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[Death to Sea Hags]

Increase or decrease deck size?  why not ironworks?

[Grujah]

Increase or decrease deck size?  why not ironworks?

Ironworks cannot decrease. You need both to qualify.

[ehunt]

Am I correct that Black Market only works if there is a Mint in the Black Market deck?

I also don't understand the answer to the island puzzle, since kc and tr and golem can't by themselves make your deck any bigger.

Awesome puzzles!

[Morgrim7]

Increase or decrease deck size?  why not ironworks?

No, because then that list would contain Chapel, Remodel, Workshop, Bureaucrat, Upgrade, Feast, Trading Post, Embargo, Salvager, Explorer, Lookout, ect. ect.

[Morgrim7]

Am I correct that Black Market only works if there is a Mint in the Black Market deck?

I also don't understand the answer to the island puzzle, since kc and tr and golem can't by themselves make your deck any bigger.

Awesome puzzles!

I believe Farmland in the BM deck would work as well.

[eHalcyon]

II
B
i - Edited: Lookout. Loan
ii - actually 3 - KC, TR, Golem

Also, good, hard, but also not farfetch'd - ie great puzzle.

Assuming the quality was correctly identified, how do KC, TR, Golem work with Island to make it fit?  I would instead say Ironworks and Transmute.

Edit: Wait, Ironworks still makes no sense there.  Um.

Edit: And regarding Black Market, I think it's quite a stretch.  It only increases your deck size if you buy something from the BM.  You might as well include Salvager then, which can trash (decrease) but also give +Buy (increase).

[Grujah]

Morgrim - Farmland doesn't work, if you fail to remodel - net gain is 0 cards.

eHalcyon - I don't see how Ironworks works there, I get the Transmute (empty piles). Just rethought it, Golem/TR/KC don't work with island alone. You are right, I made a mistake.


Edit:
Well, with BM you resolve the buying during the "playing of the card", not after, like Salvager.

[Death to Sea Hags]

Increase or decrease deck size?  why not ironworks?

No, because then that list would contain Chapel, Remodel, Workshop, Bureaucrat, Upgrade, Feast, Trading Post, Embargo, Salvager, Explorer, Lookout, ect. ect.

Point was that if KC-TR-Golem work, then so does Ironworks - Gain without Loss or Loss without Gain.  So they don't work for the Island puzzle...

eHalcyon: Wouldn't Transmute also work on with Great Hall, Nobles, etc?  It's not the Island itself that is reducing size, after all. 

[DG]

(ii) Transmute and develop. A 4 or 7 cost card (or highway or bridge) is needed in the kingdom for develop to be able to gain two cards. Transmutes can trash islands to gain two cards. Both can trash curses with no card gained.

[eHalcyon]

eHalcyon: Wouldn't Transmute also work on with Great Hall, Nobles, etc?  It's not the Island itself that is reducing size, after all. 

Yeah it would work with those too.  I'm guessing that the OP didn't want to include them all because it would make it too obvious.

(ii) Transmute and develop. A 4 or 7 cost card (or highway or bridge) is needed in the kingdom for develop to be able to gain two cards. Transmutes can trash islands to gain two cards. Both can trash curses with no card gained.

Develop works with a lot of stuff too.  But I guess Island was chosen to make both things work.

[dghunter79]

II (a)

Then, is puzzle 2 Cards that can both increase and decrease the number of cards in your deck/hand when played?

You got it!  All the cards in Puzzle II (a) can, no matter what other cards are in the Kingdom, be played both for a net increase and also for a net decrease to the number of cards in your deck (and on your mats).

In the second hint for Puzzle II, the dashes represent the largest number of cards that each card can trash or gain in all possible Kingdoms.  The number of dashes to the left of Cool is the guaranteed number of cards that can be trashed, to the right is the guaranteed number that can be gained. 

For example, in any Kingdom that includes a card that increases hand-size, Forge can trash lots of cards.  But even without any cards like that, Forge can always trash at least the other four cards in the hand, so long as there are no cards in Dominion equal to their total cost -- which can be arranged in all Kingdoms.  Likewise, in Colony games, Trader can net-gain ten cards if it's used on a Colony.  However, not all Kingdoms contain Colonies.  But they do all have Provinces.  So, Forge can only guaranteed-trash four cards, while Trader can only guaranteed-gain seven. 

Black Market was an interesting case.  If the only way it could be played to trash cards was to purchase a Mint, then whenever Mint was in the Kingdom, it could not be played for a net trash.  So, it wouldn't count.   However, while you are playing Black Market, you can play a Loan to trash a treasure, and play a Horn of Plenty to gain a Victory Card, which you then use Watchtower to trash.  By the time Black Market has resolved, you have achieved a net loss of two cards.  And it doesn't matter if Loan or Horn or Watchtower are in the Kingdom.  If they aren't, then they may be in the Black Market deck; so you can, in all Kingdom's, have at least one.  That's why I indicated that Black Market can be played for a net loss of two in all Kingdoms.  (I may have missed something that screws up that count.  I know my count for the number of cards Black Market can guaranteed-gain is off by at least one because -- I forgot Ill-Gotten Gains.)

Part 2:
If theme 2 is "increase or decrease your deck size", a lot of cards make some sense: Masquerade, Develop, Loan for part i

Masquerade should definitely have been included on the list.  Whoops.  Whoops.  Actually, Masquerade can only be used to gain cards in very specific, Kingdom-dependent scenarios.

II (b) i

Loan, as hypothesized by AJD and confirmed by Grujah.


II (b) ii

(ii) Transmute and develop. A 4 or 7 cost card (or highway or bridge) is needed in the kingdom for develop to be able to gain two cards. Transmutes can trash islands to gain two cards. Both can trash curses with no card gained.

That's it!  A lot of cards could have been mentioned here, but I thought the way Island brought in both Develop and Transmute was niftiest.

Thanks for playing, all!