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[rinkworks]

Another custom card I've playtested and like.  It's a $2, so not a game-changer, but minimally useful most of the time and very useful some of the time.  What I like about it is that unlocking its power, while board-dependent, is more a question of strategic play than just automatically picking it up whenever the right other cards are on the table.

Alms
$2 - Action
Reveal your hand.
If you have no Action cards in your hand, +2 Cards.
If you have no Treasure cards in your hand, +2 Actions.
If you have no Victory cards in your hand, +1 Buy.

I got the idea from a post on BGG which I can't find now, or I'd link it.  But while the same idea, the bonuses were all different, and I didn't like how they worked, so I changed them.

Why are the bonuses what they are?

If you have no actions, then two scenarios are likely: (1) You're playing big money, in which case a terminal +2 Cards bonus is probably more useful than it usually is; (2) You've just played some sequence of action cards resulting in unused actions leftover, in which case the +2 Cards lets you fish for another action card to play as well as extra money.

If you have no treasure cards, then probably your hand is full of actions, in which case +2 Actions would be really helpful.  Alternately, you have no non-victory cards at all, in which case getting +2 Cards, +2 Actions gives you a shot at bringing your turn back to life.

If you have no victory cards, well, this is quite common in the mid-game, so this is the smallest bonus.  But it's still potentially useful, because often the mid-game is exactly when you want that +Buy.

If you're having a tough time visualizing a typical use of the card, most of the time you'll get +2 Cards and/or +1 Buy.  It's usually easy to drain your hand of action cards, so as to qualify for the +2 Cards bonus, and usually the only Victory cards in your deck before the mid-late game is your starting Estates, and even those might get trashed.  +2 Cards, +1 Buy seems like a nicely balanced $2-cost card anyhow.

The hardest thing to get is the +2 Actions, because few hands have no treasure in them and fewer are able to get rid of the treasure during the action phase if they do.  Good combos, therefore, include Black Market and Vault.  You can also discard strategically with cards like Warehouse and Hamlet, but in those cases you'd usually rather keep the treasure cards in your hand anyhow.  However, if you do draw a hand full of actions, +2 Actions is, as I say, probably exactly what you want at that point.

There's another case where that comes into play:  in the end game, you might easily draw Alms with four green/purple cards.   In that case, getting +2 Cards, +2 Actions might well rescue your turn from the brink of uselessness.   This is particularly nice if you had a good drawing engine (say, Labs or Village/Smithy or Minion) that used to draw well and now chokes on green.  Alms might restart an engine that's sputtered out.

Despite the card's potential (+2 Cards, +2 Actions, +1 Buy if you can empty your hand before playing it!), the usual case is in the $2 power-level range or even slightly worse, so it's definitely not overpowered at $2.  But its potential,  and the strategic play required to access that potential, has made it a very fun card during playtests.

[Thinkaman]

Interesting, I like this.  It seems a tad weak, but maybe that's okay?  $2 cards rarely rival a max City after all.

I think the only thing bothering me about it is how often the card does nothing.  Barring unmatched TR/KC, every Action in Dominion generally does *something* in a typical hand.  It's cool that it can do a lot, and it's more cool that it can do it in a lot of different combos/decks, but turns where it does nothing are a drag.

Would a "If none of these apply, +$1 money." consolation prize be undesirable?  $1 for a terminal action is about as pathetic as it gets, but in this case I think it might make the card feel a lot better while hardly pushing any power limits.

[rinkworks]

Might be worth trying, although the idea mars the aesthetics for me a bit.  But in playtesting I found it to be an extremely rare situation where it did nothing at all.  For it to do nothing, that means you have at least one other action, one treasure, and one victory card.  If that other action is a non-terminal, you can play it first, and then Alms will be partial activated.  If it's a terminal, then you've got clashing terminals, which means one of the two will do nothing, because it won't get played, and you probably prefer to play the other action anyway.  So I haven't found nothing to be a common outcome.

But it's probably worth me thinking about boards where that might be more of a danger than usual and trying it out on those.

[ChaosRed]

I like the thought placed behind each trigger/benefit, they all make sense.

It shines when your deck is "focused", it doesn't help my noob play (which is still very much BM+something, something), as I'll very often have both treasure and victory in my hand, and all I get is +2 cards, which isn't really a thrill. I guess +2 cards, +1 buy for 2$ (when I only draw treasure) is really useful and I often look for cheap +buy cards in the middle-to-late stage, it helps pad the provinces with a little extra money.

I tend to avoid cards that produce random effects based on what you draw or what is in your hands (or in an opponent's top card etc). But I'll also tell you, the last 3 games I've lost on Isotropic were largely due to Swindler or Sabotage (or both), so clearly I need to examine "random" cards. Of course in this case, you can make it less "random" by tuning your deck in a specific direction.

This is offered as how a more novice player would look at the card's value, bottom line is it's a nice intriguing card for 2$.

[Kirian]

This is intriguing but I think it's incredibly weak.  For a cost of $2, it's either:

A Moat without the reaction, or
A Native Village without the 0.5 card draw, or
half a Pawn,

and in each case this is only if it "hits," and you can't control the type of hit.  In a BM-Big Terminal strategy it's bad, as it has a good chance of drawing the useful terminal with no actions--as opposed to, say, Pearl Diver, which is bad in BM-Smithy only when drawn by the Smithy.  It would only work with no other terminals, at which point your deck is inferior to BM-Moat unless there are no attacks.  In an action-heavy strategy it's only useful on turns where you drew no cash; it's a Shanty Town that doesn't work if there's cash and doesn't have Shanty Town's useful properties.  The +1 Buy as a consolation prize is only worth considering if it's the only +Buy on the board, and since you can't guarantee it will hit... yeah.

