at least a mini cartographer.  All in all I think it is about the same level as Junk Dealer.

but sentry gets you too that point way faster than jd.

When you account for how you're probably also buying good stuff while also getting Sentry, it really doesn't go faster. Trashing 2 cards with Sentry happens MAYBE 2 or 3 times, then a few times times it trashes a single card, then it's a sifter that sometimes trashes. It really hurts that you can't easily open it.

[Beyond Awesome]

I played one game with Sentry. Now, as others have noted it does tend to trigger reshuffles. On my first sentry play, I trashed two cards and usually from then on, I was trashing one card at a time which is still JD level good. I think I got two or three Sentries that game. However, of note, I also used it's ability to discard or rearrange several times that game. That ability is actually more useful than people realize.

Is it as good as JD, most likely not. However, on a board with both, I would want to open Sentry over JD and then probably pick up a JD as my second trasher, as I think Sentry is a better trasher to get first.

[eHalcyon]

Poacher

Very interesting card. I watched several players buy at least two, and nobody wanted to be the first to pile something out. We ended up with several one-card piles. I'm going to watch for TfB the next time it appears, because I feel like I might start the Poacher rush, then TfB mine and buy the last one just to inflict Oases on opponents.

This seems weird (though I kinda get the psychological effect). I think with everyone having the same amount of Poachers, you generally want to be the one that ends a pile first. It's like inverse City: With City, you don't want to end a pile first beause then your opponent will be profiting first; with Poachers, they will suffer first.

This doesn't disqualify your point at all, but it's also worth keeping in mind that this means that you're spending that turn buying a worse card and you'll have one more downgraded-Poacher in your deck.

[J Reggie]

It'd be funny to play a game with poacher and City. As soon as your cities start drawing, your poachers start discarding!

[singletee]

Poacher

Very interesting card. I watched several players buy at least two, and nobody wanted to be the first to pile something out. We ended up with several one-card piles. I'm going to watch for TfB the next time it appears, because I feel like I might start the Poacher rush, then TfB mine and buy the last one just to inflict Oases on opponents.

This seems weird (though I kinda get the psychological effect). I think with everyone having the same amount of Poachers, you generally want to be the one that ends a pile first. It's like inverse City: With City, you don't want to end a pile first beause then your opponent will be profiting first; with Poachers, they will suffer first.

This doesn't disqualify your point at all, but it's also worth keeping in mind that this means that you're spending that turn buying a worse card and you'll have one more downgraded-Poacher in your deck.

Note that faust said "ends a pile", not "ends the poacher pile" 

[Doom_Shark]

It'd be funny to play a game with poacher and City. As soon as your cities start drawing, your poachers start discarding!

I think that the cares about empty piles mechanic is very clever and worth exploring. Still not sure if it is a good fit for base though...will have to see when I (finally) get the upgrade pack friday.