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Author Topic: Weekly Design Contest #134: This is Worthless  (Read 5843 times)

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JW

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #134: This is Worthless
« Reply #25 on: November 19, 2021, 03:20:09 pm »
0

Quote from: Pilgrim
PILGRIM
ACTION
Cost: $3
+1 Card
+1 Action

Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's a non-Treasure card, you may trash it. If it costs $6 or more, gain a Luck.

Pilgrim looks like it will often be quite weak, and therefore Golden Shrine will not get revealed. A cost of $2 would help fix that, but it still won't feel great when one player luckily trashes all three Estates with Pilgrim and another player trashes none (and gaining Luck to set up Pilgrim to trash Estate is itself random and would be expected to happen pretty late in the game, so it won't do much to lessen the sting).
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4est

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #134: This is Worthless
« Reply #26 on: November 20, 2021, 02:15:42 pm »
+2

Submissions are closed to new entries at this point, but please do check the OP to make sure I've got everyone's card and with the most updated version. Let me know if I'm missing anything!

I'll have my comments on all submissions and the winner posted tomorrow.
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Holger

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #134: This is Worthless
« Reply #27 on: November 21, 2021, 04:45:07 am »
+1

Quote from: Pilgrim
PILGRIM
ACTION
Cost: $3
+1 Card
+1 Action

Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's a non-Treasure card, you may trash it. If it costs $6 or more, gain a Luck.

Pilgrim looks like it will often be quite weak, and therefore Golden Shrine will not get revealed. A cost of $2 would help fix that, but it still won't feel great when one player luckily trashes all three Estates with Pilgrim and another player trashes none (and gaining Luck to set up Pilgrim to trash Estate is itself random and would be expected to happen pretty late in the game, so it won't do much to lessen the sting).

It's very unlikely that one player is three times lucky and the other never. I think Pilgrim would be less swingy than many $5 trashers like Sentry, Count or Trading Post are in games where only one player has a 5/2 opening.

But reducing the $6 cutoff to $5 or even $4 could reduce the swinginess further, as you'd no longer mind revealing such a card instead of an Estate. Luck is a one-shot better Cartographer, which is nice to get but probably not better than trashing an Estate.
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Awaclus

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #134: This is Worthless
« Reply #28 on: November 21, 2021, 06:50:10 pm »
+1

Copper Rush
cost 0* - Event
When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, gain a Copper, setting aside. At the start of your next turn, put those into your hand.
Even crazier than Beggar in Guildhall games.
Open Copper Rush, Guildhall and then oscillate between buying Provinces and Copper Rushes.

You don't even need the Guildhall, you can just open Copper Rush/Copper Rush and then oscillate between buying Provinces and Copper Rushes. You can probably get to 4 Provinces by turn 9 with Copper Rush alone. Guildhall makes it maybe a turn faster though.
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4est

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #134: This is Worthless
« Reply #29 on: November 21, 2021, 10:20:08 pm »
+5

WDC #134: This is Worthless

Commentary & Results


Thanks everyone for the submissions. It seemed like this was a challenging prompt, but I was impressed by some of the great ideas here, as well as the diversity of entries (5 Events, 4 junk cards, 4 non-supply cards, 2 kingdom cards, and even a Project!).

One note: for the purposes of this contest, I primarily evaluated the $0 cost card vs. the supplemental card(s) that gain/distribute them. I still included my comments on these as I was able (it was trickier when there were more of them per entry) and how well they interact with the submission, but overall I tried to keep the scope of my judgment mainly on the $0 costs.

It was especially hard to pick a winner this time! OPs are linked, shortlisted entries are bolded, enjoy.



Parade by JW
An Event that lets you overpay in increments of $3 for Villagers, and throws in a free one to boot, even if you don’t overpay. I’ve always been a fan of things like Travelling Fair that convert resources into other resources, and in this case, you can always spend just a Buy to gain a Villager, and potentially some extra cash for that extra reliability. I do wonder if $2 might be a more attractive price as it seems unlikely that players will often overpay by $6 or more, although the free one does mitigate the higher price point. I like it.


