Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Pages: [1] 2 3  All

Author Topic: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again  (Read 6462 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

emtzalex

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 840
  • Respect: +1450
    • View Profile
Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« on: May 16, 2022, 11:56:39 am »
+5

So, since Allies came out we have had contests to design Liaisons and Allies, and if you all submitted a full set of 4-card piles, the next expansion would likely come up before I could fully judge of all them. Thus, I have decided to go with the other mechanic/motif from Allies, recursion.

Unlike the very specific mechanic that is Liaison/Ally, the notion of recursion is much fuzzier. So, here is my definition:

Recursion is a card's ability to move itself after it's been played so that you get that copy of the card back in your hand to replay it more quickly than you otherwise would have.

Official manifestations of recursion include Optional Topdecking* (Merchant Camp, Tent), Conditional Topdecking (Student), Conditionally Optional Topdecking (Alchemist), and Duration-into-Hand (Conjurer), and (although a bit less obviously so), Duration-into-Discard (Highwayman).

I would not consider cards that are gained to hand (e.g. Ghost Town) or gained onto deck (Nomad Camp) to be recursive, as the get-them-sooner is associated with gaining them, rather than playing them. That being said, I am not going to disqualify any card that has the capacity to move itself or to replay itself. But cards that play copies of themself (Cultist) don't count.

The contest is simple: design a card that uses recursion. While the recursion itself will have to be on a card (rather than a landscape--although a Way could work since it will be played through a card), feel free to use supporting cards and/or landscapes, and any other official or fan mechanic (if you use a fan mechanic, please either explain how it works or link to a post that does), keeping in mind that simplicity is important.

My main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see the design in a Kingdom. Important factors for me are:
  • balance -- is the card useful, but not overpowering (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms)
  • playability -- the card is fun to play and works in more than one type of deck
  • simplicity -- this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is hard to understand
  • topicality -- the card(s)/landscape(s) use(s) recursion in an interesting way

The deadline for submissions will be 16:00 UTC / 12:00 p.m. Forum (Eastern) time on Monday, May 23, 2022 23:00 UTC / 7:00 p.m. Forum (Eastern) time on Monday, May 23, 2022. Please let me know if you have any questions.

EDIT: Cards that replay themselves will also not be disqualified, but you should read this follow-up post explaining how I wouldn't consider many such cards to really fit the theme of recursion.




* While the term "topdeck" is frequently used on this forum and in Shuffle iT's user interface, it is not a term that's used in the syntax of official cards, so it should not be used in card designs (IMO).
« Last Edit: May 22, 2022, 06:49:35 pm by emtzalex »
Logged
he/him/his

Thanks to Shard of Honor for his Extended Version of the Dominion Card Image Generator, which I use to mock up my fan cards, and to Violet CLM, who made the original.

LastFootnote

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7495
  • Shuffle iT Username: LastFootnote
  • Respect: +10721
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #1 on: May 16, 2022, 12:30:03 pm »
0

Do cards that can replay themselves without moving qualify?

For example:

« Last Edit: May 16, 2022, 12:31:45 pm by LastFootnote »
Logged

JW

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 968
  • Shuffle iT Username: JW
  • Respect: +1781
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #2 on: May 16, 2022, 12:45:19 pm »
+1

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.

Comments: A fun prompt! A card that you discard from play when it takes effect can be hard to track. Giving +1 Villager instead of +1 Action avoids these issues. Thoughts on the power level appreciated. It looks strong, but if you reshuffled at the end of the previous turn having to draw through your deck only to get to cards that give +3 Cards means that in order to play Detective each turn with the duration effect you'd have to substantially overdraw your deck, reducing its power substantially. But maybe you can avoid that by playing Herb Gatherer first, playing it from your discard with Courier, etc. 
Logged

emtzalex

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 840
  • Respect: +1450
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #3 on: May 16, 2022, 02:18:31 pm »
0

A few additional thoughts on what qualifies as recursion (and an answer to LastFootnote's question):

Do cards that can replay themselves without moving qualify?

For example:



In the spirit of not disqualifying cards, I'll allow cards that replay themselves. However, I think the heart of what recursion means is that a card can be played again and again, potentially an unlimited number of times. Once you've played Tent, Merchant Camp, or Conjuror, you could play them again every turn for the rest of the game.

That looks very different than a card that can be played twice (or even multiple times--I don't know exactly how this mechanic works) in one turn by replaying itself. In the latter case, I would think of the multiple plays of the card as a scaling power of the card's ability, more akin to Shepherd's ability to draw more cards depending on how many Victory cards you discard.

