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[scolapasta]

Current version (with its notes):




Original version:

OK, here's an attempt - it needs some work (see my comments below), but let's see what y'all think of v0.1:

During Peacetime, you're building up your Garrison, and during Wartime, you attack!

Garrison - $4
+2 Villagers

You can remove a token from your Villagers to flip Peacetime / Wartime.

If it's Peacetime, +1 Card.

If it's Wartime, remove any number of tokens from your Villagers and each other player discards a card per token removed, then draws a card per each 2 cards discarded (round down).

In Peacetime it's a Village+. Often in practice, it will be exactly the same as Village, but if you can find a way to save those Villagers (or get them from elsewhere), you can flip to Wartime and have a Militia like (discard) attack:
Discard 1
Discard 2, draw 1
Discard 3, draw 1
Discard 4, draw 2
Discard 5, draw 2
etc.

You can have an attack more severe than Militia, it will take some time to build up and you don't get any benefit yourself*. To counter that, if do play another Garrison, you could back to Peacetime and use it as a cantrip.  (is that enough of a counter?)

And if you do leave it as Wartime, you enables your opponent(s) to have a stronger attack.

Originally, I didn't have the draw clause, but of course that could leave your opponent handless.

However, you could still accomplish this if:

• it's already Wartime
• you have 3 garrisons
• you have 3 actions / villagers to play them
• you start with 3 villagers already

In that scenario you make opponents discard 5, draw 2; then discard 2, draw 1, then discard 1. So probably it needs something to not allow this to happen... Something to sleep on...

[Gubump]

OK, here's an attempt - it needs some work (see my comments below), but let's see what y'all think of v0.1:

During Peacetime, you're building up your Garrison, and during Wartime, you attack!

Garrison - $4
+2 Villagers

You can remove a token from your Villagers to flip Peacetime / Wartime.

If it's Peacetime, +1 Card.

If it's Wartime, remove any number of tokens from your Villagers and each other player discards a card per token removed, then draws a card per each 2 cards discarded (round down).

In Peacetime it's a Village+. Often in practice, it will be exactly the same as Village, but if you can find a way to save those Villagers (or get them from elsewhere), you can flip to Wartime and have a Militia like (discard) attack:
Discard 1
Discard 2, draw 1
Discard 3, draw 1
Discard 4, draw 2
Discard 5, draw 2
etc.

You can have an attack more severe than Militia, it will take some time to build up and you don't get any benefit yourself*. To counter that, if do play another Garrison, you could back to Peacetime and use it as a cantrip.  (is that enough of a counter?)

And if you do leave it as Wartime, you enables your opponent(s) to have a stronger attack.

Originally, I didn't have the draw clause, but of course that could leave your opponent handless.

However, you could still accomplish this if:

• it's already Wartime
• you have 3 garrisons
• you have 3 actions / villagers to play them
• you start with 3 villagers already

In that scenario you make opponents discard 5, draw 2; then discard 2, draw 1, then discard 1. So probably it needs something to not allow this to happen... Something to sleep on...

1. +1 Card, +2 Villagers is already an insane by itself, imo. This is way too strong for .
2. You can pin your opponents by stacking enough of these, which is easy to do with how many Villagers they amass.

[segura]

1. +1 Card, +2 Villagers is already an insane by itself, imo.

While I agree with your assessment of the card, I doubt that +1 Card, +2 Villagers would be overpowered at $5.

Why? Because DXV considered a cantrip Villager Village, i.e. +1 Card +1 Action +1 Villager, and viewed it as $4.5:

There was a village that was, cantrip, +1 Villager; man it's fine, you can argue about, does it need to cost $5, but it's nice.

[Aquila]

A split pile, 5 Fletchers on top of 5 Bowyers, with Peaceful starting face up:

Fletcher - Action Attack, $3 cost.
+1 Card
+1 Action
If it's Peaceful, +1 Card.
Each other player discards an Estate (or reveals they can't).
Flip Peaceful/Troubling over.

Bowyer - Action Attack, $5 cost.
+1 Buy
+ $2
If it's Troubling, choose one: gain a Silver to your hand; or trash a Silver from your hand for + $4.
Each other player discards a Silver (or reveals they can't).
You may flip Peaceful/Troubling over.

I started with cantrip lab every other play, so the Condition is like a shared journey token. Not quite interesting enough, so then I went split pile with the bottom half triggering on the other side, play starts with the top bit then changes up later. Then I added the attacks for scouting - you benefit when players can't discard - so you can see which side to leave Peaceful/Troubling with Bowyer to hinder the opponents. Finally I made Bowyer's conditional bonus fit nicely with its attack.

[Timinou]

I think the handsize attack on Garrison would be better if there was a floor, e.g. opponents discard as many cards as the number of Villagers you spend, but then DtX (perhaps 3 cards).  In any case, I think it would still need to cost $5.

[Timinou]

Here is my stab at using Conditions.  I was too lazy to create my own Conditions, so this uses the Rainy/Dry conditions.



Rainmaker is a Workshop variant when it is Rainy, and a Throne Room/Vassal hybrid when it is Dry.  You can stack these so that you can gain an Action card costing up to $4 and play it twice. 

I'm not entirely sure about the power level.  When it's Rainy, it's basically a non-terminal Armory which seems fine for $5.  When it's Dry, it can be either a non-terminal Throne Room variant or a non-terminal Silver; the latter seems a bit weak if you only have one Rainmaker in hand.

[Gubump]

1. +1 Card, +2 Villagers is already an insane by itself, imo.

