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X-tra

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Dominion: Weekly Design Contest Set
« on: January 14, 2021, 09:34:44 pm »
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Dominion: Weekly Design Contest Set

Hello everyone!  Celebrating the end of the 100th Weekly Design Contest, an impressive milestone, I thought it could be cute to pool a couple of winning cards together into a community-created set. I’ve compiled my favourite quarter of these winning cards (25 cards), updated some of them with the ever-changing wording of Dominion and added/changed pictures on some of them. Multiple questions arise in the light of what I’ve just said:

1. What determined which card made it into this set? Why wasn’t my submission included here?

First of all, it’s nothing personal. These 100 cards all have their merits, if only by how creative they are. But I limited myself to multiple factors, and that filtered a bunch of cards out. Here’s my list of criteria:
  • Card had to be the winner of a weekly competition. Runner-ups were sometimes extremely interesting, but there was too much to choose from. So winning cards only.
  • No extra components. This eliminates all cards that come with their own tokens, mats, personal out-of-Supply piles and what not.
  • No Landscape cards. It’d feel awkward to create a 25-card set with like... 3 Events, y’know. If Landscapes are to be included, there would need to be a good amount of them for them to not look out of place. But there weren’t enough winning Landscape cards, so I decided against including these.
  • Simplicity rhymes with priority. The elegance of Dominion comes from the interaction of cards together in a given Kingdom. Not from a card alone doing everything and then some. Donald has been edging closer and closer toward simplicity with his recent-most expansions (Renaissance, Menagerie), and I agree with this design philosophy. So I avoided cards with a massive wall of text on them more than I didn’t.
  • A set must hold itself together with a certain number of core cards. For instance, there needs to be enough trashing, enough draw cards, enough payload and enough villages for cards to work well together, should a player decide to play only with this set. But also, there mustn’t be too many Attack cards, too many Kingdom Treasure cards, too many cards with super-duper wacky effects, etc... There’s also a question of cost. The ratio of - - cards in the set must be reasonable. So, sometimes, I had to filter out cards to be able to realize that vision.

2. Why did you change the wording on my card? Wasn’t it good enough to begin with?

Of course it was! Sometimes, I only changed a couple of things to make the card perhaps less wordy, or perhaps because the Dominion lexicon changed over time. All of this will be explained in each card’s individual entry. But this was all done in good spirits: the mechanics on the card itself remain unchanged (or ultra close to what it was originally).

3. What about the art? Why is it different than the art I originally submitted?

Not all cards have a different art. But I’m a big sucker for crediting the original artists. Sometimes, I could not find the original piece of art submitted and as such, I could not find the artist to credit. In such cases, I searched for new art to credit it. And even on rarer cases could I not find the original artist on art I added. I hate when this happens… But anyway.



Here are the 25 cards now, ordered in ascending cost.



      Name: Actor

Creator: Belugawhale

Description: A simple cantrip card that gives Villagers.

Changes from the original card: None.

Thoughts: Poor House now has some company in the range of Kingdom cards! I won’t be as angry Upgrading or Remaking my Coppers into Actors as I would with Poor House, to be fair. Worst case scenario: I just cantrip my Actors away.

      

      Name: Lady

Creator: Fragasnap

Description: A cheap utility card; and a cheap source of Buys.

Changes from the original card: None.

Thoughts: This card fluctuates between giving you +1 Card and +1 Action, depending on the village availability in the Supply. The +1 Card is perhaps not the best “bonus” you can gather out of your multiple available Actions, but then again, so is the disappearing money version of it too. Still, a cheap +Buy is a cheap +Buy. Sometimes you need that!

      

      Name: Mouse

Creator: Somekindoftony

Description: A top deck trashing Necropolis that gains copies of itself.

Changes from the original card: “Gain a Mouse” was simply moved before the reveal/trashing clause. This was to mimic more how Rats function. Instinctively, it perhaps is better to gain a Mouse before proceeding with the instructions on the card.

