Wow, a lot of great submissions. There is definitely a lot of different ways it can be implemented, and a lot of different types of cards on which it can be used. I hope you all enjoyed designing these cards as much as I have reading your submissions. Now, on to the judging...
Detective
Action - Duration
+3 Cards
You may discard an Action card from your hand. If you do, at the start of your next turn, discard this from play and +1 Card and +1 Villager.
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This is an interesting card. Detective is terminal draw card, which allows you to discard an Action card for +1 Card and +1 Villager at the start of the next turn (after it discards itself, qualifying it for the contest). This is a kind of natural synergy; when you draw an Action card dead, you can discard it to get a Villager (which will allow you to play it next time around). Also, by giving +1 Card, Detective is playing a non-terminal, weakened version of itself (netting a player 1 extra card instead of 2).
However, I think it falls a bit short on the idea of recursion. While it does discard it self like Highwayman, that effect is conditional on triggering the duration. If it isn't triggered, Detective will be discarded regularly. And while it does give +1 Card after being discarded, it is much more likely that the shuffle will be triggered by the player drawing 5 cards for their hand than by drawing just the one card. Thus, players are more likely to be able to play Detective again if they don't trigger the ability that is supposed to make it recursive.
I actually like this card a lot, and think it might even be better without the recursion effect. But I think it misses a bit on the contest theme.
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Courser
$6
Action
+4 Cards
_____________________________________________________________________________________
When you discard this from play, you may Exile an Estate from your hand to put this on top of your deck.
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Another terminal draw card, which will topdeck itself if you Exile an Estate from your hand. The first time you play it you will almost certainly hit one, but that gets less likely, and eventually all your estates will be in Exile (unless you buy more). This is a simple, fun card that offers an interesting strategic choice: Do you buy an Estate to get the others back? More than one? My only concern is that it is a little on the strong side. While not strictly better than Hunting Grounds, getting to both thin your deck without losing the VP from Estate and topdeck a really strong terminal draw card seems pretty powerful. That said, it's not obviously busted, and it's strength isn't multiplied by having multiple copies, so I don't think it would break the game or represented the only viable strategy most of the time. A great entry.
Copy editing: Standard game syntax is "...put this onto your deck."
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Illusionist • $4 • Action - Duration - Reaction
Look through your deck. From your deck, discard up to 3 cards, then shuffle your deck. At the start of your next turn, discard this from play.
When you discard this other than during a cleanup phase, you may reveal this for +1 Coffers
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This is a fun concept, and I really appreciate the card both thematically and in terms of the art you've chosen. Initially, the card struck me as rather on the weak side. First, there's the risk that it is drawn as the last card from your deck (or as one of the last), meaning it's this-turn ability does nothing. If it's drawn close to the end, it may miss the shuffle (although having a choice of how many cards to discard gives the player some control). The 1 Coffers you get next turn doesn't do much to improve that.
On further examination, I do see one potentially viable strategy. In some situations (especially with Orchard or Vineyard), it might be worth buying 3-4 copies, and using the first one in each shuffle to discard the rest, netting you +3-4 Coffers each time. This is especially true if you have a way to gain $4 cards more effectively (e.g. remodelers, gainers, Alms). You could still get screwed if you draw multiple copies in one hand.
While the card itself is viable, having it do nothing but discard itself at the start of your next turn doesn't actually make it available to play more frequently. While it technically meets the contest requirements, it doesn't really embody the idea of recursion all that well. (Especially if the main strategic use is to be discarded by a copy of itself so it is never played.)
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Boomerang
Action/Treasure - $2
+$1
At the start of your Buy phase this turn, put a non-Duration card you have in play into your hand or onto your deck.
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This is fun. A good example of an ability that can move multiple different cards, but is very likely to move itself. By itself, Boomerang is either a terminal Silver (played once during the Action phase, returned, and played again) or a Copper (if you can't spare the Action). Alternatively, if played during your Action phase, it can be used to topdeck one of your Actions to be reused next turn. Or, it can return a different Action - Treasure (e.g. Crown or a card changed by Capitalism) to your hand to be replayed during your buy phase. There are a lot of interesting ways to play this.
