Maybe free for all was so open a brief the sheer number of options was a challenge, or maybe you were convinced in one particular idea. Looks like the latter was the case more often. There's a wide variety of entries here, so time to open my mind...
And nice work on presenting the last contest results anordinaryman, I'll copy you:
| littlefish | Heist - Event, $3 cost.
Each player (including you) reveals the top 2 cards of their deck. Gain a Treasure costing up to $1 per 1VP revealed. Then each player puts their revealed cards back in any order. | You can get a Gold if you find a Province or enough Duchies and Estates to add up to 6. Seeing that this costs the same as Silver this is pretty much the principle use; kingdom Treasures costing $4+ and Platinum add more of course. It’s more likely to work late game and with more players.
How often will buying $3 Golds late game be interesting? It might be worth it sometimes, but with a chance of failing and having to swallow a Copper, maybe not. Is the player interaction interesting? Rather like Tribute, not particularly, and of course it’s almost pointless if you set up a Province to reveal in your own deck.
There’s also the question of what happens with variable VP cards.
Cheaper price, optional gain, clarity with all Victory cards or maybe more excitement from the player interaction would be possible areas to improve. |
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| silverspawn |     
| Firstly an individual stage run-through:
Orphan - super weak, you’re obviously supposed to advance her. She can set up the later stages, and the option to flip the journey token lets double Orphan openings work safely for triggering the first Servant.
Servant - Chapel that comes in a shuffle later than usual. Significantly weaker than it since the chance of good cards showing up with it is higher, and Servant will very likely be the priority play in a terminal clash, to upgrade her.
Wanderer - now the journey token flip gets non-terminal. Here you can spend the token use on doubling the size of your next hand; certainly worthwhile, a bit like a non-terminal Ranger. If you then have a Servant and a face down token, kaboom.
Night Owl - a mass trasher not looking at your hand. Maybe you need to trim your deck right down - like Donate but at a more sensible time of game - or you’re getting heavily junked. The latter is going to possibly happen because Sorceress.
Sorceress - looks a bit like Vampire in being a gainer and Attack every other play. All those Coppers your Servants and Night Owls trashed will fly your opponents’ way, until their Servants and Night Owls send them back. You set up Ambassador wars with two or more cards from this line, all the while building up your deck. You want to be sitting as far right to the Sorceress player as possible, so you may not have to get so many Coppers.
Overall: big spikes of engine power. I think that if you go for this line, you'll invest in a lot of it so everything works more often. You'll get 2 or even 4 Orphans and build up to one or two Sorceresses, or use Wanderer for draw with some trashing on the way. Upgrading accelerates very quickly with the effects of each stage.
At first I thought Sorceress didn't use the journey token and worked every turn, so its junking negated the earlier trashing a bit. I'm wondering if as it is now it might be a tad weak for the end card, even though you can get to it quickly? Possibly some people would like Orphan to do something for you now as well.
Conclusion: I'm liking the progression and overall strategy of the line. It would likely make a pleasing substitute for Chapel and Donate haters. If Sorceress is strong enough, it is convincing. |
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| segura |  | If you pull off the Action play, it's a better Necropolis; this potential Village function saves it from being a pure token Baker. Add the Treasure play and you get a Coffers with it, together with the Treasure playing in Action phase niche; Black Market and Storyteller play Treasures then for necessary functionality, whilst this does it for elegance, it just needs to check there’s a Treasure in hand. Then the Victory check. The Horse gain not only develops the later power theme of the Villager and Coffers but it helps to not let the discarded Victory be redrawn.
Altogether, it likes sifting and absolutely loves draw cards. The single Horse gain feels just right for self-synergy here, being an Action to play and providing effectively just +1 Card. When a stronger draw is present (indeed draw to x), then these can become an effective Village for your deck.
Elegant and fun when it works, I like this. |
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| MochaMoko |    | Welcome to the forum and the contest. The individual cards:
Rally - the woodcutter bonus is tame for a $5, though the ability to get more copies for more of the later stages is neat and can be good with trash-for-benefit. There are good reasons to upgrade this, and it does support the later stages, but the bonus could still be a little stronger or this could be cheaper.
Campaign - Necropolis that sometimes gives 2VP. It needs Rally with it to work all the time, and giving VP couples with Rally's direct payload bonuses well, but this is a very underwhelming total effect for an upgrade from a $5 cost card. Either it's meant to be upgraded again or it needs more power.