Thoughts: Mouse unconditionally gains copies of itself. Rats do that as well. But Rats has 20 cards in its Supply pile. As such, I’m pondering whether Mouse should get a bigger Supply pile or not. Otherwise, man, it would be depleted at Mach 5 speed. Mouse really loves being paired with big, juicy draw cards, like Hunting Grounds or Embassy. Since it constantly gains itself, your thirst for villages will probably be quenched after your first Mouse gain. Oh, and the trashing thingy is pretty nice too. Good Copper trasher and good Estate filterer.

      

      Name: Craftsman

Creator: Grep

Description: A cantrip gainer that works only once per turn.

Changes from the original card: The vanilla bonuses were moved above the gaining part. This is just more intuitive and more elegant that way, in my opinion. This barely changes anything too, except that you get to see one more card before you decide whether or not you want to gain a card with Craftsman. Hardly consequential.

Thoughts: Cantrip gainers are interesting. Perhaps too easy to spam. But Craftsman solves that issue by having it only work once per turn. So why invest in multiple Craftsman, then? Well, because you can simply decide to cantrip them until you reach the price point you want to gain from with your last Craftsman. Brilliant design! And hey, it may be a Province gainer too, if you work hard enough. Definitely possible on the right Kingdom. But hey, that’s still once per turn, so the abuse is well bounded!

      

      Name: Gift Exchange

Creator: Snowyowl

Description: A trasher that involves every player; and a gainer from the trash that also involves every player.

Changes from the original card: Nearly identical to its original counterpart, save for a “then” I added just before the gaining part.

Thoughts: This is the wacky card of the set. The Possession – Masquerade – Ambassador level of “huh?” card. And it’s highly interactive too. Everyone gets to trash from their hand... and if anyone doesn’t feel like it, they can simply move a Gold from the Supply into the trash instead. Careful though! This gives you some Gold gaining ammunition if anyone (including yourself) does. Very wacky card. Probably hard to use. But fun nonetheless!

      

      Name: King’s Counsel

Creator: Naitchman

Description: A Throne Room variant involving another player.

Changes from the original card: None

Thoughts: A King’s Court cheaper. What! Why? Well, because King’s Counsel’s powers can be wasted by the player to your left, should you not plan carefully. The bigger your hand, the bigger the number of Action cards in it, the easier your opponent can make it “dud”. Ideally, you’ll plan a little bit with King Counsel to make sure just exactly the card you want to triple is forced to be played. King’s Courting has never been so puzzling!

      

      Name: Neighbouring Village

Creator: Aquila

Description: A utility Necropolis.

Changes from the original card: Oof, quite a lot changed. First of all, since Neighbouring Village was first submitted, Menagerie came out and has given us precedence for things happening in this card. So Neighbouring Village now uses a mixture of the wording used in Kiln and Way of the Chameleon. Kiln for the “The next time you play an Action card this turn”, and Way of the Chameleon for the “each time it gives you +[Vanilla Bonus] this turn”. Yes, this means that Neighbouring Village now says “this turn” 2 times, but this was unavoidable.

Thoughts: So Neighbouring Village, in itself, is a severely overpriced Necropolis. Truly, its real perk is to improve whichever Action card you play next. A simple Smithy is thus improved to a Hunting Grounds. A Village is now a Stable sans-Treasure discarding condition. A monument is a terminal Gold with double the amount of it usually gives! The possibilities are quite large (and fun)! The best cards to use this on are the ones that gives lotsa different vanilla bonuses, such as Market. You know, a Grand Market that says: “+2 Cards, +1 Action, +2 Buys and +” is quite a deal!

      

      Name: Porcelain Shop

Creator: Snowyowl

Description: A payload card that gives coffers.

Changes from the original card: Simply merged the two non-Vanilla bonus sentences.

Thoughts: Pretty nice how it wants you to accumulate Coffers for you to boom with them. ‘Course, you can immediately spend the one Coffers the moment you play Porcelain Shop. But that, my friend, would be equivalent to you having bought a terminal Silver Action card. Duchess costs , so why did you pay for this? Letting the Coffers rest for a while brings you closer to a megaturn, which is what Porcelain Shop really wants you to do.

