WDC #150: Half!
Thanks for all the submissions! Once my son learns Dominion in, well, a lot of years, I'll tell him about the cards designed in honor of his turning 2.5!
I think that this was a hard prompt, but you all had a lot of great submissions! It was hard deciding on a winner, or even keeping the “short list” under half the entries! Here’s my $0.34:
.png) | Vendor - Action - Cost: 4
+1 Action
Choose one: Trash a card from your hand; or +1 Buy (up to 2) per 2 cards in the trash and +$1 per 2 cards in the trash per player.
(Round down by default.)
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A very weak trasher for its cost (compare to, e.g., Raze) or eventually a potentially very strong source of +Buy and $. I think that the wording (“+$1 per 2 cards in the trash per player”) is going to be confusing, especially with the “per player” condition on the $ with the “up to” limitation on the Buys. The “per player” wording also means that, if you’re the only one who goes for this and in a 3+ player game and no one else gets trashing, it won’t get above $1 from trashing just your starting cards.
Pigs
③ Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
If you have an even number of
Pigs in play, +①.
-
When you gain this or trash it
from hand, gain another Pigs
(it doesn't come with another).
It’s delightful even without the tie-in that my son likes pigs. From a gameplay standpoint, I like that using both opening buys on Pigs seems much worse at hitting $5 than Silver/Silver (though I haven’t taken the time to do the math!). But it gets stronger quickly as your density of Pigs increases. Besides possibly being a bit strong for a Peddler-variant, the main downside that I see is that gaining so many cards with +1 Card and +1 Action might slow down games.
Short list. Sexton
Action
$5
+1 Card
+1 Action
Trash a card from your hand
________________________________________________________________________________
When you trash this, +1VP per 2 differently named cards you have in play (rounded down)
A weaker Junk Dealer for most of the game, it shines when you can trash it for points later on. I like the simplicity and how you can go through the whole pile even in a two-player game, unlike many trashers. The overly strong interaction with Black Market is problematic but not disqualifying (reminiscent of Museum-Black Market!).
Short list. My Submission:
Pardoner • $5 • Action - Gathering
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
If this is the first time you played a Pardoner this turn, add 1VP to its Supply pile.
Heirloom: Indulgence
Indulgence • $2 • Treasure - Heirloom
Choose one: +$1; or +1 Buy; or you may return a Pardoner from your hand to the Supply to take half the VP from the Pardoner Supply pile (round down).
It’s really interesting and I like how the heirloom fits the theme. The big issue is what you spelled out in your post: Pardoner is over-priced as a Peddler variant and thus quite weak for a $5. Its benefit over Peddler helps everyone’s Pardoners to be cashed in for VP. And someone only needs a single Pardoner to return with Indulgence to take half the pile, so after one player adds enough VP for it to be interesting, that’s when other players can buy it.
Stock Exchange
Treasure - $5
+1 Buy
+$1 for every 2 cards in your hand, rounded down.
The anti-Bank (play it before your other Treasures). But, like Bank, it encourages you to keep your other treasures. Very weak without draw, but the same is true of Bank, and that’s still a fun card. Strong combos with ways to play Treasures without being done with your Action phase (Villa, Black Market, Storyteller, etc.).
Short list. Shares
$5* Treasure
Choose one: Exile this, for +$1 per $1 it costs; or return this to the Supply.
-
This costs $1 less per 2 cards in the Shares pile (round down).
It starts as a $0 cost treasure. As soon as you buy it, it now costs $1 so you can Exile it for $1. At least three need to be gained for it to produce at least $2 when Exiled. So, It doesn’t seem worth using a Buy on in the first place, unless it’s a multiplayer game and you know that others will mirror your strategy. Tracking how many cards are in the Shares pile for things like Salvager would probably be annoying in person.
Pawn Shop - $4
Action
+2 Cards
Trash a card from your hand.
If it is an...
Action card, +1 Villager...
Treasure card, +1 Coffer...
Victory card, +1 VP...
per $2 it costs, rounding up.
