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Author Topic: Weekly Design Contest #107: Coppers and Estates  (Read 9677 times)

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faust

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #107: Coppers and Estates
« Reply #50 on: March 10, 2021, 04:37:20 am »
0

Quote
Commission - $4
Action

Trash up to 3 Coppers from the supply.
Then, if there are fewer cards in the trash than in your deck, gain a card costing up to $5.

I wonder, would including discard pile in the calculation (as per pstone) help make this less swingy?
As it is, in a 2-player 4-3 mirror I make it ~35% that one player will immediately block the other's commission; and being a $5 gainer it's likely unskippable.
I don't think it's terrible. Commission is a $5 gainer but it's conditional. If a player blocks another from using Commission then they are also blocking themselves on future turns and are turning the Commission they have into a worse card. And is that a trade-off worth making if they can't even be sure that the opponent has a Commission in their hand?

I don't want to include more counting as that makes it take longer to resolve.
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NoMoreFun

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #107: Coppers and Estates
« Reply #51 on: March 11, 2021, 01:09:41 pm »
+1

Smelter
Action - $5
+2 Cards
+1 Action
You may trash a Copper from your hand. If you didn't, gain a Copper to your hand.
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anordinaryman

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #107: Coppers and Estates
« Reply #52 on: March 11, 2021, 07:09:57 pm »
+2




Quote
Medallion | Treasure | $4*
$1
The next time you play a Copper this turn, +$2 +1 Buy
-
This costs $1 more per Copper you have in play.

Medallion is a Gold+ if you line it up with a Copper, which is easy when you have lots of Coppers. But if you have lots of Coppers, this is harder to buy ... Coppers don't help you buy this card. This similar to the Grand Market restriction, but actually there are a lot of differences. For example, you can buy a Medallion with Medallion/Silver/Copper. If you play with enough heirlooms, you can even open Medallion. Or if there's Bargain/Demand, etc. There's lots of ways to get treasures in play in your Action phase. Why not buy Cavalry/Villa or use Black Market/Storyteller/etc and get 5 coppers in play, then Displace the now $9 cost Medallion into a Colony?

This is strong for its price in many games and you often won't buy Silver. It's a similar thing to me as Destrier often costing much lower, and you won't often buy Lab.

Open to feedback.
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anordinaryman

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #107: Coppers and Estates
« Reply #53 on: March 11, 2021, 07:16:11 pm »
+3



Quote
Cablemaker - $3
Action

+1 Buy

You may trash a Copper from your hand. If you did, cards cost $1 less this turn.
Tricky Moneylenderish Bridge variant: On the one hand easier to acquire than Bridge, and who doesn't like trashing junk better than $1? On the other hand, this does less than nothing for your economy early game, and needs considerably more work to chain.

I think this is a great idea, but I think it should cost $4. $3 is too strong for this. It's miles above trade route, which, we know is a weak $3, but seeing these two at the same price feels wrong to me. If you use the two buys this card is trash a copper for +$2 +1 Buy which then makes it comparable to Money Lender which is $4. So seeing this and Money Lender at the same price point feels right.
If you compare it to Bridge though, well, Bridge is better at the Payload game, but Cablemaker is not necessarily weaker. Trashing Coppers is great. So, again, this feels like it fits in the realm of $4s.

Coppers or Estates? Sure, I'll use both. And I'll keep it simple.



I’ve changed the text and price several times, seeking balance. The top has been Coppersmith (too powerful), a non-cantrip Merchant for Copper (not quite powerful enough), and now a non-cantrip double Merchant for Copper. I also considered several +Buy ideas in order to accelerate Estate/Copper gains: unconditional +1 Buy; conditional +1 Buy on first play of Copper (together with the +$1 or +$2); and even Pouch as an Heirloom, which feels thematic.

Regarding price, without trashing or Shelters, Copper Mine is immediately worth 3VP, so $5 didn’t seem great vis-a-vis Duchy. Then again, Duchy doesn’t force you to keep extra dead cards. But Duchy is never worth more than 3VP. So with the Merchant-like boost for Copper, $6 felt ok. I certainly wouldn’t pay more.

It's hard to calculate this without lots of playtesting, but it certainly feels too strong from a VP perspective. It's pretty easy to ramp this up to a cheaper Province (buy 3 estates... done!). Considering the lengths I go to to get a Duke up to the same value, (have to buy 6 duchies... a lot harder) this feels way to strong to just go for. Consider making it 2 per each 3 sets of copper-estate you have, or perhaps adding another item to the set, or perhaps halving it.
« Last Edit: March 11, 2021, 07:22:44 pm by anordinaryman »
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mxdata

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #107: Coppers and Estates
« Reply #54 on: March 12, 2021, 03:10:39 am »
+3




Quote
Medallion | Treasure | $4*
$1
The next time you play a Copper this turn, +$2 +1 Buy
-
This costs $1 more per Copper you have in play.