      

      Name: Silver Worker

Creator: Chappy7

Description: A draw card with Silver interactions.

Changes from the original card: Simplified the top part with wording matching the one found on Royal Blacksmith.

Thoughts: Smithy, but cheaper. Smithy doesn’t come with a drawback though; and the on-gain clause helps you force that drawback upon others. Indeed, when you gain a Silver Worker, each other player topdecks a Silver, à la Bureaucrat. Should they then play a terminal Silver Worker on their turn, they’re guaranteed to have to discard at least one card. Getting a Silver Worker in your opening split can kind of mess up the split of your opponents, and probably in a good way for them. This could bring them to have something like /, perhaps not the most desirable outcome for you.

      

      Name: Cats

Creator: Somekindoftony

Description: A trash for benefits cantrip.

Changes from the original card: Reworded a few things (ex: “If you do” > “If you did”). Changed the drawing wording to include “+Cards”. It interacts with stuff like Way of the Chameleon better like this. The old wording for drawing was also somewhat incomplete. What if you trashed an Overlord, for instance? The part of a card’s cost had to be mentioned. Most importantly, the name of this card was changed (the only one in this set who had a name change). It went from “Cat”, to “Cats”. I simply pluralized the name... to match the art better, lol. Also, to match fit with Rats. Rats... cats... only one letter sets them apart!

Thoughts: This is pretty much Apprentice, but limited as to what it can trash. You’ll never get more than +2 Cards with it. But, it is cheaper than Apprentice, and it’s also a cantrip. Overall, it’s a pretty neat Estate trasher and you should probably open with Cats.

      

      Name: Charity

Creator: Commodore Chuckles

Description: A trasher/emulator hybrid.

Changes from the original card: None.

Thoughts: A funny way to play that one nasty Attack card via Estate trashing. The trashing clause is pretty novel. And I like novel ways of trashing. You can pull all sort of weird stuff with Charity, and its simple effects leading to intricate moments is super intriguing. Trashing has always been fun, but Charity makes it extra fun!

      

      Name: Countryside

Creator: Scott_Pilgrim

Description: A variable alt- card.

Changes from the original card: None.

Thoughts: This is just a plain awesome Victory card, proving that the design space of pure Victory cards is not that strangled yet. Man, Countryside is a game changer in whichever Kingdom it appears in. Because technically, simply with Estate/Duchy/Province, Countryside can be a Province at half the price. Quite a steal! But... how much green can your deck handle? For each Countryside you add in your deck, you must also add an extra Estate, Duchy and Province for it to keep its 6 score. Perhaps you won’t want to trash your starting Estates to help them stay above the number of Countryside you add to your deck. Perhaps you can fish for other Victory cards in the Supply, such as Nobles or Harems. Countryside really makes you play a different game!

      

      Name: Cowrie

Creator: D782802859

Description: An on-call draw card that’s also a Silver.

Changes from the original card: Extremely minor changes (capitalised “Buy” from “Buy phase”, separated the on-call effects in two sentences, “on top of” > “onto”).

Thoughts: “Uh oh, it’s a Silver+”, they’ll say. Except not really. You’ll only get this one turn out of two. It acts sort of like Coin of the Realm. In fact, it shares the same types. But what Cowrie is trying to achieve is to give you a chance to draw more Treasures during your Buy phase. It even also come with a neat little anti-dud clause. Uselessly drawing an Action card in your Buy phase, save for some fringe cases, is frustrating. But Cowrie’s got you covered. Topdeck it and have it ready to play next turn!

      

      Name: Fanatic

Creator: Silverspawn

Description: A Lost City+ that worsen your cards with each play.

Changes from the original card: Just changed “that card” to “copies of it”. This is less confusing about which particular card “that” card is (“that” implies only one card getting downgraded).

Thoughts: Man, it’s bonkers when you first play Fanatic. A stronger Lost City, and cheaper! Of course, after that, it’s all downhill from there onward. The player to your left can simply say “Fanatic”, and then your strong Lost Cities are Abandoned Mines. Woops. If they’re cocky, they can name another card, waiting for you to play another Fanatic for them to have the opportunity to downgrade yet another card. I can’t wait to see that in action!

