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[X-tra]

So, this might seem like a hot take, but I really do like designing Dominion fan cards. Everyone needs their poison; making cards is mine.

Normally, this would be where I’d put a super elaborate intro about the thought process behind this thread, how them cards came to be, why I felt the need to compile but a few cards together even though they’re not part of a set or fan expansion per say, etc etc. But uh, honestly, I simply just have a couple of cards floating around, and I’d like to share them. That’s pretty much it. I thus won’t fake an epic story and simply jump into the cards themselves.

Over the next few days, I’ll post the cards in batch of 3, like I’ve done in other threads before. I like this format better. I feel like it’s less overbearing on readers as opposed to just dumping everything at once. Let’s make this smooth, baby!


So, right off the bat, we have 3 Reaction cards. I bothered the Discord for a while with Reaction cards. I really tried to make some wacky out-of-the-box Reactions happen. Most of them were underwhelming, or didn’t need to be Reactions at all. These 3 cards are my best attempt however, so here they are (and look, they form an "Action - Treasure - Victory" trio!):

          

• Resupply: A versatile gainer. It relies solely on what you’ve gained before though, otherwise it straight up does nothing. So playing this without the Reaction on your Action phase without having gained something beforehand this turn is probably a bad idea. Better wait in your Buy phase to at least buy and gain a card, to which you’ll be able to React with Resupply.
  
  So, what can Resupply do. Well, you could Workshop a Action card, and then Resupply will React and gain an Action card costing up to . Or you could buy a Copper and Resupply will make you gain a nice card, kind of like a less punishing Banquet. Or, if you’re cheeky, you could wait to get Cursed by your adversary. Just React with Resupply to that curse, and you’ll also add a to your deck. Thanks for the Attack, friend! All in all, Resupply does a bunch of stuff, and it’s up to you to make the best of it.
  
  
• Recycled Goods: More Discord shenanigans with that one. And hey, I did the art for that one too ! Always wanted to take a crack at that. But, onto the card itself, now. This is a disappearing Silver, more or less. It can be interesting when you need to spike a certain price point, but don’t want to keep the Silver in your deck (Engines often like that prospect). You get a too, so yay! There can be ways to farm some off Recycled Goods, because adding an Estate or a Duchy to your deck allows you to “un-Exile” each copy of Recycled Goods from the trash. Everyone shares that fight, and pulling the trigger could be important. In the face of an opponent who’s ahead, Duchy dancing with Recycled Goods in the trash can be beneficial for you. Not only will you re-add some form of economy to your deck growing greener and greener, but you’ll toss in some extra to your score too, and that could make the difference. You can also play, like, 4 Recycled Goods in one turn, trash them all, get 4, buy a Duchy and automatically re-gain them all. The wheel is churning!
  
  All in all, probably a below median card strength wise. But I’m ok with that. It’s a card people will have to try to find ways to make it work instead of mindlessly emptying the pile, and that’s a pretty cool feeling. Also, this probably overstretch the definition of a Reaction card, but if Patron can be one, then so too can Recycled Goods. It's mostly blue to draw attention to it.
  
  
• Hanging Gardens: A Duchy giving 1 less . What do you get in exchange? A pseudo one-shot Throne Room Reaction. Using the Reaction will make you Exile that "Duchy", so hurray for Victory cards not clogging your deck. On top of that, you get to replay an Action, Treasure or even Night card, so that’s some neat versatility. It’ll almost certainly always work, even in the face of hand with no Action cards. Worst case scenario, just Throne a Copper or a Silver or what have you. And it still works even if drawn dead with, say, a Smithy. Hanging Gardens looks past that and can replay that Smithy anyway. Such is the beauty of the Reaction.
  
  If keeping these green cards out of your deck à la Distant Land is not satisfying enough for you, nothing stops you from gaining another Hanging Gardens and un-Exiling them all. Your Throne Rooms will happily rejoin your deck, ready for some double trouble!
  
  A quick note about some rule precision: Hanging Gardens cannot React to other Hanging Gardens, since they can never be played. They never enter your play area; they are simply Exiled. This brings some tracking issues with re-playing Duration cards, since they don’t keep themselves out, but that’s a problem I’ll learn to live with. It can also replay cards that have left your play area, such as Horses or even Recycled Goods up there, but again, too bad. I like the elegance as-is, and don't want to add a bunch of fail safes on the card to tackle these cases.
  