In other words, it's worse than the three weakest $2 cards in the game, and it's only worse than them in the specific cases where it's supposed to shine!  The only exceptions are:  pairing with cards that help empty your hand, all of which would also require a village; a trim deck with nothing but actions and VP; and the crazy case of drawing exactly one Alms and all green and purple.

I suspect it could be made better by giving it $1 in all circumstances.

[Jack Rudd]

It comboes quite well with cards like Warehouse, where you can manipulate what is in your hand before you play this card.

[rinkworks]

This is intriguing but I think it's incredibly weak.  For a cost of $2, it's either:

A Moat without the reaction, or
A Native Village without the 0.5 card draw, or
half a Pawn,

You realize these aren't mutually exclusive choices?  "+2 Cards and +1 Buy" is a very common result, which strikes me as exactly a $2 power-level card.  The risk of doing worse is counterbalanced by the possibility of doing better.

...and you can't control the type of hit.

This is also only true to an extent.  Lots of times you *can* control the type of hit by timing when you play it.  If it's a cog in an engine, particularly something hinging on a Village and/or cycler (e.g., Warehouse) of some sort, it's quite easy to hold it back in your hand and play it only when you can get the most out of it.

In decks where you have less of this sort of control, I would agree with you that it's weaker.  But in those cases you probably just shouldn't buy it.  But these cases are probably in the minority.  After maybe 25 playtest games of this card, I've found Alms to be worth having in maybe 75% of them.  Skippable in basically all of them, I grant you, but so are most of the $2 cards.

One thing I have figured out, though, is you probably don't want more than one.  Alms-Alms-Copper-Copper-Estate is one depressing hand.

[ChaosRed]

You know you could make this a reaction card on top of its abilities and I don't think it's broken or overpriced...just a thought. The reaction doesn't have to be a full defense. It just strikes me as a niche card, that is a nice buy when you deck is concentrated on one card type, but not compelling any other time, and almost never more compelling to buy more than one.

It's an elegant design, I just think it needs just a nudge...just a slight nudge to make it perfect.

[timchen]

I agree with Kirian. This seems to be a very weak card.

Let's look at it this way: in BM+x deck, a terminal with +2 cards and +1 buy is not really something which can work as x. Too weak. While maybe one shouldn't expect the 2-costs to take this role, this card really stands in other card's way.

In an action engine, it is very hard to make this card work. It is really not that easy to get rid of the treasure you have in hand (unlike actions). With a single copper my +2 action is gone... do I really want to build an engine on this (say I don't have a chapel in the setup)?

I think one of the key designing principle of a $2-cost card is that either it can do something unique, or it has to be "very" useful under certain circumstances. I only see this card being very useful when this is the only +buy source on the board, which you can also make the argument for the wood cutter. In short, barring the +buy, this card is just a worse shanty town. Does adjusting the cost to $2 help it? I don't think so.

Also, I think it is unfair to understate the terminal colliding issue. While good terminals can collide and is an inherent risk one has to take, a mediocre action just kills its own mediocre value if it is possible for it to collide with a strong one.

[rinkworks]

I think one of the key designing principle of a $2-cost card is that either it can do something unique, or it has to be "very" useful under certain circumstances.

How is a Level 2.5 City not "very" useful?  True, it's rare to get all three bonuses, but just the more common +2 Cards, +2 Actions result is more potential than any other $2-cost card currently offers, Chapel aside.

I'm somewhat sympathetic to Thinkaman's suggested buff, as I agree it wouldn't change the power level of the card, for the simple reason that you'd make use of the buff in maybe one or two plays of the card every ten games you use it at all.  (In my playtesting, this is about its rate of total failure.)  So I see that change as unnecessary but not unbalancing.

Kirian's suggestion is so overpowering it's insane.  80% of the time you played the card, you'd get +2 Cards, +$1 at minimum, which is a $4 cost card roughly comparable to Smithy.  Usually you'd also get the +Buy, pushing it to the brink of a $5 cost card.

If the card interests you, you're welcome to playtest it and see for yourself.  It is not a card that one can easily look at and envision how it plays.  I didn't know myself how it would play until I tried it.  But as I mentioned, I've tested it in at least a couple of dozen games now, and I am convinced the card is as it should be.  It's both more powerful and more manipulable than it seems, albeit just as situational as it seems.

Here's the thing.  No, it's not a superstar $2 card.  In some situations, it sure is.  In most, it's a nice kicker that you can do without but don't mind having.  Sometimes it's just a plain old bad buy.  That's okay.  Some cards are like that.

[timchen]

No, the problem is that I don't see in any situation it is a superstar. Note that the shanty town is also a level 2 city quite often, and includes all the cases of Alms. Do you find it a superstar in these cases?

I am interested in your play test. I would imagine in most action-heavy games, I wouldn't like to have this card in my deck. Usually I just have no way to control whether I have treasure in hand. In a BM-ish game, I'll only pick this if there are no other dominant terminals.

Maybe saying it is too weak is not right. It is probably not weaker than Pearl Diver or Herbalist. The problem I think is more like within this power level, I don't really see something interesting in this variant, unlike the two cards above.


Now I am also interested in your play testing. As you did claim it to be far more useful than I can imagine.