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Holunder9

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Holunder's cards
« on: January 26, 2018, 05:58:09 am »
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Hi folks, been a lurker on this and the German forum and since Nocturne came out I worked on some cards, done with herw's great template.
There are Night cards, Heirlooms, new States and new junk, cards based on offical outtakes (lame!) and cards based on ideas by other fan card designers: Gazbag's freeze mechanic, ThetaSigma12's Landforms and Asper's Edicts:



Blackmail is a new junk card that should feature a different card back to prevent cheating. Racketeer and City Guard are probably gonna be part of either a split pile or a double pile with none covered up by the other and both being in the Supply all the time.
City Guard might be too good as it could easily net a lot of Coin tokens but I expect it to mostly shine in the late part of the game and in alt-VP.





Assassin also features 20 (I don't often play 4P so 20 suffice) unique junk cards. They are supposed to be shuffled together (with the top card of the pile being visible like with Ruins) which might be too random, e.g. in a game without trashers Heretic is very nasty. In general the junk is on the weaker side, they are all cantrips and you can e.g. discard a Turncoat with a Turncoat.
Bribe is based on an outtake and perhaps it works here. The junk is not that bad such that to pass or not to pass the Bribe sometimes (hopefully!) becomes a real decision.





These are just "vanilla" states which, like Lost in the Woods, are singular and wander between player. The more interesting part of Conjuration should be that kind of bidding game. The mechanic is directly taken from Runewars.





Royal Guard is pretty straightforward and actually came before Conjuration (see above for Protected).





Glacier is a variation of Gazbag's card, taking into account Cookielord's suggestion to make this pure green which could lead to more interesting alt-VP play.





Ordinary Night cards cannot feature vanilla stuff, hence all the Night-Durations. Tokens are another way and Nightmare and Spectre are shots at that. Nightmare's attack is based on an outtake by DXV. Note that you can only be hit once during your turns which might partially compensate for the non-terminality of the attack. It could of course still be too strong.
Action tokens should function like Coin of the Realm, i.e. you spend them after having played an Action card to get +1 Action.





There are 3 cases with Spectre:
no trashers - this only hexes.
trashers but no other junkers - this is a Copper/Estate junker
trashers and other junkers - universal junker
In my opinion only the last case is potentially problematic but I don't expect the trashing/junking ping-pong that could arise to be worse than multiplayer Ambassador (unlike with Ambassador you gotta play 2 cards).
But of course it has to be tested, increasing the size of the junk pool is a dubious idea.





Like Rats and Magpies those Owls procreate but not that easily. I am not quite happy with the other parts of the card though. It probably has to cost 5 as you can easily make them behave like Bakers with, most likely, 2VPs stacked on top of it. Key is there to make Owl decent in the opening. Putting Victory cards into your hand probably doesn't have many interactions, only Monastery and City Guard comes to mind, so that part could be deleted.





Evocation is another outtake.





Icelands is based on Gazbag's freeze mechanic and ThetaSigma12's Landmarks and might be too boring: you just automatically do it whenever you green and have Coins left. When you thaw the cards the Ice tokens are supposed to return to the Supply, not to Icelands; this rule should be on the card but I felt it was too wordy.





More overpaying with Peace. The Edict mechanic is an invention of Asper and I tried to set the ratio such that there are no 'strictly better' cases but Tunnel-Duchy is the exception.


UPDATE:
Chappy7 pointed out that Spectre is bad if good stuff lands in the trash so I changed Spectre to only junk cards from the trash that cost up to 2.
Owl got nerfed (really?) a different Victory condition (from DXV's Secret History). It is in general a difficult condition to meet but Owl can be used as economy.





Azure Cove
is new and might be too similar to Avanto. Avanto is only non-terminal if you draw into Sauna whereas this is always non-terminal but you have to pay for the Action later.



]

Another double pile! Like Racketeer and City Guard Djinn and Efreet are constantly in the Supply with 5 per "half-pile" .
This is obviously a thematically inspired idea. Djinn came pretty natural (might be nearly as good as Artisan but it is trickier to gain) whereas Efreet was a card that I came up with some time ago but never liked as it felt too strong. I put it fairly randomly on Efreet as I thought that getting it later in the game would nerf it enough and only then I realized some interesting stuff: you can gain Efreet via Wishes as long as you have a Djinn in play. Efreet makes alt-VP better so wishing for Duchies might be a strategy.
I am still not sure whether Efreet is balanced (I will also test it with "draw 3 cards instead of 5") or any good though.



All of these are thematically or mechanically inspired by other fan card designers.



EDIT: The old Duration Phoenix was incredibly weak because it stayed out too long. My new attempt is at best roughly as good as Hunting Grounds (you non-terminally draw 5 cards but then have to play Ashes so the net effect is +4 Cards) but in addition to that it does some Island-ing. You can even Island a Curse, leave it on the mat for some turns and take it back when you have a trasher in hand.
I hope this isn't too good, as usual only playtesting will tell.