[segura]

They all look like very fine and interesting cards. Just a short note on Resupply: I think it is slightly weird that you will never play the card directly but only ever via its Reaction. So it could arguably be a pure Reaction.
Also, there are neat combos with non-junk $0s like Peddler, Prizes, Spoils and so on.

[X-tra]

Thank you for your comment. It's true that in practice, Resupply will almost always exclusively be used for its Reaction. There is the case where a player could play 2 Villages, then Workshop an Action card, then draw via Smithy, drawing into a Resupply. In that scenario, the Resupply should be allowed to be played as a normal Action to gain a cheaper Action card than the card gained by the Workshop. Admittedly, it would be wiser to simply play the Smithy before the Workshop, but still. I think it'd be needlessly mean to disallow Resupply to do something in that scenario (not counting the Buy phase).

[scolapasta]

Thank you for your comment. It's true that in practice, Resupply will almost always exclusively be used for its Reaction. There is the case where a player could play 2 Villages, then Workshop an Action card, then draw via Smithy, drawing into a Resupply. In that scenario, the Resupply should be allowed to be played as a normal Action to gain a cheaper Action card than the card gained by the Workshop. Admittedly, it would be wiser to simply play the Smithy before the Workshop, but still. I think it'd be needlessly mean to disallow that Resupply to do something in that scenario (not counting the Buy phase).

Two Villages, then Artisan, putting the Smithy into your hand. (in other words, you couldn't have played the Smithy first).

[Gubump]

I would recommend wording Hanging Gardens like Royal Carriage: "After you play a card, if it's still in play, you may Exile this from your hand to replay that card."

[Timinou]

Recycled Goods looks fun on Triumph boards. 

[X-tra]

I would recommend wording Hanging Gardens like Royal Carriage: "After you play a card, if it's still in play, you may Exile this from your hand to replay that card."

You are right, it's better wording wise to imitate what Royal Carriage says. I edited Hanging Gardens to match your suggestion. However, I decided not to carry over the "if it's still in play". I don't know, I still want people to double their Feast if they want to.

[X-tra]

Time to feed this thread 3 more cards. This time, we have some pretty simple Engine components. They should find a nice place in your deck in most games, although, nothing is ever guaranteed in the wonderful world of Domion!

          

• Booming Town: Man, what can I say here. Once gained, it is nothing but a normal Village. Kind of like Border Village. Here, though, it costs , because it’s a Village + a little something, like Walled Village, Farming Village, etc. The bonus, here, is that the card is simply gained onto your deck, or to your hand, your choice. Therefore, Workshop variants love this. Ironworking a Booming Town to your hand is a neat little trick to pull off. Likewise, in your Buy phase, you could purchase a Booming Town and topdeck it à la Nomad Camp, ready to be drawn next turn.
  
  A small issue this card could face is some potential stop moving shenanigans. The card can be gained to multiple places, so it might create rule weirdness. None that I have found so far, however. And hey, if Rocks can do it, then so can this, perhaps? Unsure about what this fully entitles.
  
  
• Bunker: Draw, then discard (most of the time), with an Action to spare. This smell and sounds like Forum. And look, it costs , just like it! So, this sifts. Played from a hand of many cards, this hurts more, as you get to discard more. It's not to say that Bunker can't actually increase your handsize, for instance, if this is played from a Miltia’d hand. Finally, there’s the whole “play a Treasure from your hand” clause. Yes, another one of these, gleefully joining Black Market and Storyteller. Here, it’s to save some payload from the discarding, a neat little effect. Keep your engine pieces and slowly put some payload in play, instead of discarding it as Warehouse would make you do.
  
  
• Key to the City: This gets you to play Action cards during your Buy phase, a weird take on Scepter. Except that it checks from your hand instead of from your play area. And yes, you’ve read right, you draw a card first. With the +, this makes it a Peddler variant, and if we assume you play an Action card with it, then this becomes some kind of Bazaar. Pretty simple, and convenient to kill terminal collision. Or playing that Action card you drew into.
  
  There’s a cool lil’ combo between Bunker and Key to the City. Draw with Bunker, play Key to the City, draw one more card, play an Action card (which could chain into more cards if it’s something like Vassal, Herald, or a Throne Room variant), and when you’re all done, then you discard down to 4 cards in hand. Wacky!
  

[segura]

Although I like the flavour of it, Key to the City looks nearly strictly worse than Bazaar.
Booming Town feels like an official card. Sure, it does not reinvent the wheel but which village actually can nowadays?