While I agree with your assessment of the card, I doubt that +1 Card, +2 Villagers would be overpowered at $5.

Why? Because DXV considered a cantrip Villager Village, i.e. +1 Card +1 Action +1 Villager, and viewed it as $4.5:

There was a village that was, cantrip, +1 Villager; man it's fine, you can argue about, does it need to cost $5, but it's nice.

2 Villagers is a LOT better than just one.

[segura]

True that. But 2 Villagers is not a lot better than an Action and one Villager. Especially so if you most likely do have to spend that 2nd Villager immediately.

[scolapasta]

1. +1 Card, +2 Villagers is already an insane by itself, imo. This is way too strong for .
2. You can pin your opponents by stacking enough of these, which is easy to do with how many Villagers they amass.

1. +1 Card, +2 Villagers is already an insane by itself, imo.

While I agree with your assessment of the card, I doubt that +1 Card, +2 Villagers would be overpowered at $5.

Why? Because DXV considered a cantrip Villager Village, i.e. +1 Card +1 Action +1 Villager, and viewed it as $4.5:

There was a village that was, cantrip, +1 Villager; man it's fine, you can argue about, does it need to cost $5, but it's nice.

I think the handsize attack on Garrison would be better if there was a floor, e.g. opponents discard as many cards as the number of Villagers you spend, but then DtX (perhaps 3 cards).  In any case, I think it would still need to cost $5.

1. +1 Card, +2 Villagers is already an insane by itself, imo.

While I agree with your assessment of the card, I doubt that +1 Card, +2 Villagers would be overpowered at $5.

Why? Because DXV considered a cantrip Villager Village, i.e. +1 Card +1 Action +1 Villager, and viewed it as $4.5:

There was a village that was, cantrip, +1 Villager; man it's fine, you can argue about, does it need to cost $5, but it's nice.

2 Villagers is a LOT better than just one.

OK! Clearly we agree that the attack that can pin your opponents doesn't work. I really wanted (still want) to make an attack that you could scale up work, but I'm not seeing it yet.

I had considered the "draw up to x" answer, but feels like that eliminates the scaling - generally, when would you ever have them discard more than 2 then, as your Villagers are probably more valuable than to be used for discard 1, draw 1 attacks. Though I guess that also happens in the current version for even # of villagers...

I also thought I could have "round up" as then you'd always have at least one. But you still could very much destroy their turn. Also all official cards that round, round down, so I think that would be confusing.

So I'm going to drop the scaling, for now, unless I think of something better. The new version has you remove just one Villager for a regular 'ol Militia style attack. (if it's already Wartime)

Re: the strength of two villagers. I don't know. I mean they are valuable, of course, but only if you save them, And if you do, then this card just is +1 card that turn... So I agree 4 is to cheap, but I think I'll try it at $5 and see what y'all think.  (I also considered changing it to +1 Card, +1 Action, +1 Villager in Peacetime and may still do something like that:

So if it's Peacetime:
• Village+ or Militia attack (without any bonus)
if it's Wartime:
• Militia attack with +1 Villager instead of +$2, or you don't "attack" and just keep both Villagers, or you have a Cantrip+ (by flipping to Peacetime):

Garrison - $4
+2 Villagers

You may remove a token from your Villagers to flip Peacetime / Wartime.

If it's Peacetime, +1 Card.

If it's Wartime, you may remove a token from your Villagers. If you do, each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand.

Better? (one thing I like about it is that a card that was just "+1 Card, +2 Villagers" feels a little boring, so this allws for that while adding a whole other component. But you could have a "peaceful" game were all it ever did was act that way)

...
Flip Peaceful/Troubling over.

Interesting that Aquila chose a similar theme to his condition. While we both designed ours to be independent, I imagine in a real set, these would use the same condition (or one would change the names / theme).

[mathdude]

Ok, here's my submission, sort of tied into Summertime (though this is after Summer ends):

Autumn Harvest
Type: Action-Conditional
Cost: $4
+1 Action
If it is Barren: +2 Cards, discard 2 cards.
If it is Plentiful: +4 Cards, discard 2 cards; each other player draws a card.
-
When you discard this from play, if you haven't already this turn, flip Barren/Plentiful.

It's non-terminal.
So when it's Barren, it starts as a Lab, but reduces your hand size.  This is fine if you have a bit of green or other junk, to improve what's left in your hand.  But you don't want to play multiples (definitely not more than 2 in a turn, I think).
But when it's Plentiful, it starts as a super-Lab, and ends as a Lab (for 4-cost)!  This would be great to play a whole bunch of them, except that it gives your opponents an extra card every time you play it.

The Condition card - Barren/Plentiful - doesn't flip until Clean-up, and then only once per turn.  So all Autumn Harvest cards you play in a turn will follow the same condition.  And flipping is not optional, but it shouldn't matter.  If you have just used it while Barren and are setting up your opponent for using super-Labs, that will let you draw extra cards for your next turn.  But if you just used it while Plentiful, that means your opponent won't be able to do much with it.

[LibraryAdventurer]

Autumn Harvest
Type: Action-Conditional
Cost: $4
+1 Action
If it is Barren: +2 Cards, discard 2 cards.
If it is Plentiful: +4 Cards, discard 2 cards; each other player draws a card.
-
When you discard this from play, if you haven't already this turn, flip Barren/Plentiful.

So for a big chunk of the game in 2-player, one person will play it with Barren every time and the other player will play it with plentiful every time. I suggest something different for flipping the condition.

