JudgmentI'm sorry it's taken a few days to complete this, but there were a lot of great entries and it took me a bit longer than expected to evaluate them all.
As always, please keep in mind that my assessment is highly subjective, influenced by my personal preferences, and I haven't playtested any of the cards, so your mileage may vary.
Anyway, I'm grateful for all the time and effort all the participants took to submit entries for this contest. Judging is never easy, and especially this time I found it hard to pick a winner!
Infrastructure starts off as a cantrip but can evolve into a Market once half of the six Works are completed. If all Works are completed, it becomes a Market that will also be a gold-gainer and a Workshop that can gain copies of itself. Achieving the conditions required to mark certain Works is quite straightforward and will often be unplanned, so players will need to keep track carefully. The card itself ensures that it will be almost always be possible to mark all 6 Works (the exception would be a 5-player game where the Infrastructures are evenly divided amongst players). While it’s nice to see a card that cares about something other than empty supply piles, I don’t think it will take much effort to activate Infrastructure. I like off-the-wall cards, but in this case, I think the card could do with fewer activation steps and/or a different set of more strategic Works.
Young Hero is an interesting Workshop variant. I like that the card’s ability will make it easier to activate itself, but I’m not sure about the balance. While an unactivated Young Hero will not provide any benefits over Workshop like some other $4-cost Workshop variants do, once it is activated, the strength of the card can ramp up quite quickly to point where it can gain Provinces with two empty supply piles. While it’s possible to gain Provinces with other Workshop variants, that usually takes a lot more work to set up (e.g. having a sufficient number of cost-reduction cards in play). I wonder if the optimal strategy with Young Hero would almost always be a rush, or if you try to build towards a mega-turn. I think there’s a danger that it could be too monolithic, but it still looks like a fun card.
Infiltrator cares about how many copies of itself are left in the Supply, and starts off weak but gets stronger as it morphs from giving +1 Buy to becoming a Village, then a Peddler, and finally a Lab. Since the bonuses are not additive, you may find yourself missing the +Buy or +Action that the card provided early in the game, so it would not be prudent to construct a deck around Infiltrator being your source of +Buy or your only village. I think the bonuses and thresholds could do with some tweaking, as I’m not sure the initial opportunity cost of spending $4 on Infiltrators will be worth it unless there is no other source of draw in the Kingdom.
I love the concept of using tokens on the card’s supply pile to track when it will be activated. Revolution starts off by providing +3 Villagers and then becomes a Smithy once the Villagers run out. Unlike other entries that care about empty piles, you don’t necessarily want to have as many of these in your deck as possible or try to win the split, especially if there other draw cards available. It’s perhaps more important to be able to play it more times than your opponent early in the game before the Villagers run out. It’s an elegant design overall, but I think my main reservation with the card is that I would have liked for it to do more than a regular Smithy once activated.
Basing the activation on when a certain card type is played is a neat idea and it’s a design space that I think is worth exploring. Veteran cares about the first time each Attack card in the Kingdom is played, and could potentially become a strong trasher in Kingdoms with multiple Attack cards. The trashing ability makes sense with the prospect of junking attacks, while the draw-to-X ability is helpful against handsize attacks. If there are no Attack cards in the Kingdom, Veteran can still be useful a Peddler if played from a hand of five cards, and the draw-to-X ability could make it better than a Peddler if played from a hand of four cards or fewer. By the way, I am assuming that the intent is that you can choose to trash
up to as many cards from your hand as there are tokens on the Wounded mat (rather than having to choose to trash either three cards or none if there are 3 tokens on the mat).
Iron Throne is an interesting Throne Room variant with similarities to Herald. I like that it can play both Actions and Treasures as that increases the chances that it will do something when played and could lead to some interesting interactions with Kingdom Treasures. It gets stronger as supply piles run out and can be quite explosive especially if paired with deck inspectors or cards that let you top-deck other cards. It also allows you to potentially play a card you’ve gained twice if you’ve drawn your deck. Without deck inspection or top-decking, Iron Throne could have the same kind of awkwardness that you get with Golem. The card won’t do anything if you happen to draw it when your deck and discard pile are empty, or it can whiff if you reveal a non-Action or non-Treasure. And then there’s also the drawback of revealing a card that you don’t really want to play twice. It’s not an easy card to price, but I think $5 seems fine. I don’t think it would be an automatic buy in every Kingdom, which is perfectly fine and actually makes it more interesting.