That being said, one could imagine, for example, a Duration card that said something like:

Quote
+2 Cards
At the start of your next turn, +1 Buy, and you may discard 2 cards to replay this.

Something like that would very clearly fit into the idea of recursion, and be very similar to the existing recursion cards. There may be other ways of making a card endlessly replayable without moving it, which I will leave up to you all to come up with.

Since I am on the topic of what I consider recursion, I will preemptively add that I would not consider Scheme to be a good example of a recursive card (although, again, definitely would not disqualify it). In the vast majority of cases, the point of Scheme is to topdeck some other Action card that you want to replay sooner, or to topdeck Scheme so it is there to actually be useful when you need it. As a cantrip, there is usually no point to playing Scheme itself, except to let you replay another card. That being said, a card with the ability of Scheme that would more-often than not be used to topdeck itself would definitely count.


Also, one more design tip. Don't forget the existence of Champion and the +1 Action Token from Adventures. If your card says "+$2, return this to your hand" then, combined with one of the above, quickly and easily produces and unlimited amount of $. Under the category of "balance" I'll consider anything that is completely busted when paired with any official card/landscape to be completely busted.


Edit: Having tracked down the original post explaining how Activation cards work, I would re-state my position that, while not disqualified, this is outside of what I would consider to be recursion. As I understand the mechanic, a player could double-play this card each time they play it, as they will get a Gem on-gain and another one after every play when they Activate the card. So double-playing it would be the default, but a player could opt to single play it once in order to save up gems to get multiple plays in the future. However, I think the Activation ability has great potential in this contest, as an Activation that moved the card into a player's hand or onto their deck (or even an Activation that replayed the card, but that would have Champion/+AT issues) could be great examples of recursion.
« Last Edit: May 17, 2022, 04:09:48 pm by emtzalex »
Logged
he/him/his

Thanks to Shard of Honor for his Extended Version of the Dominion Card Image Generator, which I use to mock up my fan cards, and to Violet CLM, who made the original.

xyz123

  • Apprentice
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 294
  • Respect: +511
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #4 on: May 16, 2022, 03:00:31 pm »
+2

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.


Notes
- I thought of the exile an Estate clause and thought it could lead to some interesting decisions once your starting Estates are exiled.
- I decided to make a draw card as the one that you might want to topdeck.
- There aren't many official cards that draw 4, so there is room for another.
Logged

Chappy7

  • Minion
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 542
  • Shuffle iT Username: Chappy7
  • Respect: +660
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #5 on: May 16, 2022, 04:07:36 pm »
+7



On it's own, it will help clear your deck and it will give you 1 Coffers on your next turn. It can also discard other copies of Illusionist, and ease the pain of discard attacks.  It's a bit hard for me to gauge the value of cleansing the deck before drawing, without having playtested this.  If you have only 1 card in your deck, it's obviously pretty bad.  If you have 8 in your deck and curses are flying around this game, it could be basically as good as draw. Landed on $4 for now.
Logged

silverspawn

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Online Online
  • Posts: 5301
  • Shuffle iT Username: sty.silver
  • Respect: +3188
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #6 on: May 16, 2022, 06:11:28 pm »
+1

Didn't need to read the card to upvote

NoMoreFun

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2005
  • Respect: +2109
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #7 on: May 16, 2022, 06:20:24 pm »
+4

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.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2022, 09:03:38 pm by NoMoreFun »
Logged

Joxeft

  • Bishop
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 119
  • Respect: +103
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #8 on: May 16, 2022, 06:35:32 pm »
0

Are ways exceptable submissions?
Logged

Gubump

  • Board Moderator
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1532
  • Shuffle iT Username: Gubump
  • Respect: +1677
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #9 on: May 16, 2022, 07:00:53 pm »
+1

Boomerang
Action/Treasure - $2
+$1
At the start of your Buy phase this turn, return a card from play to your hand, and you may put a card from your hand onto your deck.

I think this needs to say non-Duration.
Logged
All of my fan card mockups are credited to Shard of Honor and his Dominion Card Image Generator (the new fork).
If you're having font issues with the generator, click this link and click on the button to request temporary access to the demo server that loads the font.

Gubump

  • Board Moderator
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1532
  • Shuffle iT Username: Gubump
  • Respect: +1677
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #10 on: May 16, 2022, 07:02:29 pm »
+2

Quote
Farrier - Action - Cost: 4

+2 Cards
If used action card to play this you may play an action from your hand.
Choose one: play a card from your hand; or gain a Farrier.

