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[spineflu]

Since forum participation drops when people have off of work for holidays + such, it makes more sense to do a "just for funzies" one-off contest.

Here's how it's going to work:
1) Between NOW and 12/24, design a state or artifact for this. [this phase is done]
2) On 12/24, I'll randomly assign one of the entered artifacts or states to someone else that entered one (ensuring no-one gets their own). That person designs a kingdom card that uses the state/artifact by 12/31. state/artifact assignments are here
🡆3) On 12/31, I'll give each person who has entered three cards (with their states or artifacts) that they had no design input on. Each person ranks their assigned judging cards with gold/silver/copper (and provides input if they want) back to me via DM by 1/7, I toss all of that in a spreadsheet, and google sheets tells me who the winner is.

Here's the nuts, bolts, and minutia:
• Please enter if you're ok with participating in all three legs of the contest
• Artifacts/States that refer to a card (like Border Guard's artifacts) - feel free to say "when you play X, instead do <your effect here>"
• Artifacts should be anything with a tug-of-war element (so, lost in the woods would be an artifact for this contest); states should be along the lines of Envious or Deluded, where theres one for each player
• Artifacts and states should probably be an under $3 or flat-out-undesirable effect. For example, Lost In The Woods stops your Fools from working - an undesirable effect. The Key, that's a pretty decent effect, probably worth $2 or $3. Use your best judgement, don't make an "i win".
• The Kingdom card - and let's keep them all kingdom cards, please, no landscapes or out-of-supply cards - that gives out the artifact or state should be just a Kingdom card, not a traveller line, not a split pile, not a castles or knights type pile.
• When designing a kingdom card, if you have to change around some of the text on the Artifact/State to make it work, that's fine; please try to keep the overall intent of the Artifact/State the same though.
• The scoring for Gold / Silver / Copper will give points to the Kingdom card designer and the Artifact designer. Points are as follows:

Rank	Points for card designer	Points for artifact/state designer
Gold	8	6
Silver	5	3
Copper	2	0

• This is for fun. Please be light with your critiques.

I'm going to be entering, but if someone doesn't complete a leg of this, i'll forfeit my spot so the rest of yall can still participate.

DATES AND DEADLINES:
12/23 - 24 hour notice on artifacts/states
12/24 - Closing entry on artifacts/states, I'll DM everyone which artifact/state they'll be designing a card to go with
12/30 - 24 hour notice on kingdom cards
12/31 - Closing entry on kingdom cards, I'll DM everyone which THREE kingdom cards with artifacts they'll be ranking.
1/6 - 24 hour notice on judging. Please note that judging happens via DM to me (i'll post any commentary you want to add for individual cards/artifacts/states)
1/7 - I'll post results and crown the Solstice Sovereign. You'll have bragging rights until next year.

I believe we do need a minimum of 5 people for this to work but I think we can hit that no problem, right?

Good luck, and have a happy and safe holiday season.

Oh and shoutout to emtzalex for coming up with the design of this contest over in the WDC ideas thread.

[emtzalex]

1) Between NOW and 12/24, design a state or artifact for this.
2) On 12/24, I'll randomly assign one of the entered artifacts or states to someone else that entered one (ensuring no-one gets their own). That person designs a kingdom card that uses the state/artifact by 12/31

To clarify, should we post our Artifact/State submission here, or DM them to you?

• Artifacts should be anything with a tug-of-war element (so, lost in the woods would be an artifact for this contest); states should be along the lines of Envious or Deluded, where a player

Are you saying that for a State there should be a copy for each player?

[spineflu]

1) Between NOW and 12/24, design a state or artifact for this.
2) On 12/24, I'll randomly assign one of the entered artifacts or states to someone else that entered one (ensuring no-one gets their own). That person designs a kingdom card that uses the state/artifact by 12/31

To clarify, should we post our Artifact/State submission here, or DM them to you?

Post the Artifact/State (and, in a week, also the kingdom card) in this thread. Only the judging should get DM'd to me.

• Artifacts should be anything with a tug-of-war element (so, lost in the woods would be an artifact for this contest); states should be along the lines of Envious or Deluded, where a player

Are you saying that for a State there should be a copy for each player?

yes, like is the case with Envious, Deluded, Miserable, and Twice Miserable. They don't have to be (and probably shouldn't be, without a good reason) double-sided though. Also yeah i definitely stopped in the middle of a sen

[spineflu]

anyhow here's my entry. It's a pearl diver that only picks up silver.

Sunken Treasure • Artifact
At the start of your turn, reveal the bottom card of your deck. If it's Silver, put it into your hand.

[LibraryAdventurer]

Hidden Pocket
Artifact
Whenever you shuffle, you may choose up to 4 cards to leave in your discard pile.

[Mahowrath]

Amulet of Protection
Artifact
You are unaffected by hexes

[Violet CLM]

Forbidden
State
For the rest of the game, when any player (including you) plays X, it doesn't affect you.

[Xen3k]

Concussed
State
At the start of your turn, return this, and after you play a card this turn, if you have more than 4 cards in hand, discard a card.