Homecoming - draw and throne are a strong pairing, and the ability to gain copies of it at Rally is neat. You could definitely draw first here though, to expand the search range for the action to throne; this would come closer to something stronger than $7 cost.
Overall: I'm basically in agreement with what has already been said that this line is weak as is. But I do like the set of effects all together, engine and payload but needing some support. |
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| LibraryAdventurer | Drunken Huntsman
$5 - Action - Attack
+1 Card, +1 Action, +$1.
Each other player discards down to 4 cards in hand. Then each player with any cards in hand passes one to the next such player to their left, at once. | Peddlers are easy to add to any deck, so we can straight away assume the attack will always be launched, so the presence of this in the game will always shape play. There's a mild hand size attack and what could be seen as a form of junking for everyone (Masquerade every turn is asking everyone to keep junk around) all in one package. Especially with the latter, this will be heavily warping and I'm not sure in a very fun way; cantrip Masquerade means either junk you can't get rid of unlike cursers with trashing, or deck destruction like Swindler. Having a smaller hand size beforehand compounds this even further, and maybe you must discard something good.
Also, there may be some people who want to show a Moat to this to not be affected by the Masquerade bit. Maybe say 'those who discarded any cards' take part, if that should be an issue, and that would truly make it a once-per-turn attack. |
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| spineflu |  | If there are extra +buys besides the first turn change this makes, the VP part means a little. If there aren't, just use Baths. In this light, it definitely looks like this wanted to be an Edict with just the first turn change, but has the VP bit to qualify for the contest.
Is the change interesting? Sometimes, I'm thinking, but often not, like when a strong $6+ card (Forge, Goons) is in the kingdom and it's the automatic opening with the extra VP further scripting it. Some $5s fall into this category too, and Cemetery. You could say take all these cards out when playing with this, but you're not left with much to build towards mid game so it's hard to see how this could be fun. |
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| pubby |  | The effect of this is random each game, so that makes it very replayable. Do 2 $3s make a $5 with the discarding as well? Thinking of a few combos…
- +2 Cards and a cantrip, that's double lab plus whatever else the cards do. Stronger than lab at the same price.
- Similarly, Experiment + anything.
- +2 Cards and a + $2, plus extra things, is probably more than $5.
- Oasis and Watchtower with the initial discard will be strong.
- Scheme will let multiples of the other $3 be played every turn.
So there are cases when it's clearly stronger than $5 and the game is potentially scripted. And there are times when it's bad, like say Storeroom and Fool. I feel that often there will be a lot of control at setup selecting a pair of cards that will be an interesting decision to go for in the game, and overall a higher price would be more balanced. It may be fun at first, 'what's Twins going to do this time?', but that seems to quickly disappear. |
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| Xen3k |  | The card gained is going to be different from the trashed one; so it can't simply mill Provinces for a VP each time, it's going to always be a builder card. The Action gaining will be particularly strong, adding Action cards to the deck whilst removing bad cards and getting Villages to play them. Add in the VP advantage at the greening phase as well and this feels like either a top tier $5 or a $6.
A powerful engine piece, it feels nice to play with. If it's balanced at $5, I like it. |
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| Timinou |  | So during the same turn, this can give + $2 and 1 or 2 Ruins effects, with a possible deck thinning Ruins trash, if you play a Village then this then another Action. The potential is very high, like it could become a double peddler in total. It starts off tame, but I think that the cost would average out at something higher than $2. And that's not considering the extra flexibility of storing these up for a mega turn.
The way it escalates as each player plays it can feel quite fun, especially with how this will be different each game, though with a lot of players it could speed up to its optimal condition, the right 2 Ruins in the trash, very quickly.
It's also like Trade Route, where players can wait until it's made strong enough so the first buyer can be at a disadvantage; the possible benefit to the first player, instead of buys and trashing, is having some one-shot silvers and a buildup to a spike of Ruins plays mid game.
Overall, it feels like a potentially fun card, but it's perhaps a little too cheap. |
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| faust |  | This struggles in all random games, as there could easily be no means of discarding, but Windfall is sometimes impossible to trigger as well. As an Event, it's easy to swap out if desired.
Is it interesting when it can work? With sifting more can usually be done after discarding, but the need for a precise number to discard limits flexibility; and some sifting has fixed discard value so some prices will be impossible to hit, e.g Forum by itself could never hit $5. With payload discard-for-benefit, the benefit can be near enough doubled so if good hand size increase is also in the game and probably also a +Buy it will be the way to go.