A really interesting trasher. It gets little benefit from trashing your starting cards other than a few VP from your Estates, but it can serve as a mini-Recruiter by trashing actions in a pinch, if you trash Gold you get enough Coffers to make up for it this turn, and it gets enough VP from trashing Province that it’s a possible “golden deck” enabler (just don’t compare it to Sanctuary!). That said, the benefits of trashing expensive cards seem insufficient to justify its cost most of the time, so once you trash your starting cards you’ll probably trash excess Pawn Shops to itself.
Short list. 
As others have said in this thread, this is too weak. The comparison to Distant Lands is instructive (it takes 8 turns to be worth as much). Also, the strategy using using Investment would be “play Investment, then make sure the game doesn’t end soon.” So, decks that bought Investment wouldn’t be buying both Provinces and Investments at the same time, as happens with Distant Lands. Which is less fun.
My son (whose full birthday it is today) really wanted me to post this last week, but I never got around to it. Then I looked at this week’s contest: HALF!
I'm aware that "when buy" is out of favor these days, and this card commits the further sin of using "when buy" and "when gain" on the same card. But as I understand DVX's concerns, they relate to confusing casual Dominion players, and I assume if you’re on this forum, you’re interest in Dominion is more than casual. The card works best (and is balanced best) with the "buy" and "gain" as they appear here.
FAQ: You may trash a card whether you buy a card from the Supply or the trash.
What a coincidence that this card qualified for two (narrow) contests in a row! Happy belated birthday to your son!
This is a very interesting card. My main concern is that it seems too powerful, especially as an opener. If you trash a $5 or $6 it virtually guarantees that you can purchase it from the trash when played (while trashing a card), even if your other opening buy produces no economy. Even the mighty Masquerade needs to be opened with a Silver to have a high chance to both buy a $5 and trash.
The +Buy also means that you can easily trash Estates in hand by buying extra Coppers. Lastly, Gongfermor is potentially prone to first-player advantage in two-player games. Let’s say that I am first player and have 3/4, while you are second player and have 4/3. If you open Gongfermor and trash a key $5 or $6, I can respond by buying Gongfermor and trashing Curse. Then, I have a substantially greater than 50% chance to play my Gongfermor first, shutting you out of that key card. But if you don’t use your $4 to buy Gongfermor, I’ll just trash the key card myself. As second player, you are more likely to get the chance to choose what to trash second, but not mirroring is a losing proposition, so it’s to no advantage.
Lumberjack
Action - $5
+$4
+1 Buy
Discard half the cards in your hand (round down the number you discard).
Simple. Not overpowered in a money-heavy strategy. You’ll feel great when you turn the disadvantage into an advantage in decks like “draw to X”. But it’s generally less useful in the (in my opinion, fun) decks that accumulate large hand sizes, which probably makes it less fun than some of this week’s other entries.
Graft is an Event that lets you create your own split piles! When you buy it, you get a choice of taking the top half of one Kingdom pile and putting it on top of another (e.g. I take 5 Villages from the Village pile and put them on top of the 10 Markets), or rotating any Kingdom pile, similar to Battle Plan. I restricted it to Kingdom piles to prevent obnoxious things like putting 23 Coppers on top of the Provinces, etc. Players can use Graft sort of like Tax or Embargo to put a stack of bad cards on top of ones their opponent might want, but it also allows for some interesting pile control, adding more cards to low piles or halving a pile to threaten a pileout. It also always feels good to buy a card then rotate the pile away from your opponent.
Definitely this week’s most mind-bending entry. I worry that, in two-player games, the main uses would be 1) to put bad cards on top of good ones, or to rotate piles for which that has already been done, lengthening the game in annoying ways, or 2) to make piling out a lot easier by rotating away half of a pile. You did a great job on the FAQ!
Short list.
Test Site • $5 • Action
+$3
You may pay up to half of your $ for the same number of +Actions.
You may pay up to half of your remaining $ for the same number of +Cards.
(Round down for both.)