[mathdude]

Although I like the flavour of it, Key to the City looks nearly strictly worse than Bazaar.
Booming Town feels like an official card. Sure, it does not reinvent the wheel but which village actually can nowadays?

Key to the city can't be drawn dead. Bazaar can.

[Gubump]

Although I like the flavour of it, Key to the City looks nearly strictly worse than Bazaar.
Booming Town feels like an official card. Sure, it does not reinvent the wheel but which village actually can nowadays?

Key to the city can't be drawn dead. Bazaar can.

That's a pretty small benefit considering that Key to the City is a Peddler instead of a Peddler + Village for the same cost. Not to mention that its "+1 Action" effect is worse than an actual +1 Action, since it doesn't let you continue your Action phase.

[segura]

Although I like the flavour of it, Key to the City looks nearly strictly worse than Bazaar.
Booming Town feels like an official card. Sure, it does not reinvent the wheel but which village actually can nowadays?

Key to the city can't be drawn dead. Bazaar can.

That's a pretty small benefit considering that Key to the City is a Peddler instead of a Peddler + Village for the same cost. Not to mention that its "+1 Action" effect is worse than an actual +1 Action, since it doesn't let you continue your Action phase.

Well, vanilla-wise it is a Bazaar as you don’t need an Action to play the card itself. But the Candlestick Maker - Ducat debate illustrated that, all other things being equal, an Action is preferable to a Treasure.

I don’t think that the Villa style effect that mathdude pointed out, i.e. the card allowing you to flip from 0 Actions back to 1, compensates for the general weaknesses of Actions relative to Tressures.

[mathdude]

Key to the City looks nearly strictly worse than Bazaar.

Key to the city can't be drawn dead. Bazaar can.

That's a pretty small benefit considering that Key to the City is a Peddler instead of a Peddler + Village for the same cost. Not to mention that its "+1 Action" effect is worse than an actual +1 Action, since it doesn't let you continue your Action phase.

I think that depends what you're playing. Big money would really like a couple Keys to the City, to go with a few Smithies.

Given a kingdom with Bazaar, Key, and Smithy, I'd probably skip Bazaar. It's too often I draw a Smithy alone in my 5-card hand, then pick up a dead village or another Smithy. With Key/Smithy, they Key can be in your hand before or be drawn by Smithy. With Bazaar/Smithy, the Bazaar has to be in your hand first.

Also, Re: segura's comments...
The Action may be preferable to Treasure in many cases. But that doesn't make it strictly better. I still feel there are cases where the Treasure is preferred.

[segura]

Kingdoms in which TR variants, Herald, Scrying Pool, Golem, Ghost or any of the other cards that want you to have Actions appear, plus the Kingdoms in which you have an ordinary engine are a zillion times more likely than the Village/Smithy semi draw engine semi BM you describe. More often than not, there are some nice terminals you want to throw into the mix. In other words, your situation is quite artifical. Smithy BM or ordinary engine is more infinitely more likely than Village/Smithy but no other terminals.

While it is beyond crystal clear to me that the card is weaker than Bazaar, I nonetheless think that adding a Key to the City as assisting splitter that can increase consistency is worthwhile.

[X-tra]

I am totally of the opinion that Key to the City is indeed generally weaker than Bazaar. I think it's an healthy comparison to make. However, I also agree that it is not a card I'll be sad to add to my deck, and it also has some cool Treasure-specific interactions that can potentially create some interesting synergies.

[Shael]

So, this might seem like a hot take, but I really do like designing Dominion fan cards. Everyone needs their poison; making cards is mine.

          

All of these three cards are really interesting; you're really talented! nice work!

[X-tra]

Here I am with 3 cards once again. Probably won’t post much new cards here after that. The rest of the stuff in my collection is either too wacky, too underwhelming, or hasn’t had enough work put into it to be shown in this thread. I do have some Events however; and these will eventually be posted in my “10 Events” thread.

So, for the time being, let’s uncover 3 Attacks. They all cost and oh crap, that’s a lot of words! Check it out:

          

• Demolish: This is an attempt at rediscovering the deceased Saboteur, but in an hopefully more fun, and more fair way. It trashes directly the top card of each other player’s deck, so there’s a little bit of luck involved, I suppose. Then, it attempts to “de-upgrade” the card. It won’t make a dent in your opponent’s Coppers or Estates (Poor House withstanding), and even help them sift through their deck. So better wait until they make their deck better via thinning or adding better cards in it if you want Demolish to be mean to them.
  
