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[WanderingWinder]

First off, a note on the set as a whole. I decided to dabble in designing cards, and, unsurprisingly, I really like it. Now if only I could find a good way to playtest them... Anyway, this is a double set (50 cards), with a few different related themes, which could probably be broken into a couple of different sets, but I haven't worked out where yet. It's not very polished at all. I'm sure there are a couple of wording issues here or there. I don't have any art or card mock-ups. There are probably more than a few broken cards. And there are a couple things I'd like to get in - another village, another defensive card or two, and a library variant or two - but I think there are some pretty nice, fun, simple, good cards in here for sure. Maybe I'm just not sure what they are yet!  Anyway, here's a quick breakdown of the different cards by cost and type:

6  2s
11 3s
17 4s
11 5s
5 6s

40 Actions
4 Treasure
8 Victory
8 Reaction
10 Attack

And here are the first 3 2-cost cards, with a short explanation of each.

Squire
Action         2
+$1
Draw Cards until there are 5 cards in your hand.
(Originally had an action instead of $1)

So here's the one Library variant I do have in the set. By itself, with no support, it's just a cantrip. And it doesn't play well with other card draw. But if there's any non-replacing nonterminals, or any discard attacks, or any particular reason to want action cards in your deck or in play (i.e. vineyards, conspirator), then it can be good. But I doubt it's ever SO good, and it only costs 2, so it seems reasonable to me.

Servants' Village
Action         2
+2 Actions
+$1
Yeah, a basic village-variant. Probably it could cost 3. I'm fine with it costing 2. It's usually going to be a fair bit worse than village, probably usually a little better than native village, but when it's worse it'll be a good bit worse, and when it's better, it might not be much better.

Bronze
Treasure      2
Worth $1
+1 card
You may return a card from your hand to the top of your deck.
(Originally didn't have the last line).

Yeah, so this is the first sorta interesting or weird or different card. You know, it's probably going to be a copper most often, since any action is dead in the buy phase, but it'll be silver decently often, and for money-based decks it compares sorta to venture, though obviously worse. Also combos with black market potentially. If this is too boring, there's probably a variant that plays the next card if it's an action or treasure, which will only make a difference were it an action... but this is quite a bit stronger, and I'm less sure how to price it.

Novice
Action         2
+1Action
Gain a card costing up to $3

I'm very concerned about this card. It seems so boring, so likely to not be useful, but it also has the potential to be broken, especially on the right board.

Renew
Action         2
+1 Card
+1 Action
Discard your deck at the end of your turn.
(Originally didn't have the 'at the end of your turn' clause).

The Chancellor effect on a cantrip. I'm also pretty concerned here - of course it combos well with stash, which I'm not worried about, and counting house, which I'm not worried about, and... well, just like chancellor, it doesn't do much. But it's probably fine - sorta similar to pearl diver.

Assassin
Action-Attack      2
+$1
Every other player reveals their hands. Choose a card for them to discard. Then each player draws two cards.
(originally had them draw one card)

Okay, the other interesting card. Very weak benefit to yourself, but the attack is fairly disruptive. Well, it's terminal, but again I'm fairly anxious, and I need to get some playtesting in.

[Graystripe77]

Squire:
    I could see this working with discard for benefit cards very well, similar to library. I think it's fine, but if it turns out too                  weak, maybe add +$1.

Servants Village:
    Seams kind of strong to be at 2, but not strong enough to be at 3. How about replacing the +$1 with a buy?

Bronze:
    Interesting card, I think this new treasure dynamic is interesting. Keep it like it is.


All in all, nice job so far.

[rinkworks]

Very excited to see more of what you've come up with!  These first three look good.  At first I thought Servant's Village really should be $3, since a card and a coin aren't all THAT wildly different from each other in terms of value.  Then I realized that's really only true on a terminal.  On a non-terminal, the card is worth substantially more.

My only real hesitation is with Bronze.  I thought of a +Card bonus on Treasure cards too, but I couldn't figure out how to do that without disincentivizing anything but Big Money strategies.  +Cards on a treasure is a win if you turn up a Treasure (because you can spend it that turn), a win if you turn up a Victory card (because you won't get stuck with it next turn), but a loss if you turn up an Action card.  So the only real way to maximize your gains off Bronze is not to play with Actions.  Unfortunate, because a drawing treasure card sounds pretty cool.  Maybe if you could return actions to the top of your deck and draw only the next non-action?  That screws with the simplicity of the card, but it might be worth it.

Might also mean you have to price it at $3 or $4, too, though, so I don't know.

[WanderingWinder]

So Bronze. Bronze Bronze Bronze. Well, the thing is, you really want to compare it to venture. Now, venture is a good card, and big money w/venture is a fairly good deck. But now let's look at the differences. Big thing is that bronze is a lot cheaper. But on the con side, it plays well with almost no actions (only exceptions are black market, maybe 1 or two cards I haven't revealed yet in my expansion, explorer, bureaucrat, and maybe limited trashers), whereas venture plays well with all actions and those especially. Also, Bronze can hit victory. Venture can't. So overall, with just money, the bronze is going to be worse than venture to have all the time, but not much so in the heart of the game. And it's much easier to get. Maybe Big Money-Bronze is better than Big Money-Venture, but I doubt by all that much. And, well, big money-venture isn't really all that strong to start with. If there isn't a strategy better than than on the board, well, I don't think it's because that one is too overpowered. Oh, also with bronze you know exactly when you're triggering the reshuffle, whereas with venture, you don't (usually you can theoretically, but it's hard, and also with other ventures in the mix sometimes you can't). So if anything, I'm worried about it being underpowered, but you know I think it might be interesting enough to start with. But if not, we've got this modification waiting in the wings:

Bronze
Treasure      2
Worth $1
+1 card
Return one card to the top of your deck.

