Thanks Mahowrath for the feedback and the judging.
This is a pretty interesting mechanic. I have spent some time thinking about it, and I had some ideas/additional card designs. The first card I came up with was this:
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Leviathan -- $13
Action - Aquatic
+10 Cards | |
This was obviously more about flavor than balance or gameplay. It would be too much for most decks to buy, and would only end up supercharging already-effective engines.
Wanting to stick with the theme (and further riff on the contest's pop culture reference), I started thinking about designing some sort of underwater/octopus witch or magic. I thought about designing an Aquatic curse, but it occurred to me that, because curses are not played, the effect would only take place on-gain, and you could fairly easily add to the card that was the curser. Ultimately, I made a card that lets a player enter into the dangerous bargain on offer -- extraordinary power, but with a tricky cost, and a dangerous result if you don't pay up. And it gives (not as an attack but back to the user) "Aquatic" Curses without needing a new card.
I like that Poor Unfortunate Souls presents one with a lot of different, interesting choices. Normally, a lab + 3 card sifter would be enormously powerful. But the power of sifting is that you get to choose exactly which cards you want (generally discarding dead cards--Victory cards, Curses, Action cards [if you're out of Actions], etc.--first, then the worst Action/Treasure cards [usually starting with Coppers]). PUS's requirement deprives you of that, making it less effective at what it does. However, the player has the option of ignoring that requirement, but pays a high cost for doing so. But also, when they miss that payment unwillingly (usually, I would predict, by not having an Action card), the card gets a lot better that turn.
After I submitted my card, I went back and looked at some of the other posts. I saw where silverspawn suggested (and quickly retracted) that the Aquatic type would generally be a negative thing. Their comment got me thinking about my initial assumption, that the Aquatic type was always something that made a card better.
Is the Aquatic type always good?To answer that, we have to ask what impact a card having the Aquatic type has on the game. My initial idea was that because it goes onto the bottom of your deck, you will see it again before any of the cards in your discard pile, so over the course of the game, you will see an Aquatic card more often. While this is ultimately true, the impact is not quite as strong as I initially thought. While going on the bottom of the deck instead into the discard pile does ensure that you get the card before any non-Aquatic that were discarded, you don't necessarily get it that much before. The closest official-game equivalent might be Star Chart, as (absent any deck rearranging), going to the bottom of the deck is basically the same as being guaranteed to be the top card when shuffled. And in some case (i.e. with Harbinger), the Aquatic card's absence from the discard pile might make it harder to get.
That being said, you will tend to see these at least somewhat more often. For example, if you bought two cards in your opening, one Aquatic and one not, the Aquatic card would be in your third-turn hand, and then after being played, go to the bottom of your deck, where it would (in effect) be the first card from your second shuffle, along with (but ahead of) anything you bought on turns 3 and 4. The non-Aquatic card might be in your 5th turn hand, at which point it would have missed the shuffle, and you would already be seeing your Aquatic card for the first time.
So, given that a card being Aquatic means you will see it more often, is that always good? The obvious answer is no, because of course there are cards we don't want, that's why we buy trashers (and why junkers work). But it's not quite that simple. As previously mentioned, an Aquatic curse wouldn't have that much of an impact, since the Aquatic mechanic only puts the card under your deck when it's played. If you're not going to play a card, it won't make much of a difference.
I was also more interested in cards one my buy, but where the Aquatic mechanic was also not entirely a positive thing. I thought about cards you might want to play right when you bought them, but then became less useful as the game went on. (This can create some interesting design possibilities, including that an otherwise identical variant of an official card with the Aquatic type could have the same cost as its non-Aquatic counterpart). I first came up with:
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Zora Moneylender -- $4
Action
You may trash a Copper from your hand for +$3.
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This is just a Moneylender with the Aquatic type added in. However, I don't think the Aquatic type ever becomes much of a drawback. Except in some marginal cases (Horn of Plenty), once you run out of Coppers you would just stop playing this card. After that, it would stop recycling. This does not nearly make up for the fact that you will get to use it to effectively trash your Coppers much faster (as previously mentioned, if you open with this you will see it in turns 3 and 5).
A more interesting case is this:
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Silver Trident -- $3
Treasure - Aquatic
$2 | |
At first blush, this appears to be strictly better than Silver, as you will get it more often. And when the rest of your deck is Coppers and Estates, that is obviously a very good thing. But as you deck improves, and especially in a Colonies game, if you are getting a Silver Trident again instead of a Gold or Platinum, that is very much a drawback.
To illustrate the point further, I came up with a Treasure worth even less:
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Secret Grotto -- $2
Treasure - Aquatic
+1 Buy
Take a Thingamabob. Then, if you have 3 or more Thingamabobs, return them all and +$2. Otherwise, +$1. | | 
Thingamabob
Artifact
When you buy a non-Basic, non-Aquatic Treasure, +1 Buy (not cumulative with additional Thingamabobs).