      

      Name: Valley Town

Creator: Something_Smart

Description: A self-Exiling village.

Changes from the original card: None.

Thoughts: It’s a village that can do a little more, not unlike Mining Village. Both at , they can sacrifice themselves to help you go a little further. Unlike Mining Village though, I suspect you’ll use the extra push from Valley Town more often than not. I mean, you’ll see them back in your deck when you gain more of them. It’s not over until the Valley Town Supply pile is empty! Anyway. This is simple, elegant and useful. What’s not to love?

      

      Name: Wine Cellar

Creator: ConMan

Description: A payload card that grows over time.

Changes from the original card: This is the only card in this set that has changed slightly in how it functions. Here, the Coin token is put on Wine Cellar before you can call it. This accelerates it one turn ahead as opposed as to what it was before. This was changed because I felt that it’d be easier for players to remember and to see that they have to put a Coin token on Wine Cellar each turn it is on your Tavern mat, even when you decide not to call it.

Thoughts: A nice card that wants to grow over time for an ultimate payload. Multiple Wine Cellars can rest on your Tavern mat, doing their thing until you’re ready to all call them for a bunch of .

      

      Name: Bailiff

Creator: King Leon

Description: A draw payload card.

Changes from the original card: “per Duchy in your hand” > “per Duchy revealed”.

Thoughts: +Cards with +Buys are always cool. Margrave, Barge, Silk Merchant, etc. Bailiff does that as well. But it also provides you with a payload that could be quite large if you decide to invest in Duchies. Bailiff could justify that investment. Two Duchies revealed, for instance, brings it at: “+2 Cards, +1 Buy and +”. That’s pretty badass already. Still, the timing of Bailiff is quite awkward. It’s definitely no power card, but that doesn’t invalidate its right to exist.

      

      Name: Crumbling City

Creator: Something_Smart

Description: A Lost City variant.

Changes from the original card: The whole dividing line has been abolished in favour of a simpler wording that imitates Encampment and Outpost (immediate set-aside effect and mentioning your next hand like Outpost does). Functionally slightly different, it still retains the purpose of this card at heart.

Thoughts: This is such a cool card. It’s Lost City, but it stays the heck away from your next hand(s). As far as it can be in fact. You’ll have to be careful about triggering shuffles with that one. And if you draw your entire deck anyway, well... Crumbling City will probably be the last card you see as you draw your deck the following turn. Bwa ha ha! This is such a funny concept, I love it!

      

      Name: Farmer

Creator: Gubump

Description: A draw card which rewards variety.

Changes from the original card: None.

Thoughts: This is exactly the missing terminal draw card Cornucopia should’ve had, right down to the theming of this card. This card can technically be a +6 cards if you reveal the right cards. Realistically, it probably won’t go there. This is true for the opposite end of the spectrum too. You uh, probably won’t reveal 6 copies of the same card for +1 Card. You’ll probably end up somewhere in the middle. But Farmer’s high variance is dang cool. And perhaps one will build a deck around this variety-for-benefit it offers!

      

      Name: Forbidden City

Creator: Spheremonk

Description: A junker, emulator village.

Changes from the original card: None.

Thoughts: Man, the cool concepts are flying left and right, it’s baffling! This village can shapeshift into so many things, depending on the top Ruins. And if you’re sick of playing Survivors with Forbidden City, then open your turn with one and filter the Ruins to play something else. It works on so many levels, I’m damned impressed. Gotta love me some cool villages!

      

      Name: Judge

Creator: Naitchman

Description: A terminal Silver discarding Attack.

Changes from the original card: None.

Thoughts: This is a nastier Militia. But not completely game breaking and not as punishing as Pillage. It found quite a comfortable spot between these two cards in fact. A spot so perfect, so okay-to-exist, that I’m surprised we haven’t had a discarding Attack in Dominion like this as of yet. Other players get to protect their two most precious cards in their hand while they’ll probably say goodbye to their third strongest card. Judge is so reasonable, so interactively cool of an Attack that of course it had to be in this set.

