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Author Topic: 3 Actions that let Silver Shine  (Read 4809 times)

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One Armed Man

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3 Actions that let Silver Shine
« on: June 24, 2012, 04:38:30 pm »
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Silver is often a consolation prize for a mediocre turn. Threads have ensued about silver/terminal openings vs. 2terminals, silver/potion openings, whether silver is worth getting in the mid-late game at all. Silver gainers like Explorer, Trader, Trading Post, and Bureaucrat are often weak. Other ways to gain silver are Workshop-like effects, JOAT, Upgrade and Remake.

Some ideas that came from the fact that silver is always available. Names are an afterthought, sorry if I copied yours.

Jeweler?- 6 cost.
Action
Name a Treasure card. That Treasure produces an extra 1coin this turn. Then, +1 Card.

Inspired by Coppersmith. Adding value to Silver alone likely leads to dumb Big Money games, and giving players the choice makes the math of deciding what to choose easy. Adding the +1 card after the naming and making it compete with Gold often makes the player feel smart. In a hand of Copper, Silver, Gold, Jeweler, Estate: if you want a province, you name Copper because drawing a gold or silver gives you 2 coin anyway.


Whitesmith? - 4 cost.
Action
+2 Cards. Reveal any number of Silver cards from your hand. +1 Action for each Silver revealed.

What is this card for? What card combinations break it? I don't know, but it is decently powerful in most weak boards. Silvering works best if you have no villages available and are choosing to Big Money. Engines might not pick up silvers usually.


Villain? - 5 cost.
Action-Attack
+1 Coin. +1 Buy. Each other player gains a Silver, placing it in their hand. Look in each other player's hand; choose 1 non-Victory card and return it to the Supply.

This card is likely going to cause people to freak out. It lets you take away people's most-wanted card! Unfun for new players. Like Saboteur, but with an exception for victory cards. In boards with Villain, getting double terminal in hand is okay, because the attack either doesn't hurt you or resolves the collision itself in hands with 2 terminals. Hitting a 5 cost attack is potent, hitting a Gold reduces the hand's coin output by 1, but 7+ cost cards instantly become unsafe. The card encourages buying 2 mediocre cards over 1 strong one. Even if you are hit with this attack multiple times, the worst thing happens the first time, and you are left with a silver for every card it hits, leaving you a hand like Silver, Silver, Silver, Copper, Province in the mid-late game. Schemes are good protection, Alchemists are vulnerable, and Herbalists (another +1 coin, +1 buy) might endanger your Treaures, and high value villages (Bazaar, Festival, City) might be pulled from your hand if you have 2 terminals in hand. Until recently, I had it trash the cards. In long multiplayer games, the silvers might run out, resulting in that version turning deadly.
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pst

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Re: 3 Actions that let Silver Shine
« Reply #1 on: June 24, 2012, 06:32:16 pm »
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Villain? - 5 cost.
Action-Attack
+1 Coin. +1 Buy. Each other player gains a Silver, placing it in their hand. Look in each other player's hand; choose 1 non-Victory card and return it to the Supply.

Interesting. But what happens if you choose a card that is not in the supply? (I suppose you choose the card, OK, and then you try to return it to the supply, which isn't possible, so the chosen card remains in the opponent's hand.)
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One Armed Man

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Re: 3 Actions that let Silver Shine
« Reply #2 on: June 24, 2012, 06:49:44 pm »
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That would only happen with Black Market or Tournament Prizes, if I remember correctly.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=137.0 is a similar situation with Ambassador. Black Market and Tournament would be a decent counters, though the Black Market and Tournament cards themselves can still be returned to the supply.
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qmech

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Re: 3 Actions that let Silver Shine
« Reply #3 on: June 25, 2012, 05:00:44 am »
+1

Silver gainers like Explorer, Trader, Trading Post, and Bureaucrat are often weak.
Trading Post does not belong in this list!  The trashing without really harming your deck or current hand's buying power is strong, and the fact that the mechanism is Silver-gaining specifically is less important.  It's more like Jack, which you have listed separately.

Jeweler?- 6 cost.
Action
Name a Treasure card. That Treasure produces an extra 1coin this turn. Then, +1 Card.
A version of Coppersmith for any other kind of Treasure would likely be weaker than Coppersmith itself as Copper is usually the most numerous type of treasure in your deck.  The added flexibility here ups the strength a little, but I'm not sure when you'd want this but not want Coppersmith.  A bare +1 Card (without an Action to go with it) feels a little odd too.