Feedback is appreciated.

This is nearly strictly better than Laboratory and costs less. Plus as worded it lets you play Victory cards, since the first option in the "choose one" simply allows you to play any card from your hand without restriction.
Logged
All of my fan card mockups are credited to Shard of Honor and his Dominion Card Image Generator (the new fork).
If you're having font issues with the generator, click this link and click on the button to request temporary access to the demo server that loads the font.

Galaxi

  • Swindler
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 17
  • Shuffle iT Username: Galaxi
  • Respect: +29
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #11 on: May 16, 2022, 07:03:49 pm »
+2



Edit: Changed the wording both to make it consistent with existing card formulations, and to synergize better with certain types of cards(night cards, reactions, curses, treasures, potential future/fan made card types, etc.)
Edit 2: After further playtesting I buffed the card, making it non-terminal. It's weaker than Bounty Hunter early, but has better potential to thin your deck in the middlegame if you get 2-3.

Old versions:
« Last Edit: May 21, 2022, 10:07:55 am by Galaxi »
Logged

emtzalex

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 840
  • Respect: +1450
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #12 on: May 16, 2022, 07:12:41 pm »
+2

Are ways exceptable submissions?
They certainly could be. I would count Way of the Frog as qualifying for this contest.

Quote
Farrier - Action - Cost: 4
+2 Cards
If used action card to play this you may play an action from your hand.
Choose one: play a card from your hand; or gain a Farrier.
Feedback is appreciated.
This doesn't qualify. It neither moves itself nor replays itself (replaying a different copy of the same card doesn't count).
Logged
he/him/his

Thanks to Shard of Honor for his Extended Version of the Dominion Card Image Generator, which I use to mock up my fan cards, and to Violet CLM, who made the original.

Joxeft

  • Bishop
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 119
  • Respect: +103
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #13 on: May 16, 2022, 07:27:15 pm »
0


Feedback is appreciated.
(Edit 1 I made it less power full by exiling  its self instead of discarding a card and curse tokens)
(Edit 2 I have withdrawn this submission)
« Last Edit: May 17, 2022, 06:07:18 pm by Joxeft »
Logged

MochaMoko

  • Salvager
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 62
  • Shuffle iT Username: MochaMoko
  • Respect: +123
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #14 on: May 16, 2022, 07:36:09 pm »
+2

Way of the Crow
Feedback is appreciated.
The current wording makes no sense design-wise because when you play as a Way, you don't follow the instructions on the card. So if you play a card with Way of the Crow, and then play the card again using Crow's instructions, you only got to do the instructions on the card once, but you discard a card and receive a Hex on top of it.

I'm assuming you want a player to follow the instructions of a card twice with the penalty of discarding a card and receiving a Hex. I'd word that as something like: "Follow this card's instructions twice. Then, discard a card and recieve a Hex." (If Crow allows the card to play itself twice, you can play Bridge, following its instructions, an unlimited amount of times with Crow and that's not something we like to see.)
« Last Edit: May 16, 2022, 07:37:17 pm by MochaMoko »
Logged

Joxeft

  • Bishop
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 119
  • Respect: +103
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #15 on: May 16, 2022, 09:40:31 pm »
0

Thanks updated.
Logged

infangthief

  • Duke
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 359
  • Shuffle iT Username: infangthief
  • Respect: +10000 (I wish)
  • Respect: +639
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #16 on: May 17, 2022, 07:24:46 am »
0

EDIT 18th May - Withdrawing both of my versions for now; v0.2 is worse than v0.1; the topdecking (in v0.1) prevented it getting out of hand with Pathfinding; the cycling (in v0.2) prevented getting the same turn every time, but lets you replay just 2 copies too easily.

Previous versions:
v0.1

v0.2

Even if v0.1 is tweaked so that the Coffers are conditional on the topdecking, it doesn't do enough to fix the issue faust pointed out; playing just 2 Accountants per turn gives you a very boring strategy that gets 4 Provinces in 10-12 turns with no support.
« Last Edit: May 18, 2022, 02:41:21 am by infangthief »
Logged

faust

  • Board Moderator
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3376
  • Shuffle iT Username: faust
  • Respect: +5142
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #17 on: May 17, 2022, 07:29:06 am »
+1


Quote
Accountant
$2 Action

+1 Action
+2 Coffers
Put this onto your deck, then put a card from your hand onto your deck.