Medallion is a Gold+ if you line it up with a Copper, which is easy when you have lots of Coppers. But if you have lots of Coppers, this is harder to buy ... Coppers don't help you buy this card. This similar to the Grand Market restriction, but actually there are a lot of differences. For example, you can buy a Medallion with Medallion/Silver/Copper. If you play with enough heirlooms, you can even open Medallion. Or if there's Bargain/Demand, etc. There's lots of ways to get treasures in play in your Action phase. Why not buy Cavalry/Villa or use Black Market/Storyteller/etc and get 5 coppers in play, then Displace the now $9 cost Medallion into a Colony?

This is strong for its price in many games and you often won't buy Silver. It's a similar thing to me as Destrier often costing much lower, and you won't often buy Lab.

Open to feedback.

Seems a bit strong to me.  In a lot of games, this would be superior to Gold.  Maybe something to prevent it from stacking?  A kind of opposite Fool's Gold, maybe?  "If this is the first Medallion played this turn, +$2 +1 buy the next time you play a Copper", so that additional Medallions are only worth $1
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Mahowrath

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #107: Coppers and Estates
« Reply #55 on: March 12, 2021, 08:23:26 am »
+2

Quote
Cablemaker - $3
Action

+1 Buy

You may trash a Copper from your hand. If you did, cards cost $1 less this turn.

I think this is a great idea, but I think it should cost $4. $3 is too strong for this. It's miles above trade route, which, we know is a weak $3, but seeing these two at the same price feels wrong to me. If you use the two buys this card is trash a copper for +$2 +1 Buy which then makes it comparable to Money Lender which is $4. So seeing this and Money Lender at the same price point feels right.
If you compare it to Bridge though, well, Bridge is better at the Payload game, but Cablemaker is not necessarily weaker. Trashing Coppers is great. So, again, this feels like it fits in the realm of $4s.

Thanks for the feedback, and glad you like it. I'm happy to hear this actually; I was worried this might get overlooked at $3 for its poor payload.

I think you're right that this could exist at $4, but I'm not convinced it's too strong for $3. Early game, this is likely to thin and to gain you two $2s if there are good ones. To compare with the cards you've brought up: TR's ability to trash non-Copper seems roughly equivalent to also gaining a peddler, so not sure it's miles better, and Moneylender's ability to thin & hit $5 feels generally stronger. The Copper trashing is a really bad dependency if trying to play for Bridge megaturn, the big benefit of cost reduction, so happy to think of Bridge as a stronger card in a different field.

Quote
Medallion | Treasure | $4*
$1
The next time you play a Copper this turn, +$2 +1 Buy
-
This costs $1 more per Copper you have in play.
I like this card. It seems like a ripe target to remodel into, but having a stronger Gold that synergises and antisynergises with Copper is fun.
If you didn't want a bunch of these to fire off on the same Copper; something like "play a Copper, if you do" would do it.

I don't think it's terrible. Commission is a $5 gainer but it's conditional. If a player blocks another from using Commission then they are also blocking themselves on future turns and are turning the Commission they have into a worse card. And is that a trade-off worth making if they can't even be sure that the opponent has a Commission in their hand?

I don't want to include more counting as that makes it take longer to resolve.
Up to you of course, and no one's saying it's terrible. I do think the trade-off of trashing 2 Coppers is always worth making T3 if you haven't seen your opponent's yet, as the disadvantage is roughly symmetric, and the upside of having an extra $5 over your opponent is often decisive. I can see that the additional counting might be a pain though.
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emtzalex

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #107: Coppers and Estates
« Reply #56 on: March 12, 2021, 12:41:24 pm »
+2




Quote
Medallion | Treasure | $4*
$1
The next time you play a Copper this turn, +$2 +1 Buy
-
This costs $1 more per Copper you have in play.

Medallion is a Gold+ if you line it up with a Copper, which is easy when you have lots of Coppers. But if you have lots of Coppers, this is harder to buy ... Coppers don't help you buy this card. This similar to the Grand Market restriction, but actually there are a lot of differences. For example, you can buy a Medallion with Medallion/Silver/Copper. If you play with enough heirlooms, you can even open Medallion. Or if there's Bargain/Demand, etc. There's lots of ways to get treasures in play in your Action phase. Why not buy Cavalry/Villa or use Black Market/Storyteller/etc and get 5 coppers in play, then Displace the now $9 cost Medallion into a Colony?