[Augie279]

Cure
Artifact
At the start of your turn, you may trash a Curse from your hand to gain a Copper and an Estate to your hand.

[LibraryAdventurer]

Cure
Artifact
At the start of your turn, you may trash a Curse from your hand to gain a Copper and an Estate to your hand.

This would make almost no difference in a game. First, you have to happen to have a Curse in your starting hand. Then, you have the option of trashing one junk card to get two slightly less bad junk cards. I don't think it would be a good idea to use it even when you had the opportunity unless it was near the end of the game already.

[Augie279]

Cure
Artifact
At the start of your turn, you may trash a Curse from your hand to gain a Copper and an Estate to your hand.

This would make almost no difference in a game. First, you have to happen to have a Curse in your starting hand. Then, you have the option of trashing one junk card to get two slightly less bad junk cards. I don't think it would be a good idea to use it even when you had the opportunity unless it was near the end of the game already.

This is less designed to be good on its own, more allow someone to use its effects to create a card that potentially likes Copper/Estate and guarantees Curse is used somehow.

[mxdata]

Question: Are States inherently limited to one per player at any given time?  E.g., if there's a card that says "Take [X] state", would it automatically fail if you already have the State, or could you take a 2nd copy of that State, assuming there's one available?

[mxdata]

Forbidden
State
For the rest of the game, when any player (including you) plays X, it doesn't affect you.

This seems like it might work better as an Artifact. As a State, it makes whatever card gives you it a one-time-use card, making it junk for the remainder of the game. But as an Artifact, you could have a card that says "Do X, then take Forbidden". Then Forbidden would be like Lost in the Woods, and would typically end up moving between players (unless only one player buys that card)

[mxdata]

Prepared
State
At the start of your Clean-Up phase, return this. Then, +1 Card at the end of your turn per 3 differently-named cards in play (rounded down).

A State which rewards variety with a larger hand for your next turn. It's rare that it's not at least as good as Flag, and it's not hard to get it to be as good as Way of the Squirrel - although since it's a State you can only get the advantage once per turn. In most games, it would be capped at +4 cards (3 Basic treasures + 10 Kingdom cards assuming none are alt-VP = maximum of 13 differently-named cards in play). In games with split piles, non-supply cards, or Knights, you could potentially get more than that, but it would be difficult. Even the +4 would be hard, so most of the time, the card that gives you this State would net +2 or +3 cards for your next hand, a decent but not overpowering advantage

EDIT: This card is assuming a general one-copy-per-player rule. If this rule is not taken as valid, I would suggest that a card that gives it should have a "If you do not already have Prepared, take Prepared" clause

EDIT 2: I slightly altered the wording to specify "your Clean-Up phase", in case you gain the State on someone else's turn, giving it a bit more flexibility - this phrasing makes it work better for an Action card that gives the State to other players (i.e., a Council Room-style bonus), as well as potential edge cases in cards that give it to yourself if you end up playing those cards on someone else's turn

[spineflu]

Question: Are States inherently limited to one per player at any given time?  E.g., if there's a card that says "Take [X] state", would it automatically fail if you already have the State, or could you take a 2nd copy of that State, assuming there's one available?

unclear. We've only got a couple states as-is, so canonwise there's not a ton to go off of. I think for simplicity's sake, having a default rule be "you can't stack multiple of the same state" is fine.

[Doom_Shark]

Question: Are States inherently limited to one per player at any given time?  E.g., if there's a card that says "Take [X] state", would it automatically fail if you already have the State, or could you take a 2nd copy of that State, assuming there's one available?

unclear. We've only got a couple states as-is, so canonwise there's not a ton to go off of. I think for simplicity's sake, having a default rule be "you can't stack multiple of the same state" is fine.

I'll point out that of the official states, you can only get Deluded/Envious "if you don't have Deluded or Envious.'

[Gubump]

Question: Are States inherently limited to one per player at any given time?  E.g., if there's a card that says "Take [X] state", would it automatically fail if you already have the State, or could you take a 2nd copy of that State, assuming there's one available?

unclear. We've only got a couple states as-is, so canonwise there's not a ton to go off of. I think for simplicity's sake, having a default rule be "you can't stack multiple of the same state" is fine.

I'll point out that of the official states, you can only get Deluded/Envious "if you don't have Deluded or Envious.'

And the other two States also have something explicitly preventing you from taking multiple copies; Lost in the Woods is only taken if you aren't already the player with it, and even if Fool didn't have that wording, there's only one copy of it; and the Miserable/Twice Miserable state is only taken if you haven't already been affected by Misery.

[spineflu]

Question: Are States inherently limited to one per player at any given time?  E.g., if there's a card that says "Take [X] state", would it automatically fail if you already have the State, or could you take a 2nd copy of that State, assuming there's one available?

unclear. We've only got a couple states as-is, so canonwise there's not a ton to go off of. I think for simplicity's sake, having a default rule be "you can't stack multiple of the same state" is fine.