The lady asked for some Nightwatch cards after we first played with Night cards so here they are.
They are directly inspired by Gazbag's freeze mechanism .  The Season mechanic is by Asper and Cookielord.
White Walker is a variant of Yeti, Builder is the first version of Frost Spirit and Steward is Cold Storage.
There are 3 of each Brother and 6 White Walkers, shuffled together such that 3 Brothers are on top so the entire thing could be too random. I tried to make all cards versatile and fairly strong for their price to avoid that a bad card will prevent that the cards beneath it will see the sunlight.
Dragonglass Dagger is more of an afterthought, it is a Venture variant that can change the opening a bit like Doctor.

About the actual cards, Builder is a temporary pseudo-trasher, Ranger makes all Action cards next turn additional Fugitives and defends against the Walkers, Steward gains 5s that come into your deck a bit later, White Walker is a never-missing pseudo-trashing attack with a Rogue-like gain-from-freeze-limbo option.

I also used pacovf's suggestion for freeze as new keyword:







Nothing fancy, just a one-shot that distributes Blackmail. Getting a boon seems like a natural thing for a one-shot.





I need a village for my set so here it is. Like Extortioners is another way to spread Blackmails this is another way to get Traitors into the game. It is a bit like Blessed Village and Ill-Gotten Gains.
I tried to make the village effect non-standard because $4 for a village that junks when you gain it seemed too strong. Now it is either a Necropolis or a village that can draw from the discard pile and in case the opponents play BM or don't play a Vice Town during their turns you get an auto-Village next turn via Commanding (like when it gets used with Conjuration there is only one Commanding in play).

It looks like this is a way to emulate conditional durations (that can never occur or endure for more than just 1 turn) with the vanilla States. Of course there is also similar stuff you could do, e.g. you could take Beguild, i.e. the +1 Card State, when you gain a card such that the on-gain bonus becomes something like a conditional half Exploration.



Here are some cards that play with with the Conjuration States. They are more conceptual than the other ones and more about finding out whether the basic idea works or not:





A Silver+ for $4 is always a dubious notion. I think it works here though because the price of perhaps getting an extra Buy next turn (and with an even bigger perhaps, in future turns) is to play this as a Copper.





Kind of a reverse Relic. The buying of this will start something like a war of attrition: you don't really want that lousy Silver for $5 but you have to get it lest the other player gets a free Lab every turn.





Here we have something like an on-gain Treasury but this time you don't have to pay "too much" for a Silver but pay "too little" for a mere one-shot Fugitive to stop your opponent's Treasury for $2.
On-gain creates another mini-game though, under normal circumstances (i.e. no gainers and Remodel variants) you don't want to gain the 9th card (or 8th card in a 3P game) of the pile because then another player could empty the pile and get a safe Treasury for $2. No idea whether this is fun though.





This is unrelated to the Conjuration States and, once again, about Gazbag's great freezing mechanic.
The pile only contains 5 cards with Extinction being the 6th card underneath the 5 Mammoths. Like with Philosophers you don't want your opponent to get the last Mammoth.

About the duration effect, my Nightwatch Ranger is to Fugitive what Mammoth is to Asper's Scientist. Scientist  is based on Storyteller's idea of converting coins into cards. With Storyteller you convert existing Coins whereas with Scientist you backload it.
The entire idea could be totally broken, it is a card which needs quite some playtesting.





A simple idea, related to Coin of the Realms, for callable infinite Buys. A nice feature is that you cannot call the card in the turn you played it so in an engine where you need the extra Buys to get components you need at least 2 in your deck.
The purpose of the wording is to prevent the emptying of Curses/Coppers as well as funky stuff with Peddlers and cost reduction.





This is based on an idea by Seprix.
If you give it a fixed price it could be better than Province in some Kingdoms (e.g. if there are Attacks, Durations and Night cards this is better than Province as you can always buy a Curse to make Gate worth 7VPs). The variable/extra cost is a way to make the card a bit more interesting. Now you want to gain it when you have few different types in play yet your deck should have many different types.





Lich is inspiread by Kudasai's Old Witch but will play quite differently. It is a half-Curser, meaning that the first time you play it everybody else gets the negative VP and the second time the junk lands in their decks. In addition to that it is mainly a Copper trasher (you can put Curses on the mat to delay the inevitable or put a Silver there just like you would trash a Silver to make Forager better) and provides some scalable payload.





Wanna sift through or trash some junk? Here is the guy for it. He can also set up a Province for your Tournament or dig for a Night card. Overall a versatile card that is obviously inspired by Settlers. It could be too strong for $2 yet too weak for $3.


   

A quick non-terminal draw idea that is related to Storyteller, Den of Sin and Expedition. The whole thing could be implemented via Card tokens or whatever but I prefer a card-shaped thing.
Slightly buffed via gaining Cursed Abbey to hand and via allowing Invocation to draw cards from the discard pile. The latter might make Invocation less automatic, i.e. don't use them immediately but wait until you have something nice in the discard pile at the start of your turn.