Now it's got the courtyard effect, which probably doesn't change it much at all in terms of big money strength - there are some pros, as is the case when you have more than you need, and some cons, when you have all treasure and this hurts you. But it also significantly helps most action-strategies, especially ones with card draw. This card then becomes really good with like BM-Smithy strategies, pretty interesting. I think you can still cost it at 2, because it still threatens fairly often to be not much better than copper. But this is an interesting little card, and it might be better than what I've originally presented. I want to test both some, though.

[ChaosRed]

Take my feedback with a grain of salt as I don't know a lot about this game yet, but it strikes me that any card with +2 Actions should be worth more than 2$. Maybe if the second action required a trigger? Otherwise I think it might be worth 3$.

[Jack Rudd]

There's one very good reason Servants' Village shouldn't be costed at $3: Fishing Village.

Squire, as written, is potentially extremely strong. You should cut out one of the ways it can be by rewriting its text as follows:

+1 Action
If you have fewer than five cards in your hand, draw cards until there are 5 cards in your hand.

[rinkworks]

Take my feedback with a grain of salt as I don't know a lot about this game yet, but it strikes me that any card with +2 Actions should be worth more than 2$. Maybe if the second action required a trigger? Otherwise I think it might be worth 3$.

Native Village offers +2 Actions and (averaged out over time) somewhere between +0.5 and +0.99 cards.

Squire, as written, is potentially extremely strong. You should cut out one of the ways it can be by rewriting its text as follows:

+1 Action
If you have fewer than five cards in your hand, draw cards until there are 5 cards in your hand.

I'm not really sure how this changes the card at all.  I suppose you could read the card to mean that if you start out with 6 cards, well, that's not 5, so draw another card.  Now you have 7.  That's not 5 cards either, so draw another card.  And so on, until you draw your whole deck.  But Library and Watchtower get away without using that kind of specification, so why not this card?  And it occurs to me that, by the strictest literal interpretation, if you have 6 cards in hand you also have 5.  ("Five!?" Blackadder spluttered, aghast at the little man's stupidity.  "And that one," Baldrick added thoughtfully.)

Or is this not the loophole you were thinking of?  If not, I'm a little bewildered at how your rewording changes the behavior of the card.

Bronze
Treasure      2
Worth $1
+1 card
Return one card to the top of your deck.

A spectacular idea that entirely allays the concerns I had, while still keeping it at a nice power level for $2.

[Jack Rudd]

That is the loophole I was thinking of, yes.

Even without the goofy interpretations of its behaviour, I think it's a bit strong for a cost-2. If you've got cards that make the draw-up-to-five useful, they're likely to make it very very useful.

[rinkworks]

I see your point, yeah.  Either it's not very useful at all, or you have Festivals and Black Markets and Lighthouses and such, and it's a power card.  Still seems interesting enough to try, but I don't know where you price it.  I suppose $2 is a nice compromise between what it's worth sometimes ($0) and other times ($6), but reflective of neither extreme.

[Thinkaman]

I think the ones posted end up missing the mark.  I'll try to be constructive as possible, but tone on the Internet is frequently lost--please imagine this post voiced by Mr. Rogers.

-----

Squire is deceptively narrow.  It combos *extremely* well with non-terminal, non-replacing actions (of which there are about 15) and not so much with anything else until you get villages involved.  Then you've got a bunch of mediocre combos (any non-draw card) and a few crazy ones (Vault, SC, Cellar) again.  It has fun interactions with Minion, Hamlet, and Black Market, but the variance is generally high all around.

The big problem then becomes, beyond being crazy good on some boards and pointless on others, the value by which it decreases future engine components.  It's one thing to have that terminal action you bought make all other terminals look less appetizing, but it's another for Squires to penalize Labs and Smithies.  It's just lame, because those are fun cards.  For a lot of decks in the late game, Squire will become a card players dislike seeing; something like Chapel or Sea Hag can get a free pass here, but not an engine functionality card like this.

The mechanic works on Watchtower by being one function out of three, and it works on Library because the high cost enables it to fight variance through a way higher worst-case value.  I'm not sure there's room for it as a cheap non-terminal.

Somebody already mentioned the big wording mishap, heh.

-----

Servant's Village is pretty unexciting, since people want money to go with their Actions about as much as they want chocolate with their bacon.  This is why Fishing Village has to be so fantastic in reality, in order for the player to feel good when they play it. (It all works out because then optimizing around your chocolate-covered-bacon makes for an interesting game.)

So with this Servant's Village, you've got this card that no one wants to buy unless they need Actions, and if that's the case then they are going to heavily prefer any other Village.  The only advantage to this card is that it's cheap so you can buy them in bulk, except that you really don't want them in bulk?  I mean, chocolate-covered-bacon might be okay once or twice, but I'm not picking up a family pack at Sam's or Costco.

-----

Bronze suffers from the same problem as Squire, but x10: it makes other fun cards less fun.  Hitting actions is just going to be so annoying; it's a weak engine card you can't use in an engine.

Also, from a pure power-level perspective it's quite bad.  The average money supplied by non-chaining Bronze will always be less than 2, and in many decks it will be less than 1.6. (thus making it detrimental to Province acquisition.)  The less you commit yourself to a Bronze-focused strategy, the more sharply they will become burdens on your deck.  At least Black Market makes it way better, which is cute.