I'll point out that of the official states, you can only get Deluded/Envious "if you don't have Deluded or Envious.'

right but i think this is an artifact of paper play, where deluded is on the reverse of envious, to get around the question "how do we, in a six player game where everyone has Deluded, take Envious"

[Doom_Shark]

Sorry, I wasn't clear - it was late and I was tired and I didn't articulate myself well. The cards that hand out states have wordings that only allow you to take them if you don't already have them. My point was that if you are deluded, you can't be made deluded again, not necessarily because of the rules or component limitatuons, but because the card says so.

Besides, a state that you can get multiples of is probably better implemented as a token mechanic of some sort, either as a new named token or a mat with coin tokens.

[mxdata]

Question: Are States inherently limited to one per player at any given time?  E.g., if there's a card that says "Take [X] state", would it automatically fail if you already have the State, or could you take a 2nd copy of that State, assuming there's one available?

unclear. We've only got a couple states as-is, so canonwise there's not a ton to go off of. I think for simplicity's sake, having a default rule be "you can't stack multiple of the same state" is fine.

I'll point out that of the official states, you can only get Deluded/Envious "if you don't have Deluded or Envious.'

right but i think this is an artifact of paper play, where deluded is on the reverse of envious, to get around the question "how do we, in a six player game where everyone has Deluded, take Envious"

TBF, that question wouldn't even arise in a 2- or 3-player game where there'd be no problem in taking one of each (or even in a 6-player game in the case of receiving a Hex from gaining Cursed Village or playing Leprechaun), so I think that's a fair point to raise that there's no inherent one-copy-max-per-player rule for States, so it might make sense to state on a card with a "Take [X] State" instruction "If you do not already have [X] ..."

And the other two States also have something explicitly preventing you from taking multiple copies; Lost in the Woods is only taken if you aren't already the player with it, and even if Fool didn't have that wording, there's only one copy of it; and the Miserable/Twice Miserable state is only taken if you haven't already been affected by Misery.

I think the clause with Fool is really more about not getting 3 Boons every time you play it (and as you said, there's only one copy anyways, so the question doesn't even arise with that), while with Miserable/Twice Miserable, the phrasing is about covering both the scenario where you don't have Miserable and where you do, so neither one is really unambiguously "this phrasing is used to prevent you from getting two copies of the same State"

[Erick648]

I decided to stay a bit seasonal with this one.  This is generally harmful, but it could also be a helpful thinner if you still have only Coppers.  It could be a challenge to craft the right companion for this given its variable impact, but I think it could create interesting strategic decisions if done properly.

EDIT:  This probably works regardless of whether States stack, since stacking Generous would eventually just become Mint's on-buy effect.  Stacking it could be devastating if it's given out by an Attack, but the variable nature of the effect makes me suspect that it will probably be used as a self-inflicted drawback/bonus rather than as an Attack.  If the person designing the card does use it as an Attack, then it will probably be important that it not stack.

[Violet CLM]

Forbidden
State
For the rest of the game, when any player (including you) plays X, it doesn't affect you.

This seems like it might work better as an Artifact. As a State, it makes whatever card gives you it a one-time-use card, making it junk for the remainder of the game. But as an Artifact, you could have a card that says "Do X, then take Forbidden". Then Forbidden would be like Lost in the Woods, and would typically end up moving between players (unless only one player buys that card)

The format I expect is "Choose one: [something that affects all players], or [something that affects only you] and take Forbidden." But it might end up being something else entirely, by nature of round robinning!

[Timinou]

[faust]

Confused
State

During you turns, playing an Action card does not cost an Action. Playing a Treasure card during your Buy phase costs an Action.

[emtzalex]

EXPANSIONIST STATE When you buy a Victory card, return this, and choose two: +1 Buy; +$2; +1 Coffers; or +1VP. The choices must be different.

From my notes, it looks like I came up with this while designing Level cards, but I honestly don't remember the connection. I really liked it, but did not have a good Kingdom card to pair it with (which is actually why I suggested this contest).

[mxdata]

Confused
State

During you turns, playing an Action card does not cost an Action. Playing a Treasure card during your Buy phase costs an Action.

This would have a funny interaction with Capitalism

[venusambassador]

[spineflu]

24 hour warning on leg one. Get those entries in & make your revisions.

[mathdude]

Confused
State

During you turns, playing an Action card does not cost an Action. Playing a Treasure card during your Buy phase costs an Action.

I might be missing something, but it feels like this needs a modification... I suggest one of the following:
1. make it an artifact (so it's fought over - it seems like a desirable effect, generally), or
2. add a trigger for returning it on the state itself, rather than relying on the card design to do that (maybe at the start of clean-up?  maybe when you play your 3rd treasure in a turn?)

[mathdude]

Artifact
When a card instructs you to gain a card up to a certain cost, you may gain a card costing 1 more than that cost. (This does not affect "gain a card costing X more than ..." instructions)

Obviously the card using this artifact will need to be a gainer.  It will pair well with other gainers, but should be designed to stand-alone when needed.

