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[rinkworks]

Submission Rules

* Submit no more than one card per person per challenge.  You do not need to submit for all challenges if you don't want to, but of course you can't win if you don't compete.
* Submit your cards to me via this forum's messaging system.  Submissions made after each week's deadline cannot be accepted.
* Each card you submit must have a name, a cost, a list of types, and the exact wording that should appear on the card.  Also include a brief description of any special design considerations (e.g., Stash having a unique back), but do NOT include any other information, such as strategic commentary or examples about it would play.
* Although you must submit names for each of your cards, the names will not be listed on the voting ballots, so make sure your card's appeal does not depend on your choice of name.
* I will accept revisions to your contest entries provided they are submitted to me before the deadline.  If you submit a revision to an entry you have previously submitted to me, resubmit your revised card(s) in their entirety.  That is, don't tell me "Oh, can you make that +2 Cards say +3 Cards instead?"  Just resubmit the full card.
* Only submit cards that are your own design.
* You may submit cards that have been previously posted here in this forum, including those that have been refined by the community as a whole, provided you can still claim that the central conceit of the card -- and the majority of its final version -- is yours.  This applies to cards previously posted, however -- if your submissions aren't already posted on his board, please refrain from doing so until after the results have been announced.
* A single card might conceivably qualify for multiple challenges within this series.  However, you may not submit the same card for more than one concurrent challenge.  That is, if you have submitted a card to one challenge, you may not submit it to another challenge until the results of that first challenge have been announced.
* Do not disclose your submissions publicly, either in this thread or elsewhere

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The deadline for this week's challenges is Thursday, September 27, at 10am EDT.

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Challenge #17 - +Buy

Objective: Create a card that offers at least +1 Buy each time it is played.  The card need not always give +Buy, but it must always (rare edge cases excepted) be possible for the player to choose to get +Buy by playing the card.

Official Examples: Numerous cards that give +Buy flat out, such as Festival, Baron, Salvager, and Contraband.  Pawn and Squire, because the player is always free to choose the +Buy options on these cards.  Hamlet, because the player may choose to discard a card to get +Buy except in the rare circumstance where the player no longer has any cards in hand.  Tactician, even though the +Buy is only offered on the next turn. 

Official Non-Examples: Spice Merchant, because not having a Treasure in hand to trash happens a bit too often to be considered an edge case.  City, because not getting +Buy out of that card is common.  Workshop, Black Market, Possession, and other sources of "pseudo-buys" (as they are sometimes called), because that's not good enough.

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The Ballot
The Results

[eHalcyon]

AT LAST.

[Fragasnap]

Official Non-Examples: ...  Workshop, Black Market, Possession, and other sources of "pseudo-buys" (as they are sometimes called), because that's not good enough.

I believe this argument has made my day. +1, sir.

[Davio]

Okay, I'm in, but it took me a little longer than usual. 

[NoMoreFun]

From the card design guide:

"+1 Buy is probably usually worth an extra coin, as demonstrated by Village and Worker's Village. Adding +1 Buy onto something is possibly not enough to warrant crossing the $4 to $5 threshold, but this valuation probably suffices for the lower costs. You should also consider whether the +1 Buy is just an unrelated buff or if it synergizes with what else the card does. For example, the +1 Buy on Worker's Village is just a extra bonus. On Salvager, Bridge, Goons, and Contraband, the +Buy makes the card as a whole work properly. (On Contraband, it allows you to compensate for being blocked from Provinces by picking up two Duchies instead of just one.) If the +Buy synergizes with the rest of the card, you can possibly justify a steeper price bump.

Note, by the way, that a second +Buy is probably not worth the same price increase that the first +Buy is worth. Buys go unused quite frequently; the more +Buys your card offers, the more likely the extras will be unnecessary."

I also know that I'll be personally voting based on how the card synergises with its +buy. An otherwise good card that just seems to have the +buy thrown on doesn't seem to fit the spirit of the competition.

[Archetype]

Agreeing with NMF, I vote for cards that fit a challenge. Not for cards with an effect tacked on so it can qualify.

[eHalcyon]

I'm pretty open for this one.  I think some cards can end up doing too much to self-synergize (Crystal Ball borders on that, but I like it because of the link to the card name).  I'll be OK if +Buy is tacked onto a card so long as it doesn't seem out of place.  +Buy on WV is just a tacked on bonus, but it works fine.

Since there are so many other cards in this set that synergize with +Buy, I might prefer a very simple +Buy card from this contest.