Boundary Marker is similar to Bridge except it is non-terminal, which makes it quite strong. It also comes with an on-gain ability whereby you can choose to keep it on your Tavern mat to score extra VP when you start greening. The more empty supply piles there are, the more you can score. The card stays in either your deck or your Tavern mat, so it creates a dilemma when you gain it of whether you want to have a strong cost-reduction card in your deck or you want something that eventually scores you points without clogging up your deck like most green cards. If you play a Boundary Marker, any Boundary Markers on your Tavern mat will not score points if you buy a Duchy, so you need to be mindful of that as well. Without play-testing, it’s hard to say if both modes are balanced, but I like the overall concept and there are some interesting ideas here.
Community is an alt-VP card that cares about empty piles. I like the overall balance and simplicity here. The card has a variable cost based on the number of empty piles, which is a good design choice. If you’re reasonably certain that the game will end on piles rather than Provinces, gaining them early will allow you to have a card worth at least 6VP at the end of the game at a discount. However, the timing of when to gain it is not always obvious as you also have to deal with having green in your deck. Community also provides a preferable alternative to Duchy-dancing, which will provide a different endgame experience.
Brewery is a very unique and interesting Event that provides Copper-thinning and payload. The more players use it, the higher the payload. It may be fun to try and construct a deck that uses Brewery for payload; ideally, if you’re able to draw your deck, then you want no more than 5 Coppers in it. However, I don’t know how reliable such a deck would be on most boards and it also could be slow to get going especially at low player counts. The main utility here seems to be as payload, but I wonder if buffing the Copper-thinning ability could add an extra dimension. For example, if players weren’t restricted to putting just one Copper they have in play onto Brewery but could put as many as they wanted from play, they could thin their deck faster at the expense of making the Event stronger for their opponents.
Ram is an interesting twist on Forager that gains copies of itself. Unlike Forager, it only produces coin if there are Rams in the trash, and so early in the game it is unlikely to provide any economy. In theory, a Ram could produce up to $9 when played; however, that requires having 9 Rams in the trash and having the last one in hand. Trashing a Ram provides you with immediate payload and let’s you draw a card, at the expense of removing a payload card from your deck and activating your opponents’ Rams. I love the interesting micro-decisions that this creates in terms of when to buy them and when to trash one if they collide. It's a great design overall.
Study is a Lab+ when activated that cares about whether its Supply pile is empty. The first time you play a Study during a turn, you get +1 Buy which could help you gain more Studies. It’s almost an inverse of Lackeys; spamming Studies is likely to clog your deck with terminal Actions early in the game, but will dramatically improve your deck once activated. In a 2-player game, the decision to go for these may be a gamble if your opponent doesn’t mirror you, so I think it does present an interesting strategic choice. At higher player counts, I believe the decision may be more straightforward as they are more likely to get activated.
Centurion is a weak trasher and emulator that cares about how many differently named cards there are in the trash. As mxdata points out, in most Kingdoms, it is likely to become as strong as Band of Misfits. In Kingdoms with Shelters or Ruins, it is likely to become as strong as an Overlord. The card looks fun, but there would be a potential issue in Kingdoms with no other trashers, as in such cases Centurion would be far too expensive and slow to set up.
Tribulation is a Project that cares about empty supply piles. At a cost of $6, it will allow you to emulate 1-2 (or potentially more, in games with Fleet) cards from the supply at the start of your turn. It’s not a Project you are likely to invest in early in the game because of the opportunity cost since by design, it is likely to be activated later in the game. This presents an interesting decision of whether or not to buy it once there is at least one empty supply. Playing a pseudo-Captain at the start of each turn is great, but it won’t always be an obvious choice depending on the state of the game.