[scolapasta]

I want in!



Here's a State I had entered at some point, and it was handed out by an event (called "Cheat") that read:

Once per turn: +1 Buy. If you're not yet Caught in the Act, take it and +$2.

Then Menagerie came out, and there was the very similar Desperation, so Caught in the Act needs a new trigger. i.e. perfect for this contest!

[spineflu]

sorry for the delay - on to leg 2!
ON YOUR POST FOR YOUR CARD if you could include the state/artifact either via repost/quote or rehosting (if you make any changes to it), that'd be super helpful

state/artifact assignments are as follows:

scolapasta - Generous

Erick648 - Forbidden

VioletCLM - Confused

faust - Toolbelt

mathdude - Prepared

mxdata - Amulet of Protection

Mahowrath - Expansionist

emtzalex - Hidden Pocket

LibraryAdventurer - Shortsighted

venusambassador - Blinded

Timinou - Sunken Treasure

spineflu - Cure

Augie279 - Concussed

Xen3k - Caught In The Act

[spineflu]

Here's my Arsenic and Old Lace inspired entry

Pensioner - $4 - Action - Attack
You may trash an Estate from your hand to gain a card costing up to $4.

You may trash a Copper from your hand to gain a Silver.

If you did both, take the Cure. Otherwise, each other player gains a Curse.

Cure - Artifact
At the start of your turn, you may trash a Curse from your hand to gain a Copper and an Estate to your hand.

[Xen3k]

Fixer - $5
Action
Choose up to four things: +1 Card; +1 Action; +1 Buy; +$1. The choices may be the same.
If you choose four things or something more than once, take Caught in the Act.

Caught in the Act
State
While you are Caught in the Act, ignore all +Actions and +Buys. During Clean-up, you may return this by drawing two fewer cards for your next hand.

A super Pawn. If you choose too many options, you get caught in the act. I was thinking of pricing it at $3 but changed it to $4 and allowed players to choose the same options over again. Changed price to $3. It is a very strong penalty to take Caught in the Act. Not sure if this change makes it appealing. Feedback appreciated.

Edit: Changed the design to cost $5, but be worth it. It can be a Peddler without getting caught, but if you don't mind the penalty, you can do some crazy things. The +$4 may be a really strong option, so I am not sure if
 that is too good. Feedback is appreciated.

Old Version

[Augie279]

A $4 Market. Don't want a sacrifice to your next hand's size? Better hope you have Actions to spare!

[LibraryAdventurer]

Clever Planner
$4 - Action - Duration
+$2.
At the start of your next turn. Draw up to six cards in hand.
-
When you gain this, all players take Shortsighted.

Shortsighted
state   
When drawing your hand, draw one less card. After you finish playing your first card in a turn, +1 Card.
-
When you have 8 or more cards in your hand, return this.

I know the state is probably supposed to be a drawback, but all I could think of is ways to take advantage of it. I tried to think of an attack that gives it out, but didn't think of anything that didn't look boring. At least this has kind of an on-gain attack.
Just had to add a return condition to the state.

[Erick648]

I decided to follow a fairy tale theme to keep with Nocturne.  The little men will improve your stuff, but if you get too greedy, they'll send you away.  They'll also help out everyone else, except the "bad kids" who've already offended them. ​ They're not the same as the Cobbler's elves, but instead come from the "good person is good to a stranger and gets rewarded, bad person hears and tries to imitate it but is bad and gets punished" line of tales.

This was an interesting State to make a card for.  I had three objectives:

• Make the card affect other people, either as an attack or as a benefit.
• Make the decision whether to take Forbidden an interesting one.
• Make the card not be a Confusion if you take Forbidden, since that's too boring, especially if you don't have trashing.

I tried to make sure the card was not only balanced relative to its cost and but also as to the decision whether to take Forbidden.  Do you keep upgrading you trash, or sacrifice your future benefits for a big card?  You can gain Potion-cost cards (or Debt-cost cards), which I thought was thematic, but doing so will get you Forbidden unless you trashed a similarly-costed card.  I had to really fine-tune the wording to make sure it worked this way (if you trash a Copper for a University, the gained card costs $2+P more than the trashed card, which is not less than $5).  If you avoid getting Forbidden, Strange Little Men is kind of like a cheaper and more flexible delayed Mine that gives your opponents Silver, which I thought was balanced at $4---Caravan vs. Laboratory implies that the cost difference is appropriate for the delay (treating the flexibility, nonterminality, and VP as balanced by the Silver-giving), and it keeps you from opening with two, which might be too dominant otherwise.  Finally, while a Victory card worth negative VP is a bit odd, I thought it was worth it to add a bit more weight to the "non-Forbidden" side of the decision and keep it relevant (albeit as a pseudo-Curse) if you take Forbidden.  This would likely take a good amount of playtesting to get right, but I'm happy with the concept.