  Meanwhile, you get +3 Cards. Draw is draw, and a good Engine needs that. The Attack is the cherry on top, really. It joins Werewolf, Rabble and Torturer’s ranks, so there’s your comparison if you want to make one.
  
  In the end, careful when Forge, King’s Court, Bank, etc, are on the board. A Province might very well be “downgraded” into those .
  
  
• Pikeman: Where Demolish is a trashing Attack, Pikeman is a discarding Attack. Yes, but it can also be a junker. It depends on what your opponents decide to discard. Should they discard a weak card from their hand, say, an Estate, then you can give them a fresh new copy. If they decide on being cheeky and tricking the system by discarding a Laboratory, or even a Province, then you can go full Militia on them instead. So it’s a tough choice really. For them I mean, not for you. Well maybe a little for you. But it’s probably more their call then yours.
  
  What you get on top of the Attack is some Draw-to-X action. Dominion has yet to have that type of bonus on an Attack card, so there. It’s also good to counter itself, especially if your attacker made you discard twice.
  
  
• Gambling Hall: Let us conclude with some wild and crazy-o concept. Gambling Hall is not an Attack per say, but like, it is. Like Masquerade, Haunted Castle, etc. I just don’t want Reactions shenanigans to break this. Gambling Hall is full of surprises, true to its name. You shuffle two “decent” cards (no debates on Gold and Duchy’s power level, please), and two crappy cards together, dealing them clockwise starting with you. Should you shoot yourself in the foot by gaining a Ruins through your own doings, hey, no problem! Trash that sucker and gain 2. Your opponents do not have that opportunity, so you have the upper hand. Worst case scenario, in a 2-player game, your adversary adds a Gold and a Duchy to their deck (2 stop cards), and you, you have +4. While not ideal, it’s not the worst either.
  
  In 3+ player games, the dealing becomes weirder. At 3 players, you see two cards, and your opponents both see one. In 4 players, each player receives one card. Above that, some players will straight up be unaffected by Gambling Hall. I thought of this before, and am 100% okay with it. It’s meant to be wacky!
  
  In the end, remember one thing. Gambling Hall is not a Command card. And the effects are not contingent of it being trashed. This means that Overlord gets to have some fun with this. It’ll 3-pile extremely quickly and that's probably the monolithic solution to that Kingdom. Because, hey, you get to accumulate while doing so too.
  

[mutated]

I love Gambling Hall. It might need an "each" at the end, if as you say it can grant +4VP in a two-player game.

[LastFootnote]

I think Demolish has a very clever wording. Usually misses Provinces. I guess it remains to be seen how it feels to get hit by 5 of these in a turn, since they're likely to be part of your draw engine.

Pikemen also seems like a pretty interesting attack. I'm not sure it really needs the "extra Militia" clause. I think discarding a good card is penalty enough. So, "Draw until you have 6 cards in hand. Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand discards one. You may have them gain a copy of it." A little sleeker and probably plenty damaging, until good Victory cards start being discarded.

It's really hard to imagine how Gambling Hall will play out. I'll have to see it in action to assess it. It's a tough sell, buying a one-shot that might really help your opponent(s). I'd suggest trying it at $4 first just to get players to try it out.

[X-tra]

Thank you for your comments.

Interesting suggestion about Pikemen. I can see it as being a probably cleaner, more straightforward and more Dominion-y version of that idea. I guess my attempt is to counter that pesky Province (or Duchy) discard later in the game. But that can be an okay thing too. It is later in the game, after all. You got to Attack before that anyway, so no remorse, really.

Gambling Hall, on the other hand, probably should not exist in the universe of Dominion. It's more of a wacky and funny idea to try out than a real attempt at putting forth something that wants to be good enough to be official. I do fear that it can eat through piles very quickly, seeing as it being trashed does not stop the gambling minigame from occuring. King's Courting this, for instance, dispatches 12 cards, 9 of which are from potential pile-out piles (as a side note, you can get +12 in a 2 or 3 player game by doing that, should you want to trash everything you gain, lol).


Final note: I changed the wording of Hanging Gardens (tackled the edge cases, because... sometimes being thorough > elegance), Demolish (to follow the wording of Giant closer) and Gambling Hall (adding the "each" mentioned by user mutated).

[LastFootnote]

I think it's fine if Hanging Gardens can replay a card that's left play. After all, Hanging Gardens can’t chain off itself and it’s not going into play to track the doubling anyway.

EDIT: I do think it should keep "non-Duration" though.