So you've got a card that is great in a dedicated thin deck with +Buy, and terrible otherwise.  Cards that combo exclusively with themselves (and in this case, Vault/Bank) are dead ends; you want to shoot for self-comboing cards like Minion (where you get to mix fun non-terminals in) or Lab (where it's only the means to your true end aka other fun stuff).  If the only contribution of Bronze to the game is The Bronze Deck, it's not really worth including.

-----

I think my main point of advice spanning these three is that $2 cost cards by nature need to be kinda tertiary.  Except for Chapel, which is $2 for very special reasons, all the $2 cards are not primary or even secondary deck components, but tertiary.  They are typically afterthoughts that add an almost trivial benefit at a trivial cost.

That doesn't mean they have to be insignificant (Courtyard, Hamlet, and Haven have a pretty big universal impact) or even weak (Lighthouse is quite powerful, even as an alternative opening to Silver), just that they should have the goal of getting out of the way for the other cards--the ones whose cost allow them to have some real fun.

I'd be interested in seeing your non-2 cards.

[WanderingWinder]

I'd be interested in seeing your non-2 cards.

Well, I have 3 more 2s which I'm posting later today, and then we'll move on to the 3s. And yes, the 2s were by far the hardest thing to design - most of them are only in here because I needed 2s, and these were the neatest/most useful things I could come up with.
As for your specific concerns, I sorta agree with a lot of them, but on the other hand, I don't think these things are totally useless, and after all, they only cost 2, so they don't really need to be stars.
I'm totally unconcerned about squire being bad with Lab and Smithy. So what? Every card doesn't have to have synergy with every other card. And just because you really like using those cards for engines doesn't mean everyone else does, or that there's no room for other kinds of engines. Where I am really concerned is about it being not useful enough often enough, and too strong when it is good. But I'm actually not so concerned about that even. The best kind of combo among what you've pointed out looks to be some kind of village-vault-squire, and that will give you $5 and a 5-card hand. Well, I'm not too worried about that, 'cause it's a 3 card combo from three different sets which doesn't totally break the game anyway. Well, okay, village could be any village, vault could be secret chamber (I don't understand how cellar is really that good here)... maybe you're right. We'll see in playtesting. Incidentally, I think that it's going to be at least somewhat useful on most boards, so I'm not actually worried about that, only the potential overpowering nature. And if it's too strong in those cases, I have a few alternative versions, the simplest of which gives $1 instead of an action.
Servant's village: Unexciting? Maybe. I'm okay with that. The comparison here is fishing village, which it is except for the duration, which almost always makes it worse. But then it only costs 2. I'm not concerned, though it's obviously not spectacular. Again, playtesting will help.
Bronze: Well, I've already posted my thoughts above. I expect even with the modified version, it's not going to be all that great all that often, but I do think it is interesting enough. We'll see - needs playtesting.

Anyway, I quite appreciated the feedback. Thanks.

[WanderingWinder]

The last three 2s:

Novice
Action         2
+1Action
Gain a card costing up to $3

I'm very concerned about this card. It seems so boring, so likely to not be useful, but it also has the potential to be broken, especially on the right board.

Renew
Action         2
+1 Card
+1 Action
Discard your deck.

The Chancellor effect on a cantrip. I'm also pretty concerned here - of course it combos well with stash, which I'm not worried about, and counting house, which I'm not worried about, and... well, just like chancellor, it doesn't do much. But it's probably fine - sorta similar to pearl diver.

Assassin
Action-Attack      2
+$1
Every other player reveals their hands. Choose a card for them to discard. Then each player draws a card.

Okay, the other interesting card. Very weak benefit to yourself, but the attack is fairly disruptive. Well, it's terminal, but again I'm fairly anxious, and I need to get some playtesting in.

[rinkworks]

Thinkaman:  Some great observations all around.  I'm not sure I entirely agree your aversion to mixing money and villages, though.  Villages are engine cards, and the ultimate goal of an engine is to accrue money, so if the engine cards themselves generate money (see: Minion, Bazaar), then that's a good thing, right?  But you're right that it would be one of the last choices for a Village-type card, because the modest $ boost isn't worth the drawing loss.

Which makes me wonder if perhaps the better incarnation of this idea isn't the copper-giving-extra-actions that Servant's Village is but the next level up:  +2 Actions, +$2.  Now it's silver-giving-extra-actions.  It would probably be priced at $4 (one up from Silver) and thus still easily affordable as the Village-component of a drawing engine.  But in offering +$2, the loss of the +card doesn't seem nearly as bad.  The burden is off the engine to produce as much as it would with a vanilla Village.

Wait.  That's just Festival without the +Buy, right?  So maybe it's not worth doing that after all, although the $4 price point is a world away from $5, especially if the particular engine you're building needs any of the $5 drawers, like Torturer, Rabble, or Council Room.  But I dunno.

Anyway, just to reiterate, the wording mishap on Squire isn't really a mishap at all:  Watchtower and Library both use the same wording.

--

Novice

No real comments on this one except to say that I don't think it's broken.  Yes, you can suck down Fishing Villages nicely with it, but the fact that it consumes a card slot means there's a limit to how much you want to spam them.  And even if you do and get away with it, once you've got all the $3 cards you need, then they're just dead weight.   So I think it's fine in terms of balance.  Not sure what percentage of boards you'd want it on, though.