As a bonus, here are some Outtakes I went through on the way here:


Helper Elves was the first card I tried, and is obviously a prototype of Strange Little Men.  I thought the Alms-ish nature of counting your buys against you was nice for flavor, but when I thought about how it would work in practice, it didn't work out.  The self-trashing reaction was so it wouldn't stick around as a Confusion, but it was too boring to be a good reaction, so I switched it to the VP bonus/penalty.

Chieftain's Hall was my next attempt.  I wanted to do something interesting with the set-aside action, but also have the attack still work if you couldn't set anything aside so the card wouldn't be useless with Forbidden.  I thought of several options (e.g., making copies of the set-aside action cheaper, requiring other players to buy that action to avoid a penalty, etc.), but it ultimately proved too complicated to make work.  Originally, you got Forbidden by buying/revealing a Province:  The chieftain's authority fades once the crown (you) formalizes its own authority.  This kind of flips the flavor of Forbidden as a state, since it's the chieftain's laws that are forbidden instead of you.  I later thought making Curse get you Forbidden helped players who were being hit hard by the attack, similar to Mountebank, instead of helping players who were already doing well.

Finally, I thought:  Forbidden can stop its accompanying card from pinning you, so it could let a card do things that would otherwise create a pin.  Unfortunately, I didn't have any scrapped cards on hand that could have been good but for pin potential.  Ascetic Order was my attempt to make such a card, but making a potential pin card just because you can didn't seem like a good idea.  So I returned to Helper Elves and fixed it up.

[mxdata]

I went ahead an made a mock-up for the Artifact

Troll
Action - Attack - Doom - Fate
$5
Turn your Journey token over (it starts face-up). Then, if it's face-down, receive the next Boon. If it's face-up, each other player receives the next Hex.
+1 Action
When you play this, if you have an odd number of Trolls in play, receive the next Boon. If an even number, each other player receives the next Hex.
-
When you discard this from play, take the Amulet of Protection

Amulet of Protection
Artifact
You are unaffected by hexes

So, this was an interesting challenge. It was clear that the Artifact had to be attached to a card that gave out Hexes - otherwise the Artifact would have zero effect in most kingdoms. Furthermore, there had to be some way of taking the artifact attached to the card

My first thought was that you'd take the Artifact when you played it, after the attack, but then that would somewhat weaken its usefulness - it would only protect you from a single attack. If your opponent was able to play two of the associated attack, you would've lost the Artifact between the first and second play. I also briefly considered making it on-gain like Flag, but I didn't think that would work well. So then I thought of the "when you discard this from play" part. I briefly considered a Duration version, where it would give out a hex on the turn you play it, then at the start of your next turn, you'd take the Artifact and receive a Boon, but that made it too complicated (and gave it five types - Action - Attack - Doom - Fate - Duration - a bit much), plus, getting a Boon and giving a Hex with the same play made it too strong. Then I played with the idea of it working similar to Idol, caring about how many were in play. But since this is terminal, in kingdoms with no villages, you'd never be able to get a second one in play. So then finally I thought about reusing the Journey token. It could also have come with its own token (maybe just called "Troll token"), but I like the idea of reusing the Journey token rather than creating a new one

The name is reminiscent of Giant, which also has an attack function only on every other play. But unlike Giant, it gives a greater benefit to the player on the plays without the attack effect

EDIT: Changed this to a non-terminal Action and replaced the use of the journey token with my original Idol-style version. A non-terminal hexer for $5 I realized was too weak. By comparison, Vampire is a Night card, thus inherently non-terminal, and gains you a card up to $5 (albeit only on every other play). Werewolf can be played as a Smithy, and Tormenter gives you +$2 and can be played as an Imp-gainer instead of an attack

[emtzalex]

My gift was LibraryAdventurer's Artifact, Hidden Pocket:

Hidden Pocket
Artifact
Whenever you shuffle, you may choose up to 4 cards to leave in your discard pile.

A very solid artifact which effectively Exiles 4 cards, allowing you to shift which 4 each time you shuffle (it doesn't work exactly that way b/c of cards that interact with the discard, but it's close in most games). This is obviously great down the stretch when you start to green, but it is even better in a game with lots of junk. So I made a junker to go with it.

INDUSTRIOUS WITCH ACTION - ATTACK Cost: $5 Choose up to two different things: +1 Action; +$2; return a Curse from your hand to the Supply; each other player gains a Curse; each other player gains a Copper. If you chose none, you may return this to the Supply to take Hidden Pockets.

Industrious Witch is a mix-and-match Curser, offering five options and allowing players to pick up to 2. Alternatively, a player can forgo all of those options and trade their IW to take Hidden Pockets.

[Violet CLM]

I had Confused, by faust:

Bewilderbeest, Action, $4:
+3 Actions
Discard a card, then draw a card.
You may reveal three Action cards from your hand that all have the same name, to take Confused.