      

      Name: Motherly Witch

Creator: MeNowDealWithIt

Description: A duration draw cursing Attack.

Changes from the original card: Removed the dividing line to move away from the “while this is in play” wording Donald avoids more and more nowadays. The wording mimics the one found on Gatekeeper (“until then”, it says).

Thoughts: This is Witch, but like, way stronger. In addition of being Witch, it also draws 2 cards on your next turn, just like Wharf does. And Wharf is strong. So if it’s Wharf and Witch, why does it just costs ? Because, should your opponents play Attack cards until your next turn, on top of the Attack, you’ll also be junked with a Copper. Imagine if they use that time to play a Mountebank. ‘Grats, you just gained a Curse and 2 Coppers. Ouch. So the risk is definitely there. For a card that strong, that risk is worth existing. And hey, look at that, Motherly Witch worsen significantly the more players there are!

      

      Name: Savings

Creator: X-tra

Description: A Silver+ that adds/removes Buys.

Changes from the original card: Simply switched the two bonuses so that the “+1 Buy” bonus appears first. I can’t explain why... but this felt more “right” this way.

Thoughts: Shamelessly self-including a card of mine, harr harr! Bow down to my infinite modesty! So this is indeed a Silver+ for . So far, it falls within the convention laid out by stuff like Royal Seal, Relic, Treasure Trove, etc. But here, you can choose to suck a buy to have a Treasure worth in play. You’ll need to get that Buy back somehow. Either with another Savings, or ideally, with an Action card like Market. If you can’t afford to remove that Buy, well, you’ve got a non-terminal Woodcutter, which is eeeehhh...

      

      Name: Voyage

Creator: Commodore Chuckles

Description: An extra turn giver.

Changes from the original card: Used the “during which” wording found on Mission. “at the end of your Action phase” turned into “at the start of your Buy phase”. I think it’s better practice to deal with start of phases over end of phases. Now. I had no choice but to add the “If the previous turn wasn’t yours” clause. Believe me, I really did not want to have to do this. The card already seemed perfectly bound to not give million of turns in a row. But... it’s definitely possible given the right circumstances. March, Village Green and Innovation all make 3+ turns in a row a little too easy to achieve. So unfortunately, Voyage needs that limiting clause.

Thoughts: I love Voyage. It’s so beautifully put together. It’s very comparable to Outpost. But whereas Outpost lets you take another turn with a smaller hand size, this does not have such a restriction. However, Outpost still lets you play Treasures and Night cards while Voyage does not. It’s probably stronger than Outpost most of the time, but I’m alright with that. Voyage is too cool of a concept to let that opportunity pass.

      

      Name: Convoy

Creator: Gubump

Description: A draw card that can give Horses.

Changes from the original card: None.

Thoughts: A big card. It draws like Smithy does, but it has the possibility of not being terminal by discarding an Action card. In a pinch, maybe you’ll want to do so. But overall, this is subpar. Compared to Stables, for instance, this is both weaker and more expensive. Now, getting the Horse, that’s more like it! Ideally, you’ll aim for that. But you know what? For all I’ve said about Stables being better and blablabla, simply having the option of discarding an Action for +1 Action is still a nice ability to have.



Some final thoughts:

I really love how well together these cards synergize! It looks pretty complete to me. However, there are lacking patterns I have noticed over the course of me compiling these cards together. Here are what I believe to be the shortcomings:
  • There are simply not enough payload cards. Not enough cards simply give a “+” vanilla bonus for instance. There are payload cards in there, but some of them aren’t too straightforward, like Porcelain Shop and Wine Cellar. Bailiff is too conditional to reliably be a payload card. Meanwhile, Treasures like Cowrie won’t be in play as much as other Treasures can. And Savings needs help to give a decent payload.
  • Likewise, trashing is too scarce in this 25-card set. Both Mouse and Cats are limited in what they can trash. Gift Exchange is too erratic to be the centralising trasher in your deck. This pretty much only leaves Charity as a normal trashing card.
  • Perhaps there is a little bit too much focus on revealing in this set. (Mouse, King’s Counsel, Silver Worker, Bailiff, Farmer, Judge).
  • Finally, it’s a shame that certain concepts only appear once in this set. This makes them stand out as outliers in a less-than-cohesive set. Mechanics appearing on only one card are: Villagers, Coffers, Exile, Ruins, Night and Horses.