[mathdude]

Autumn Harvest
Type: Action-Conditional
Cost: $4
+1 Action
If it is Barren: +2 Cards, discard 2 cards.
If it is Plentiful: +4 Cards, discard 2 cards; each other player draws a card.
-
When you discard this from play, if you haven't already this turn, flip Barren/Plentiful.

So for a big chunk of the game in 2-player, one person will play it with Barren every time and the other player will play it with plentiful every time. I suggest something different for flipping the condition.

If both players are running full-deck engines and actually get them firing regularly, that could be the case.  But if that doesn't work in your favour (for whichever side of the Condition you land on), then you just omit playing your Autumn Harvest one turn and see if that helps.  However, until you get the engines running, both players won't be playing the card every turn.  Also, as mentioned in my OP, buying a few of these would likely get in the way of creating an engine and getting it running.  I think the flip condition should be okay.

[spineflu]

Autumn Harvest
Type: Action-Conditional
Cost: $4
+1 Action
If it is Barren: +2 Cards, discard 2 cards.
If it is Plentiful: +4 Cards, discard 2 cards; each other player draws a card.
-
When you discard this from play, if you haven't already this turn, flip Barren/Plentiful.

So for a big chunk of the game in 2-player, one person will play it with Barren every time and the other player will play it with plentiful every time. I suggest something different for flipping the condition.

I thought this too, but consider it more like an artifact race/tug-of-war and then its good actually

[emtzalex]

24 HOUR WARNING

Or at least, it's almost the 24 hour warning. The contest will end at 08:42:38 UTC (3:42 a.m. EST), but I'm going to bed. I'll try to do the judging within 24 hours of the contest closing, but 48 might be more realistic. I do want to make one point of clarification, which is that if you don't expressly state otherwise, I will presume that the first side listed when you talk about the condition as a whole is the side that start's face up (i.e. "Flip Rain/Dry" indicates Rainy starts face up). Again, please let me know if you have any questions.

Here are the entries so far (please let me know if I missed anyone):

LibraryAdventurer's Weatherman, using Rainy/Dry

spineflu's Slipway, using High Tide/Low Tide.

Xen3k's Swallow and its Heirloom, Coconut using Warm/Cool

scolapasta's Garrison using Peacetime/Wartime

Aquila's split pile of Fletcher and Bowyer, using Peaceful/Troubling

Timinou's Rainmaker, using Rainy/Dry

mathdude's Autumn Harvest, using Barren/Plentiful

[emtzalex]

Contest Closed

Since there weren't any submissions since the 24 hour deadline, I'll be using that list. Please double-check to make sure your entry is on there if you submitted one.

[emtzalex]

Sorry all, I tried to get this done within 48 hours, but I had a couple of big projects at work and I did not get to these as soon as I wanted.

I am nearly finished, and hope to get these done tomorrow night and be able to announce a winner by then.

[emtzalex]

Sorry this took so long. It's my first time judging and I don't have a great sense of how long it takes or how much to say. I think some of these are a little long, but I did want to give a good amount of feedback. I hope my feedback is useful. I definitely appreciate everyone's participation, and the great ideas people have had for the Conditions mechanic.

Here we go:

Weatherman $4 - Action - Duration - Conditional At the start of your next turn: +2 Cards. Then, if it's Rainy, you may discard 2 cards for $2. Otherwise, trash a card from your hand. - In games using this, when you gain a treasure, you may flip Rainy/Dry.[/size]	LibraryAdventurer's Weatherman, using Rainy/Dry Both of this card's possible effects are pretty strong, especially at the beginning of the game. Drawing before you trash widens the selection and mitigates the hand-reduction of trashing from hand. The optional Mill effect would be useful by itself, and is even better with the extra drawing. That being said, early in the game you will almost always prefer the trashing, and it is rarely going to be much of a burden for your opponent to take it away from you, since buying Treasure early in the game is usually a good option (except maybe at $5, depending what is in the Kingdom). The only reason not to switch off trashing when your opponent has a Weatherman in play is if you have played one of your own, but even then, your opponent could take the trashing and switch it off for you. I don't think this is a huge problem, as the card is pretty strong either way (which also means it is probably not worth forgoing a solid $5 Action or even a Weatherman [if you don't have one] to keep your opponent from trashing one time). More broadly, the "in-games using this" mechanic is an interesting choice. Combined with the Duration I do think it makes it a bit too easy to mess with other player's effect, as the start of your turn is probably one of the times you are least likely to gain a Treasure (compared to, say, the Buy phase or the meat of the Action phase). That being said, I do think it has a lot of potential for a means to flip Conditions. I think a different trigger might work better with Weatherman (like the gain, trashing, or discarding of a Victory card, which would allow players to trigger the flip using Weatherman, and flip it later on when they start greening). I also think flipping with an Treasure on-gain could work with a different (probably non-duration) Conditional, (although it might get a bit annoying when playing online to be prompted every time you buy a Treasure to decide whether or not to flip it).
Slipway • $5 • Action - Duration Now and at the start of your next turn: If it's High Tide, you may discard a Treasure for +3 Cards; If it's Low Tide, you may discard an Action for +$3. When you discard this from play, turn High Tide / Low Tide over.	spineflu's Slipway, using High Tide/Low Tide. First, I really like High Tide / Low Tide as a Condition. It's a great fit and very much in the spirit I was going for with Conditions. I also like the use of a Seaside theme. Before I discuss the card, there is one correction, as I think there should be a horizontal line before "When you discard this from play..." paragraph; see, e.g., Alchemist, Treasury, Travellers. Slipway itself is quite a potent card. Both the effects it offers are powerful, and it gives two opportunities to get those effects. As a broad generalization, I think one would tend to prefer the Action-into-coins when the card is played (after playing a terminal action you may well want to turn any remaining Action into coins to spend in your imminent Buy phase, while the other effect could both cost you a Treasure and draw dead Action cards), and tend to prefer the Treasure-into-cards at the start of the next turn (where the fact that it does not cost you an Action means that it is functionally a Stables that always draws a Lab, or a Storyteller that treats every Treasure like a Gold). The problem is, there is very little ability to control what you are going to get. Because this flips the Condition on discard, you have to wait until the end of your next turn to flip it, unless there is another High Tide / Low Tide Conditional, or a card that can flip any Condition. The only other possibility (presuming you add the horizontal line as suggested) is if there is a Way (other than Chameleon), which would allow you to play one Slipway for a different effect in order to discard it that turn and flip the Condition. The flip side (no pun intended) of not being able to change the Condition is that, except in a handful of circumstances, you know what the Condition will be. Generally, the only thing that can flip the condition before your Slipway resolves a second time is a Slipway that was played on a previous turn (either by you or your opponent), which you already know about. The only exception (besides those already listed) is if your opponent keeps her Slipway from being discarded using something like Scheme, Improve, or Bonfire. But even knowing what you are going to get, there's a pretty limited amount you can do about it. Unless you have a Royal Seal or Cargo Ship to put discard fodder into your hand, that knowledge is of pretty limited use. In a way, that fits the flavor of the card really well: you can predict the tides well, but you cannot control them, all you can do is watch the tides roll in and out. While you definitely get style points for that, I am not sure it makes the card the most playable. One thing to consider could be cutting the cost to $4, and making the benefit occur "now or at the start of your next turn." If you take the effect immediately your Slipway will discard from play this turn, flipping the Condition sooner. Another option could make the flip either when discarded from play or from your hand not during clean-up. This would allow you to play a Slipway at Low Tide, discard a second Slipway for +$3 and flip the Condition, then get to discard a Treasure for +3 cards the following turn (if no opponent messes with it).
Swallow - $4 Action - Conditional +1 Card +1 Action If it is Warm, discard a card. If it is an Action card, gain a Swallow. Otherwise +1 Card. If it is Cool, discard 2 cards. If at least one is a Treasure, +$2. Otherwise +$1. Heirloom: Coconut Coconut - $2 Treasure - Heirloom $1 You may flip Warm/Cool to return a Swallow you have in play to the supply for +2VP. If you do, trash a Duchy or Estate from the supply.	Xen3k's Swallow and its Heirloom, Coconut using Warm/Cool Xen3k, your design has a ton of great ideas that I really like. Unfortunately, they seem to have gotten in each other's way a bit and I don't think the result ultimately works. I do appreciate the Monty Python reference that is still very much in line with the game's theme. For example, I love the idea of using an Heirloom to flip a Condition. It separates flipping the Condition from playing the Conditional that uses, but still gives all of the players the capacity to make the flip without them to buy two different cards. However, I don't think it works here. Swallow is clearly a Conditional with a stronger and weaker condition. While I think that is another design element, with a lot of potential, when you combine it with the use of the Heirloom, it makes it too easy for a player who decides not to buy Swallow to "turn off" stronger Warm effect, and there's no incentive not to do so. This is compounded by the fact that the player using Swallow (generally) won't be able to "turn on" until her Buy phase, after the time to play Swallow will tend to have passed. (Note: I don't know if you intended players to be able to use Coconut to flip the Condition without having a Swallow to return, but it's clear to me that's how it works as currently worded.) This would not be such an issue, except I think you may have nerfed this too hard. At it's strongest (in terms of handsize/control), it is still weaker than Fugitive, and each other incarnation is weaker still. Magpie's gainer has basically no disadvantage, while this requires both losing an Action card you could have played and reducing your handsize. When it's Cool, your handsisze drops by 2, which is basically the equivalent of the strongest handsize attacks. Playing 2 (or playing 1 after being hit with Militia) will leave you with a single card in hand (barring any other drawing). That basically leaves the VP gain as the strongest aspect of the card.  Adding the trashing element to mitigate the VP gaining is a good call. My only concern is that the return-for-VP-tokens effect is not contingent on the trashing (compare with Triumph, which gains instead of trashes). As I understand it, the reason for tying VP tokens to gaining or trashing is to prevent a state of play where players just keep playing cards to gain VP, which never pushes the game towards the end. Here, once all of the Estates and Duchies are gone the players might have incentive to continuously buy and return Swallows to run up their VP without ever ending the game. This is unlikely, but I could potentially imagine this happening in conjunction with a Penultimate_Province_Rule dilemma. (This is made slightly more likely by the fact that players could not buy Duchies to to go up in VP before buying the second-to-last Provence). I am guessing you might have taken the language from Salt the Earth. While that is not Conditional, the important difference there is that a player will eventually have to start trashing Provinces/Colonies, which does push the game towards a conclusion.  I know I have written a lot, and I have pointed out a multiple issues I have with these, but I actually think all of those issues are connected, and these are really close to being a very good pair of cards.