I do think this has a token-from-Adventures problem--specifically, the +$1 token from Training. If that is put on to Boomerang, it goes from a Copper/terminal Silver to a Silver/Animal Fair. At $2, that easily becomes the only viable strategy, especially if there is a good source of +Buy.
There is also the potential for getting unlimited $ with King's Court, Villa, and Way of the Horse/Butterfly. If you play KC + KC + Boomerang + Boomerang + Villa (generating +3 Actions, +3 Buys, and +$9), return those 5 cards (plus one more, maybe another copy of Villa) at the start of your Buy phase, buy a Villa, return the Villa to the Supply, and repeat. Even without a Way, getting $9 (or more) and 3 Buys per copy of Villa left could easily allow a player to empty the Provinces pile. It's still a 3 card combo (which, imo, is not as unbalanced as a broken 2 card combo), but is still pretty strong.
If there was a way to tamp down some of those effects without nerfing it too hard, I think there is great potential for a really interesting card.
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Spell Book • $4 • Action
+1 Action
Exile the top card of your deck. You may put a card you have in Exile into your hand.
When you discard this from play, you may Exile it.
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This is an interesting take. On-play, it generally is either a cantrip or a non-terminal deck-thinner. By Exiling it on discard, it allows the player to chain these, Exiling multiple cards from the top of your deck while grabbing one of these that is already in Exile. There can also be some other uses, such as setting up collisions (using SB to Exile a Treasure Map
To me, it is a really fun concept, but seems pretty weak. When compared with Bounty Hunter, it both never gives BH's +$3 bonus, and only lets you target a random card off the top of your deck (as opposed to BH, which lets you choose any card in your hand). This also makes chaining these more of a challenge. If you play a Spell Book and Exile a Moneylender, then grab the second SB from Exile (hoping the next card is one you want to thin) and play it, and Exile a Gold, you can only get one of those back.
My initial thought (although this requires more consideration) would be to suggest:
+1 Action
Exile the top card of your deck. Put up to 2 cards you have in Exile into your hand.
This allows a player to both get back the card Exiled from their deck and chain a SB. But maybe that's too strong (as it turns it into a lab, if you keep all of the cards).
In either case, this doesn't strike me as a clear example of recursion. While I appreciate you trying to find a creative way to accomplish it, with this method you only get the card back sooner if you play another copy of it. This requires multiple copies. But if (on any given turn) you have multiple copies to discard, you are more likely to see one of them sooner by discarding all of them, rather than by discarding some and Exiling the others.
This is definitely a fun idea, and has a lot of potential. But I think it might need a bit of work.
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Djinn
Action - Duration - Attack ($5)
At the start of your next turn, discard this from play and +2 Cards.
Until then, when any other player buys a card that they have a copy of in play, they gain a Curse.
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A Duration attack, giving +2 Cards (and self-discarding) on the following turn, while dealing Curses when players buy cards they have a copy of in play. The obvious comparison is Swamp Hag, which Curses opponents for every card they Buy. While Djinn's attack is weaker, it's next-turn bonus is arguably stronger, and it's recursion ability creates at least the possibility of it being played every turn. While not as burdensome as Swamp Hag, this could make it challenging for an opponent to buy the cards they need.
Definitely a solid entry.
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Wealthy Village • $4 • Action
+1 Card
+2 Actions
When you discard this from play, you may pay $1 to topdeck it.
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An interesting twist on Merchant Camp. When MC is in a Kingdom with Way of the Chameleon, it becomes a much more powerful card (effectively turning into a stackable--but delayed--Barracks, for half the price). This isn't that, as in order to keep each copy of the village in play, a player will have to pay $1. This offers a number of different strategies. A player could use it as a regular Village, and only topdeck when they have a spare $1. Or, they could use it more like a MC, trying to always put it back onto their deck. In the latter case, that could create some interesting strategic choices (i.e. when that extra $1 is all the player needs). The question also looks different based upon a player's proximity to the shuffle.