Copper Rush by majiponi
Another overpay Event, this one lets you essentially invest money this turn into money next turn, at the “cost” of junking yourself with Coppers, allowing you spike price points super easily. Even apart from combos like Guildhall, this appears broken on its own thanks to the unbounded nature of the overpay ability coupled with the sheer amount of Coppers this can gain to hand (adding 9 Coppers to your deck doesn’t really hurt when they all go in your next hand and let you to gain 14 more next turn), allowing for snowballing overpay multiple turns in a row (or alternating as Awaclus suggests). The event is aptly named as the Copper pile can empty in just a few turns. 


Bequest by mandioca15
A once-per game event that grants a single extra Buy. At first, I was like, okay really, a whole event for one single extra buy per game? At least Seize the Day’s once-per-game grants a whole additional turn! But I’ve come around on this one—for how simple it is and how small it might seem, there is a tremendous amount of strategy here of thinking exactly when and how to utilize your free Buy—to kickstart your engine in the early game, to win a critical split in the midgame, to pick up an extra VP card in the endgame. The $0 price tag here is perfect, given its limited power, but its presence is still one that won't be ignored; Bequest will get bought every game it's in, that’s for sure! I definitely want to try playing a few games with this.


Fairy by Timinou
Our first non-supply card, a cantrip that becomes a one-shot Lab if it discards an Action. When it doesn’t find Action, Fairy is sort of like a weaker Fugitive, and you get to keep it for another day. Overall, Fairies definitely feel weaker than Horses, since you most often would rather have the one-shot Lab than the discard and keep. Plus when they do pick up Actions, they literally play identically to Horses. I’d love to see Fairy do just a little something extra to differentiate itself from Horse.

The Way of the Ladybird is a fine way (ha) to gain Fairies I suppose, though spending an Action to terminally gain a Fairy doesn’t feel all that great. Fairies are helpful enough that it will get usage in most games, but it will be a tough sell in kingdoms without +Actions.


Reconfigure by AJL828
Event Apprentice, with Advance’s trash an Action card restriction. The refunded Buy does feel appropriate here, since you’re not gaining anything else like with Advance. Excellent for turning early game trashers into +Cards later, or gambling on a big next turn. Not a lot else to say here, I like this one a lot and it definitely feels appropriate at $0.


Waterwheel by spineflu
A $0 cost Kingdom card, had to look up the Queue mechanic to be reminded of how it works. In practice, this sort of functions like Cargo Ship without the +$2. Weak, but seems like an okay effect to cost $0, especially since multiple Waterwheels don’t do anything. The major problem here is the below-the-line. Not only is it possible to insta-pile the Waterwheels at any time, but doing so can also let you then pile out the Curses or another pile if you’ve got the money to do so. This is way, way too game-breaking, and in its current state, Waterwheel’s utility as a piledriving game-ender would far outstrip any usage the top would get.


Snow by Erick648
A new junk card that comes in a mixed pile like Ruins. They’re slightly more friendly than Ruins, but still mostly just a nuisance. I get why the on-trash is there thematically, but it feels a little superfluous? I like Packed Snow—an interesting junk card that doesn’t hurt that much, but is a bit annoying. Fine Powder and Ice feel a little too similar to one another since both self-trash and trash other Snows as well. Perhaps change Ice to differentiate it a bit?

Snow Queen really should have the Sea Hag clause—especially in 3-4 player games, it won’t be hard to have hands of all Snow, once you get multiples of these played each turn. Snowman is neat—it’s a Horse Traders variant, and will tempt you to gain extra Snows for the VP. I don’t think Northern Lake should be a Landmark since it doesn’t have anything to do with scoring, but I guess I don’t know what else it should be instead—it’s a unique idea and could make players build longer to avoid the snowstorm.