I also think that I will shy away from any cost reducers, since we already have 2.  (I can barely remember all my biases at this point! )

[Davio]

Agreeing with NMF, I vote for cards that fit a challenge. Not for cards with an effect tacked on so it can qualify.

Well, I tried to create an original card especially for this challenge.

[NoMoreFun]

IMO cards like Pawn would fit fine, since the +buy is a major consideration into whether you want to buy it or not. It's such a hard thing to judge though; it's not immediately obvious why the +buy works so well on Council Room, Wharf, Storeroom, and other cards where it appears to be "tacked on".

My criteria will be "if this didn't have the +buy, would it play any differently?"

[eHalcyon]

IMO cards like Pawn would fit fine, since the +buy is a major consideration into whether you want to buy it or not. It's such a hard thing to judge though; it's not immediately obvious why the +buy works so well on Council Room, Wharf, Storeroom, and other cards where it appears to be "tacked on".

My criteria will be "if this didn't have the +buy, would it play any differently?"

So what's your opinion of Worker's Village?

(I think we're on the same page, anyway.)

[NoMoreFun]

Workers village is a nice, simple card that fills 2 niches that need to be in every expansion anyway. It wouldn't be the greatest fan card, but its role as an official card is perfect.

[Tables]

Worker's Villages +buy is very valuable, though. If you're building an engine, two things you pretty much always want are extra actions and extra buys. Worker's Village giving both for $4 makes it such a good card. Hamlet as well, and so the +buy is a big part of both cards.

Looking at other official cards, which cards seem like they might work almost as well without the +buy?
Baron would work just as well as an opener, but would be less effective in engines.
Wharf would be worse, but would still be up there as one of the best $5's (I'd wager in the top 1/4 still, if not top 10)
City's situational +buy, probably. By the time you're getting it the game's likely over, so if you've needed it (for a while), you probably have no chance.
Horse Traders +buy looks quite weak on there to me, actually... Although of course it does go well with the lump of money it's providing.
Margrave is an interesting one. Without it it'd still be a +3 cards with attack like Rabble and Torturer, but how much worse would it be? Probably somewhat.
Storeroom is probably the strongest case for 'random +buy' on an official card, but since I've never played it... how much can I comment?

I think actually, looking through this, I can see four big occurences of where +buys occur.
1) Cards that give reasonable +coin. Woodcutter, Festival, Baron, Contraband, Horse Traders, Nomad Camp and others
2) Cards which synergise well with the +buy for various reasons. Bridge, Princess, Worker's Village, Hamlet, Market, Goons, Grand Market, Contraband, Herbalist and others.
3) Cards which have (close to or exactly) mandatory trashing. Salvager, Trade Route, Counterfeit, Forager
4) Cards with strong draw. Margrave, Council Room, Wharf, Tactician

There are a few others which don't really fit into those categories, but have other sensible reasons for having +buy (e.g. Pawn, Squire). But these are essentially what the categories are as best I can tell, so if you're still designing a card, let this guide you.

[rinkworks]

I can't tell how much of this conversation, if any, is still about that excerpt from my fan card creation guide, but I'll clarify what I mean anyway.  I was speaking almost exclusively in terms of pricing +Buy cards.  I wasn't criticizing fan cards (or indeed, official cards) that offer +Buy as an extra, unrelated bonus.  Worker's Village does offer it as a tacked-on bonus, but it's a greatly designed card, in large part because, although +Buy and extra Actions don't directly complement each other, they each tend to be useful in similar kinds of decks.

Anyway, to get back to the pricing issue, the value of an unrelated +Buy seems to be worth about one coin, plus or minus some fractional part.  But if the +Buy is synergetic with the rest of the card, you can justify a steeper price.

You see this with Council Room.  If you take out the +Buy on Council Room, you're left with a card that really ought to be weaker than Smithy.  I mean, it's a Smithy, plus each player gets an extra card -- only it's a non-terminal extra card (Laboratory) for everybody else, and just another terminally drawn card for you.  But the +Buy here is worth more than usual, because when you've added four cards to your hand (essentially doubling the size of your hand, when you discount the card slot used by the Council Room itself), you're more likely than usual to need that +Buy.  And put Council Room in an engine, when you can chain them, you'll need that +Buy even more.

Anyway, voters may obviously desire a synergetic +Buy and cast their votes accordingly.  I think a synergetic +Buy can make for an elegant and pleasing card, but I don't find anything inelegant about a tacked-on +Buy.  The only time I object is when the +Buy anti-synergizes with the rest of the card.  Then it just looks clumsy.  Imagine a Tactician that offered its +Buy on the current turn instead of the next turn -- exactly when you probably can't use it.