A really interesting variant on Storyteller. More versatile at a cost of offering worse draw. The first one can be a Peddler if you haven’t earned any other $, making it an unofficial Peddler variant. Not enabling you to play Treasures during the Action phase also makes it much simpler than Storyteller, rules-wise. Tracking this in-person might be difficult, due to the highly variable effects and numbers of actions it can generate, but it’s probably not much more difficult than Broker.
Short list
Gatherer - $5
Action
+2 Cards
This turn, directly after you play an Action from a Supply pile that is at most half empty, +1 Action.
Initially, it’s in effect a Laboratory that makes all of your other actions non-terminal too. But, once supply piles start declining, Gatherer or its friends become terminal. A really clever design and would lead to interesting player interactions. However, it seems too centralizing, at least in two-player games. I think it would be very rare that you’d expect piles to run out soon enough that you’d skip it.
As an online-only card, the tracking would work fine. But, in person it would be hard to carefully track the number of cards in each pile (both to see about the on-play effect and for strategic purposes) and might be challenging to remember which actions it applied to during a turn.
+1 Action
+$1
If this is the first time you played a Bookshop this turn, +1 Card and +1 Buy.
+1 Card per $2 you have (round down)
Unlike with Storyteller, you do not lose your coins when you play Bookshop.
The first Bookshop you play will be a Market. The next two (assuming you don't play other cards that give +$1) will be Peddlers, and only the fourth will increase your hand size. So it takes work to get decent draw out them if you only intend to stack Bookshops, but the card will synergize well with other cards that give $ during your Action phase or the start of your turn.
Another really interesting Storyteller variant. It seems hard to make a card with Bookshop’s central effect balanced. Bookshop seems too centralizing on boards where there are easy ways to get $ during your Action phase. But, without the +1 Card and +1 Buy the first time you played Bookshop, it would be too weak on boards where there only way to generate $ before playing Bookshop is another Bookshop.
Added once per turn and another suggestions per others ideas.
Seems mainly useful at the very end of the game. Dominion already has a few cards that strongly encourage ending the game on your turn. Think Mining Village (so that you can trash them without ruining your deck) or Triumph (because it often gives so many points that, if you can manage to gain enough cards to end the game, it will provide the points to win). I find the strategic implications of those cards less fun, so I don’t think we need more.
$3 Event: Debt Relief
Once per game: +2 Buys. Return up to 8 debt.
Cards this turn cost half their $, rounded down.
-
You may buy this despite having debt.
A good use of a once-per game effect. Having a one-time event be a “must buy” seems like less of an issue than it would be on a Kingdom card as long as it doesn’t completely transform your deck and eliminate much of the chance from the game (see: Donate). I believe that, most of the time, “double your $” would have the same impact though there are plenty of exceptions like Ball or Horn of Plenty, which offer nice interactions.
Short list. 
Parade
Project ($3)
At the end of your Buy phase, you may pay any amount of $ to draw extra cards for your next hand at a rate of 1 card per $2 spent.
Edit: I missed AJL828's card the first time I posted the judging. You compared it to Pageant, but it reminds me of Ride. The main advantages are that it doesn't take a buy each time you want to draw additional cards, and you get the cards right away instead of needing to wait until you draw your Horses. The main disadvantages are that you have to buy the Project before you can start converting extra $ to cards, and that by drawing the cards right away it is much more vulnerable to discard attacks. It seems like it would be weaker earlier on that Ride, but stronger later.
Donald's secret history of Menagerie says that he briefly tried adding +1 Buy to Ride. I don't think that version of Ride would have been overpowered, but it might have made drawing cards a little simpler than desired. So I think this would be balanced, and converting $ to cards is a fun effect.
Short listHonorable mention: Sexton by xyz123, Stock Exchange by Commodore Chuckles, Pawn Shop by Xen3k, Debt Relief by UltimateGeek, Parade by AJL828
Second runner up: Graft by 4est
First runner up: Pigs by MochaMoko
Winner: Test Site by spineflu.
Congrats to spineflu, and thanks to everyone who participated!
Author
Topic: Weekly Design Contest #150: Half! (Read 6465 times)