.....
Many discarded drafts treated Confused like a project, giving it to you unconditionally, but that was uninteresting. Other drafts included various things that would cause you to return Confused, either voluntarily or otherwise, peaking in a Duration that stayed out until you returned both it and Confused, at which point I decided that if such conditions didn't appear on Confused itself, they probably shouldn't appear anywhere at all. Instead I decided to impose a different barrier besides price: assembling a deck with a focus on one action card, in preparation for being able to use Confused to play that action card a lot. The other problem with many of the pseudo-project drafts was they made the kingdom card near-useless after taking the state, and gave no incentive for buying more than one copy of the card: giving the player +3 Actions solves this problem by being moderately useful either with or without the state. The discard/draw part is less essential but helps keep the card interesting even if you're not interested in taking the state at all. One draft trashed the three identical cards instead of simply revealing them, but that didn't seem very fun, plus it could trash itself, which had the risk of leaving the player with no +Action cards to use on their Treasures, so I made up a complicated way to let the player buy another one for free, and, idk, it was getting too far away from the point.

[Mahowrath]

My present, was Expansionist, by emtzalex:

Pioneers, Action, $3:
+1 Card
+1 Action
Play any number of Treasures from your hand

Choose one: Buy a card from the Supply, or take Expansionist.

Blarket-esque mid-turn buyer; playing treasures and buying cards mid-turn gives non-terminal access to the usual blarket gain-and-play/dtx shenanigans, while expansionist lets you squeeze more value out of your vp buys once you're entering the greening phase.
Expansionist was a challenge to incorporate; multiple plays of an Action taking Expansionist would still only be able to take Expansionist into the buy phase once, but the effect isn't groundbreaking enough to make Expansionist a challenge to acquire like Treasure Chest.
After playing around with some other ideas, mid-turn buys felt like the natural mechanic to mitigate these issues - you can take expansionist, buy a victory card, and repeat. Usually I would avoid this mechanic, as it's easy to end up just making a "less fun black market", but I think here the emphasis on taking victory cards saves the day. The bonus for taking victory cards mid-turn is a nice way to keep the mid-turn gain-and-plays relevant even in the late game, and creates a minigame with when you play these during your turn, along with adding synergies with desirable Action-Victory cards.

[spineflu]

24 HOUR NOTICE.
scolapasta, faust, mathdude, venus ambassador, Timinou,
please either touch base here or via DM for an extension, or get your cards in.

[mathdude]

My Smithy-variant, Architect, goes with mxdata's state, Prepared.

Architect
Action, $4
+3 cards
Each other player draws a card. Each other player with at least 5 cards in hand discards 2 cards and takes Prepared.

Prepared
State
At the start of your Clean-Up phase, return this. Then, +1 Card at the end of your turn per 3 differently-named cards in play (rounded down).

It's similar to a Smithy, but a single use lets others keep their best 4 of 6 cards and likely get a bonus for their next turn (assuming you don't hit them with handsize reduction again next turn).  In a multiplayer game, or even with 2-player plus village support, it will let others keep their best 3 or 4 cards and still have Prepared to set up their following turn (or counteract future handsize attacks).

If there are other good draw cards in a kingdom, this may not be too desirable (depending on their relative power compared to Architect).  But draw is almost always helpful, so you probably will get a few anyway.  But how many can you justify using?  How much sifting do you want to let your opponents do?  At least they can only get a single version of Prepared!

[Timinou]

To go with spineflu’s Sunken Treasure:

EDIT: Modified card and added a mock-up

Pirate’s Cove
Action - $5
+1 Card
+1 Action
Exile a Silver from the Supply. You may trash a card from your hand to gain a card costing up to $1 more that does not share the same type. If you gained a Treasure, take Sunken Treasure.

Pirate’s Cove
Action - $5
+1 Card
+1 Action
Exile a card from your hand or a Silver from the Supply. You may trash a card from your Exile mat to gain a card costing up to $1 more that does not share the same type. If you gained a Treasure, take Sunken Treasure.

[venusambassador]

To go with Timinou’s Blinded:

Wraith
Action - Attack - $5
+2 Cards
You may Exile a card from your hand. Each other player discards a card that you choose from their Exile mat, or takes Blinded if they can’t.

[scolapasta]

Sorry this is a littler late (I did DM spineflu), but here's mine:



FAQ: Generous can only be taken once per player; if you already have it, you don't do anything.

With a name like Generous, it didn't seem to make sense as an attack. So here's a cheap Gold gainer, with the side effect that your opponent will have an opportunity to trash them. When you want that to stop you can return it by gaining Coppers instead.

Some possible tweaks could be to it gain 3 coppers, or to have some of the gaining be to hand.

[spineflu]

okie dokie artichokie, we're gonna close it out since i haven't heard from faust yet. DMing yall your judging assignments - Reminder you DO NOT NEED TO provide actual feedback, just which pair gets gold, which gets silver, which gets copper. You can - I'll put it in the finale post, along with a link to the spreadsheet - but you don't have to.

Points will be awarded according to the first post in the thread, with one exception for mathdude whose artifact was not used, he'll be getting some consolation points (as though he'd ranked silver for each of his 3 judges).

