Dominion > Variants and Fan Cards

Tavern Mat Madness

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Įguia Branca:
This is about a weird idea I had when thinking about what I would change/customize about my copy of Dominion if I could do it save and reversibly. It's seems likely that someone else has come up with it, but a brief look around Google and this site has not found anything.

What if the tavern mat was used for all cards that require a mat? This would obviously affect Seaside and Adventures the most and introduce a bunch of interesting interactions. A few examples:


* Island would put cards on your tavern mat.
* Native Village would put cards on your tavern mat or pick up from the tavern mat. This would have some synergy with Wine Merchant, antisynergy with Island and a bit of both with the other reserve cards and Miser.
* Haven, Gear and Save could have you put cards on your tavern mat and later choose cards from your tavern mat to pick up.
* If you want more, why not Pirate Ship: Instead of using coin tokens, which is kind of confusing, you would put a treasure from the trash on your tavern mat. Would be somewhat interesting with Miser, Harem and Native Village
Do you think this would improve the game? Would it be fun or somehow broken?

Edit: For balance reasons, I don't think including Haven, Gear or Save would be a good idea anymore. Apart from that, these cards do not use mats anyway.

josh56:
It's simple: all cards (except for Native Village which shouldn't be changed) would become stronger.
Wine Merchant and Miser would potentially become too good in the presence of other of these changed cards.
Haven, Gear and Save wouldn't behave any different unless there were other cards in the Kingdom that interacted with the Tavern mat.

Buffing Pirate Ship such that it quasi-plays the treasures you picked up from the trash (or, simpler: if an opponent trashes a Silver/Gold, put 2/3 Coin tokens on your Pirate Ship mat) is a good idea independent of "combine all mats into the Tavern mat" idea.

I don't think that this is overall a good idea. Either it does nothing or it makes one card too good.
I often use the Tavern mat for set aside stuff or to put Coin/VP tokens as visual aid but without it being rule-wise the actual Tavern mat.

LastFootnote:
During development of Adventures, there was a card that let you put any card you gained on your Tavern mat. I think it was a Reserve that you called when you gained a card, to put that card on the mat. It was cute with other Reserve cards, but mostly you'd just use it to put all your Victory cards on the mat. That didn't end up being good times.

Įguia Branca:

--- Quote from: josh56 on September 20, 2017, 05:45:23 am ---It's simple: all cards (except for Native Village which shouldn't be changed) would become stronger.

Wine Merchant and Miser would potentially become too good in the presence of other of these changed cards.

--- End quote ---
I don't think this is true. Some of the cards in question would become stronger in combination, but I don't see anything broken. Why do you think Native Village shouldn't be changed?

Having a chance to put reserve cards on the mat with Native Village is definitely not overpowered, it makes it the equivalent of +1 card, +3 actions at the very best. If you mat Duplicate or Distant Lands, that is. But having those cards on the mat heavily disincentivizes you from ever picking up. Similarily, Island - Native Village would clearly antisynergize. I can see how matting cards for Miser or Pirate Ship could be strong, but then again, picking up would make those cards completely useless, so you're stuck with a Necropolis for most of the game

Picking up any number of Wine Merchants is worth an additional +2 $ at best, and storing them on the mat is a lot worse than storing Bridges because there is less megaturn potential.


--- Quote from: josh56 on September 20, 2017, 05:45:23 am ---Haven, Gear and Save wouldn't behave any different unless there were other cards in the Kingdom that interacted with the Tavern mat.

--- End quote ---
After thinking about that, if there are other tavern mat cards in the kingdom, these could easily cause problems. Namely, their interaction with Native Village is quite strong. You could manipulate your tavern mat almost at will, picking up the stronger cards you matted with Native Village and matting all the junk. You can already do that if there are topdeck interaction cards, but you have to be careful and get somewhat lucky to connect those. With Haven etc. it's just too easy.



--- Quote from: josh56 on September 20, 2017, 05:45:23 am ---Buffing Pirate Ship such that it quasi-plays the treasures you picked up from the trash (or, simpler: if an opponent trashes a Silver/Gold, put 2/3 Coin tokens on your Pirate Ship mat) is a good idea independent of "combine all mats into the Tavern mat" idea.

--- End quote ---
This is actually not what I intended. Playing the treasures from the mat would be highly confusing. Giving Tokens based on the kind of card(s) you trashed is wordy and wouldn't really work with kingdom treasures. As far as tweaks go, I prefer:

Original Pirate Ship:
Choose one: +1 $ per Coin token on your Pirate Ship mat; or each other player reveals the top 2 cards of their deck, trashes one of those Treasures that you choose, and discards the rest, and then if anyone trashed a Treasure you add a Coin token to your Pirate Ship mat.

My version:
Choose one: +1 $ per Treasure on your Tavern mat; or each other player reveals the top 2 cards of their deck, trashes one of those Treasures that you choose, and discards the rest, then you may gain a Treasure from the trash onto your Tavern mat.

This is still a stronger version, since, as long as there are treasures in the trash, you build the payload even if the attack whiffs.


--- Quote from: LastFootnote on September 20, 2017, 10:26:54 am ---During development of Adventures, there was a card that let you put any card you gained on your Tavern mat. I think it was a Reserve that you called when you gained a card, to put that card on the mat. It was cute with other Reserve cards, but mostly you'd just use it to put all your Victory cards on the mat. That didn't end up being good times.

--- End quote ---
Ya, that's pretty much why the Haven variant thing might be too strong. Other than that, I didn't suggest something like that, so I'm not sure where you're coming from. Native Village is still random most of the time.

josh56:

--- Quote from: Įguia Branca on September 21, 2017, 03:36:57 am ---
--- Quote from: josh56 on September 20, 2017, 05:45:23 am ---It's simple: all cards (except for Native Village which shouldn't be changed) would become stronger.

Wine Merchant and Miser would potentially become too good in the presence of other of these changed cards.

--- End quote ---
I don't think this is true. Some of the cards in question would become stronger in combination, but I don't see anything broken. Why do you think Native Village shouldn't be changed?

--- End quote ---
As you pointed out, Native Village becomes weaker with Island. It also makes Miser not work. It would make a overpowered combo with Wine Merchant (but then again Wine Merchant would also be far too good in combo with Haven, Gear or Save).

About why this is broken, just pick the Wine Merchant combos. Instead of being weaker than "+$4, +1 Buy" Wine Merchant is now stronger as you can now sometimes put it in your hand without having to draw it.

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