Laser Army is a cool Attack card that starts off as a regular Smithy, but is permanently upgraded into a Curser if a player reveals a Gold from their hand after playing Laser Army. The downside of the card is that it does take a bit of work to set up (requires purchasing both Laser Army and a Gold and then colliding them), after which the card becomes activated for opponents as well. This isn’t too different in principle from other cards of this nature, but in this case, I don’t know if there is sufficient incentive to buy unactivated Laser Armies unless it is the only source of draw.
Refurbish is an interesting Remodel variant that cares about how many copies of itself are in the trash. The card starts off worse than Remodel, as it will only allow you to gain a card costing $1 more than the trashed card. You could theoretically trash a Copper or Curse to gain a Province if there are sufficient Refurbishes in the trash, but that would take a lot of work to set up. It could be frustrating if you are unable to get your Refurbishes to collide for the first time, so you may only want to add more of them to your deck once it is under control. Like with Laser Army, I’m not sure if this gets the balance right between the investment required to activate them and the eventual payoff.
Hunter is an interesting draw card that can also trash itself to gain a more expensive card. Hunter cares about empty supply piles and not only draws more if there are more empty supply piles, but it has a variable cost which means it can be trashed to gain even better cards. When there are two empty supply piles, I think more often than not, you will be at the stage of the game where it would make sense to trash your Hunters into Duchies. I think the choice of trashing Hunters early in the game in order to gain an engine piece, or to keep them in your deck in the hope that they will get more powerful is an interesting one. I like the versatility of the card, and you may still want to buy them in games where you don’t expect any supply pile other than Provinces to run out.
Like pubby’s Revolution, Forest Witch is activated once the Villagers placed on its pile during set-up are emptied. Prior to activation, Forest Witch provides +$2, +1 Buy, and +1 Villager, which is not too shabby at a cost of $5. Once the Villagers on its pile run out, it becomes a strictly better version of Coven. I think the activation occurs too soon (in a 2-player game, it will take 4 plays of Forest Witch to activate them), so perhaps it may need to be tweaked to make it less centralizing.
Barter Town is a unique take on trashing & sifting. It lets you trash a card from your hand then draw a card per card in the trash that shares the same card type as you have trashed. The card is more likely to benefit from trashing Treasures or Ruins than Estates, as the former are likely to have more differently named cards of the same type in the trash. The card trashes before it sifts, so like Junk Dealer it can be awkward to play with if you run out of junk in your deck. It would be more attractive if it let you sift before trashing, but I don’t know if that would make it overpowered.
Theatre is a great antidote for weak Kingdoms. The card seems quite balanced due to its variable cost. If there are no draw cards in the Kingdom, it will become a Lab. In Kingdoms without a village or source of +Buy, Theatre will double as a Worker’s Village. In rare Kingdoms that lack a village, draw cards, and a source of +Buy, Theatre will be a Lost City that also provides +Buy at a fair price of $6. Theatre can also be upgraded when certain piles run out; for instance, Theatre will gain +Action once all the villages run out in the supply. In Kingdoms where there are villages, cards that give +2 cards, and +Buy, Theatre will just be a cantrip at the start, so in those cases you may want to pick them up before they are activated if you think the cards that provide draw will run out. I feel like the activation due to empty supply piles will be more relevant at higher player counts than at two players. I also don’t know that it necessarily makes the game more interesting to have Theatre as "insurance" in case certain cards run out. Nevertheless, I like the versatility of the card and still think it’s a good design.
Reconstruction is a nice, versatile card that is activated as soon as the Ruins pile runs out, at which point it can play up to two Ruins from your Exile mat. There may be some randomness that may not be everyone’s cup of tea. For instance, if only one player ends up with 2 Ruined Libraries on their Exile mat, their Reconstructions will likely be much stronger than their opponents’. Likewise, a player that ends up with a wider variety of Ruins will likely have an advantage over a player that only ends up with Survivors and Ruined Villages on their Exile mat. A version that puts the Ruins on a communal mat or in the trash would mitigate the randomness, but I think it’s still quite intriguing in its current form.
Beginner is a Remodel variant that cares about empty supply piles. If there are no empty supply piles, it will be a regular Remodel. But with each empty supply pile, you get to gain a copy of the card you remodeled into. It’s a neat idea, but I wonder if some restrictions are warranted. With one empty supply pile, for instance, you could trash a Province or a $6-cost card to gain 2 Provinces. With two empty supply piles, you could do the same to gain 3 Provinces without much effort.