Anyway, that’s all! Enjoy folks. And thank you for all these beautifully crafted cards. I plan on posting one or multiple Kingdom mock-up(s) solely using cards from this set in the near future (perhaps even tonight). It’d be fun to discuss strategy over these Kingdoms. :)
« Last Edit: January 14, 2021, 10:57:27 pm by X-tra »
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silverspawn

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Re: Dominion: Weekly Design Contest Set
« Reply #1 on: January 15, 2021, 08:43:12 am »
+3

I think you did a great job with this. It's a good selection, and at least in my case, you improved the wording and found more dominion-typical art.

Gubump

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Re: Dominion: Weekly Design Contest Set
« Reply #2 on: January 15, 2021, 12:51:50 pm »
0

Even without the option to gain a Horse, Convoy still wouldn't be weaker than Stables, because only the non-terminality is conditional on discarding. Horseless Convoy would be a Smithy in the worst case, whereas Stables is dead in the worst case. Plus, Convoy is more likely to be able to be effective in engines (which is the kind of deck that wants Convoys or Stables) because engines have more Action cards than anything else, and Convoy discards after drawing instead of before.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2021, 12:53:06 pm by Gubump »
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Re: Dominion: Weekly Design Contest Set
« Reply #3 on: January 15, 2021, 01:36:38 pm »
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Even without the option to gain a Horse, Convoy still wouldn't be weaker than Stables, because only the non-terminality is conditional on discarding. Horseless Convoy would be a Smithy in the worst case, whereas Stables is dead in the worst case. Plus, Convoy is more likely to be able to be effective in engines (which is the kind of deck that wants Convoys or Stables) because engines have more Action cards than anything else, and Convoy discards after drawing instead of before.

Oh hehehe, of course in the grand scheme of things, Convoy is stronger than Stables. This is why it bears a price tag after all! No truly, I just meant looking at the effects in a vacuum. How both of them get you to "+3 Cards, +1 Action", except that one makes you discard an Action card whereas the other makes you discard a Treasure, and for less. But you are absolutely correct in saying that the worst case of Stables is beyond worse than Convoy's "worst case". You draw before deciding to discard with Convoy, so you've got all the tools you need to analyse your hand in order to make a good decision. And hey, Convoy creates its own economy by adding Horses to your deck as potential discarding candidates (if nothing else is better) to make it non-terminal.

Overall, Convoy's power level definitely trumps Stables. Though I'd be happy to village before playing a Convoy to get the benefit of adding a Horse to my deck and still have Actions left. :)
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Re: Dominion: Weekly Design Contest Set
« Reply #4 on: January 20, 2021, 12:11:29 pm »
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man, re-reading Farmer and wow that card loves Patron, and vice versa.
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Re: Dominion: Weekly Design Contest Set
« Reply #5 on: January 24, 2021, 09:51:55 pm »
+3

Farmer is identical to a Cornucopia outtake except that it looks at 6 cards instead of 5. I wonder if it was cut for being too strong, too weak, or for some other reason. Farmer looks very, very strong to me.
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Re: Dominion: Weekly Design Contest Set
« Reply #6 on: January 24, 2021, 10:24:38 pm »
+2

Farmer is identical to a Cornucopia outtake except that it looks at 6 cards instead of 5. I wonder if it was cut for being too strong, too weak, or for some other reason. Farmer looks very, very strong to me.

I feel like maybe it's too dependent on Villages? Since the overwhelming majority of cards are Actions, the times it'll draw the most cards is when those cards are Action cards, which is possibly problematic since it's terminal.
« Last Edit: January 24, 2021, 10:26:14 pm by Gubump »
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Re: Dominion: Weekly Design Contest Set
« Reply #7 on: January 25, 2021, 07:16:06 am »
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I would agree that Farmer is bonkers in terms of powerlevel.