Overall, a niche card that seems a little too narrow to be interesting. Windfall nearly always complements the intended strategy, whereas this can conflict a little with some of its intended strategies. |
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| mandioca15 | Cascade (Action, $5)
You may play an Action card costing less than this from your hand three times.
 | This is a card that can’t be changed, either it works or it doesn't and testing will tell. One neat thing is that you can never Cascade a Cascade, so it's a much simpler play than KC. If balanced, this is simple, effective and likeable. |
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| Fragasnap |  | A cheap multi-purpose card like Pawn and Squire. It might at first cause analysis paralysis with this many options, but it does seem to have ways to understand it simply. You know if it needs to be a trasher or a necropolis. If you're looking to sift, you know afterwards if you need the second +Action. So if you have a clear objective when buying this, it will reward with its flexibility. If not, it will hurt, as it reduces hand size.
I imagine in most games you start with sift or Horse and trash, unless you need +action to play other purchases, then make this a Village or more ideally economy and use better villages.
So it works, but it may be a bit more than $2 cost. Is it interesting? It can do lots, but it has fixed overall niches, so yes; it's just balance that’s the question.
Edit: Horse gain instead of Silver. If anything this makes the $2 cost even more questionable as trash and Horse to start is arguably stronger than trash and Silver. |
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| spheremonk |  | The ruins Command means this is sometimes: a Bazaar, $5 cost; Lost City $6; Bustling Village, maybe $5; Worker's Village or a sifting Village, less than $5. The average is about right. The attack is capped at once per turn, and comes at a cost to all players using this if it's overused; it's also trickier if it's the only non-terminal action in a game - the attack must be used - but then it’s the only village even after the Ruins empty so still useful.
Is it interesting? The randomness of the command should be fun rather than annoying, since there is always +1 Card (the important bonus with +Actions) and +2 is unlikely so it's unwise to trust in it, or indeed in the others. And the attack is unlikely to create slogs like with Cultist, but it forces the command to change so sometimes adaptation is needed.
So it's a contender. |
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| X-tra |  | The ideal is hoard them then chain them. The result is some draw and more than enough Actions. Even lining two up is 1 Card 4 Actions, a pretty good deal for two $2s. Three brings the hand size back to the same, so it's a nice benchmark to reach, and four and beyond increase hand size. So there is a strong impetus to getting one of these very early to really contest the pile; the setback is foregoing some economy to hit $5 reliably and increasing the need for trashing or sifting until enough are collected to reliably connect.
If, though, the deck is all drawn and 2 Districts are played, the player gains the rest of the pile, which can be a win condition seeing there are 16 of them; but doing that quickly is often skillful (ignoring Chapel and Donate).
Is it interesting? Skill or chance can determine how well the split is won; the times when it takes skill are good, but the times when someone tries but fails by chance won't be. The worst case is some mediocre but not useless Necropoli. With two players, the average split is 8 each, which is pretty massive and ample engine support.
So overall, I see how it's fun, but also how it kills the fun in some games. Scaling the number of Districts to be per player might help a bit, but not in the auto empty scenario. |
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| gambit05 |  | The splitting function this has is quite strong, it's like Scheme followed by Lost City start of next turn. Or it's like a non-terminal easier to connect half Prince, and two rotated are a more flexible Prince.
Now factoring in the tokens. This itself is a potent splitter, so the villager gift is a little limited in desirability. The Coffers the player gets can be very volatile, particularly with more players and/or later game when Action piles are more empty.
So either players ignore the Coffers and/or want Villagers, play normally or mirror the Magi player, and the game is over fast; or they're avoiding collecting too many of one card to lessen the Coffers. It's unrealistic to expect the latter to happen that often with more players. In 2-player...it seems to depend on when Magi are gained? If early the latter can happen, if too late the volatile situation may happen? Yet if they're the only splitter then riding on free Villagers will point to the volatile way too. Hard to tell without testing with multiple players, which I'm not in a position to do.
Overall, it looks too strong and probably too centralising. It might be worth testing at $5. |
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| fika monster |      | Starting with an individual consideration:
Dissatisfied Worker - a cantrip start means these are easy to add to the deck and upgrade. Their journey token flip supports the later stages nicely, absorbing the face downs. The face up Silver to everyone is situationally useful, but since it's on a cantrip it could be made into a junking attack of sorts.