Garrison - $4 +2 Villagers You can remove a token from your Villagers to flip Peacetime / Wartime. If it's Peacetime, +1 Card. If it's Wartime, remove any number of tokens from your Villagers and each other player discards a card per token removed, then draws a card per each 2 cards discarded (round down).	scolapasta's Garrison using Peacetime/Wartime Yet another variation on how Conditions turn over--pay to flip. It's a concept I like a lot. In posting the card, spineful suggested someone make a Rabbit Season / Duck Season condition, this feels the most like that; you could imagine players aggressively flipping the Condition back and forth to the one they prefer. In Peacetime, this is the village-iest village; if the purpose of a village is that you get to play extra Action cards, this guarantees that you will get to do so (at least if it stays Peacetime). While you can play Fishing Village the turn before you take an extra action, you can play Garrison on turn 3 and take an extra action on turn 23. This is potentially extremely valuable to certain strategies. In Wartime, it's another outlier, a strong, non-terminal attack. Both versions are substantially weaker if you have to flip the Condition first. If you want to use the Attack and you do not have other terminal Actions to play, the answer is often going to be yes. If you are generally trying to run an engine, it may often make sense to just leave it as Wartime and take the two Villagers over one Villager and a card, or even (depending on what is in your hand) to play the attack and settle for a single villager. I think this presents a lot of interesting and fun choices.
Fletcher - Action Attack, $3 cost. +1 Card +1 Action If it's Peaceful, +1 Card. Each other player discards an Estate (or reveals they can't). Flip Peaceful/Troubling over. Bowyer - Action Attack, $5 cost. +1 Buy + $2 If it's Troubling, choose one: gain a Silver to your hand; or trash a Silver from your hand for + $4. Each other player discards a Silver (or reveals they can't). You may flip Peaceful/Troubling over.	Aquila's split pile of Fletcher and Bowyer, using Peaceful/Troubling A split pile is another interesting approach to Conditions. You can use the first card to flip the Condition, then the second card can be effected by the Condition without flipping it. Making the second optional is another interesting approach. Fletcher is either a cantrip or Lab (a good idea for the top card of a split, as it allows players to take all of them with clogging their decks), while Bowyer is terminal silver, with the possibility to net double money while either gaining or trashing a Silver. Both have card-specific discard attacks. It seems like it was your intention for the two cards to chain-->playing Fletcher while Peaceful for the lab variant followed by Bowyer while Troubling for net $4 gain. That seems a little strong, especially as it may not be hard to play a cantrip Fletcher to flip then a Lab Fletcher to fire (and until you get Bowyer, the order you do that in doesn't matter). That said, Sauna/Avanto can yield quite a bit more (depending on what you buy). I generally like the idea of the discard attacks as scouting to help decide whether to flip the Condition back to Peaceful. However, if Bowyer gets combined with something like Militia, you could end up with only two cards left (or fewer). Just the threat of it might force players to hold on to Copper instead of Silver, which might end up being too punishing and/or slowing the game down too much.
Rainmaker Action -- $5 +1 Action If it's Rainy: Gain a card costing less than this onto your deck. If it's Dry: Discard the top card of your deck.  If it's an Action card, you may play it twice.  Otherwise +$2. Flip Rainy/Dry.	Timinou's Rainmaker, using Rainy/Dry This is a fairly straightforward card, having one of two reasonably good benefits, then flipping the Condition. Both abilities are fairly playable at any time, so there is not too much worry about what the Condition is. At first glance, these two effects seem to be very different, but they are actually somewhat connected, as both gives you some degree of control over what is on top of your deck. For example, I could see pairing this with terminal drawing; when Rainy, you can put a card that you know won't be drawn dead into the mix, and when Dry, you can play an Action card that would have drawn while otherwise ensuring you get at least some value for the card. (there might be an Action card below that you get anyway, so it's far from perfect). And as Timinou pointed out, the effects can double up to gain then play a card. One concern I have is that I am a little unclear on how Dry works, based on the use of "If...may" and "Otherwise..." in consecutive sentences. After you discard, there are three possibilities: (a) it is an Action card you choose to play twice; (b) it is an Action card you choose not to play twice; (c) it is not an Action card. I'm not sure if "Otherwise" applies and gives you +$2 in situation (b), (c), or both. I presume from the context it is not just (b), but I'm not sure that is totally clear grammatically. My inclination is to give it in both situations, as it makes the choice of whether to play certain Actions more interesting, and strengthens a card I suspect might be a bit weak at $5. One thing you might consider to add an additional strategic element is rearranging the text so the Condition flips before the rest of the card resolves. That way, if you use the Dry ability and discarded another copy of Rainmaker, it would allow you to gain a card and play it. Now, it would re-play Dry, discarding the second card on the pile (and potentially playing it twice), then play Rainy, gaining a different card, then flip back to Dry when the original card finished resolving. While the altered version is strong, it's not too strong, and more than a fair reward for colliding two $5 Actions (one on top of your deck). Plus, you couldn't make it recursive and pile the Rainmakers, as it can never cost less than itself. (Although you could pile Estates this way if you managed to discount Rainmaker and use Inheritance, then play a Rainmaker or Estate when you knew the top cards was a second copy, using each incarnation to gain an Estate and play it twice; still not an unreasonable reward accomplishing such a tricky alignment).
Autumn Harvest Type: Action-Conditional Cost: $4 +1 Action If it is Barren: +2 Cards, discard 2 cards. If it is Plentiful: +4 Cards, discard 2 cards; each other player draws a card. - When you discard this from play, if you haven't already this turn, flip Barren/Plentiful.	mathdude's Autumn Harvest, using Barren/Plentiful One last card, and one last variation on how Conditions are flipped (albeit a relatively minor one). Two versions of a sifter, one which doubles as a Lab-variant and gives your opponents cards as well, and the other of which work as a weaker version of Warehouse, costing you a card. At first blush, I shared LibraryAdventurer's concern that the flipping mechanism would result in one player locking up the Plentiful and gaining a huge advantage. But on further consideration, I don't think that's a concern. While Plentiful is a powerful card, it does have some balance, as each time it is played in increases the handsize of the player playing it by one and the handsize of each other player by one. Of course, having six cards out of 8 is significantly better than just taking the top 6 on your deck, but that is to be expected for the person playing the card. The extra cards help the other player, and potentially give them the wherewithal to forego playing their Autumn Harvests. There is another symmetry about the card which I like: each time it is played on Plentiful a player's hand size increases by 1, while each time it is played on Barren the hand decreases by 1. Each opponent's play of a Plentiful Autumn Harvest facilitates a Barren play, while still landing at a 5 card hand. This can be complicated a number of ways. A handsize attack after multiple plays on plentiful could be especially devastating. However, a player could choose to chuck their Autumn Harvests and send the Barren state back to their opponent. Another complication could involve a multi-player game; if three players in a row play Autumn Harvest, the third may have drawn from a prior player's Plentiful and still get to use Plentiful themselves. But even that position would rotate, and with multiple players there is a decent chance one might forego buying Autumn Harvest and be content to glean the Plentiful draws while letting the other players fight over that status and saving her buys for something else. (Conversely, it would also be harder for all the players to play it every turn when there are fewer copies per player). To me, this card looks really strong, but balanced. I also appreciate the seasonal theme's connection to Summertime, even if you've moved on in the year.