Borough is part of a split pile cares about whether there are copies of itself in the supply and if its supply pile is empty. Borough combines draw-to-X and +Cards in an interesting fashion. It transitions from Necropolis+ when there are still copies of itself in the supply, to a Village+ when it runs out but there are still Town Halls in the supply, to a Lost City+ when the supply pile runs out. While Borough provides +Actions and draw, Town Hall provides payload. I think the revised version is a lot more balanced than the original one; even though Town Hall still has the potential to provide a crazy amount of coin for how cheap it is. I like the overall concept, and it looks fun to play with, but I think the cost of Town Hall may need to be tweaked.
Voyager/Old Sapphire is the second split pile submission in this week’s contest. At a cost of $3, Voyager provides +1 Villager and +1 Coffers, and gives you the option to trash a non-Victory card from the supply. Once copies of itself run out, you can also use it to gain an Old Sapphire. Old Sapphire itself will give you +2 Coffers, and once the supply pile runs out it will also provide +1 Buy and +$1, which makes it strictly better than Gold at this point. The main issue I have is how quickly this pile can run out and for the cards to be activated. Voyager is cheap (you could buy two of them before your first shuffle if they are still available), there are only 5 of them in the supply, and they can trash other Voyagers from the supply; therefore, it won’t take long for Old Sapphires to be uncovered. And once they are, players don’t need to buy them; they can just gain them using Voyagers.
Thieves Guild is a Night-Duration card that cares about Supply piles with 5 or fewer cards left. The obvious comparison is Den of Sin, but Thieves Guild starts out extremely weak (essentially providing no duration-draw at all if you gain it prematurely) but could potentially provide plenty of duration-draw in games with lots of gains. Keeping track of Supply piles with 5 or fewer cards is a bit more cumbersome than keeping track of empty supply piles, but could be done using tokens IRL. Given how weak it is at the start of the game, it makes sense to power it up each time any supply pile has five or fewer cards rather than when they are completely empty, but I can’t tell how balanced it will end up being or how well it scales at different player counts. There will be some Kingdoms where this card could be an absolute beast and I would find the prospect of playing with it quite exciting, but there may be some where it takes time for it to start being worthwhile (and as a Duration card, it will not do anything for you in the turn that you play it so you may not want to buy this late in the game). It’s fine for a card not to be strong in every kingdom, but I think the base version of this needs to be buffed somehow.
Bond is a Kingdom treasure that becomes activated when it is in play, and the active player buys a card costing more than Bond. You could potentially have more than one in play and upgrade them more than once with a single buy, which I think is cool. It’s an interesting and novel concept, but I think even the revised version may still be a bit too weak. Given that it starts off providing only +$1, it’s quite possible that the first few times players have this in play that they are unable to hit $5. I think the concept is innovative and has potential, but I would consider pricing it at $3.
Pirate Fleet is an Attack card that makes your opponents trash a Silver from their hand. Then, you can choose to either add a token to a communal Fleet Mat or gain $ based on the number of tokens per player on the Fleet Mat. The Attack can significantly disrupt your opponent’s upcoming turn, but one can play around Pirate Fleet by choosing not to buy Silvers. This may not be ideal in certain Kingdoms, but there are others where you would not be buying them anyway. Even in games where you open with a Silver and your opponent opens with a Pirate Fleet, I think your odds are slightly better than 50% that your opponent’s Pirate Fleet misses on T3 or T4, so I don’t know that opening with Pirate Fleet is better than opening with Silver. Increasing the amount of payload that Pirate Fleet provides can be slow, and once it is sufficiently powered up, any player can buy it.
Honourable Mentions (in no particular order): Gubump's Young Hero, pubby's Revolution, segura's Iron Throne, gambit05's Hunter, DunnoItAll's Reconstruction, and grep's Borough/Town Hall
Runner-up: scolapasta's Community
WINNER: 4est's Ram
Author
Topic: Weekly Design Contest #113: Power Up! (Read 16620 times)