Whitesmith? - 4 cost.
Action
+2 Cards. Reveal any number of Silver cards from your hand. +1 Action for each Silver revealed.
A cheap Lab that might be a Moat early, but is likely to move through level 2 City status and beyond later on.  As a source of Actions it would be interesting because you have to balance Silvers against engine components.  For Big Money it looks too much like a cheap Lab, so the cost probably needs nudging up to $5.

Villain? - 5 cost.
Action-Attack
+1 Coin. +1 Buy. Each other player gains a Silver, placing it in their hand. Look in each other player's hand; choose 1 non-Victory card and return it to the Supply.
This is much more severe than Saboteur.  It hits best of 5 rather than a random card, and it hurts your current hand rather than merely degrading the quality of your deck.  It would destroy any kind of engine, and games could easily turn into degenerate Villainy.
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One Armed Man

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Re: 3 Actions that let Silver Shine
« Reply #4 on: June 25, 2012, 10:21:37 am »
+1

A version of Coppersmith for any other kind of Treasure would likely be weaker than Coppersmith itself as Copper is usually the most numerous type of treasure in your deck.  The added flexibility here ups the strength a little, but I'm not sure when you'd want this but not want Coppersmith.  A bare +1 Card (without an Action to go with it) feels a little odd too.

Often true. The bare +1 Card is like a last chance to get the treasure you are looking for, like a Wishing Well. It is an advantage over Coppersmith when declaring Copper. Jeweler doesn't have to be used with Copper. The cards listed above, but especially Chapel Remake and Trader lead to decks stuffed with Silver.

A cheap Lab that might be a Moat early, but is likely to move through level 2 City status and beyond later on.  As a source of Actions it would be interesting because you have to balance Silvers against engine components.  For Big Money it looks too much like a cheap Lab, so the cost probably needs nudging up to $5.
Labs don't seem to be a huge problem with big money. It takes 2 Labs to match a Smithy in card draw and 3 Labs to beat it if you don't care about actions. Letting a Big Money player get a "lab" for $4 often gives them the choice of buying more Whitesmith or more Silver to make it usable whenever they can spend $4.

This is much more severe than Saboteur.  It hits best of 5 rather than a random card, and it hurts your current hand rather than merely degrading the quality of your deck.  It would destroy any kind of engine, and games could easily turn into degenerate Villainy.
Saboteur is a bad card.
Villain's engine destroying is possible because it both mucks and removes components; it make take a lot of playing with it to see if it turns into degenerate Attack+BM. If it is weak enough, there will be reason to use it to take out cards other than itself (which only gives +1 coin) given the opportunity. If it is too strong, people's turns may turn into "Play Villain. Return a Villain in opponent's hand to supply. Silver. Silver. Buy Villain", which is not a fun, dynamic game.

How does it compare with:
Villain Trasher? - 5 cost.
Action-Attack
+1 Coin. +1 Buy. Each other player gains a Silver, placing it in their hand. Look at the hand of each player that gained a Silver; choose 1 non-Victory card and trash it.

This version makes it more likely the game ends on piles (perhaps itself) and also interacts with City and Fools Gold and engines differently. It hits prizes and Black Market cards. I think it might be less good overall.
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Schlippy

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Re: 3 Actions that let Silver Shine
« Reply #5 on: June 25, 2012, 11:31:12 am »
+1

Believe me, Jeweler is absurdly strong in a lot of Kingdoms with special Treasure cards. I've tested something quite similar in >20 games for a card of mine.
It is already relatively strong  for $6 if it was only working on silver. (But would be fine at $5 too I think)
« Last Edit: June 25, 2012, 11:37:46 am by Schlippy »
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rinkworks

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Re: 3 Actions that let Silver Shine
« Reply #6 on: June 25, 2012, 12:28:48 pm »
+1

Whitesmith is really interesting.  I agree that $4 is probably fine for it, since, as you say, it's a Lab that only works in money games, where Labs aren't as useful anyway.   The question is, is it better than Silver for such a game?  If not, you'd simply never buy it.