And now, the judging:

Honorary Mention for my favorite original Condition: spineflu's High Tide/Low Tide
In Third Place: Timinou's Rainmaker
In Second Place: scolapasta's Garrison



AND THE WINNER IS...





mathdude's Autumn Harvest

This is definitely the card I would be most excited to see in the Kingdom. It's my first time judging, but that seems as good a criteria as I can come up with.




Thanks again everyone for your cards. This was a lot of fun, and definitely gave me a lot of new ideas for using Conditions.

[mathdude]

AND THE WINNER IS...

mathdude's Autumn Harvest

This is definitely the card I would be most excited to see in the Kingdom. It's my first time judging, but that seems as good a criteria as I can come up with.

Thanks again everyone for your cards. This was a lot of fun, and definitely gave me a lot of new ideas for using Conditions.

Thanks!  I didn't expect that, as I wasn't really sure what you (or anyone) would look for in the Conditions mechanic - though I guess we were all in the same boat.  I'm glad you appreciated the symmetry in the design.

Also, I guess now we move from one first-time judge to another.  I'll allow a bit of discussion about your judging, if people want.  Then I'll post a new contest probably in the afternoon or evening.  I know what I'm going to use already (something I'm working on, as I develop my own fan-made expansion - and like you, I'll also say at the end "thanks... gave me a lot of new ideas for [my mechanic]" as I'll probably steal some for my expansion!)

... Side note - are we just running all Fan Mechanics contests in this single thread, or should we be making a new thread for each contest?

[Gubump]

... Side note - are we just running all Fan Mechanics contests in this single thread, or should we be making a new thread for each contest?

We're just doing a single thread, at least for now.

[Xen3k]

Swallow - $4
Action - Conditional
+1 Card
+1 Action
If it is Warm, discard a card. If it is an Action card, gain a Swallow. Otherwise +1 Card.
If it is Cool, discard 2 cards. If at least one is a Treasure, +$2. Otherwise +$1.
Heirloom: Coconut

Coconut - $2
Treasure - Heirloom
$1
You may flip Warm/Cool to return a Swallow you have in play to the supply for +2VP. If you do, trash a Duchy or Estate from the supply.

Xen3k's Swallow and its Heirloom, Coconut using Warm/Cool

Xen3k, your design has a ton of great ideas that I really like. Unfortunately, they seem to have gotten in each other's way a bit and I don't think the result ultimately works. I do appreciate the Monty Python reference that is still very much in line with the game's theme.

For example, I love the idea of using an Heirloom to flip a Condition. It separates flipping the Condition from playing the Conditional that uses, but still gives all of the players the capacity to make the flip without them to buy two different cards. However, I don't think it works here. Swallow is clearly a Conditional with a stronger and weaker condition. While I think that is another design element, with a lot of potential, when you combine it with the use of the Heirloom, it makes it too easy for a player who decides not to buy Swallow to "turn off" stronger Warm effect, and there's no incentive not to do so. This is compounded by the fact that the player using Swallow (generally) won't be able to "turn on" until her Buy phase, after the time to play Swallow will tend to have passed.

(Note: I don't know if you intended players to be able to use Coconut to flip the Condition without having a Swallow to return, but it's clear to me that's how it works as currently worded.)

This would not be such an issue, except I think you may have nerfed this too hard. At it's strongest (in terms of handsize/control), it is still weaker than Fugitive, and each other incarnation is weaker still. Magpie's gainer has basically no disadvantage, while this requires both losing an Action card you could have played and reducing your handsize. When it's Cool, your handsisze drops by 2, which is basically the equivalent of the strongest handsize attacks. Playing 2 (or playing 1 after being hit with Militia) will leave you with a single card in hand (barring any other drawing). That basically leaves the VP gain as the strongest aspect of the card. 