Spinning Mule by Aquila
A Non-supply Duration card that turns all of your Coppers into Peddlers for the rest of the game. It’s got Inheritance vibes (and probably an Inheritance-length FAQ page), but it’s a neat effect and definitely should exist. You get the same Inheritance dilemma of “should I trash my Coppers to get Spinning Mule faster or keep them to maximize the effect?”

Components are the new Treasure Maps, though $5 is a pretty steep price to pay for two of them. At least the trashing isn’t mandatory like it is with Treasure Map. It’s also too bad that you lose the +Buy cards after you get the Spinning Mule, at which point, +Buy could help gain additional Coppers.


Disease by xyz123
A Confusion that hurts a bit more if you gain one while you have another in your hand. I like the use of the -1 Card token, helps the card feel a little more interesting, though it’s still fairly vanilla, without any other types or any effect apart from being a dead card.

Pestilence isn’t the best showcase for Disease. As one of 12 (or 13) Hexes, it will be very rare to even flip Pestilence multiple times in many games, let alone happen to have anyone have a Disease in hand to suffer the -1 Card token.


Reposition by NoMoreFun
Another kingdom card, Reposition is sort of like a non-Reserve Transmogrify but without the upgrade effect. I was skeptical that any kingdom card could reasonably cost $0, but the more I think about this one, the more I feel like it might actually work (and it feels better at $0 than $2 since turning Estates into Repositions would feel too automatic). It’s not as strong as it sounds at first, but it benefits quite a bit over Transmogrify by not needing to be used at the start of your turn. You can turn Estates into $2 Actions, Silvers into Villages, $5 Actions into Duchies, and more. Sending cards back to the Supply (vs. trashing them) is a nice touch here. My only real concern is that it can turn a string of Coppers into other Repositions which could empty the Reposition pile quite quickly. Aside from that, I’m impressed by this one for convincing me of that $0 cost kingdom could be possible.


Rubble by LastFootnote
A Confusion variant, though this functions more as a penalty you gain than a junk card you distribute to others, an interesting mechanic that we haven’t seem much of in Dominion. I like that it’s a Treasure—compared to Ruins, it feels like there are more ways to deal with junk Treasures than other types of junk. Not much else to say—despite the name, Rubble is clean and simple.

The three cards that gain it all showcase Rubble well. Miner is my favorite, it’s a fun Lab variant, and I love the theme of the mine collapsing if you dig too much. Cliffside Village and Excavation look interesting as well.


Bin by arowdok
Like Copper Rush, Bin is another event that lets you give up coins this turn and take Coffers to use later, sort of like a bigger Pageant. This one thankfully doesn’t snowball since it only works by discarding Coppers and cannot be used if you have Coffers. Again, this can mix up openings and I like that it makes you think about when to save Coppers to spike next turn or not. My biggest issue here with Bin is that it just feels too automatic: there's really no downside to using this, since it's free and doesn't even cost a Buy. It will get weaker as games go on and Coppers get trashed or harder to find, but I feel this is too powerful to cost $0. Even Save, which arguably has a somewhat similar use, isn't free.


Purifying Spirit by Xen3k
A new Spirit! This one is a flexible, non-terminal trasher that can trash Coppers and Curses from the top of your deck or from hand. The wording is a bit unclear: I'm guessing you can discard the revealed card if it wasn't trashed regardless if it cost $0, right? If so, then it can sort of be an Oasis as well (especially nice for draw-to-x). I think it fits well alongside the other Spirits, though it does anti-synergize a little with Wisps by trashing stuff Wisp can draw.

I like Ancient Altar a lot, it has some nice synergies with Purifying Spirit, as well as all three official Spirits. The on-gain Exorcist is super cool. I do wonder if it should cost $3, as it compares somewhat favorably to Border Guard, since it always looks at 3 cards, without needing an artifact (though I suppose Border Guard's cycling is better than Ancient Altar's).