This is strong for its price in many games and you often won't buy Silver. It's a similar thing to me as Destrier often costing much lower, and you won't often buy Lab.

Open to feedback.

This does seem a bit too strong. I don't think the price effect is nearly as restrictive in practice as the one on Grand Market. First, you can buy this with two Silvers, and since you can open Silver - Silver ~5/6 of the time, getting this early might come down to the luck of the post-first shuffle draw. Then, as you said, buying more gets even easier. More than that, there are numerous Action cards that would allow you to gain a Medallion outright (Workshop, Ironworks, Armory, Engineer, Inventor, Groom, Artisan, Cobbler, Vampire, Sculptor, etc.) or to trash an Estate to gain it (Remodel, Replace, Butcher, etc.) (or, with Displace, to Exile an Estate to gain this). Then there is Alms, which allows you to open Medallion - Medallion. However, Bargain and Demand are not really helpful in gaining this, as they would require you not to play any Coppers to use them.

There is probably a way to do this. Maybe set the base price at $5 or $6, and then have it cost +$1 for each Copper you have in play and -$1 for each other Treasure you have in play. That still lets you buy it Silver - Silver, but at least makes it harder to get with gainers or remodelers.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2021, 12:47:43 pm by emtzalex »
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Thanks to Shard of Honor for his Extended Version of the Dominion Card Image Generator, which I use to mock up my fan cards, and to Violet CLM, who made the original.

pubby

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #107: Coppers and Estates
« Reply #57 on: March 12, 2021, 06:10:07 pm »
0

Last call for entries. If you're changing an existing entry, post a comment below so I see it.
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anordinaryman

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #107: Coppers and Estates
« Reply #58 on: March 12, 2021, 06:21:16 pm »
+3

Modifying entry

Thanks for the feedback everyone.



Quote
Medallion | Treasure | $4*
$1
You may play a Copper from your hand. If you do, +$2 +1 Buy
-
This costs $1 more per Copper you have in play.

Each Medallion is now only a gold+ if you have another copper to pair with it, making it considerably harder to activate multiple of them in one turn. Otherwise, without enough coppers, they ironically become coppers themselves.
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pubby

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #107: Coppers and Estates
« Reply #59 on: March 13, 2021, 12:54:16 pm »
+5

JUDGEMENT DAY

Marquis (spineflu) - A interesting card that can really twist games around it, though I fear it can force games into unpleasant strategies. When compared to Swamp Hag and Coppersmith, I think I would prefer those two over this one, though this is certainly an alright, playable card.

Provisions (grep) - Obstensibly this is Coppersmith 2.0 - just play at least 2 and you can double your Coppers then trash them. It sounds a lot of fun, but I do worry how quickly this drains the copper pile. It leads to scenarios where one person gets more use out it than the others, and then the card becomes useless with an empty pile. Cool card though.

Tinker (gambit05) - IMO this does Mint's bottom text better than Mint does it. It sounds like a game-warping effect, but not in a broken way. If you open with Tinker, you're still not in a great position to hit $5 afterwards, and so there's an interesting decision in when you should buy this. The top is a nice Peddler variant too. Overall, a well-designed card.

Accountant (silverspawn) - I think you're close to something great, but not quite there. The top text reminds me of Embassy. Seems decent in Money strats, and OK, albeit annoying to play, in engines. The bottom text has some interesting interactions. It lets you open $5 always, and helps certain strategies like Gardens. But I don't think it synergizes as well with the top text as it should, and so the card feels disjointed.

Concession (emtzalex) - I really like the idea of a project that turns Estates into money or trashers, but I'm not convinced doing both at the same time is ideal. I would prefer a simpler take on this, I think, but it's definitely playable as is.

Vagabond/Begging Bowl (Aquila) - Great synergy and very unique effects. I can see these being weak on many boards, but when combined with other attacks, they can be very nasty. I like these two a lot, though perhaps Vagabond should cost $3. That makes the opening more symmetrical.

Picnic (fika monster) - I like everything about this card except the Smithy part. I don't see any reason the card needs to downgrade itself, as putting tons of estates into your deck is a big enough downside. IMO the card would be better as: "+2 Cards, +1 Action. Exile an Estate from the Supply. If you can't, Discard all Estates from Exile."