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This is even more obvious. Worth $1 1/3, while it may be useful at the start of the game, unless you need the +Buys, it quickly is lowering the average value of your deck. I actually like both of these, and think they might be balanced (subject to the Silver Deck issue, discussed below). While Secret Grotto may be a bit on the weak side, both $2 and +Buys are both unique enough that in some games they will just get bought.
Given the potential of the Aquatic mechanic to be a possible negative, I went back to thinking about Attacks, junkers, and interactions with Aquatic cards. I came up with this:
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Man 'O War -- $5
Action - Attack - Aquatic
+$3
Each other player either discards 2 cards or gains a Curse to their hand, their choice. (They may pick an option they can't do.) | |  |
Flotsam and Jetsam -- $0*
Treasure - Aquatic
$1 |
A variant on Torturer, this gives the option of discarding 2 cards on gaining a piece of junk, Flotsam and Jetsam (basically, Aquatic Copper). The attack-with-choice is a fun gameplay element, and this actually extends that with the junk it gives, because (if you take the junk) once you draw F&J, you have another decision -- do you play it for $1 and have it go to the bottom of your deck, or do you hold it and discard it, giving you some extra time before seeing it again. It's not so easy to choose to discard if it means missing an important price point. But, like debris clogging up a waterway, if you gain and play too many of them, they will start to cluster together, and you may end up with an all F&J hand.
Other observations about the mechanicDuring other discussions of the mechanic, another thing that occurred to me is that, because the Aquatic mechanic puts cards at the bottom of the deck, unless it is the final (or only) card drawn, Aquatic cards will tend to be in your hand right as you are hitting a shuffle. (I previously suggested that this would mean that an Aquatic Swashbuckler {who I named
Davey Jones} would actually be worse than the original. I also suggested that this had interesting design potential, but I have come up with very little.
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What Lurks Below -- $4
Action - Aquatic - Duration
Trash from the Supply: two Action cards costing up to $2; or two Treasure cards costing up to $3; or a card costing up to $4. At the start of your next turn, gain the trashed cards to the bottom of your deck. | |
There's some synergy with Fisherman (which also fits the flavor), since, if you trigger the shuffle when getting this into your hand, you can grab two of them (after waiting a turn). There's also a synergy with Pearl Diver, who you can also grab in pairs, and which can later get this back more quickly from the bottom of the deck.
A potential issue: the "Silver Deck"In a discussion of silverspawn's proposed (and later withdrawn) card Octopus, there was a discussion about the card's potential to create a kind of
Golden Deck, in which you would be able to buy a high-priced Victory card every turn (in that case by using Octopus each turn to pull 4 Treasures onto your deck then putting it at the bottom as the final card). (Apologies to silverspawn, I don't mean to be picking on you, you've just inadvertently spurred a lot of my thinking on this one).
This wouldn't be a traditional golden deck, as you would be collecting other cards, it's just that the Octopus would prevent you from ever hitting a shuffle, so any new cards you gained would stay in the discard pile. Thinking about it, it occurred to me that you don't actually need a Harbinger ability to do that. With enough Aquatic cards, they will do that on their own.
In a game with no handcard or deck-order attacks, if you can at 10 non-drawing cards that can all be played (i.e. that won't be unplayable because of multiple terminal Actions without village(r)s), then, once you are able to cluster them together (which will happen automatically after they're played), you will never have to draw any other cards, so you can fill your deck with Victory cards without issue. For example, if you had 10 Silver Tridents, you would:
(1) draw 5 Silver Tridents (on the prior turn)
(2) play 5 Silver Tridents for $10
(3) buy a Province (putting it in your discard pile)
(4) discard the 5 Silver Tridents to the bottom of your deck
(5) draw the other 5 Silver Tridents
(6) repeat until the Province pile is empty
Now, piling a card that would allow such a win is not easy, especially when the card is nearly fungible for Silver, and easy for other players to pick up and put into most decks. But even if you have 5 Silver Tridents and 5 Secret Grottos, you would still have $8 or $9 every turn, and the same "Silver Deck" ability.
I don't think it's a deal-breaker, but this is something to consider when designing Aquatic cards (and maybe advises against Aquatic Treasure cards).
* I would note that this doesn't mean that Aquatic junk is overly oppressive, as you can always get out of a Silver Deck by discarding the card instead of playing it (albeit at the cost of whatever playing it would have gotten you).
Aquatic-style Victory cardsOne last thing I thought about was whether you could apply the Aquatic effect to cards that don't get played, i.e. Victory cards. I came up with a card that also goes to the bottom when discarded from your hand. For accountability purposes, you have to take a state and show the cards you discard at the end of the turn:
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Atlantean Estate -- $3
Worth 2VP for every 2 Atlantean Estates you have (rounded down).
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When you gain this, take Underwater. During Cleanup, discard this from your hand to the bottom of your deck.
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Underwater
State
During Cleanup, reveal each card you discard from your hand. |
Author
Topic: Fan Card Mechanics Contest Week 8: Under the Seeeeea (Read 6207 times)