This is a card from one of the contests. I never did anything with positive stuff for the other players so here it is. Obviously the other way around, i.e. you get Coffers and they get Villagers, would be bonkers (not to mention that this design space is already more or less covered by Merchant Guild) and the card, like Monastery, wants to gain several cards per turn to be worthwhile.
As I expect the card to be fairly narrow due to the strength of Coffers I added the hand-gaining.





I tried to make the base version of this work for some time but I was never satisfied with the twists I gave it. This feels OK now.



Here are some nasty sideways cards that slow down play:



Renaissance has an on-shuffle trigger so this is a natural idea that punishes engine play.





Kinda like Tax but you get Ruins instead of Debt and if you cannot or do not want to get rid of them because your Scrying Pools love them so much or because they belong into a Museum you even get some points, set collection style.






First of all, this is in no way intended to be a substitute for Fly-Eagles-Fly's great Winery/Wine design! I first wanted to do something with water, wheat and bread but we already have Mill and Baker.

Winery and Grapes are part of a split pile with Winery above and Grapes below. Both cards are expensive for their vanilla effects but sometimes you might just use them as ordinary engine pieces.
There is a Cornucopia-like theme of variety and while the Coffers and Debt of Grapes are usually a liability you can make an asset out of them. Something like 5 Coffers and 6 Debt can be situationally good.
Wine is a recycling of the main idea of Phoenix (Phoenix was superbad because it is so superslow, taking at least 3 turns to be played again).

Now what about those Night Grapes and Ice Wine? Obviously the source of the idea is thematically, you harvest frozen grapes at night to make sweet wine out of them but your workers are not happy about nearly freezing to death.
My first idea was to make Grapes an Action-Night but that's too wordy to be stuck on one card. So perhaps simply make a double pile of Grapes underneath the Winery, i.e. once the Wineries are gone you can always choose to gain either kind of Grapes? Or maintain the flexibility and implement it as an Action-Night via printing the Action part on one side and the Night part on the other which comes with the problem of having the card being visible in and above all on your deck? I have no idea how to physically implement it well.

I am not totally sure about the downside of the Night Grapes but it does nothing constructive on play and having one or more villages out of your deck for several turns should hurt some.
Ice Wine is controversial as it is something that DXV tested for Intrigue but didn't work: 3 vs 5 Provinces leads to a VP spread of 12 whereas 3 vs 5 Ice Wines leads to a VP spread of 16. Perhaps it can work as on a non-Supply card that is difficult to get?



It's Hobbit time!


The little ones love their Shire so some Victory card interaction it is. Could be that discarding Actions and Treasures is too harsh but Pipe is pretty good (I used something similar on Efreet). Then again Hobbit is just a buffed Scout that might be weaker than Seer.

EDIT: The Pipe trigger is now trashing something good from your hand or discard. Could be situationally even beneficial when you want to get rid of a Silver.



Where there are Hobbits, Wizards are not far:



Wizard is probably a good $4 / weak $5 so without the Artifact it would be an expensive engine piece. Like most Potion cards it has some self-synergy (play 4 Wizards, then take the Staff). If it is too weak I'll merge the card with Settlement.
Staff is pretty crazy and defense strategies are similar to Possession (green earlier). The sifting option is there in case you don't want to gamble or want to exchange your bad hand with your own cards instead of an opponent's card (if he defends e.g. via playing money and greening early)
There are tricks like calling 2 Ratcatchers and then handing the other player a hand of 3 to get a hand of 5 or doing the same via leeching off handsize attacks.

EDIT: Staff only passes up to 3 cards instead of the entire hand.
EDIT2: Got a test game in and Wizard was too weak so I merged it with Settlement which is a slightly weakish $5 so it should be OK for this slot.





This is the Villager version of Asper's Conserve with a fix that LibraryAdventurer suggested.
I hope that this is not as broken as Conserve turned out to be, Villagers should be weaker.



Half in earnest, half in jest:









This idea is thematically inspired by the recent cards with an insanity theme by Kudasai and Fly-Eagles-Fly.
Whenever Bedlam is in the Kingdom Healing is a mandatory Event. Lunatic and Insane are two sides of the same card, like Miserable and Twice Miserable.

The key idea here is to do a harsh permanent Attack that you can defend against relatively easily via Potions which you want anyway to get the card. So while the Kingdom card doesn't directly defend against itself, when you choose to go down the Potion path you get both attack and defense.

Then I settled on the Potion card having to be relatively expensive such that you sometimes cannot afford it and take the Medicine en passant more often than you would if this costed $2P or $3P.
I already had the "Coffers into card draw" idea for some while but it was far too strong for a $5 (there is probably a good reason for why no official card produces more than 2 Coffers) so it was a natural match for the expensive Potion card.





I was a bit sad that overpay did not reappear in Renaissance, it is not a difficult mechanism and there is stuff you could do with it and the tokens.
Marketeer is simply another name for a Buy token (that you can spend at the start of your Buy phase for +1 Buy); overpaying for VP tokens obviously doesn't work (on a Victory card, this card by Theta and AdrianHealey does work).
The anti-Copper clause is there to prevent endgame shenanigans with total Coin transfer; I don't like the enusing overall wordiness though.
Printing Press could be good enough to cost $5 and could be too similar to Academy, Guildhall and Spices.