[Drab Emordnilap]

The only time I object is when the +Buy anti-synergizes with the rest of the card.  Then it just looks clumsy.

Uh oh. What if it's anti-synergistic on purpose?

[eHalcyon]

The only time I object is when the +Buy anti-synergizes with the rest of the card.  Then it just looks clumsy.

Uh oh. What if it's anti-synergistic on purpose?

Someone submitted a price increaser.

[rinkworks]

The only time I object is when the +Buy anti-synergizes with the rest of the card.  Then it just looks clumsy.

Uh oh. What if it's anti-synergistic on purpose?

Well, that'd be fine too, I guess, provided the overall design made sense.  I guess I'm thinking more about cards that are complete ideas without the +Buy and then are arbitrarily given +Buy just to buff them a little, only it turns out that +Buy is kind of useless in that context.

For example, let's say that for some reason we thought the challenge #15 winner, Missionary, was a little weak and needed a small buff.  I know, add +Buy!  So now the on-play effect is "+1 Buy.  Trash two cards from your hand."  Sure, there might be times when you what that exact combination, but the normal use of the card would be in a Missionary-Junk-Junk-X-X hand, so you play Missionary, and now you have a +Buy so you can spend that X-X, if they happen to be Treasure cards, on two separate cards!  Just a strange mix of effects overall.

On the other hand, just to use eHalcyon's +Buy price-increaser example, that's anti-synergetic but still feels like a coherent design.  I mean, +Buy and price-changing necessarily impact one another, so if you're putting the two together -- whether they're synergetic (Bridge) or not (price increasing), that's got to be for a particular purpose, right?

[eHalcyon]

Several promising +Buy cards in contests 15 and 16 did not make it, so there's extra pressure on this contest now!  I hope there is a tie.

[Schneau]

Several promising +Buy cards in contests 15 and 16 did not make it, so there's extra pressure on this contest now!  I hope there is a tie.

Yeah, I was bummed by that. I put +Buy on both my cards, as I see you did too. A set of about 20 cards needs more than 1 +Buy!

[eHalcyon]

Several promising +Buy cards in contests 15 and 16 did not make it, so there's extra pressure on this contest now!  I hope there is a tie.

Yeah, I was bummed by that. I put +Buy on both my cards, as I see you did too. A set of about 20 cards needs more than 1 +Buy!

My treasure was never going to win though.

[yuma]

In looking over cards with +buy I also began to notice the cards that didn't, or rather the cards that would become broken if a +buy had been included within the card. Peddler, Bank, Hoard, Highway, Treasury, Philosopher's Stone, Quarry & Fool's Gold (just to name a few) all get way too strong with a +buy added.

Now that I look at the cards I just put down, it is interesting that they all fall into two categories (treasures or cantrips)... not that +buys are bad on these types of cards (Counterfeit/Contraband, Grand Market).

[Kirian]

Several promising +Buy cards in contests 15 and 16 did not make it, so there's extra pressure on this contest now!  I hope there is a tie.

Yeah, I was bummed by that. I put +Buy on both my cards, as I see you did too. A set of about 20 cards needs more than 1 +Buy!

Especially one with three non-terminal draws.  Hopefully there will be a tie for this one; if not, I would endorse taking the top two.

[eHalcyon]

Several promising +Buy cards in contests 15 and 16 did not make it, so there's extra pressure on this contest now!  I hope there is a tie.

Yeah, I was bummed by that. I put +Buy on both my cards, as I see you did too. A set of about 20 cards needs more than 1 +Buy!

Especially one with three non-terminal draws.  Hopefully there will be a tie for this one; if not, I would endorse taking the top two.

And I would still be happy to drop Harbinger from the set.

[Saucery]

I had a card idea with +buy which was scrapped for exactly the reasons stated above; Not all that useful with a reduced hand size.

[werothegreat]

Sent.  Didn't even realize there was a contest going on until now.

[GendoIkari]

The only time I object is when the +Buy anti-synergizes with the rest of the card.  Then it just looks clumsy.  Imagine a Tactician that offered its +Buy on the current turn instead of the next turn -- exactly when you probably can't use it.

Bull in a Crystal Shop
$2 Action

+3 $
+5 buys
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While this is in play, you cannot buy any cards.


Works great with Procession!!