Renew

Probably more desirable, all-around, than Chancellor.  The cantrip effect means it's less of a burden on your deck as a whole.  However, the non-optionality of the effect is a small monkeywrench.  I actually like it for that reason:  if you don't want the discard effect, you can't play the card, and you've got a dead slot in your hand.  That, in my opinion, offers a more interesting strategic question than Chancellor does.

Assassin

I really think this is too strong for $2.  It's just brutal.  Think of how troublesome Envoy can be in plucking out your linchpin.  But all the cards Envoy draws are extras you get to add to your original full hand.  This card hits your actual hand, potentially wiping out the turn in a way not even Militia/Ghost Ship can touch.

By contrast, I've tested this card (also originally named Assassin, but which I renamed and tweaked later) quite a bit:

Mercenary
$5 - Action/Attack
+$2
Each player with 4 or more cards in his hand reveals all cards in his hand except for one of his own choosing.  You choose one of the revealed cards for him to discard.

At this point, after playtesting, I'm happy with this version of the card.  Differences from your card:  (1) +$2 instead of +$1; (2) you only get to discard the second-best card, not the first-best; (3) you can only hit them twice, whereas your version has no limit; (4) your version has the opponents replace their cards.

It's quite a bit different in the details, really, but not obviously weaker overall.  I suspect the attack portion of yours is worse overall, even if you don't stack it.  Yet your version costs $2 to mine's $5.  Not that we have to be consistent with each other, but surely they can't both be balanced.

That said, it's a great idea.  In mulling over my card, I never even thought to counterbalance the attack by having the opponents draw to compensate.  [Edit:  I see now that Thanar had that idea in that thread, so credit there as well.]  That feels cleaner to me than an arbitrary limit on stacking.  But I still think second-best will play better than first-best and either way will require a price increase.

[chwhite]

Yeah, I agree with rinkworks.  Assassin is way way way too strong for $2.

I really like the Mercenary, though, and hope that something like it comes up in the remaining "real" expansions.  The compensation of "draw one" rather than "pick the second-best instead" is probably pretty close, except that Assassin is more brutal when stacked.  Attaching the Assassin's attack to a $5 card that gives $2 would probably work, though even that might be too strong.

[Newcomer]

Re: Assassin

A card that I've been toying with has the same attack, except then they draw 2 cards instead of 1.  So they lose their best card, but get 2 others to compensate.  Haven't had a chance to play-test it yet, but it's an idea.  It may very well back-fire a good deal, when the opponent has a dense, balanced deck.  But then, my card idea is a multi-type, so I don't want the attack to be too powerful.  And you want yours balanced as a $2 attack.

[Hamlet]

Novice doesn't seem like a bad card, but it isn't overpowered either. It's kind of just... boring. I could see it being beneficial initially but not in the long run. Pretty much a weaker Workshop with an +1 action on it. I think it works.
Renew is a cool idea, but the wording on Chancellor is specifically for Throne Room or King's Court. It says to discard your deck at the end of your turn if you want to, not the moment you play the card. If the wording was changed, it would look great to me.
Very cool idea with Assassin, but I agree; it is way too strong for just $2. Also, looking through an opponent's hand could be somewhat time consuming for some people. Rinkwork's version makes more sense, as no other card gives the attacker such an advantage over someone's next turn thus far.
You have a lot of really cool ideas with these, can't wait to see what you come up with next.

[WanderingWinder]

Yes, Assassin is probably overpowered for 2; I'm still going to playtest, because terminal coppers are generally not great, but... yeah. Incidentally the attack's strength might be on the order of power of militia I think - better in some decks, worse in others. I don't have a ready-made fix, because I need a 2-cost, and I've got some other stuff on more expensive cards coming up.  Well, you'll see
Novice, yeah, probably boring. But maybe that's okay. A little worried you can get a huge silver ball rolling quickly, but it's probably not such a big problem. Needs testing
Renew: Well, I don't mind the interaction with it happening in the middle of your turn. That actually probably makes it weaker, which is fine by me. It also makes for slightly more interesting play interactions. Of course, with physical cards, it leads to more reshuffles in the middle of turns, which means longer games. This is maybe something I should think about.

[rinkworks]

Renew is a cool idea, but the wording on Chancellor is specifically for Throne Room or King's Court. It says to discard your deck at the end of your turn if you want to, not the moment you play the card.

Chancellor reads "You may immediately put your deck into your discard pile."  So, indeed, the moment you play the card, not at the end of your turn.

Or are you saying Renew *should* say at the end of your turn?  Because you do bring up the interesting point that a King's Courted Renew will cause two mandatory shuffles in a row and a third shuffle before the turn is over, all because Renew also draws a card.  That does definitely seem like a problem to me.

[Hamlet]

Chancellor reads "You may immediately put your deck into your discard pile."  So, indeed, the moment you play the card, not at the end of your turn.

Bah! Shows you how much I play with Chancellor. But long Kings Court turns are annoying enough as it is without bothering with shuffling your deck THREE TIMES just so you could draw one card per shuffle. So yes, that's what I meant.
I was thinking about assassin, and I think it's doable as a $5 terminal action the way you have it. However, how about this:

Assassin
Action
Cost: $4
+2
Every player reveals the top card of their deck and trashes that card. (This does not apply to players with less than ten(?) cards in their current deck)

Destructive? Yes, but that's what Assassins do. The current player has ways to use it effectively (Spy, Scout) and other players can, too (by ensuring a small deck size at the end of their turn or just by keeping a small deck.) Take it or leave it, I'm just throwing out an idea.