Here is the card / state|artifact compendium, all in one place:

scolapasta's Philanthropist + Erick648's Generous


venus ambassador's Wraith + Timinou's Blinded


Timinou's Pirate's Cove + spineflu's Sunken Treasure


mathdude's Architect + mxdata's Prepared


Mahowrath's Pioneers + emtzalex's Expansionist


VioletCLM's Bewilderbeest + faust's Confused


emtzalex's Industrious Witch + LibraryAdventurer's Hidden Pocket


mxdata's Troll + Mahowrath's amulet of protection


Erick648's Strange Little Men + VioletCLM's Forbidden


LibraryAdventurer's Clever Planner + venus ambassador's Shortsighted


Augie279's Construction Site + Xen3k's Concussed


Xen3k's Fixer + scolapasta's Caught In The Act


spineflu's Pensioner + Augie279's Cure

[LibraryAdventurer]

I added a return condition to Shortsighted to go with my card which should affect judging. Could you edit this post to mention the return condition?

"When you have 8 or more cards in your hand, return this."

[spineflu]

I added a return condition to Shortsighted to go with my card which should affect judging. Could you edit this post to mention the return condition?

"When you have 8 or more cards in your hand, return this."

yes, updated.

[mathdude]

Aww, I was really hoping to see what someone would come up with for my Toolbelt. Anyone want to make a card for it just for fun?

[Xen3k]

Aww, I was really hoping to see what someone would come up with for my Toolbelt. Anyone want to make a card for it just for fun?

Handyman - $4
Action - Duration
Now or at the start of your next turn, choose one: Gain a card costing up to $4; or trash a Treasure card from your hand to take the Toolbelt.

Took a crack at making a card to go along with your Toolbelt artifact. Not the most inspired design, but it could be fun to choose to delay the gain to see if you can grab the toolbelt to improve the gain on your next turn.

[spineflu]

Get those judgements in, waiting on 3 yet.

[spineflu]

alright i'm gonna call it there.
We ended up with a three way tie: congrats emtzalex, Timinou, and me.

Points totals are here
The awards in italic were not submitted (i awarded silvers all around, same as how mathdude's compensation points shook out.)

Here's some individual feedback on cards:
Pirate’s Cove and Sunken Treasure
Big fan of the incentive to silver flood, plus the fact that the silvers are exiled meaning that there’s a little more control over how many are in your deck. Feels kind of similar to Upgrade in that most often you’ll be turning estates into 3-costs, though obviously worse because you can’t trash coppers. Overall probably not the strongest card, but an interesting one.

My only criticism is that Pirate's cove may be too similar to Upgrade. It still looks like a fun card to play. Since it's no good for trashing Coppers, it might be okay at $4 cost.

Pensioner and Cure
Creates some unique decisions in that it gives you the Cure if you trash two cards- which happens most often (after the opening) when you already have the Cure. Most frequently I foresee this being used to trade a Curse for a Copper and a 4-cost while cursing- not bad for its price, but a little bit clunky. I don’t love how, like Fool, it becomes both weaker and less interesting if only one player goes for it and gets its artifact permanently; I think a bigger incentive to take the Cure might be interesting. It’s definitely a neat card, though, and I like how (like Old Witch) it bundles junking and trashing into one card.

Pensioner is a valiant attempt at making good use of Cure, but I still don't think Cure is worth having an artifact for. (Arsenic and Old Lace is a fun movie though)

Cure is not the easiest Artifact to design a card for, considering you are swapping out one junk card for two slightly better junk cards.  I think Pensioner does a good job of getting mileage out of the extra Estate and Copper that you would get with Cure, and if you don't trash both an Estate and a Copper with it, you get to Curse your opponents. Pensioner looks better than vanilla Remodel early in the game, although Pensioner will pretty much be a dead card once the Curses run out. 

Construction Site and Concussed
This feels too weak for its price, especially compared to Market, which is not a power card overall. The problem is that peddler variants tend to be cards that you want to stack, and this card kills that function in one way or another. Either you’re not getting the necessary +Action, or it becomes (barring handsize attacks and disappearing coin) a +buy Oasis. I think it’s definitely an interesting card, and might be tweaked into something cool if there were a different return condition for Concussed or if it was the +coin rather than the +action that was conditional.

Construction Site looks like a very spammable $4-cost Market, considering that you would only take Concussed once so each subsequent play of Construction Site is as good as a Market.  I don't think the penalty with Concussed is that scary and so I'm not sure it's the best penalty to go with Construction Site.

Troll+Amulet
This seems very situational, requiring you to buy two copies of a $5 (which doesn't do very much for you), and hope you are able to play one copy, then--before the other player plays even one copy--play both copies in one hand. It could do more in games with other cards that distribute hexes, or games with more than two players, but still, that's a big gap.

Architect+Prepared
Probably useful but there's such a maze of text, and numbers, and cards coming and going, that it's hard to get a intuitive feel for when/whether I'd want to play it.

Pioneers+Expansionist
Looks like it should allow for all sorts of fun tricks.