EDIT: Costed at $5.



I always liked the recent Actions that want Silvers (Sauna, Merchant) or Golds (Encampment, Legionary) in your deck so this is my stab at doing something along these lines:



Both cards are part of a split pile with either 4 of each in a two player game respectively 6 of each in multiplayer.
Timber Raft could be good enough to cost $3. The base price of Riverlands is just a first shot, hard to determine this without playtesting. Riverlands could be in principle too strong. If you manage e.g. to play 3 Timber Rafts and 3 Treasures the first one costs only 1, the second one 2 and so on. Twitching the base price only gets you so far which is why Riverlands is then up for elimination. Its idea is mainly to make Timber Raft better but perhaps this is already good enough on its own.

EDIT: Timber Raft costs $3 now.





This is nothing original but a variation of Gazbag's Artefact. Instead of topdecking green it freezes itself though, so the card is mainly good for buildup. No idea about the best numbers, I wouldn't want to make it cheaper due to quick piling via Workshop variants so if this is too weak/strong the length of freezing are the variables that can be changed.

EDIT: Finally found a decent, albeit wordy, formulation that prevents stacking.





The vanilla stuff is from Tokenmonger aka Wizard. The attack is fairly mild and when  you are hit the second time it is actually beneficial as you get a Fugitive effect, kind of like with Margrave. The entire thing could be too similar to Villain (discard one card, if the guy to your left always discard Copper/Silver you get 2 Coffers).

I first tried to do a discard Attack with Mutineers, the great Militia token concept by Violet CLM, but I didn't come up with something.
Here is the basic idea that is flawed for an obvious reason: nobody wants to ever discard Victory cards to spend Mutineers while somebody else has a Corsair Ship in play. Marketeers (Buy Tokens) are an alternative token that could be coupled to Victory cards but as they are weaker than the other 3 tokens this would lead to the opposite problem: everybody always discards green to spend Mutineers.

Quote
$5
Action - Duration - Attack

Each other player gets +1 Mutineer.

Until your next turn, when another player spend a Mutineer, if the discarded card is an...
Action card, +1 Villager
Treasure card, +1 Coffers 
Victory card, +1

At the start of your next turn: +2 Cards.





Here are some quick ideas for an alternative set of Shelters. I guess you could also mix them with the original Shelters and randomly choose one from each of the three sub-categories.

Lodge is a small house so only one dude villager is living there! While the card is superficially similar to Necropolis it will play differently. For example in games without villages it degenerates into a Ruined Village whereas Necropolis can be used as non-drawing village (this being the only situation in which you want to keep Necro). So I guess you will only use Lodge 1-3 times and then try to get rid of it.
Not much to say about Acolyte's Abode, it is my least favourite of the 3. Like Lodge it is also not something you really want to keep around but it can change the opening if somebody opens with 2-5/5-2. This is why it is perhaps too luck-dependent.
Swamp Cabin is remotely inspired by Pasture (a singular non-Supply card changing the worth of basic green). First it had 3VPs per set but got buffed to 4VPs to make it a real alt-VP kick-off card more often.
« Last Edit: December 06, 2018, 06:09:11 pm by Holunder9 »
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Andy7675

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #1 on: January 26, 2018, 11:56:14 am »
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For owl- You could make it cost 5, but topdeck the other revealed cards instead of discarding them. It would provide a functional purpose beyond simply getting Night cards.
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Chappy7

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2018, 01:01:04 pm »
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While spectre would be particularly nasty with junkers and trashers, it becomes particularly friendly with good trash for benefit cards, or knights, or pillage etc...
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loneXolf

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #3 on: January 27, 2018, 09:20:14 am »
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Racketeer split pile- I don't really like how blackmail could be infinite debt without trashing or city guard. Maybe scrap city guard, and change blackmail?

Black Cat- neat idea like you said it is very similar to den of sin. I like the idea of multiple cards having the same Heirloom.

Owl- Interesting card seems like it could be strong but if you're using random with every set having the only hits being owl and key could be weak maybe? I would have to see how good owl is a getting coin tokens. Also what's the point of drawing victory cards, if you discard them anyway?

Spectre- Weird card, seems pretty weak if there are no trashers. Sitting order will matter a lot in any games where decent cards are trashed, Pillages, Remodel clones etc. Also in a two player game you could just remodel a province or anything with value to pin your opponent not to play this. 
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trivialknot

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2018, 01:55:59 pm »
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Racketeer/City Guard/Blackmail - I don't really like Blackmail, it's too strong.  The reaction mechanic slows things down and has accountability issues.  I don't think a $5/$5 split pile works.  City Guard is interesting, but does seem a bit strong.  I dunno, try it by itself.

Conjuration - This seems like it has issues in the opener.  Like say I open 4/3, so I buy Destructive.  Then it turns out the second player has 5/2, so they buy Destructive, and now I just wasted a turn.