[Epoch]

I think that Renew is maybe too strong.  If you have a spare $2 buy, it seems like it's amazing.  You're basically halving the expected time from buying a card to being able to use it!  With very little downside!  That's a really big deal.  Chancellor is only not-very-good because it's a terminal and can both clutter your deck and also, perhaps more importantly, not be used, very easily.  (I stipulate that if Chancellor also included a +1 Action, it would be a must-buy on about 80% of all boards it's present on, even if the cost was raised to $4).

Squire, well, to sort of echo what everyone else said, it seems like if it's strong, it's very, very strong.  There are boards where I would prefer it to Library, and given the difference between their costs, that seems wrong.

[WanderingWinder]

Chancellor reads "You may immediately put your deck into your discard pile."  So, indeed, the moment you play the card, not at the end of your turn.

Bah! Shows you how much I play with Chancellor. But long Kings Court turns are annoying enough as it is without bothering with shuffling your deck THREE TIMES just so you could draw one card per shuffle. So yes, that's what I meant.
I was thinking about assassin, and I think it's doable as a $5 terminal action the way you have it. However, how about this:

Assassin
Action
Cost: $4
+2
Every player reveals the top card of their deck and trashes that card. (This does not apply to players with less than ten(?) cards in their current deck)

Destructive? Yes, but that's what Assassins do. The current player has ways to use it effectively (Spy, Scout) and other players can, too (by ensuring a small deck size at the end of their turn or just by keeping a small deck.) Take it or leave it, I'm just throwing out an idea.

Definitely don't want that card - trashing random cards like this is something Donald X. constantly warns against. And I think that what I have now shouldn't be more than $4 really - at 5 I think I'd about never buy it. It's a terminal copper!

[AJD]

Assassin
Action
Cost: $4
+2
Every player reveals the top card of their deck and trashes that card.

In the Secret Histories, Donald X has occasionally explained how he'd tried various ways to make this idea work and it turned out to be a total non-starter for several reasons. (Saboteur was the fix that made this card concept viable, and even that's not a very well-liked card.) They're a pretty interesting read, if you haven't taken a look at them yet.

[WanderingWinder]

I think that Renew is maybe too strong.  If you have a spare $2 buy, it seems like it's amazing.  You're basically halving the expected time from buying a card to being able to use it!  With very little downside!  That's a really big deal.  Chancellor is only not-very-good because it's a terminal and can both clutter your deck and also, perhaps more importantly, not be used, very easily.  (I stipulate that if Chancellor also included a +1 Action, it would be a must-buy on about 80% of all boards it's present on, even if the cost was raised to $4).

But without counting house or stash, it doesn't DO anything! Chancellor would be amazing with an action because it's a non-terminal silver with ANY other benefit. The only time it could be worse than silver is if you had terminal card draw, and even then, if you've got an engine at all... Actually, since you must take the effect on my card, this makes some issues too. If I open 5/2 with it, I can't play it on turn 3 without my 5 in hand for a big risk of missing it. So it doesn't speed you that much at all.

Squire, well, to sort of echo what everyone else said, it seems like if it's strong, it's very, very strong.  There are boards where I would prefer it to Library, and given the difference between their costs, that seems wrong.

Well, we'll see when I playtest it. I'm trying to figure out where it's so strong. Where would you prefer it to Library? (By the way, I think I'd prefer most 2s in existence to library now and then). But as I said, I'm looking at switching the +1 Action to +$1 if this is too strong.

[Hamlet]

In the Secret Histories, Donald X has occasionally explained how he'd tried various ways to make this idea work and it turned out to be a total non-starter for several reasons. (Saboteur was the fix that made this card concept viable, and even that's not a very well-liked card.) They're a pretty interesting read, if you haven't taken a look at them yet.

Yeah, I've read them, but I still like the idea. Having everyone (including the player) trash the top card will prevent people from playing it too often unless they're trying to reduce the clutter in their deck. If someone's deck is too small they don't have to trash a card. I remember he mentioned that having someone's deck reduced to nothing being terrible, but that is why I provided the provision that small decks don't have to do it. It probably would be better priced at $5 though.
Another way around it would be to have it worded like this:
Every player reveals the top card of their deck. If it is an Action, Treasure, or Curse card, they must trash it. If it is a Victory card, they may trash it or return it to the top of their deck. If there are 10(?) or less cards in their deck they don't have perform this action.

[Epoch]

But without counting house or stash, it doesn't DO anything!

It gets you your cards earlier.  This is a BIG deal.  People don't realize how big a deal it is because there are other problems with Chancellor, but think of the kind of tempo that you gain by getting a $5 action or a Gold just one or two turns earlier during the critical turns 5-10.  Those are the turns when your deck comes into its own or it doesn't, and getting an extra reshuffle or two in that time is honestly pretty huge.

Now, your card isn't that awful because you lose a lot of tempo buying it if you buy it for $3 or more.  But a lot of the time, you'll end up with a dead $2 turn anyway, and this card will be calling for you in that case.

Well, we'll see when I playtest it. I'm trying to figure out where it's so strong. Where would you prefer it to Library? (By the way, I think I'd prefer most 2s in existence to library now and then). But as I said, I'm looking at switching the +1 Action to +$1 if this is too strong.