LastFootnote

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Re: Dominion: Weekly Design Contest Set
« Reply #8 on: January 25, 2021, 12:32:47 pm »
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Farmer is identical to a Cornucopia outtake except that it looks at 6 cards instead of 5. I wonder if it was cut for being too strong, too weak, or for some other reason. Farmer looks very, very strong to me.

I feel like maybe it's too dependent on Villages? Since the overwhelming majority of cards are Actions, the times it'll draw the most cards is when those cards are Action cards, which is possibly problematic since it's terminal.

I think you could make the argument that most Smithy-type cards are too dependent on villages. And/or Kingdom Treasures.

If your point is, maybe Farmer-BM isn't great, that's possible, although I think it's probably still very good. But in any non-BM situation, I think it's probably better than any other terminal draw card. That's my guess.
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Re: Dominion: Weekly Design Contest Set
« Reply #9 on: January 25, 2021, 12:37:32 pm »
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Actor is neat. I think the thing that would prevent it from being published is that the pile would often just immediately run out. I believe that's killed other $1 cards in the past. For that reason, it might work better as a non-Supply card.

EDIT: Countryside looks exciting. I'd like to try it out sometime.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2021, 12:41:07 pm by LastFootnote »
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Re: Dominion: Weekly Design Contest Set
« Reply #10 on: January 25, 2021, 01:06:49 pm »
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Yeah, Countryside is one of my favourite in this list as well. I suppose it doesn't play thaaaat differently than stuff like Silk Road where you want to green a lot anyway, but still. I think there's a way to be smart with Countryside when you invest in them. That extra consideration bit elevates how interesting the card is, in my opinion.

After some tests with the cards pictured above, I've seen 3 things that I think would benefit from some kind of revision, perhaps.
  • King's Counsel is, I believe, simply too cheap. Your deck becomes explosive really quickly with this really inexpensive power card. It worked pretty much every game we had it in and it was ultra centralizing. Not once did it fail to accomplish what it tried to do, regardless of the drawback it comes with. As such, I think that its cost could be elevated to , or even . Not too sure.
  • Charity shouldn't be able to play Duration cards from the Supply, as is with Procession and Captain. Tracking was nightmarish in certain games it appeared in. I once trashed an Estate to play a Motherly Witch with it. Remembering to get Coppers when being Attacked with no way to track that on the table was a little heavy.
  • Gift Exchange is... well. It's really hard to play. Haven't really found a use for this one yet. Maybe I'm misplaying it? I dunno. I'm having trouble to foresee a scenario in which Gift Exchange becomes attractive to purchase.
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Re: Dominion: Weekly Design Contest Set
« Reply #11 on: January 25, 2021, 01:58:41 pm »
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Gift Exchange is... well. It's really hard to play. Haven't really found a use for this one yet. Maybe I'm misplaying it? I dunno. I'm having trouble to foresee a scenario in which Gift Exchange becomes attractive to purchase.

It's very difficult to imagine how it plays. Base case, everybody else gets to trash a card, then you get to trash a card OR gain a Gold. And once at least one other player doesn't want to trash a card, then you could trash a card AND gain a Gold. But letting everybody else trash is a really good bonus for them. And the player to your left might start benefiting a lot once multiple good cards make their way into the trash at once.
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Re: Dominion: Weekly Design Contest Set
« Reply #12 on: January 25, 2021, 04:00:13 pm »
+3

Oh, I completely forgot to mention this in my last post, but another change I would make, after the game testing sessions I've had, is this one:
  • Forbidden City should care about cards you played this turn, like Conspirator, instead of straight up checking for cards you have in play. Filtering through the Ruins was an almost impossible task in games with Duration cards, especially the strong ones. This made Forbidden City lose its cool Attack feature and my fun bone wasn't tickled as much as I hoped it would be.
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Re: Dominion: Weekly Design Contest Set
« Reply #13 on: March 31, 2021, 10:07:11 am »
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This list is verry good!
I love nearly all the cards and you've done a verry good job for the rewording the ilustrations and the choice. It's sad that runer-up and cards from other channel couldn't fit into this list but it's understandable.
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mathdude