A Silver that really gets in your way. You can play it multiple times per turn, so I suspect it might be breakable somehow, but I haven't figured out how yet! The topdecking from your hand means that you can't just use a +Card token to go infinite.
This is broken. If you have 3 Accountants you generate 6 Coffers per turn guaranteed. Within 6 turns you can buy 4 Provinces.
Logged
You say the ocean's rising, like I give a shit
You say the whole world's ending, honey it already did

silverspawn

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Online Online
  • Posts: 5301
  • Shuffle iT Username: sty.silver
  • Respect: +3188
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #18 on: May 17, 2022, 08:19:17 am »
0

Is that good though? You need a couple of turns to set this up, and then you are locked into this strategy forever.

infangthief

  • Duke
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 359
  • Shuffle iT Username: infangthief
  • Respect: +10000 (I wish)
  • Respect: +639
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #19 on: May 17, 2022, 08:56:34 am »
0

Is that good though? You need a couple of turns to set this up, and then you are locked into this strategy forever.
It's boring enough that I think it's worth avoiding even if it's only sometimes the best strategy. On the other hand, Accountants have a reputation for being boring...
If you buy four Accountants on turns 1-4, then I think you're guaranteed to be able to get 4 Provinces by turn 13, 5 by turn 14 and 6 by turn 15.

I might make the Coffers conditional on the topdecking, which helps a bit. But Pathfinding + 2 Accountants is still crazy (10 Coffers per turn). So maybe I'll go down to just +1 Coffers and some other perk.
Logged

Joxeft

  • Bishop
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 119
  • Respect: +103
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #20 on: May 17, 2022, 09:26:20 am »
0

My submission has been updated.
Now it has curse tokens.
« Last Edit: May 17, 2022, 09:42:48 am by Joxeft »
Logged

Joxeft

  • Bishop
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 119
  • Respect: +103
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #21 on: May 17, 2022, 09:44:45 am »
0

Is that good though? You need a couple of turns to set this up, and then you are locked into this strategy forever.
It's boring enough that I think it's worth avoiding even if it's only sometimes the best strategy. On the other hand, Accountants have a reputation for being boring...
If you buy four Accountants on turns 1-4, then I think you're guaranteed to be able to get 4 Provinces by turn 13, 5 by turn 14 and 6 by turn 15.

I might make the Coffers conditional on the topdecking, which helps a bit. But Pathfinding + 2 Accountants is still crazy (10 Coffers per turn). So maybe I'll go down to just +1 Coffers and some other perk.
I think its under piced.
Logged

NoMoreFun

  • Mountebank
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2005
  • Respect: +2109
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #22 on: May 17, 2022, 09:57:04 am »
+1


Quote
Accountant
$2 Action

+1 Action
+2 Coffers
Put this onto your deck, then put a card from your hand onto your deck.

A Silver that really gets in your way. You can play it multiple times per turn, so I suspect it might be breakable somehow, but I haven't figured out how yet! The topdecking from your hand means that you can't just use a +Card token to go infinite.

IIRC just "+2 Coffers" is too strong for $4, too weak for $5
Logged

AJL828

  • Young Witch
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 142
  • Shuffle iT Username: AJL828
  • Respect: +394
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #23 on: May 17, 2022, 11:15:54 am »
+4



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.

It has the possibility to curse more or less than Witch does, early game it likely won't be doing much cursing but later on when opponents are often making multiple purchases it can dish out more. Therefore I feel that $5 is an appropriate cost for this card.
Feedback appreciated :)
Logged
Did you hear about the skyscraper with one really tall floor? I could tell you but it’s a long story…

fika monster

  • Witch
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 463
  • 27 year old swedish guy. PFP by haps
  • Respect: +459
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #152: Play it Again
« Reply #24 on: May 17, 2022, 11:22:52 am »
0



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.

It has the possibility to curse more or less than Witch does, early game it likely won't be doing much cursing but later on when opponents are often making multiple purchases it can dish out more. Therefore I feel that $5 is an appropriate cost for this card.
Feedback appreciated :)

i feel like this is a variant of swamp hag, and a tad uninteresting. The attack is is weak, and the draw is worse then some "next turn" drawcards.

One variant could be to make it affect not just "buy" but also "gain". maybe that would be busted, but it would encourage more diverse decks.
Logged
Swedish guy, Furry hipster otter
Pages: [1] 2 3  All
 

Page created in 0.24 seconds with 21 queries.