Obviously, you prefer it to Library if you're tight on Actions.  So, basically, "Not Fishing Village," and probably "not Festival."  But Lighthouse, yes.  Minion?  Sure.  Nobles?  Even though it gives +2 Actions, yeah, probably, because you won't have a TON of Actions.  Haven?  Yes.  Warehouse?  Yes.

And defending against Militia and Goons and Cutpurse and Minion and non-repeated Torturers.  I mean, the ability of Library to not draw Actions dead is nice and all, but if I have an Action-based deck, it's only so nice.  Getting a hand full of copper and green is better than getting a hand full of dead Actions and green, but I'd generally rather have a 5 card hand of playable Actions than a 7 card hand full of low-end Treasure.

[rod-]

Perhaps make it like a baby saboteur (anarchist!) and instead of just trashing things, trash things and then allow the victim to gain a replacement card of their choice (costing 1 less? 0 less?).  Then you're basically just trashing everyone's starting 10 (eventually), but that's more or less what i see the card doing most of the time anyway, but now without the super-variance up/down side.

On that topic, the current "more than 10 in current deck" clause should be considered...Is "deck" even a defined term in the dominion rules?  Does it constitute draw pile + discard pile, or just draw pile?  See philosopher's stone for the source of my confusion.

[WanderingWinder]

But without counting house or stash, it doesn't DO anything!

It gets you your cards earlier.  This is a BIG deal.  People don't realize how big a deal it is because there are other problems with Chancellor, but think of the kind of tempo that you gain by getting a $5 action or a Gold just one or two turns earlier during the critical turns 5-10.  Those are the turns when your deck comes into its own or it doesn't, and getting an extra reshuffle or two in that time is honestly pretty huge.

Now, your card isn't that awful because you lose a lot of tempo buying it if you buy it for $3 or more.  But a lot of the time, you'll end up with a dead $2 turn anyway, and this card will be calling for you in that case.

Well, we'll see when I playtest it. I'm trying to figure out where it's so strong. Where would you prefer it to Library? (By the way, I think I'd prefer most 2s in existence to library now and then). But as I said, I'm looking at switching the +1 Action to +$1 if this is too strong.

Obviously, you prefer it to Library if you're tight on Actions.  So, basically, "Not Fishing Village," and probably "not Festival."  But Lighthouse, yes.  Minion?  Sure.  Nobles?  Even though it gives +2 Actions, yeah, probably, because you won't have a TON of Actions.  Haven?  Yes.  Warehouse?  Yes.

And defending against Militia and Goons and Cutpurse and Minion and non-repeated Torturers.  I mean, the ability of Library to not draw Actions dead is nice and all, but if I have an Action-based deck, it's only so nice.  Getting a hand full of copper and green is better than getting a hand full of dead Actions and green, but I'd generally rather have a 5 card hand of playable Actions than a 7 card hand full of low-end Treasure.

As I pointed out, Renew isn't THAT much tempo gain because of its non-optionness. You've GOT to discard. But I'm also not convinced that the tempo is worth all that much, in part because I don't get dead 2s all that often, and when I do, it's nice to have a little something. By no means do I think it's a game-breaker.

Squire: Okay, I don't really buy it being better with nobles or havens (if you get it in a turn AFTER haven, it's much more likely to be totally worthless). The others, it's only better in decks where you have lots of non-terminal non-villages that leave you with smaller hands. So yeah, warehouse, cellar, lighthouse, maybe minion, defending... depends on your deck. If you've got even halfway decent money-density of non-actions, Library is like "buy a province" in those situations. And I'm really not worried about the squire-warehouse combo just being so overpowered. But we'll see, I guess. I will test all of those suggestions close to first, once I get to it.

[Thinkaman]

I'm totally unconcerned about squire being bad with Lab and Smithy. So what? Every card doesn't have to have synergy with every other card. And just because you really like using those cards for engines doesn't mean everyone else does, or that there's no room for other kinds of engines. Where I am really concerned is about it being not useful enough often enough, and too strong when it is good. But I'm actually not so concerned about that even. The best kind of combo among what you've pointed out looks to be some kind of village-vault-squire, and that will give you $5 and a 5-card hand. Well, I'm not too worried about that, 'cause it's a 3 card combo from three different sets which doesn't totally break the game anyway. Well, okay, village could be any village, vault could be secret chamber (I don't understand how cellar is really that good here)... maybe you're right. We'll see in playtesting.

Vault/SC is the meanest case, but it's really good with all ~15 basic non-terminals.  Pretty much any of them at all, from Fishing Village to Upgrade--then you've also got village combos with hand reduction actions like trashers and BM.  All this is maybe too good for a typical $2 card, sure, but it's not the end of the world.

The issue is how mediocre it is with everything else.  Like, in the absence of those really great cases, it's just pointless.  It's a draw engine card that you can't build a "real" draw engine with.  The idea of an engine is to power through your deck faster and get to play more stuff.  Typically this means drawing your entire deck, which this card is counter-productive dead weight against.  You could almost imagine it working like Minion which is sort of a weird alternate draw engine, but Minion only really works because it combos with itself.  This card is only really enabled in that sort of way by a couple cards, unlike say Smithy which can build a draw engine with any of like 15 Villages.

I mentioned Celler because it's a good non-terminal lets you churn though your deck and find more hand-reducing non-terminals like it.

Servant's village: Unexciting? Maybe. I'm okay with that. The comparison here is fishing village, which it is except for the duration, which almost always makes it worse. But then it only costs 2. I'm not concerned, though it's obviously not spectacular. Again, playtesting will help.