Royal Guard - seems fine, except that if there are no attacks you would never buy it.

Glacier - An interesting card.  Could maybe cost $5.  Something you could do with this card is trash it, which makes it kinda like Distant Lands.

Black Cat - I don't think this is that much like Den of Sin.  It's missing the drawback of staying out for 2 turns.  I think if you have extra gains, Black Cat just draws your deck very reliably, and I think that's too strong.

Nightmare & Spectre - My feeling is that attack cards should pair complex attacks with simple benefits, or complex benefits with simple attacks.  There's nothing about the attacks and benefits here that make them pair particularly well.  Spectre might be dominating in some games, if one player manages to thin down, and plays enough Spectres that the other player can never thin down.  I mean, I guess Ambassador is the same way.

Owl/Key - The ability of Owls to find each other is stronger than Minion.  And it's also cheaper, and can gain copies of itself.

Icelands - I like this idea a lot.  Useful in all kinds of decks, and I find myself wondering if you should green earlier because of it, or take a Duchy over Province.
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Gazbag

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #5 on: January 27, 2018, 02:12:41 pm »
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I like a lot a lot these ideas, I like States in general so here's a few thoughts...

Conjuration: This is a really cool idea, although I think it might be good to have the States start off with some number of tokens on them, at least $5 for the stronger ones and maybe the weaker ones can get away with $0, this is to avoid the massive first player advantage of some of these States or more first player to have their $4/$5 opening hand advantage. I can see situations with Destructive for example where player one gets a 4/3 start and buys Destructive turn 1 for $4 and then player 2 can't get it until they hit $5 and by then player 1 has trashed like 4 cards and is miles ahead. 

Royal Guard: I feel like this should have a different effect than +$2 because it will almost never be bought over Silver in a game without attacks. Moat draws, Lighthouse and Guardian cost $2 and Guardian has the on-gain trick and Champion is Champion so all the other attack blocking things have some use without attacks.

I guess I should talk about the "freeze" things too.

Glacier: Eh, I still think mine is more interesting. I never really got the whole "alt-VP play" thing.

Icelands: 4 tokens per player isn't very much at all. I tried something like this and it wasn't too interesting, maybe there's something there though if you find the right balance.
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Holunder9

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #6 on: January 28, 2018, 04:24:26 am »
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Thanks for all the feedback.  :)

I am not sure that Conjuration will start out with a player spending all of his Coins on it. Say you got a 4/3 opening but there is a decent 2 in the Kingdom. Perhaps you would use your first turn to buy 2 States with only one token on them whereas the second player will start 5/2 and buy a 5.
On the other hand you want to spend a lot on the better States to not have them quickly taken away from you.
I am not sure that the suggestion to have an initial amount of tokens on the States fixes the opening problems unless you make it 6 or more which is too much for the weaker States.
Seems tricky to fix.

While spectre would be particularly nasty with junkers and trashers, it becomes particularly friendly with good trash for benefit cards, or knights, or pillage etc...
Thanks for the tip to make Owl not discard the other cards, I changed it accordingly. The new version makes it harder to dig for for several Owls in a row and is more about preparing a better hand for the next turn.

About Blackmail, while I am far from sure that the concept works, Racketeer and City Guard are both constantly available so you can always defend yourself against Racketeer attacks via buying City Guards.
If the attack is strong and the defense is strong as well, partially due to the decent secondary option, the only issue is that the double pile will empty quickly. This is why I should probably add a rule that the double pile counts as one pile.
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Asper

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #7 on: January 28, 2018, 10:05:05 am »
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Hm... I kinda like both the idea of States that only one player can have, and also the idea of States you can buy. I'm just not sure I like the combination, where you take away another player's state. Personally, I'd prefer States that you can get as a reward Tournament-Style, or states where there are enough copies for every player. Like:

Luck, Event, 4$
Once per game: Take Lucky, but not from another player.

Lucky, State
At the end of your cleanup phase, you may put your deck in your discard pile.

I hope I'll get around to posting my take on this soon.

Racketeer and Blackmail remind me a lot of a concept Co0kieL0rd once did.

I kinda like Glacier better than the original one, probably because it's closer to my ideal version that's just VP without any secondary tokens.

Peace looks nice. I like it.

Nightmare, Owl and Spectre lost me while I was reading them due to having too much text on them.

I'm not sure Owl is enough to warrant Key not just being a Treasure that says 0$, take a Coin token.
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Gazbag

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #8 on: January 28, 2018, 10:47:58 am »
+1

I kinda like Glacier better than the original one, probably because it's closer to my ideal version that's just VP without any secondary tokens.
This is interesting to me, because I can't understand why another bland Victory card seems to be liked more than a unique Coin token stockpile thing. I hesitate to hijack this topic and just talk about my own card but you posted a variant on it so I assume nobody would mind.