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Re: Dominion: Weekly Design Contest Set
« Reply #14 on: March 31, 2021, 12:10:36 pm »
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Some final thoughts:

I really love how well together these cards synergize! It looks pretty complete to me. However, there are lacking patterns I have noticed over the course of me compiling these cards together. Here are what I believe to be the shortcomings:
  • There are simply not enough payload cards. Not enough cards simply give a “+” vanilla bonus for instance. There are payload cards in there, but some of them aren’t too straightforward, like Porcelain Shop and Wine Cellar. Bailiff is too conditional to reliably be a payload card. Meanwhile, Treasures like Cowrie won’t be in play as much as other Treasures can. And Savings needs help to give a decent payload.
  • Likewise, trashing is too scarce in this 25-card set. Both Mouse and Cats are limited in what they can trash. Gift Exchange is too erratic to be the centralising trasher in your deck. This pretty much only leaves Charity as a normal trashing card.
  • Perhaps there is a little bit too much focus on revealing in this set. (Mouse, King’s Counsel, Silver Worker, Bailiff, Farmer, Judge).
  • Finally, it’s a shame that certain concepts only appear once in this set. This makes them stand out as outliers in a less-than-cohesive set. Mechanics appearing on only one card are: Villagers, Coffers, Exile, Ruins, Night and Horses.

In general, I agree that this deck works really well together, as a full expansion.  The single-mechanic-use for 6 different mechanics is a bit of an issue, but that's to be expected pulling from 100 design contests!

I don't think the scarce trashing is too much of an issue.  Not every expansion has great trashing options, and definitely not every Kingdom even has trashing in it.

I disagree that "too much revealing" is an issue - effectively, that could be one of the central themes of this expansion.

After some tests with the cards pictured above, I've seen 3 things that I think would benefit from some kind of revision, perhaps.
  • King's Counsel is, I believe, simply too cheap. Your deck becomes explosive really quickly with this really inexpensive power card. It worked pretty much every game we had it in and it was ultra centralizing. Not once did it fail to accomplish what it tried to do, regardless of the drawback it comes with. As such, I think that its cost could be elevated to , or even . Not too sure.
  • Charity shouldn't be able to play Duration cards from the Supply, as is with Procession and Captain. Tracking was nightmarish in certain games it appeared in. I once trashed an Estate to play a Motherly Witch with it. Remembering to get Coppers when being Attacked with no way to track that on the table was a little heavy.
  • Gift Exchange is... well. It's really hard to play. Haven't really found a use for this one yet. Maybe I'm misplaying it? I dunno. I'm having trouble to foresee a scenario in which Gift Exchange becomes attractive to purchase.

Even without playtesting as you did, it I would agree that King's Counsel needs to cost more than 3.  In well-functioning engines, it might be worth 3 or 4.  But for many other decks, it often only lands with 1 other Action card, so it is a super-cheap King's Court.  Costing 5 makes more sense to me.

I agree that Charity, as a Command card, shouldn't play Durations (for tracking).  I think this is fairly consistent.

And Gift Exchange is what it is.  It's a unique interaction (non-attack) card, like Ambassador and Masquerade.  It definitely has a purpose, and can sometimes be very powerful for you to buy (but possibly also for the player to your left, especially in 3+ player games).  As a minimum, it is either a gold-gainer or a trasher... both are great (and sometimes it will be both!)

One other comment I had for the expansion/set as a whole - there are a lot of villages.  Typically, most expansions only have 2-4 villages, but there are 6 in this medium-sized 25-card set.  But I also recognize those are some of the most fun to design, and they show up very well in the weekly contests since there is so much design space for them (a cheap starting point, and you can add literally anything to it) - it's like adding anything to a cantrip.
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DunnoItAll

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Re: Dominion: Weekly Design Contest Set
« Reply #15 on: March 31, 2021, 06:16:27 pm »
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We've included some cards from this in a few of our games. Most were pretty fun, but the thing that stood out to me is that Farmer was way too strong. It was almost always at least +4 cards and usually +5, and that was without even trying to build for it.
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