Census Office by Library Adventurer
I applaud you on taking the challenge to make a $0 cost Project! This lets you start each turn with the best 3 cards of your top 7, though at the cost of having a 3-card hand for the rest of the game. Sadly, this is going to be a really tough sell in most games unless there’s draw-to-X or possibly in some super sloggy kingdoms. The VP bonus for discarding Actions and Golds feels a bit tacked on, and it’s unlikely to really get much use except in a few niche cases. Even if it did work every time, 1 VP a turn doesn’t feel worth getting Margraved every turn.


Luck by emtzalex
Another non-supply that acts as a one-shot Cartographer+. You get to draw the best card of your top four and then can reorder or discard the others however you like. It’s a slick effect, and will definitely be useful, though it feels just a bit underwhelming as a one-shot when compared to other non-supply one-shots like Madman, Wish, or even Horse. I think it can still work, but it feels like it need not have quite the same difficulty threshold to gain as say, Wish.

To that end, given Luck’s utility and being a one-shot, the Pilgrim/Golden Shrine split pile feels like a little too weak to really get much use out of Luck. $6 is a really high threshold to hit at random, and the potential to trash Estates or Curses doesn’t feel like quite enough to draw a lot of attention on its own. Golden Shrine will gain Lucks much more easily, but with the high cost and as the bottom card of a weak top card, the chances of getting two of them (let alone one) seem unlikely.


Smog by The Alchemist
Smog is a Curse that can be played as a non-terminal Action and remove itself from your deck if you have another in play. They can function like one-shot Ruined Villages, though they’re also negative VP. I like that the junking is temporary, and like Rubble, it appears that most of these are junk cards given out to the player as a penalty (vs. junk you distribute via attacks).

I’m not as much a fan of the Smog cards. Power Plant seems fine, if a little strong. Locomotion looks like it could get a bit oppressive as a $2 Attack and should probably cost more. And then Factory and Steel Foundry both just seem like too much—they simply draw too much to really make the junking hurt. The idea of a strong draw card that junks with Smog is good, but I’d much rather something that’s in the $3-$5 range, than $8-$9.



Honorable Mentions: Parade by JW, Reconfigure by AJL828, Purifying Spirit by Xen3k, Rubble by LastFootnote

Runner Up: Reposition by NoMoreFun

WINNER: Bequest by mandioca15



Congrats to mandioca15 and thanks everyone for participating!
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Xen3k

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #134: This is Worthless
« Reply #30 on: November 22, 2021, 12:18:37 pm »
+1

Purifying Spirit by Xen3k
A new Spirit! This one is a flexible, non-terminal trasher that can trash Coppers and Curses from the top of your deck or from hand. The wording is a bit unclear: I'm guessing you can discard the revealed card if it wasn't trashed regardless if it cost $0, right? If so, then it can sort of be an Oasis as well (especially nice for draw-to-x). I think it fits well alongside the other Spirits, though it does anti-synergize a little with Wisps by trashing stuff Wisp can draw.

I like Ancient Altar a lot, it has some nice synergies with Purifying Spirit, as well as all three official Spirits. The on-gain Exorcist is super cool. I do wonder if it should cost $3, as it compares somewhat favorably to Border Guard, since it always looks at 3 cards, without needing an artifact (though I suppose Border Guard's cycling is better than Ancient Altar's).

Thanks for judging 4est! You are correct that Purifying Spirit can discard the revealed card regardless of that cards cost. I was not sure how to word it to be more clear and not overly wordy. For Ancient Altar, I was unsure about the number of cards it should reveal, I had one that only revealed 2 cards, but went with 3 as it does not actually discard anything and cannot put any cards from your hand onto your deck. I really wanted it to cost $2 because I wanted choosing Wisp to be just as valid a choice as Purifying Spirit. Them having anti-synergy is a feature.

Anyways, thanks again for the challenge, it was certainly a tough one.
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mandioca15

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #134: This is Worthless
« Reply #31 on: November 22, 2021, 01:11:36 pm »
+3

Thanks for the win, 4est. I was pleased with my card but thought it would be too simple to do well, so I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome.

I'll try to post a new contest later this evening.
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