I would note that the +$1 Token from Adventures serves a very similar effect to MC/WotC, allowing players to topdeck each copy of the village they buy. However, I don't think that is at all busted. Definitely a really great entry.
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Cloister • $2 • Action - Duration
Trash a card from your hand. At the start of your next turn, discard a Victory card (or reveal you can't), then you may set this aside to play it.
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We go from a twist on Barracks to a twist on Cathedral. Like Cathedral, Cloister can trash a card from your hand every turn. As you described, compared to Cathedral, it is weaker in that it must be played from your hand, and also starts by discarding a Victory card (making it hard to trash your starting Estates), but has the advantage of allowing a player to stop the trashing.
In my experience, the biggest downside of Cathedral is not that it might, later in the game, trash some good cards from your hand (it will, and it is well worth it). The biggest disadvantage is that you play the rest of the game with a 4-card hand. Here, you are frequently going down 2 cards (a Victory card and the card you trash), and that is presuming you didn't lose any cards to a handsize attack. Of course, if you were so attacked, you'd likely have discarded your Victory cards already, and you would have the option of not replaying it, but then you'd be forced to spend the Action (potentially costly if you want to be playing your own copy of the terminal handcard attack like Margrave or Militia). The Victory card discarding will also make it harder to trash not just your last Estate, but your first two, meaning you will probably have to trash your Coppers a lot earlier than with Cathedral.
I do like the implementation of the recursion, and I think the underlying idea is good. But I think playing down 2 cards each turn is going to be too big a disadvantage to make this playable absent something that advises strongly in favor (like a good junking card).
As an aside, I don't really think you needed to modify it (with the set-aside feature) on account of throne variants. Even with Citadel, which would, in fact, allow a player to multiply the plays, at most they are getting the ability to trash their entire hand. While there could be some Fortress - Tomb shenanigans, it's nothing that can't already be done with Rats.
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Rowboat • $3 • Action - Duration
+1 Card
+1 Action
+1 Buy
At the start of your next turn you may discard a non-Victory card to put this into your hand.
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Another take (whether or not intentional) on a Project, Rowboat acts as a twist on Fair. A cantrip that gives +1 Buy, on the player's next turn they may discard a non-Victory card to put Rowboat into their hand. This is an interesting way to implement recursion, which I really like.
Because it's a cantrip, the Rowboat will just replace itself with the card in a player's deck. This means that for each Rowboat a player has, in addition to +1 Buy, they get a single card of (non-optional, unless they also want to forgo the Buy) Cellar-style sifting (with the significant limitation that they cannot sift a Victory card). While early on this sifting may be disadvantageous (with a player giving up Coppers and getting Estates as frequently as Silver), I think overall it will tend to accrue to the player's favor. So Rowboat, once played, is generally better than Fair, and it is stackable, with a player able to keep over as many copies as they have non-Victory cards in any given hand (3 is probably a safe bet; although because Rowboat is a cantrip, there's no big disadvantage to carrying 4 and occasionally dropping one (unless there is a lot of terminal draw). However, I actually really like the limitation this creates; even with the pile tokens from Adventures, the player can get back at most 5 of these (absent, e.g., Hireling), and even then will probably drop them on occasion (as opposed to, say, Scheme + Pathfinder/Training, which allows a player [absent certain attacks] to replay all their Schemes each turn).
While mostly better than Fair, the Project itself is not game-bending, and getting even 3-4 extra buys will not (in the vast majority of cases) be game-altering. Thus, while (at least one copy) is an obvious buy in most game, I don't think it is overpowering or singularizing (and it doesn't force players into one strategy over another; playing a cantrip at the start of your turn works equally well in almost every major deck type).
This creates some interesting interactions as well (in addition to those Adventures tokens). Conspirators is an obvious one, with 2 Rowboats ensuring they will be playable as double peddlers (but 2 VCs and 2 Conspirators means one will have to go). A single copy will be especially helpful in triggering Magic Lamp (both proving a card and allowing the player to sift any duplicates). And so on.