It's not necessarily clear.  +2 Cards is roughly the same, power-wise, as +$2.  Better in the mid-game; worse early and late.  So it all depends on if you have enough other action cards to play with it.  If you draw just 1 action card with the +2 Cards, that's a good play of the card.  Otherwise, you need at least 2 terminals, plus at least 2 Silvers with which to get the actions for them.  That's a very specific area of usefulness, and one you won't encounter much if at all once you start greening.  Because there's simply not much room in your hand for green cards PLUS all the other cards you need for Whitesmith to be useful.  So I'm concerned that this is too particular a card to work very well.

Jeweler is a lot like Bank, which also offers +$1 per Treasure card, except that Jeweler (1) requires an Action to play, and (2) only works on one type of Treasure card.  (Bank's $1 and Jeweler's +1 Card roughly cancel each other out in terms of power level.)  At first glance, this makes Jeweler a lot weaker.  But consider that if you use Jeweler at all, you're going to concentrate on spamming a single other Treasure card (Silvers, probably, but perhaps also Coppers or Ventures or something), and all that Treasure will reduce the likelihood of terminal collisions.  So when you use Jeweler correctly, it's probably not THAT much weaker.  I'd say $6 sounds about right.

Villain is too nasty to be fun.  No way I'd ever play a game with it.
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qmech

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Re: 3 Actions that let Silver Shine
« Reply #7 on: June 25, 2012, 02:12:34 pm »
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Believe me, Jeweller is absurdly strong in a lot of Kingdoms with special Treasure cards. I've tested something quite similar in >20 games for a card of mine.
It is already relatively strong  for $6 if it was only working on silver. (But would be fine at $5 too I think)
Can you say which Kingdom Treasure it works well with?  I still can't see it ever being much better than a terminal Gold.

I think I'm sold on Whitesmith being fine at $4.
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Dsell

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Re: 3 Actions that let Silver Shine
« Reply #8 on: June 25, 2012, 04:58:11 pm »
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Believe me, Jeweller is absurdly strong in a lot of Kingdoms with special Treasure cards. I've tested something quite similar in >20 games for a card of mine.
It is already relatively strong  for $6 if it was only working on silver. (But would be fine at $5 too I think)
Can you say which Kingdom Treasure it works well with?  I still can't see it ever being much better than a terminal Gold.

Well I immediately thought of venture. Venture stacks that are worth $2 apiece? Yes, please. (But really, no, no that would not be a good thing.)
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rinkworks

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Re: 3 Actions that let Silver Shine
« Reply #9 on: June 25, 2012, 07:57:45 pm »
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Believe me, Jeweller is absurdly strong in a lot of Kingdoms with special Treasure cards. I've tested something quite similar in >20 games for a card of mine.
It is already relatively strong  for $6 if it was only working on silver. (But would be fine at $5 too I think)
Can you say which Kingdom Treasure it works well with?  I still can't see it ever being much better than a terminal Gold.

Well I immediately thought of venture. Venture stacks that are worth $2 apiece? Yes, please. (But really, no, no that would not be a good thing.)

If you throw down a Bank after playing your Ventures, though, isn't that exactly what happens?  Jeweler is no better and harder to stack.
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Dsell

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Re: 3 Actions that let Silver Shine
« Reply #10 on: June 25, 2012, 08:09:57 pm »
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Believe me, Jeweller is absurdly strong in a lot of Kingdoms with special Treasure cards. I've tested something quite similar in >20 games for a card of mine.
It is already relatively strong  for $6 if it was only working on silver. (But would be fine at $5 too I think)
Can you say which Kingdom Treasure it works well with?  I still can't see it ever being much better than a terminal Gold.

Well I immediately thought of venture. Venture stacks that are worth $2 apiece? Yes, please. (But really, no, no that would not be a good thing.)

If you throw down a Bank after playing your Ventures, though, isn't that exactly what happens?  Jeweler is no better and harder to stack.

True. It really is a lot like bank. With bank though, you have to dilute your venture stack a bit? Only makes a tiny bit of difference. $6 and $7 cards are tough enough to get that I give a lot of lee-way to their effects, so as long as this is interesting it's probably decent at the price. It might be worth building a deck around too (besides the obvious venture stack synergy).
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inverseParanoid

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Re: 3 Actions that let Silver Shine
« Reply #11 on: June 25, 2012, 08:50:15 pm »
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Whitesmith is really interesting.  I agree that $4 is probably fine for it, since, as you say, it's a Lab that only works in money games, where Labs aren't as useful anyway.   The question is, is it better than Silver for such a game?  If not, you'd simply never buy it.