Glacier (my version) actually predated Ice tokens and originally just had the Coin tokens on it and then when I got the idea for Ice tokens I kind of went back and saw that this could use them and everything. I can understand wanting just 1 type of token to be used but by all means, if you play with Glacier, just put Coin tokens on it to save effort. Ice tokens just move lots of words from the card into the rulebook.

Onto the difference in effect of Coin vs VP tokens... Would someone be able to explain to me why they prefer the VP tokens? I just don't get it, In money/sloggy games this just seems like it's way better than Duchy and in an engine game I'd only consider it if I really needed to drag out the game and get enough points to overtake a Province-rush player. It just doesn't seem to add anything new to me. Am I missing something?
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Accatitippi

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #9 on: January 28, 2018, 05:11:16 pm »
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Luck, Event, 4$
Once per game: Take Lucky, but not from another player.

This makes me think, can I take Miserable from another player?
I think I can.
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Holunder9

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #10 on: January 28, 2018, 05:28:59 pm »
+1

I kinda like Glacier better than the original one, probably because it's closer to my ideal version that's just VP without any secondary tokens.
This is interesting to me, because I can't understand why another bland Victory card seems to be liked more than a unique Coin token stockpile thing. I hesitate to hijack this topic and just talk about my own card but you posted a variant on it so I assume nobody would mind.

Glacier (my version) actually predated Ice tokens and originally just had the Coin tokens on it and then when I got the idea for Ice tokens I kind of went back and saw that this could use them and everything. I can understand wanting just 1 type of token to be used but by all means, if you play with Glacier, just put Coin tokens on it to save effort. Ice tokens just move lots of words from the card into the rulebook.

Onto the difference in effect of Coin vs VP tokens... Would someone be able to explain to me why they prefer the VP tokens? I just don't get it, In money/sloggy games this just seems like it's way better than Duchy and in an engine game I'd only consider it if I really needed to drag out the game and get enough points to overtake a Province-rush player. It just doesn't seem to add anything new to me. Am I missing something?
You won't buy either Glacier if the game is about to end end. Your Glacier is kind of a auto-baker for 4 turns so you can buy the card early and perhaps later remodel it. My Glacier is pure VP so you want it later but not too late lest the game ends before get all the VPs and remodel it.
This conflict between not wanting to get Glaciers too early as it is only VP and not wanting to get it too late as you cannot get the VPs makes the card, at least to me, potentially interesting.
If there is a Remodel (variant) your card plays easier: just get them relatively early, keep your economy afloat due to the Coin tokens and when the card lands in your deck remodel it.
And if there is no Remodel it is at least 2VPs whereas mine hurts more if it remains an unremodeled Estate.

So without wanting to imply that my version is superior, unique, less bland or whatever (I don't think that either card reinvents the wheel, plenty of alt-VP exist and like your card Mill is about Coins and VPs) - whether you prefer the first or second version seems to depend on what you enjoy more: greening earlier or later, smoother or harsher impacts for your economy respectively safer vs. more risky play.
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Asper

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #11 on: January 28, 2018, 05:55:26 pm »
0

The thing is, I think it's interesting to have a VP card that is a bit expensive for the amount of VP it gives, but with the advantage of staying out of your shuffle. It is also interesting to buy a supply of Coin tokens that you receive over several turns. Mixing two interesting abilities gives you less than the sum of its parts, because now neither ability can really shine. You never get one without the other. It's part of what makes Split Piles and Travellers less appealing to me: You never see Fugitive without Teacher, or Hero without Warrior. Of course some of those cards, like Page, could never exist without their counterparts - but the abilities on Glacier can.

I feel that Holunder9's Glacier is closer to staying with one mechanic, because, after all, it's still VP. I'd still prefer a version that gives you something good now, and something bad (the card itself) later, without having this challenge of hitting a sweet spot that's still somehow not all that sweet.
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Gazbag

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #12 on: January 29, 2018, 12:09:22 pm »
+2

Okay I think it's more of a psychological thing than some kind of strategy or something with the cards that I'm not seeing. It probably would have been better if I'd just made my Glacier be a $6 Copper instead of a Victory, Glacier just wanted to be a weak stop card and I figured a Victory was the most interesting version of that, but apparently it made people think that it being a victory that doesn't enter your deck straight away way the main point of the card.

Thanks for the thoughtful responses!

Anyway about Peace:

I think it probably needs some kind of limit on how many VP's you can get or something. I think it's just going to make games last for ages because there's no incentive to get Victories when you can just keep building and building and turn all the excess money into VP. It's kind of like Groundskeeper in that way.
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trivialknot

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #13 on: January 29, 2018, 07:49:13 pm »
+1

Here's some elaboration on my thoughts on Blackmail.  I say it's too strong because junkers are already on the strong side, and these are clearly worse than curses.  Imagine playing a 3-4 player game, where you end up with ~7 of these, and you can't even afford a City Guard anymore.  There's also the possibility of being pinned, and although I'm not sure how likely it is, it doesn't seem like fun.