I'll admit that my first impression of the card was that it wasn't going to be all that interesting, but having actually thought it through, I actually think it is both a lot of fun and really interesting.
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Landlord
Action - $4
+2 Cards
You may gain an Estate or trash an Estate from your hand to put this in your hand.
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Landlord is a terminal draw card that allows players to trash (from hand) or gain an Estate to put it back into the player's hand. At its most basic level, it is a very weak terminal draw card that is a very strong Estate trasher. The combo of +Cards and trashing (from hand) is especially strong, as it adds extra cards from which the trashing can happen (so, from a 5 card hand, while Chapel has 4 cards from which to trash, LL has 6). This advantage is mitigated by the obvious drawback that it can only trash estates.
When played terminally, going back into a player's hand provides almost no advantage over staying in play--in both cases LL will be discarded during Clean-up. In this context, LL's ability to gain an Estate will almost never be used (except, perhaps, if a player knows they will be making a game-ending buy). However, there is another strategy, which is to use LL with a source of +Actions, as an engine component. Here, if LL goes into back into a player's hand (not as a dead card), it actually nets +2 Cards, equivalent to a Smithy. In that situation, a player would likely be willing to gain Estates in order to replay the card, with a goal of balancing gaining and trashing. Here, I'm not sure how valuable the extra +Cards would be if they required some combo of junking (which makes the deck worth less) and trashing (which takes one of the drawn cards out of your hand). I'm not sure how viable such an engine would be. Also, there are a finite number of times it can be used, as the Estate pile will empty out before long.
There are rare circumstances where you would only want to use LL for gaining. The most obvious would be with Inheritance. If you can inherit a village, you will likely have an extra Action, and LL serves to add more copies of the card that provides both +Actions and +Cards. Even when the pile empty, with all those extra Actions, a regular Moat variant will still be a useful addition.
This could be interesting, but my sense is that far and away the most common use will be as a simple Estate trasher. As a result, my inclination is that the effect returning to the player's hand will infrequently be used as a means of recursion, and in most cases go in dead. Thus, while it is a solid entry, it's bona fides as a recursion card are less clear.
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Coastal Village
$4 Action - Duration
+2 Actions
The next time you shuffle at least 5 cards, put this into your hand.
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Another interesting take on the idea of recursion. Costal Village is a Necropolis (a non-drawing +2 Actions) when first played, but then puts itself back into a player's hand when the shuffle at least 5 cards (so there net effect is equivalent to a plain Village). Effectively, this means that the player will immediately get any copies of CV when you hit a significant shuffle. While this is an interesting take on recursion, I'm not sure the mechanic works well with the effect. You want your villages to collide with the terminal cards that need their support. If those terminal cards happen to coincide with the shuffle, then that's great. But if they're anywhere else in your deck, CV is pretty well useless. Worse, if you terminally trigger a shuffle, your CVs end up dead in your hand, and have to be re-played at -1 Card. This could me mitigated with other sources of +Actions, but a game with only CVs will often be the same as a game without a source of +Actions.
Star Chart and Order of Astrologers can help, putting at least one of the terminal cards (preferably terminal draw) into your hand (OoA can get you more, but only if you can get enough Favors). Cards with big sifting (like Shepherd, Storeroom, and Marquis) do open up the possibility of playing a single copy of CV twice in one turn, but that is going to be far less
Another issue is that, even if you can successfully incorporate CV into a draw-your-deck engine, the shuffle is likely to be triggered during a player's Clean-up. This means the player will "carry" those cards in their hand between turns, making them vulnerable to handcard attacks.
The into-hand-on-shuffle idea is a solid one, but I don't think it works with a village.
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Reconstruct • $5 • Action - Duration
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing up to $2 more than it. At the start of your next turn, puts this into your hand.