Wraith & Blinded
This looks like it might be fun until you realized probably nothing you want to stay on your Exile mat is going to stay there long. Then sometimes you might not want to play Wraith because the only things on the other players' mats are Actions they will want back, and I don't think that's how the card is intended to play. I like the idea though. It'd probably work better on a card that only did its attack sometimes.

I really like blinded, and Wraith implements this in a fun way

Fixer + Caught in the Act
I don't think Fixer on its own would work as a card as it would be far too monolithic, but Caught in the Act is a good counter-balance.  That said, Fixer is strictly better than Market, considering it can be played as one without any penalty, but gives you plenty of additional options if needed.

Clever Planner + shortsighted
Bit of a flavour mismatch; CP seems like a less stackable Cargo Ship, and while it's a nice answer to shortsighted if you happen to time it, it doesn't honestly feel that impactful.

Industrious Witch + hidden pocket
Nice idea, but the combo doesn't really gel for me; i fear industrious witch might be a little too versatile.


Thank you all for participating. This was a lot of fun and an interesting experiment.

Without further ado, Mahowrath, take it away on fan mechanic contest #25

[Violet CLM]

Points totals are here

(hint: read Sheet 2, not Sheet 1.)

Good work and congratulations to all!

[scolapasta]

Fixer + Caught in the Act
I don't think Fixer on its own would work as a card as it would be far too monolithic, but Caught in the Act is a good counter-balance.  That said, Fixer is strictly better than Market, considering it can be played as one without any penalty, but gives you plenty of additional options if needed.

I think you're misreading Fixer here; if it's a Market, then you get the penalty. You only don't get it if you take 3 (or fewer) different options.


also, any comments on Philanthropist / Generous?

[Mahowrath]

Thanks Spineflu for running this, and to emtzalex for the idea, and congrats Spineflu, emtzalex and Timinou on the result!

Next Fan Card Mechanics contest: Enter the Dragon (Duration Attacks)

[spineflu]

Fixer + Caught in the Act
I don't think Fixer on its own would work as a card as it would be far too monolithic, but Caught in the Act is a good counter-balance.  That said, Fixer is strictly better than Market, considering it can be played as one without any penalty, but gives you plenty of additional options if needed.

I think you're misreading Fixer here; if it's a Market, then you get the penalty. You only don't get it if you take 3 (or less) different options.


also, any comments on Philanthropist / Generous?

not my commentary, just a compendium of everyone who submitted a judgment's - this is just a copypaste of what they said.

no commentary other than two gold awards and a copper on philanthropist v0v.

[Xen3k]

also, any comments on Philanthropist / Generous?

Feedback for Philanthropist / Generous
Philanthropist is a really cool mix of Gold gainer and copper trasher. Without playtesting it, it is difficult to fully predict how it will play and feel, but the way that Generous is beneficial early game and detrimental late game makes me think it would be very interesting to interact with. Philanthropist being costed at $4 seems right as an early Philanthropist is certainly going to trash coppers most efficiently via Generous. The Gold gain makes getting rid of Generous a top priority, but you can always just treat the gained Golds as Spoils. The only danger would be running out of treasures completely. Additionally I like the interaction this would have with Trade Routes and cards that interact with the trash. Over all a design I would want to play with.

I did judge this combo, so apologies for not including feedback.

[scolapasta]

also, any comments on Philanthropist / Generous?

Feedback for Philanthropist / Generous
Philanthropist is a really cool mix of Gold gainer and copper trasher. Without playtesting it, it is difficult to fully predict how it will play and feel, but the way that Generous is beneficial early game and detrimental late game makes me think it would be very interesting to interact with. Philanthropist being costed at $4 seems right as an early Philanthropist is certainly going to trash coppers most efficiently via Generous. The Gold gain makes getting rid of Generous a top priority, but you can always just treat the gained Golds as Spoils. The only danger would be running out of treasures completely. Additionally I like the interaction this would have with Trade Routes and cards that interact with the trash. Over all a design I would want to play with.

I did judge this combo, so apologies for not including feedback.

No problem - I actually didn't have time to include feedback either. So I appreciate you writing this up.

Good point about treating the gained Gold as a Spoils - I didn't think of that. If you just do that, then this card is worse than Marauder, since that also hands out Ruins for $4. Which I think is good, since this does more (and if gain and then play 3+ Golds, the third+ is not like a Spoils).

I do think later in a game, it would be interesting to see how this plays - if you get rid of Generous, then a) you gain 2 Coppers and also, how do you play future Philanthropists? Not play (or try to trash)? Keep gaining coppers? Go back to gaining gold, and kinda alternate back and forth?

[Timinou]

Fixer + Caught in the Act
I don't think Fixer on its own would work as a card as it would be far too monolithic, but Caught in the Act is a good counter-balance.  That said, Fixer is strictly better than Market, considering it can be played as one without any penalty, but gives you plenty of additional options if needed.

I think you're misreading Fixer here; if it's a Market, then you get the penalty. You only don't get it if you take 3 (or fewer) different options.

Oops - that was my comment.  You’re right, I did misread it.