And besides that, the reaction upon draw has issues.  Now I need to pay attention every time I draw cards, and players need to be honest about what they're drawing.  As an alternative, you could have a person reveal their hand at the end of their turn, or at the end of the buy phase, and take a debt for each Blackmail.  You could even have it trigger on buy, like Haunted Woods or Swamp Hag, which would eliminate the pinning potential.  Or it could be a cantrip that gives you debt, so it would be junk, but not the kind that takes up space in your deck.

I don't really like the idea of pairing Blackmail with City Guard.  City Guard has its own unrelated ability, which is interesting and strong enough on its own.  If Blackmail needs to always be paired with some defense, then I don't think an unrelated $5-cost is a good choice.  Worth noting that among the canonical cards, most reaction cards are cheap and terminal.
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Holunder9

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #14 on: January 30, 2018, 05:35:57 am »
+2

Here's some elaboration on my thoughts on Blackmail.  I say it's too strong because junkers are already on the strong side, and these are clearly worse than curses.  Imagine playing a 3-4 player game, where you end up with ~7 of these, and you can't even afford a City Guard anymore.  There's also the possibility of being pinned, and although I'm not sure how likely it is, it doesn't seem like fun.

And besides that, the reaction upon draw has issues.  Now I need to pay attention every time I draw cards, and players need to be honest about what they're drawing.  As an alternative, you could have a person reveal their hand at the end of their turn, or at the end of the buy phase, and take a debt for each Blackmail.  You could even have it trigger on buy, like Haunted Woods or Swamp Hag, which would eliminate the pinning potential.  Or it could be a cantrip that gives you debt, so it would be junk, but not the kind that takes up space in your deck.

I don't really like the idea of pairing Blackmail with City Guard.  City Guard has its own unrelated ability, which is interesting and strong enough on its own.  If Blackmail needs to always be paired with some defense, then I don't think an unrelated $5-cost is a good choice.  Worth noting that among the canonical cards, most reaction cards are cheap and terminal.
You are totally right that Blackmail can become extremly nasty which might break its back in playtesting.
You noted that City Guard is strong if you use it for the non-defensive option and this is an intentional design choice to make people buy City Guard prophylactically in the absence of other trashers respectively buy City Guard before you buy Racketeer. Even if nobody goes for Racketeer the card is decent whereas e.g. Moat only becomes OK with enough village support.
About the cheating, different backs easily prevent that. Plus honest folks in your gaming group.



Some changes and a new card:

Chappy7 pointed out that Spectre is bad if good stuff lands in the trash so I changed Spectre to only junk cards from the trash that cost up to 2.
Owl got nerfed (really?) a different Victory condition (from DXV's Secret History). It is in general a difficult condition to meet but Owl can be used as economy.



Azure Cove
is new and might be too similar to Avanto. Avanto is only non-terminal if you draw into Sauna whereas this is always non-terminal but you have to pay for the Action later.
« Last Edit: February 05, 2018, 02:35:22 am by Holunder9 »
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Asper

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #15 on: January 30, 2018, 07:51:24 am »
0

Minor thing: It's this order:
+Cards
+Actions
+Buy
+Coin

Azure Cove reminds me of my Hunter, just less complex - it looks balanced to me.
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popsofctown

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #16 on: January 30, 2018, 05:31:33 pm »
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Some of these, I really really like.  The bribe attack and the Duration-smithy the most.

Some of them I dislike for reasons I dislike certain official cards (Fool, Cursed Village) so what can I say
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Gazbag

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #17 on: January 30, 2018, 06:05:09 pm »
0

Azure Cove seems very strong to me. It's basically a Smithy that you don't have to line up with your Villages, I know that doesn't sound like much, but the flexibility and consistency it gives is immense. In a money deck you can't draw dead actions with it, I guess it's similar to Werewolf in that situation. You can do other things like playing a bunch at once and then letting them back into your deck on off turns - sort of like a Tactician type thing. You can also do lots of tricks with it by playing the same one multiple times in 1 turn, which doesn't seem too hard to pull of with this. I mean there are loads of broken $5 Smithies so it's probably not too good, but it's really good!

I think the discard trigger should be limited to the end of your action phase, or at least to during your turn to avoid weirdness with Caravan Guard (or any other way to get +actions on opponents turns).
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Holunder9

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #18 on: January 31, 2018, 04:31:10 am »
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Thansk guys, I changed Azure Cove.
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loneXolf

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #19 on: February 03, 2018, 12:38:04 am »
0

Azure Cove- Being able to use it as a normal smithy before or after a village, and pawning it off for a turn(s) to high roll seems nuts. Probably won't be as strong in a kingdom without a decent muit-action card.
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Asper

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #20 on: February 03, 2018, 06:31:41 am »
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Two Azure Coves give you unbounded amounts of money with the +1$ and +1 Action token on their pile. Also with Certain champion combinations. It's relatively easy to fix by making it "call" or only allowing it in your cleanup phase.
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Holunder9

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #21 on: February 06, 2018, 03:31:12 pm »
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Two Azure Coves give you unbounded amounts of money with the +1$ and +1 Action token on their pile. Also with Certain champion combinations. It's relatively easy to fix by making it "call" or only allowing it in your cleanup phase.
Good spot. It is a combo that could easily be fixed via forbidding Azure Cove to be present together with Peasant/Lost Arts, Peasant/Training, Lost Arts/Training, Page/Peasant and Page/Training.
But I worry that even in other Kingdoms the 'play several times per turn' of the card might be too good. Throne Room + Azure Cove nets 4 cards and an Action which you can spend to discard Azure Cove. If I understand the "lose track" rule correctly, which I am never sure of, you are even be able to discard Azure Cove after you played it the first time with Throne Room (as my rule said that you can discard it at any time). This could lead to weird stuff like drawing a just Throned Azure Cove.