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Reconstruct is a simple remodel variant (always a good source) with Conjurer's duration-to-hand ability. It's a far more powerful addition to this card, as every play is (presuming there are good cards to upgrade to) strengthening a player's deck, replacing a worse card with a stronger one (ideally). By contrast, getting too many mid-priced cards--especially Silver--without thinning the cheaper ones, can leave a player's deck bloated and slow later in the game. Like all remodel variants (but again, much more so) the strength of this will vary a great deal depending on what's in the Kingdom to gain. At the low end, in a Kingdom with literally no Kingdom cards (or Potion) costing $2 or $4, players would be Reconstructing their Coppers into Estates and Estates into Silvers (or other $3). That, combined with a lack of +Actions (and other terminal Actions worth getting) may make this hard to buy. At the other extreme, a Kingdom with (for example) Encampment, Worker's Village, Smithy, and Fortress would make buying this all but mandatory. Most Kingdom's will be somewhere in between (and many won't have a $2 Kingdom card), but I think this will frequently be bought.
This is a solid entry, and I think it's perfectly priced at $5. No notes on the design or fitting the theme.
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Notoire Smith $5
+3 cards
+1$
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If you discard 2 cards from hand in your discard phase, you put this card onto your deck.
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A terminal draw card (plus $1) that topdecks itself if a player discards two or more cards during clean-up. This seems extremely strong, especially in a big money deck. Unless there's really good trashing, +3 Cards is likely to yield 2 dead cards. Even if it doesn't, it will probably be worth holding back 1 or 2 Coppers in order to get Notoire Smith back onto your deck. It's a tougher call in an engine, but there are many ways to ensure that it isn't played terminally (any source of Villagers, Merchant Camp, CotR, Barracks, Fishing Village, etc.), so there are numerous viable engine strategies as well.
It's a novel take on the recursion mechanic, but I think it's too strong.
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Herd • $5 • Action
+1 Action
Gain 2 Horses.
When you discard this from play, if you didn't play any Horses this turn, set this aside and put it in your hand at the start of your next turn.
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Horses! A non-terminal Horse gainer, which sets itself aside and goes back into your hand next turn if you didn't play any Horses this turn. This seems like it has the potential to gain a lot of Horses (depending on where it comes after the shuffle) before hitting a shuffle and then losing the recursion and going into the discard pile. However, that cycle through the deck will be significantly faster with all of the Horses you gained. On the other hand, if it comes near the end of the shuffle and you happen to hit one of the two Horses you gained, it could be much less effective.
The recursion element here is particularly strong, as it adds itself to a player's hand at the start of the next turn (rather than, for example, topdecking it, which takes one of the spaces in a player's hand, instead of adding to it). But I still think the card feels swingy.
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Altruist - $4
Action -Duration
+1 Action
You may play a non-Duration Action or Treasure card from your hand. Set it aside; if you did, then at the end of your next turn, discard it or this, and put the other onto your deck. While it's set aside, copies of it cost $2 less.
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Altruist lets you play an Action or Treasure, then sets the card aside and discounts additional copies of it until the end of a player's next turn, when it discards either the set-aside card or itself, and topdecks the other. On one hand, this card plays as (effectively) a Necropolis, giving +1 Action and playing a (non-Duration) Action or Treasure. However, it also provides a discount on that card, without the player having to play it meaningfully less (unless they draw their deck each turn), as they get it back the turn after next. The discount would apply to 2 full Buy phases, and all of the player's next turn. But, the discount also applies to their opponent's other turns. This creates an interesting balance, although if a player is pursuing a different strategy from their opponents, might be of little value.
Discounting individual Treasure cards also has some weird effects. If you discount Silver/Gold/Platinum by $2, they become just $1 more than the next Treasure down, meaning that they could be swapped up by any remodel variant (except Farmland and your own Governor). It could also allow a player to Mine a Copper into a (normally) $5 Kingdom Treasure.
None of this is especially busted, but it feels like a card that will sometimes totally backfire, but other times allow a player to rush most of the cards on a deck very quickly.
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Compass
$4 - Treasure
+$1.
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Put up to 2 of them in your hand. You may discard one. Put the rest back.