Adding the trashing element to mitigate the VP gaining is a good call. My only concern is that the return-for-VP-tokens effect is not contingent on the trashing (compare with Triumph, which gains instead of trashes). As I understand it, the reason for tying VP tokens to gaining or trashing is to prevent a state of play where players just keep playing cards to gain VP, which never pushes the game towards the end. Here, once all of the Estates and Duchies are gone the players might have incentive to continuously buy and return Swallows to run up their VP without ever ending the game. This is unlikely, but I could potentially imagine this happening in conjunction with a Penultimate_Province_Rule dilemma. (This is made slightly more likely by the fact that players could not buy Duchies to to go up in VP before buying the second-to-last Provence). I am guessing you might have taken the language from Salt the Earth. While that is not Conditional, the important difference there is that a player will eventually have to start trashing Provinces/Colonies, which does push the game towards a conclusion. 

I know I have written a lot, and I have pointed out a multiple issues I have with these, but I actually think all of those issues are connected, and these are really close to being a very good pair of cards.

Thanks for the feedback. I realize now that I may not fully grasp the correct wording to make things necessary for a pay-off. On Coconut, the intention was to make it necessary to return a Swallow in order to flip the Conditional. I was hesitant to allow the trashing of Provinces in general, I probably could have allowed it. The power level for the Cool side is intended to be similar to Mill, as Swallow basically acts as a non-Victory Victory card. I likely did nerf it too much. Well that turned into a mess.

Thanks again for the feedback!

[mathdude]

Design a Card (split pile, travelers line, non-supply, and similar also permitted) that uses the "Dawn" Type.  (Landscape card-shaped objects will not be valid submissions).

I'm working on a new fan-made expansion, and I'm adding "Dawn" cards (a new card type, as far as I know - maybe somewhere hidden in this forum, someone has used it before, but I haven't seen it as I'm rather new).  It is meant to partly mirror the "Night" card mechanic.  Night cards are great, in that they are never drawn dead - night happens at the end of turn, and you can play as many as you want (they don't require +Actions).  Many night cards interact to what happened during your turn (see Monastery, Devil's Workshop, Crypt, Raider).  A number of others set up your next hand(s), as durations (see Guardian, Ghost Town, Cobbler, Den of Sin).  Their drawback is that they take up space in your hand, affecting what you are able to buy "this" turn (in that they could have been a silver or an Action card to be used this turn before your Buy Phase), usually at the cost of another minor benefit (gain cheaper card, sift, etc.) or by setting up your next hand.

Dawn cards introduce a new phase.  First, any "start of turn" effects happen, then you enter your Dawn Phase, where you play Dawn cards**, then you move to your Action Phase and continue as usual.  But Dawn cards are usually only useful if you have them in your initial (usually 5-card) hand - unless they are a multi-Type card (e.g. Dawn-Action, Dawn-Treasure, Dawn-Night - see Werewolf), or unless something allows you to return to your Dawn Phase.  Because they aren't usually useful if drawn during your turn, they can offer slightly more powerful effects at a cheaper cost, since there is a risk that they will be a dead card.  Rather than reacting to what happened during your turn like Night cards, Dawn cards could possibly set up or affect your current turn in some way.  They can affect how cards are played, give extra power to some things, increase your ability to buy things, or a number of other possible effects, probably for the current turn - I recognize many action cards do these types of things already, but limiting the play of them to the beginning of turn can allow more powerful effects.  You could also consider something like the Ways mechanic in general, or specifically the Way of the Chameleon, likely as a below-the-line effect.

** I have not yet decided which way I want to mirror the Night cards' ability to play all Night cards - I'm still deciding between mirroring exactly, and allowing unlimited Dawn cards to be played during the Dawn Phase, or mirroring the opposite, and allowing only 1 single Dawn card to be played per turn.  Obviously the choice between these two could affect the cost of the card, and whether people want to buy many copies of it or just one.  For this contest, with your submission, please state whether it is intended to be played with a rule of 1 Dawn card per turn, or unlimited Dawn cards per turn allowed.

Dawn cards inherently have the equivalent of +1 Action on them, since they let you play the card, then still let you start your Action Phase with 1 Action.  So any +1 Action on a Dawn card is effectively a village variant.

Here are a couple very simple ideas, though these have not been tested yet for balance and cost (your submissions do not need to be this simple):

(to be used with only 1 Dawn card per turn)

Testing Ground
Type: Dawn
Cost: $3
+2 Cards
+1 Action

It is a very cheap lab (in reality, a lost city, since it's effectively +2 Actions).  But you can't spam-buy them.  They work well with deck-inspector cards that can check the top cards in your deck and leave some there.  They don't work well with discard-sifters, or any type of draw cards, as you could draw this card dead.  But playing with 1-per-turn, you likely wouldn't open with 2 of these on a 4/3 split, since the chances of them colliding is much greater than usual (if you drawn neither on turn 3, you're guaranteed to get both on turn 4, since they will either draw together or one will draw the other... if you draw only 1 on turn 3, you have 2/7 chance of drawing the other dead).
Note that this card could probably be played with unlimited Dawn cards per turn if it cost $4 (a cheap lab - great if you start your hand with it, or draw another with itself, dead card if drawn otherwise).

(to be used with unlimited Dawn cards per turn)

Byway
Type: Dawn
Cost: $3
+1 Card
-
While this is in play, non-Victory cards cost $1 less, but not less than $0

It is a cantrip Bridge variant - it replaces itself and reduces the cost of cards (so it's really more like a cheap Highway), so you could possibly string a number together.  But like other Dawn cards, if drawn dead in the rest of your turn, it's wasted.  I also nerfed it by not letting it reduce the cost of Victory cards - not sure if that was needed or not, but at least that made it a little more different from Highway.