As written, this card looks a little OP at $4. For one, you get to draw two cards and then get +1 action per silver card. So, in standard hands, only 1 in 6 cards has to be a silver for it to stop you from drawing dead, making it a whole lot more viable for engines since you'd only need a handful of silvers to create a self-sustaining whitesmith chain.

And if there are any +cards cards available, drawing your whole deck will be much easier. Imagine whitesmith + (any +3 cards card) + (any powerful terminal). With any luck (and most dueling engine games would swing on that luck), whitesmith chains will build up mass actions, and then your draw cards will ensure a full deck, and then you can spam bridge or goons or whatever else you have.

Or imagine you start a hand with KC + whitesmith and no silver. With any other KC + terminal you'd be drawing dead, but with whitesmith, all you need is one of your next 6 cards to be a silver and you can wreak more havoc.

If you truly want this to be a card that works best with BM and doesn't mesh so well with engines, then I think you ought to change it so that you get one +action per silver BEFORE you draw you cards. But then you run into the problem that rinkworks was talking about, where it's just too particular to sync well with a lot of strategies.
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One Armed Man

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Re: 3 Actions that let Silver Shine
« Reply #12 on: June 25, 2012, 09:12:19 pm »
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As written, this card looks a little OP at $4. For one, you get to draw two cards and then get +1 action per silver card. So, in standard hands, only 1 in 6 cards has to be a silver for it to stop you from drawing dead, making it a whole lot more viable for engines since you'd only need a handful of silvers to create a self-sustaining whitesmith chain.
It would be a very strong card at 4. Not many cards can give you +2 cards, +actions for 4 except for Caravan (delayed), Spice Merchant (requires trashing), Menagerie (another special case), Shanty Town (another special case), Warehouse (discard). The natural problem is the ease of "gaining" 4 cost cards.
And if there are any +cards cards available, drawing your whole deck will be much easier. Imagine whitesmith + (any +3 cards card) + (any powerful terminal). With any luck (and most dueling engine games would swing on that luck), whitesmith chains will build up mass actions, and then your draw cards will ensure a full deck, and then you can spam bridge or goons or whatever else you have.
It seems like you have to do quite a bit of work to make this work. You need a few silvers (enough to draw them with early draws), Whitesmith, +3 drawer, and a powerful terminal. Compare that to a few villages, extra copies of +3 drawer, and powerful terminal.
Or imagine you start a hand with KC + whitesmith and no silver. With any other KC + terminal you'd be drawing dead, but with whitesmith, all you need is one of your next 6 cards to be a silver and you can wreak more havoc.
If you have a hand of KC + Lab, you already have most of the actions you could need in a turn and you don't need to dilute your KC deck with Silvers to do it.
If you truly want this to be a card that works best with BM and doesn't mesh so well with engines, then I think you ought to change it so that you get one +action per silver BEFORE you draw you cards. But then you run into the problem that rinkworks was talking about, where it's just too particular to sync well with a lot of strategies.
I did not intend it to be a card that works with BM; I tend to try to avoid many more of those. I just wondered the proper use of it. Like you said, it seems like its best use is for Megaturn strategies.
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inverseParanoid

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Re: 3 Actions that let Silver Shine
« Reply #13 on: June 25, 2012, 11:26:18 pm »
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It would be a very strong card at 4. Not many cards can give you +2 cards, +actions for 4 except for Caravan (delayed), Spice Merchant (requires trashing), Menagerie (another special case), Shanty Town (another special case), Warehouse (discard). The natural problem is the ease of "gaining" 4 cost cards.
So what are your thoughts on rewarding the +actions per silver before drawing +2 cards? Wouldn't that put it more on par with some of those other cards?
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One Armed Man

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Re: 3 Actions that let Silver Shine
« Reply #14 on: June 25, 2012, 11:50:57 pm »
+1

Sure, it makes sense to gain the actions first to correct to power level of the card. I liked it the other way aesthetically, but the effect is a little too versatile without some kind of change.
(New) Whitesmith? - 4 cost.
Action
Reveal any number of Silver cards from your hand. +1 Action for each Silver revealed. Then, +2 Cards.
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