You may trash an Action you have in play to set this aside and put it in your hand at the end of your turn.
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A kind of Copper - Border Guard hybrid, Compass is a Treasure that gives +$1, then lets the player draw 2 of the top 4 cards on their deck, and either put both back or discard one of them. This seems kind of strong. An obvious comparison to me is Venture, which costs $5. While this can't go nearly as far, depending on the strategy you are generally pretty likely to find at least one Treasure in the top 4 cards of your deck. And this has a few advantages over Venture: it can sometimes get you 2 Treasures; the Treasures it finds go into your hand, so can be played in a more strategic order (e.g. if you find a Bank you can play the rest of your Compasses and the Treasure cards they find before playing Bank); it can find you playable Night cards; and, in some cases (Villa, Scepter, etc.), playable Action cards. It can also give you some pretty good control over what is happening next turn, putting back your favorite 1 or 2 Action (or other) cards, while dumping and VCs or Curses. Generally, speaking, I think this is a little too strong, even before the Recursion element.
The recursion ability is creative, allowing a player to trash an Action card in play to put it into next turn's hand. While this will often not be worth it, there may be some exceptions where it is even to the player's benefit.
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Corridor • $5 • Action
+3 Cards
+1 Action
Return this to your hand.
Discard 4 cards.
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This is a fun idea, but one that (in the context of existing Dominion cards) can be easily broken. Corridor is a replayable sifter, which gives you +3 Cards, returns to your hand, then makes you discard 4. Then net effect is that you will (generally) lose a card from your hand each time, so while it can sift quite powerfully, it will quickly shrink your hand down to almost nothing.
As was already pointed out, this changes if you have the +1 Card token from Adventures. Then, you get +4 Cards, Corridor goes back into your hand, then you discard 4 Cards. This allows the player to not only sift endlessly until that have the exact set of cards they want, it also allows them to play every cantrip in their deck: every peddler, every village (that doesn't lose you cards), etc. It also lets you play every non-terminal draw card, and once you've played the villages, it allows them to play as many terminal draw cards as are supported (and it doesn't matter what order they are in in the deck, as they can cycle all the way through to get the villages and then come back for the terminal draw cards)--which gives them even more cards for the ultimate hand they set up. That is extremely powerful, but even more annoying.
But is is likely to be even worse than that, as (imo) the obvious play (outside of games with Minion) is to have 2 copies of Corridor, and to use the infinite sifting to make sure you get the second copy in your next turn's hand. The way to do that is to keep discarding it and triggering the shuffle until there are 5 or fewer cards left, and you know your other copy of Corridor is in there. Since Corridor draws 4 cards at once, in a worst case scenario, you might have only 2 cards in that guaranteed hand (if you have to play Corridor with 6 cards left). This could easily taken dozens of cycles through.
Even without the +1 Card token, this still sifts a large number of cards, and combines in dangerously powerful ways with draw-to-X cards (Cursed Village being the most dangerous, but any village + Watchtower also has the potential to allow players several more uses of corridor) and any of the on-discard Reactions.
If none of those traps existed, this could be a fun, well balanced card. But the interactions between cards is what is at the core of Dominion, and some of what exists (Adventures being a not insignificant part of that) effectively excludes certain design spaces.
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Rectory • $2 • Action - Duration
Trash a card from your hand.
At the start of your next turn, you may put this into your hand. If you don't, +$1.
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Rectory is a terminal, 1-card trasher with a duration-to-hand effect. It offers a nice twist, making putting the card into your hand optional, and giving the player +$1 if they decline. This is a nice bonus, as (generally) you won't want Rectory back when you either (a) have all cards in your hand you want to keep, or (b) are playing some other terminal Action. In either case, you will probably be able to use that extra $1.
While not the most thrilling card, it is simple, balanced, and well designed. I could certainly see buying it in many games.
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Thanks for all the submissions. There have certainly been a lot of great designs and interesting takes on the mechanic.
Author
Topic: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again (Read 6594 times)