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Author Topic: Splice, a digital-only Event (or variant) that lets you "breed" actions  (Read 1068 times)

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Tombolo

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Disclaimers:
-This idea needs a lot of fleshing out, and may or may not be balanceable
-I suspect it won't be to the taste of many Dominion players
-I see no practical way to make this work physically

Still here?  The idea I had was a Event that costs $0 and gives +Buy, but it could also be a variant by automatically (or optionally) occurring after every turn.

"Trash 2 Actions you have in play.  Gain a Hybrid based on their properties."

The Hybrid would be a brand new card that would permanently inherit some of the traits of its "parents" in a semi-random fashion.  My initial idea is that for vanilla effects like +Card, it'd have an equal chance of either parent's value or the average thereof.  So a Smithy/Village Hybrid for example would have either +1, +2, or +3 cards, and +0, +1, or +2 actions. 

For more complex effects, each parent could have an equal chance of passing on all, none, or part (where possible) thereof.  So in addition to potentially passing on a +coin, a Militia's child might have "Discard to 3," "Discard to 4," or neither.  Cards like Governor or Steward might pass on only one option.  Stuff like Witch can't really be separated out, so you'd either get the Cursing or not.

In all these cases, once the Hybrid is generated, it stays that way.  You don't know what you're getting exactly when you make a Hybrid, but once you've made it, it doesn't reroll.  You could make another Hybrid with the same cards later in the game and maybe that one would be different.

Price could be an average of the two, or maybe the more expensive plus half the less expensive.  You could also try to price each effect or piece thereof, but I think this forum has determined that down that road lies madness.  I can't offhand think of a way for you to buy a Hybrid, so it only matters for card interactions anyway.

So some examples:

Council Room & Necropolis Hybrid would have:
(33%) +4 Cards (from CR)
(33%) +2 Cards (average)
(33%) No +Card (from Necro)
AND
(67%) +1 Buy (from CR and average)
(33%) No +Buy (from Necro)
AND
(33%) No +Action (from CR)
(33%) +1 Action (average)
(33%) +2 Actions (from Necro)
AND
(50%) Opponent draws a card
(50%) Nothing

Grand Market + Steward
(67%) +1 Card (GM/Average)
AND
(67%) +1 Action
AND
(67%) +1 Buy
AND
(33%) +2$ (GM)
(33%) +1$ (Average)
AND
(50%) Can't be bought with Coppers in play
AND
(33%) Steward effect
(33% * 33%) +2 Cards
(33% * 33%) Trash 2
(33% * 33%) +2$

For a less random variant, you could narrow it down to only averages and parts where available.  Under that version, our CR/Necro example above would then be a Lab with a +Buy that may or may not have the opponent draw.  The GM/Steward would be a Market (if halves round up) with a random Steward option and a 50/50 shot of inheriting the Copper restriction.

Does this idea even make sense the way I've presented it?  Is it something anybody would want to bother with thinking about?
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faust

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As presented, the only thing I would really use this for is to trash 2 Ruins into 1 junk card that may be slightly better. Trashing 2 action cards to potentially gain a Confusion sounds terrible, and you don't really get anything new because you already had these effects in your deck.
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Holunder9

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I like the idea of merging 2 Acion cards but not the random, unspecified, digital-only aspect of it.

Here is a quick attempt to implement the idea as ordinary Kingdom card. When you first play Matchmaker you can quasi-merge 2 Action cards and when you play Matchmaker in the future you play the pair.
There are numerous BoM-related rule issues, e.g. what happens when you play Durations, and tracking issues.

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spiralstaircase

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I'd had the same idea; this was my phrasing, inspired more by Prince than BoM:

Royal Wedding
Action - $6
Once per game, set aside two different action cards from your hand.
Each time you play this, play both the set-aside Actions in either order, setting each aside again when you discard it from play. (You cannot play a card again it if you fail to set it aside on a turn you play it.)
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Holunder9

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Cool, I like your wording better; no rule issues with Duration and Reseres anymore.
While I understand why the Action cards should be different from a thematic point of view it could make the card too weak. On the other hand it leads to less broken combos (e.g. with Adventure tokens).
Here is my second wording attempt, inspired by yours:



So let's analyze the card a little bit. While it is similar to Band of Misfits, Prince and Inheritance I think the best direct comparisons can be made with two similarly priced Action cards: Golem and Border Village.
Golem is like playing two random Action cards from your deck which includes the risk of having no Action cards in your deck.
Border Village is like playing an Action card together with a village, but with the normal risk of the two not matching.
Matchmaker / Royals Wedding is better than Golem and Border Village as you have no empty deck or matching risk and always know what you get. But it has a matching risk for setup which is similar to Prince (smaller as you can ignore costs, larger as you have to marry a pair).
Unlike with Prince you always want several Matchmakers / Royals Wedding in your deck so when you "miss" once it is not such a huge deal. Of course it is not trivial either and the fact that this is like Prince or Hireling dead when you first play it cannot be ignored.
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