Judging Criteria
In no particular order, here are some things I will consider:
- how effectively they use the Dawn mechanic (rather than simply taking an existing card and calling it a Dawn card and reducing the cost) - on this point, the 2 I've shown are rather poor choices.
- how easy they are to understand and use (they don't have to be "simple", but card text should be clear enough and not require much additional information).
- how much fun they look like they would be to play with (especially if they could be helpful with, or help enable/enhance 2 completely different play styles - such as big money, draw-full-deck engines, trash for small deck, etc.).
- cost is in the right ballpark (exact is not needed, as knowing the value when using a new mechanic would be quite difficult... but if they cost $3-5, consideration should be given to how they may affect opening purchases on turns 1 and 2).
- if using a multi-Type card (Night example of Werewolf), there is balance and/or synergy between the choices of which Phase to play it.
- bonus points may be given if you help sway my decision to either have Dawn cards be 1-per-turn, or unlimited-per-turn (if I really like your card, but it would only work 1 of these ways).
- lesser bonus points may also be given if the card could potentially be used, regardless of whether I end up making Dawn cards 1-per-turn or unlimited-per-turn (e.g. my Testing Ground above, with a different cost depending on which way the Dawn card rule goes).

Contest closes Thursday, March 4th at 10pm forum time, which is around 7 full days from the original time of this post.

[BBobb]

Just wondering if you have seen Tejayes Morning cards. They are very similar to these.

[scolapasta]

Just wondering if you have seen Tejayes Morning cards. They are very similar to these.

I had the same thought as you, so just spent the last I don't know how many minutes trying to find them.

But eventually, SUCCESS!

One idea I liked of there's was this rule:

In order to make them less swingy and less dead-when-drawn-during-turn, Morning cards now have a universal effect in which when you discard a Morning card from your hand during your Cleanup phase, you may reveal it and put it on top of your deck. I won't add this to the card text because then the cards would be too wordy. As long as it's a Morning card, you can do this.

And then spineflu also had Morning cards in a different contest.

Here

And they also had a similar rule:

At the start of a player's cleanup phase, they may reveal a Morning card from their hand, set it aside, and add it to their hand before drawing new cards (so if one is drawn during the Action phase, its playable on the next turn); that player will still have 5 cards in hand after drawing (or more, if they have other bonuses like The River's Gift). This can only be done with one Morning card, so if you draw two or more, you'll have to choose which you do this with.

P.S. How amazing would it be to have sort of index for that WDC 1-100 thread??

[X-tra]

I feel inspired, so here's an attempt, using the unlimited Dawn cards per turn:



Lots of cool stuff you can do, here.

• Start with a hand of multiple Cottages? Say, 3 Cottages? Topdeck two of them for 2 extra Actions, then draw them again with the 3rd one... then topdeck one of the remaining 2, again! And then draw it again! Start your turn with 6 cards and 4 Actions, weee!
• Alternatively, just draw with all of your Cottages. They all increase your starting handsize by 1, which is cool.
• In your Action phase, you can play this as a simple Moat, meh. Or! You can set it up so you start with it in your next hand by topdecking it.

Unsure about the cost. This is a new mechanic, after all.

[mathdude]

Just wondering if you have seen Tejayes Morning cards. They are very similar to these.

I had the same thought as you, so just spent the last I don't know how many minutes trying to find them.

But eventually, SUCCESS!

One idea I liked of there's was this rule:

In order to make them less swingy and less dead-when-drawn-during-turn, Morning cards now have a universal effect in which when you discard a Morning card from your hand during your Cleanup phase, you may reveal it and put it on top of your deck. I won't add this to the card text because then the cards would be too wordy. As long as it's a Morning card, you can do this.

And then spineflu also had Morning cards in a different contest.

Here

And they also had a similar rule:

At the start of a player's cleanup phase, they may reveal a Morning card from their hand, set it aside, and add it to their hand before drawing new cards (so if one is drawn during the Action phase, its playable on the next turn); that player will still have 5 cards in hand after drawing (or more, if they have other bonuses like The River's Gift). This can only be done with one Morning card, so if you draw two or more, you'll have to choose which you do this with.

P.S. How amazing would it be to have sort of index for that WDC 1-100 thread??

I was sure someone had toyed with the anti-night card idea, I just hadn't seen it.  I'm pretty sure I looked through all the winners of the WDC 1-100, but I don't recall seeing these so they must not have won.

Any of Tejayes's cards would probably do fairly well in this contest.  They are great examples to look at for a little more complex options (as opposed to the 2 simple ones I just created as I was posting this).

For spineflu's cards, they use a slightly different mechanic (combination of artifact and kingdom card... fighting over who gets to keep theirs in play).  So they are less relevant here.  However, they do share some similarities to another semi-new-mechanic I'm using in my new expansion - sorry, no more details until the reveal, possibly in a couple weeks.

As for the idea of top-decking if discarded from hand... I'm going to say no, for the purposes of this contest (unless you want that to be a below-the-line effect on the card).  I know it makes it a bit swingy, especially if the card can be fairly powerful.  But that would influence play strategy with the card in the kingdom (possibly only wanting to buy one, or having to choose between using the Dawn card or building a big engine since they may not be compatible together).  If I did end up allowing this as I create my expansion, I would definitely stick with spineflu's approach, of only allowing 1 to be topdecked per turn.

Also, I just added the deadline to my intro post.