The idea to use a card several times per turn was dubious from the start. I fixed the card and used Wine Merchant's wording (discarding it at the end of your Action phase might lead to some issues with Villa).





Another double pile! Like Racketeer and City Guard Djinn and Efreet are constantly in the Supply with 5 per "half-pile" .
This is obviously a thematically inspired idea (yeah, you figured, I played Heroes of Might and Magic 3 back in the days). Djinn came pretty natural (might be nearly as good as Artisan but it is trickier to gain) whereas Efreet was a card that I came up with some time ago but never liked as it felt too strong. I put it fairly randomly on Efreet as I thought that making it harder to get would nerf it enough and only then I realized some interesting, unintended stuff: you can gain Efreet via Wishes as long as you have a Djinn in play. Efreet makes alt-VP better so wishing for Duchies might be a strategy.
I am still not sure whether Efreet is balanced (I will also test it with "draw 3 cards instead of 5") or any good though.
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LibraryAdventurer

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #22 on: February 08, 2018, 12:23:31 am »
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I like Efreet, but Djinn is definitely too strong for $5. Artisan costs $6 and makes you put a card on your deck. Wishes gain cards costing up to $6 (Artisan is up to $5).
Efreet is very strong, but I think it's balanced enough by costing $6 and needing a Djinn. But needing a Magic Lamp is not enough of a drawback for Djinn.

On another note, my favorite card of yours is Owl, although I think it needs tweaking (as-is, it's probably too strong for $4 and too weak for $5). I'd suggesting moving the hex mechanic to Djinn, have Djinn say either "Receieve a hex. Gain a Wish" or "You may receieve a hex to gain a Wish" with some simple alternate effect. Then do something a little different with Owl.

majiponi

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #23 on: February 08, 2018, 01:14:42 am »
0

I like Efreet, but Djinn is definitely too strong for $5. Artisan costs $6 and makes you put a card on your deck. Wishes gain cards costing up to $6 (Artisan is up to $5).
Efreet is very strong, but I think it's balanced enough by costing $6 and needing a Djinn. But needing a Magic Lamp is not enough of a drawback for Djinn.

On another note, my favorite card of yours is Owl, although I think it needs tweaking (as-is, it's probably too strong for $4 and too weak for $5). I'd suggesting moving the hex mechanic to Djinn, have Djinn say either "Receieve a hex. Gain a Wish" or "You may receieve a hex to gain a Wish" with some simple alternate effect. Then do something a little different with Owl.

How about "You may play a Magic Lamp from your hand. If you do, gain a wish." clause?
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Holunder9

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Re: Holunder's cards
« Reply #24 on: February 08, 2018, 06:03:05 am »
+1

How about "You may play a Magic Lamp from your hand. If you do, gain a wish." clause?
That sounds good but I don't want Djinn to prevent the cashing in Magic Lamp and obviously I don't want the opposite either, Djinn to be dead once Magic Lamp is gone.
I could do something like force-trashing Magic Lamp when you gain Djinn such that you have to decide whether you wanna go for the 3 Wishes one-shot thing or constantly gain Wishes via Djinn. But being able to get a maximum of one Djinn seems to restricted. One idea is after all that you wanna gain "too many" Djinns such that it becomes more likely to gain Efreet.

I like Efreet, but Djinn is definitely too strong for $5. Artisan costs $6 and makes you put a card on your deck. Wishes gain cards costing up to $6 (Artisan is up to $5).
Efreet is very strong, but I think it's balanced enough by costing $6 and needing a Djinn. But needing a Magic Lamp is not enough of a drawback for Djinn.
Artisan gains the card to hand and then forces you to topdeck a card which is stronger than merely gaining a $5. You can either immediately play the gained card or you'll topdeck it and play it next turn.
This is probably stronger than gaining a Wish which is more admittedly more flexible, allows you to gain $6s but can be drawn dead.
But you are probably right that Djinn is nonetheless too strong.

On another note, my favorite card of yours is Owl, although I think it needs tweaking (as-is, it's probably too strong for $4 and too weak for $5).
I tried to nerf it via making the 2 VPs conditional on no Silvers in your deck instead of the more or less automatic 2VPs (1VP per empty pile with Provinces and Owls being empty in most games) of the first version but it still feels, as you said, like something between $4 and $5. Perhaps undoing the Victory card and making it a pure Baker-Scout thing?
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