I'm just not understanding why this card exists though.  It's not that it commits some cardinal sin--it's that what it offers isn't something I as a player want in my deck.  Normally if you offered me a random $2 card for free during a game of Dominion, I'd take it--only exceptions might be Moat, SC, and Herbalist about half the time.  But unless unless there's no other Villages at all and I badly need one, I'd never take a free +2 Actions +1 Coin card. (Just like I wouldn't normally take a free Copper.)

Bronze: Well, I've already posted my thoughts above. I expect even with the modified version, it's not going to be all that great all that often, but I do think it is interesting enough. We'll see - needs playtesting.

Your changed Bronze proposal is a lot more docile and has a lot of fun utility.  It's a worse but functional Haven that gives you $1!  This is great because Haven is great.  This version is not a self-perpetuating super strategy, and instead has fun plays and interactions with all sorts of other cards and decks.

Novice
Action         2
+1Action
Gain a card costing up to $3

I'm not sure why this costs $2?  You are right about the variance, but it's not a big enough problem to worry about--you are still going to have semi-interesting $3 options on a majority of boards.  Non-terminal Silver gain is nothing to scoff at.

This is a really powerful pile-emptying machine of course.  Like, to a kind of absurd level that slightly outpaces even Ironworks.  That's not innately bad, but it's something to consider.  Again, $2 is probably too low, else +Buys compound the effect pretty hard.

Renew
Action         2
+1 Card
+1 Action
Discard your deck.

Chancellor doesn't do much because as an opening Chancellor is your more valuable card, and a terminal blocking other valuable cards.  A $2 non-terminal Chancellor is super powerful.  I'd buy it at $3, for sure.

Assassin
Action-Attack      2
+$1
Every other player reveals their hands. Choose a card for them to discard. Then each player draws a card.

Ew, targeted discard.  I think someone else mentioned that Donald wrote some stuff on why this was found to be a dead end filled with hurt feelings and tears.  It's high variation, kinda slow, and encourages bland, defensive deck construction.

Also this is *crazy* strong at $2!  Throw some Villages with these bad boys and man--they better have good trashing or hands are going to suck.

Oh, and multiplayer games are just going to get obnoxious with this, in ways Torturer and friends can only dream of.

Thinkaman:  Some great observations all around.  I'm not sure I entirely agree your aversion to mixing money and villages, though.  Villages are engine cards, and the ultimate goal of an engine is to accrue money, so if the engine cards themselves generate money (see: Minion, Bazaar), then that's a good thing, right?  But you're right that it would be one of the last choices for a Village-type card, because the modest $ boost isn't worth the drawing loss.

The catch is that money on a cantrip is a different animal than random money on some card like Chancellor.  That's why Peddler, Treasury, Market, Grand Market, Bazaar, and Conspirator are so great and cost as they are.

Besides Lighthouse and Fishing Village--which are as they are to be satisfying Durations--there is only one non-terminal card in all of Dominion that gives money without +1 Card.  That card, Festival, is a special case built around a +Buy; giving money with Actions doesn't make total sense, but a +Buy is an interesting resource and what goes with +Buy?  Money!  It's not random money thrown on, it's a built-in Woodcutter.

The +Buy on Festival is like pancakes--pancakes are good with chocolate, and they are also good with bacon, so maybe we can have all three at once. (Even if chocolate and bacon alone is still unnatural and weird.)

[rinkworks]

The issue is how mediocre it is with everything else.  Like, in the absence of those really great cases, it's just pointless.  It's a draw engine card that you can't build a "real" draw engine with.  The idea of an engine is to power through your deck faster and get to play more stuff.  Typically this means drawing your entire deck, which this card is counter-productive dead weight against.  You could almost imagine it working like Minion which is sort of a weird alternate draw engine, but Minion only really works because it combos with itself.

This is roughly the same line of reasoning that led to this card of mine, which I'm pretty sure is my best card.  Not that it really has anything to do with WW's beyond a surface similarity.

Besides Lighthouse and Fishing Village--which are as they are to be satisfying Durations--there is only one non-terminal card in all of Dominion that gives money without +1 Card.  That card, Festival, is a special case built around a +Buy; giving money with Actions doesn't make total sense, but a +Buy is an interesting resource and what goes with +Buy?  Money!  It's not random money thrown on, it's a built-in Woodcutter.

The +Buy on Festival is like pancakes--pancakes are good with chocolate, and they are also good with bacon, so maybe we can have all three at once. (Even if chocolate and bacon alone is still unnatural and weird.)

This is a convincing argument, but I dunno.  Are you sure the real reason we don't see non-drawing non-terminal money earners is that they are, in fact, money?  "+1 Action, +$1" is functionally equivalent to a Copper, bar some interactions.  "+1 Action, +$2" is a Silver.  But Festival is cool not only because of the +Buy but because of the extra action.  That makes it Silver-with-two-bonuses.  That, to me, is the real reason we have Festival but not really any others like it.  Because with fewer bonuses, the differentiation from Silver is slighter.  With more or different bonuses...well, how many other bonuses are there other than card drawing?  (Caveat:  Potentially any number, but non-vanilla bonuses are more likely to be better suited to terminals.)

In a roundabout way, though, I'm agreeing with you.  "+2 Actions, +$1" is a Copper with only a single differentiator, and in particular one that doesn't work as well in the absence of +cards.  But I guess I don't buy that it's AS undesirable as you say, particularly at a $2 cost.  Its utility probably does depend on better Villages not being present, and I'd feel a little bit cheated if an official expansion used up a card slot on it.  But as a fan card that adds a touch of variety to a game that thrives on variety, I think it's kind of nice.