Green Shelter (majiponi) - Reminds me of Miser, but for Estates. I like it a lot! Seems like a fun, different card, that's simple to understand. My only suggestion would be to draw before the exiling occurs. I think that balances its power better while also reducing the chance that it whiffs.

Cat Burglar (Xen3k) - This card does a bit of everything, but because of that it's hard to say it fits into any particular strategy - a detriment IMO. I think a good comparison is with Tribute. It's fine, playable, and decently designed, but the game doesn't NEED it, so to say.

Codger (Timinou) - This one also reminds me of Miser, but it's too strong though. Miser is interesting because it's a very slow build, but this one starts off decent from the start and quickly turns crazy, gaining value to your deck while also thinning it, without using a Buy. Perhaps without the bottom text, or starting with only 1 Copper Exiled, it would be balanced.

Cablemaker (Mahowrath) - A lovely, simple card. I think the price and powerlevel are perfect. The text could be re-written using "for" (see Moneylender's latest revision).

Vulture (Chappy7) - It just seems bad power-wise when compared to Baron / Moneylender, and the effect is very roundabout. Obviously there are boards where you can make it work (perhaps a Rebuild game), but they seem few and far between.

Commission (faust) - I'm having trouble seeing how this is supposed to work. Seems like it's often random if you get to use it, and I hate how the one player can be locked out of this while another benefits. That's just too big of swing for me to be comfortable with.

Homestead (infangthief) - Nice simplicity, and seems OK power-wise, but it won't have enough impact on enough boards. Just needs a little something else to be viable.

Lease (X-tra) - Another simple card, and one that seems extremely viable to open with. Compared to Moneylender and Baron though, I think I prefer those two cards more.

Cursed Blacksmith (NiCkLeB474) - Dominion could certainly use more effects like this - a huge benefit that hobbles you over time. It seems playable in Money, but I wish it had more use in Engines and Slogs too, which could be accomplished by making it more playable after the curses run. My recommendation would be: "+3 Cards, +1 Buy. Gain a Curse. If you did, +$3." Still, it's a neat submission.

Copper Mine (spheremonk) - Love the bottom text. It seems like a fun alt VP to go for. The top text, however, is kinda mehhh. I'm not a fan of Merchant's wording, so I'm also not a fan of this one, especially because of how unnecessary the condition seems in a deck full of Copper. Just a simple "+$2" would work, no?

Smelter (NoMoreFun) - A fine effect, but not at $5 - it's strictly better than Lab on 99% of boards. Because you gain the Copper to your hand, it's trivial to trash it by playing Smelter immediately after, so I'm not convinced the gaining part does anything interesting without other synergies.

Medallion (anordinaryman) - The edit definitely was an improvement. This card is similar to Gold, but has just enough twists to make it interesting. With that said, I feel like it doesn't add as much to the game as I'd like. I suspect it'd mostly see play when you can gain it with say a workshop, not buy it. It's easiest to get a lot of them that way.

RESULTS


Runner-Ups:
4th - Vagabond/Begging Bowl (Aquila)
3rd - Tinker (gambit05)
2nd - Green Shelter (majiponi)

Winner:
Cablemaker (Mahowrath)

Cablemaker took two beloved effects and combined them in a way that IMO was more interesting than Bridge or Moneylender individually. The card was both simple, and balanced, and although not exactly powerful, could have an effect on every kingdom it was in. There were lots of great entries this week - some more creative and unique - but I felt that Cablemaker was the most ready to be in an actual game. Congrats, Mahowrath!
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mandioca15

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #107: Coppers and Estates
« Reply #60 on: March 13, 2021, 02:51:52 pm »
+1

You've missed out my entry (the first reply in this thread, no less).
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Mahowrath

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #107: Coppers and Estates
« Reply #61 on: March 13, 2021, 05:58:01 pm »
+1

Many thanks pubby! Also a big fan of Green Shelter, Tinker and Vagabond/Begging Bowl. New thread for next contest to follow shortly.
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pubby

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #107: Coppers and Estates
« Reply #62 on: March 13, 2021, 08:10:15 pm »
0

You've missed out my entry (the first reply in this thread, no less).
Oops, I'm very sorry. I did review it in my head already I just forgot to write it out. This was one of the better cards IMO, but it didn't make the standings.

Manor (mandioca15) - I like the simplicity. It's an excellent card to open with, but after a few shuffles it's as mundane as Smithy. I wish it remained interesting later in the game, perhaps by giving it +2 Buy instead of +1 so that you could always spend 1 of the buys on more Estates. Certainly a nice, playable card, but it lacks the deeper tactics other TfB cards have.
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