Beginning Artist - right away here's something that likes cantrip token flip, but this will also junk you (and the opponents) with Silver. Like Priest, it's hard to pull off well, and more time will be needed to get the support of the fourth stage.
Starved Artist - Forge capped at 3 cards, that is strong. The balancing downside is a clever use of the journey token to gain 2 curses if it's on the negative side. The windows Forge works in can be small, and the curses here make those windows even smaller.
Supporter of Art - a support card for the rest of the line, if it can flip the token face down. There are times when collecting lots of these just because they're Lost Cities might be merited, especially with Beginning Artist being available payload.
Renaissance man - very similar to silverspawn’s Sorceress, swapping junking and moving to top of deck at Clean-up for another $6 gain and easier activation with a cantrip first stage. If you get to play this early enough, it can set up amazing next turns. Going late, it can gain 2 Duchies but sacrifice next turn (if there is a next turn).
Overall: this line has almost every engine component in it; the only thing missing is strong draw. There isn't much interaction to consider with the rest of the kingdom. This sets the interest back a bit for me, but it has a fun feel with the interactions amongst each stage. |
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| anordinaryman |  | A cheap Summon is definitely worth using, but the setback adds some differences; the pile you Summon from will quickly get emptier, with the opponents' Exiled cards and later their gained copies to free them from Exile. This creates issues, especially with more players. If there is a later Dispatch from the same pile, it's very likely opponents won't Exile a copy, so it becomes a more free cheap Summon. Also, players further right from the Dispatch user are at a greater risk of being unable to free their Exiled cards, further strengthening the Dispatch.
So, rather close to Summon, and the extra mechanics here don't seem worth it. Summon itself would be a nicer card to use. |
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| Gubump |  | An OK +$ +buy now, a stronger one later. It's fine balance wise when compared to Haggler - it's across 2 turns and the +$ can’t boost the gain effect - and the store up for mega turn potential adds interest.
It could be questioned why it calls on buy rather than gain. It seems to restrict its uses for not much reason. It could potentially be played on two consecutive turns with an Action phase or out of turn gain then drawing it, which seems rare enough to allow as combo potential. And the Buy phase function is the same.
Still, it's a sweet card despite this. |
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| D782802859 |  | It can be a cheap Workshop that sometimes gives your opponents a big bonus, or sometimes you give away nothing; or, it's a draw for you and forced Workshop for them. That latter option is not nice for your opponents, especially when you have an empty discard and it's just that part, as it can be like junking when used a lot. Those further right of the user (in 3+ player games) are hurt more on average as the nice cards disappear.
If the Workshop was optional...the draw option would be strong for a $2 when you want to use it and your good cards are in the discard, and balanced by the gift. Those times are few; but you can put a Workshop gain in the discard first with this...if they haven't got a good discard pile. That would be too big a gift for a mere Workshop for those fortunate enough to benefit from it. I'm not feeling too convinced here either. |
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| Carline |  | Straightforward draw with a few twists. Without other Curse gaining, it gives the player a Curse if an odd number of them are played, the Curse going to hand also further increasing hand size so some discard-for-benefit combos are helped a bit further; or Ambassador and Masquerade passing the Curse on. With other Curse gaining, it heals quite well but doesn’t progress the Curse pile towards emptying so Witch has an everlasting battle with this.
It should be balanced, but is it interesting? There are a few fun interactions. Without those, an even number played is just pure vanilla draw, and whilst lining them up together is the skill, with large amounts of draw it should be quite easy. In a no Village game where only one can be played per turn, it’s viable for a money strategy, and it will need to find the Curses it gets on later turns so it can lose them; that could be quite chance based, nice when it works, not when it doesn’t.
So overall, it’s...quite nice. |
Shortlist: Orphan line, Aristocrat, Treadwheel Crane, Archaeologist, Cascade, Worker, Forbidden City, Dissatisfied Worker line, Magic Shop, Dangerous Ground.
After eliminating the shaky ones balance wise, then sorting the rest out by interest level, I conclude:
All three of these designs simply work. My final decision was whether I preferred the non-interactive deck strategy in Aristocrat, or the interactive Forbidden City. And Forbidden City felt more fun and interesting in more situations. So we have a new winner! On to the century!
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Topic: Weekly Design Contests #1 - #100 (Read 1558440 times)