Ew, targeted discard.  I think someone else mentioned that Donald wrote some stuff on why this was found to be a dead end filled with hurt feelings and tears.

Do you remember where you read that?  I'd be curious to read more on that subject.

[Tejayes]

Because I'm such a stickler for good wording, I revised these cards so that they more accurately reflect the wording of the official cards. Don't worry -- none of the cards' effects have been altered because of this. I have also included my thoughts after each reworking.

SQUIRE
---
+$1
Draw until you have 5 cards in your hand.
--
Action - $2

(I referenced Library and Watchtower to know how to word this baby. As for a terminal Copper that works well with Festival/Fishing Village/Servants' Village/etc., I'd like to try it.)

SERVANTS' VILLAGE
---
+2 Actions
+$1
--
Action - $2

(Didn't need rewording, but I'm still worried that Fishing Village, while $1 higher, too ridiculously outranks this card. Yes, the same feeling about Warehouse over Cellar, but at least Cellar came out first.)

BRONZE
---
$1
When you play this, draw a card.
You may put a card in your hand on top of your deck.
--
Treasure - $2

(I think this is a bit too strong at $2. If you draw a Treasure, it's basically a cheap Venture without the forced-play mechanic. If you draw a Victory or Curse card, unless you're hoping to keep these cards around for Ambassador/Baron/whatever, you now have one less crapola card for your next turn. If you draw an Action card, you can simply put it back. In any case, if you have a card you want to save for the next turn, you can do so. It's like Courtyard, only not forced.)

NOVICE
---
+1 Action
Gain a card costing up to $3.
--
Action - $2

(I like this card, not to mention the already-perfect wording. The card-gaining power by itself would be a bit weak even at $2, so the +Action boosts its power just a bit. With Watchtower and a card-drawer in hand, this could be a wicked combo that's not too broken, but we'll see.)

RENEW
---
+1 Card
+1 Action
-
During your Cleanup phase, put your deck into your discard pile.
--
Action - $2

(The wording now reflects cards like Chancellor and Herbalist. I'm not the biggest fan of non-stacking effects, but this could be interesting.)

ASSASSIN
--
+$1
Each other player reveals his hand, then discards a card of your choice. Each player who discards a card this way draws two cards.
-
Action/Attack - $2

(Again, I'm with the people who hesitate around targeted discarding, but the +2 Cards deal nerfs the attack a bit. I think it could be reworked further so that each other player draws 2 cards post-attack no matter what. That way, they get cards even if their hand has somehow become zero, or if they play a Moat or have Lighthouse in play.)

[rinkworks]

Why not "+1 Card" on Bronze?  Contraband having "+1 Buy" is a precedent for vanilla bonus shorthand on treasure cards.

[Tejayes]

Why not "+1 Card" on Bronze?  Contraband having "+1 Buy" is a precedent for vanilla bonus shorthand on treasure cards.

For some reason, the "+1 Card" thing felt off to me. I was well-aware of Contraband's "+1 Buy," and felt it was appropriate due to the monetary nature of the card. Perhaps I'm just being weird. Here, I'll post an alternate wording...

BRONZE
---
$1
+1 Card
You may put a card from your hand on top of your deck.
--
Treasure - $2

[ChaosRed]

I like Bronze, its balanced and useful.

[rinkworks]

Playtested Bronze.  I'm afraid I have to report that it's too strong for $2.

Took me a while to figure out why.  It's because a treasure worth $1 and offering +1 Card is basically...a Peddler!

The primary difference is that the Peddler can draw an action and then make use of it, while Bronze can "only" rescue it for next turn.  This is almost as good.  Not quite, but almost.  But Bronze has an advantage over Peddler to make up for it.  More often than I expected, I was using Bronze's "return to deck" feature to return excess coins to the top of my deck for next turn.  If I had $11, I'd save a Gold for next turn.  I did this more in playtesting than saving a dead Action, although I did that a lot too.  More than either, though, I was simply using the treasure I got or cycling the victory card I drew.  In those cases, it was acting like a true Peddler.

The version of Bronze without the optional "return to deck" is probably still too strong for $2 and is much less interesting in any case (as it promotes money strategies and is less differentiated from a weaker Venture).  A version with a *mandatory* "return to deck" may be a good way to moderate the power level and retain the interest of the card.  But I think it's a $3 card minimum anyway.

[ChaosRed]

Cool you play tested this. What if the option to return to the deck cost you something? Discard a card?

If you forced it and then adjusted the cost to 3, I don't think I'd buy it. I see the extreme value of putting Gold back on hands with too much money (and only one buy). It aids Big Money greatly I think, because this is common in BM hands. But forcing me to return something, that can hurt, so much so, I think I'd avoid the card. Of course that's just a noobish gut reaction, nothing more.

[mail-mi]

Servants' Village
Action         2
+2 Actions
+$1
Yeah, a basic village-variant. Probably it could cost 3. I'm fine with it costing 2. It's usually going to be a fair bit worse than village, probably usually a little better than native village, but when it's worse it'll be a good bit worse, and when it's better, it might not be much better.

With this one, it seems very similar to Fishers village, which is at three and does the exact same thing, except it also gives you +1 action and +$1 on your next turn. If you make it +1 buy, it makes it awfully similar to Worker's Village, which is +1 card, +2 actions, +1 buy. Maybe give it some other effect with the +2 actions, similar to native village but with a completely different effect.