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[forthemame]

Now that all the official cards have been released, I decided to re-evaluate the existing cards that I felt needed a change to make them more viable options.  As we all know, every card can be quite strong given the perfect kingdom, but the number of times Chancellor makes any sense to buy is few and far between.

I want to make subtle improvements to these weaker cards without changing their core functionality or cost.

This is just a first pass at some changes, so any and all input would be welcome.  We'll probably be rolling out these changes in our home games to see how they play out and adjust them as need be.

Pearl Diver - +1 Card; +1 Action
Look at the bottom card of your deck.  You may put it on top of your deck or discard pile.

Allows you to discard bad cards so that Pearl Diver doesn't become useless as soon as it hits an Estate.

Throne Room - You may choose an Action card in your hand. Play it twice.

Added "may" a la King's Court.

Transmute - +1 Action
Trash a card from your hand. If it is an… Action card, gain a Duchy; Treasure card, gain a Transmute; Victory card, gain a Gold.
+1 Buy when you buy this card.

Adding an action seems to really help overhaul this slow trasher.  Also allows you to buy an additional card when you initially buy the card so that you don't have to get upset next time you end up with $5 and your only Potion.

Bureaucrat - Gain a silver card; put it in your hand or on top of your deck. Each other player reveals a Victory card from his hand and puts it on his deck (or reveals a hand with no Victory cards).

The gained Silver can go in your hand if you'd prefer.  Adds a little bit of flexibility.

Counting House

- You may discard the top 5 cards from your deck.  Look through your discard pile, reveal any number of Copper cards from it, and put them into your hand.

Allowing you to discard 5 cards first helps a tad bit with drawing this card without a discard pile to look through.

Moat - +2 Cards;  +$1
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, you are unaffected by that Attack.

This still probably isn't enough to make Moat playable when there's no attack cards in the kingdom, but at least it's something.

Chancellor - +$2
If you have any cards in your deck, you may place the top card in your discard pile.  Repeat until you wish to stop or you no longer have any cards in your discard pile.

If you're good at tracking cards, you can weed through enough crap until you know there's a better mix of cards left in your deck, or simply keep going until you force a reshuffle anyway.

Coppersmith - You may gain a Copper putting it in your hand.  Copper produces an extra $1 this turn.

Adds an extra $2 in the event you really need it.

Duchess - +$2
Each player (including you) looks at the top card of his deck, and discards it or puts it back, your choice.
—
In games using this, when you gain a Duchy, you may gain a Duchess.

Lets the Duchess player make the decision, a la Spy.

Spy - +1 Card; +1 Action
Each player (including you) reveals the top card of his deck and either discards it, puts in on the bottom of his deck, or puts it back, your choice.

Speaking of Spy, you can now put the card on the bottom of their deck in the event you wish to play multiple Spy's and don't want to get stuck looking at the same bad card on top of their deck.

Tribute - The player to your left reveals then discards the top 2 cards of his deck. For each card revealed, if it is an… Action Card; +2 Actions; Treasure Card; +$2; Victory Card; +2 Cards.

Removed the differently named card criteria.

Lookout - +1 Action
Look at the top 3 cards of your deck. Put one on top of your deck.  You may trash one of them.  Discard the rest.

Removed the mandatory trashing.  Too many Gold, Province, Province plays burned me.

Navigator - +$2
Look at the top 5 cards of your deck. Either put them back on top of your deck in any order, or put one on top of your deck and discard the rest.

Putting the best one card on your deck seems like a nice bump in usefulness.
 

Woodcutter - +$2;  +1 Buy or +1 Card

Slightly more flexible with the +1 Card option.

Vagrant - +1 Action
Reveal the top card of your deck. If it’s a Victory card, Curse, Ruins, or Shelter, put it into your hand, otherwise you may discard it.
+1 Card;

Lets you sift through your deck a little easier.  The +1 Card at the end makes it a much different card.

   
Here's the rest of the cards I feel need an update, but I need more time to figure out what needs to be changed.

Scout - There's a huge thread on this.  +1 Card is an easy fix, but there's plenty of other interesting fixes available.  I'm not sure what's best at this point.

Contraband - Perhaps make it worth $1 if you don't want your opponent to choose what you can't buy?

Or maybe add the option to trash it for +$3 and +1 Buy to avoid the opponent restriction.

Cache - No idea yet.  Originally was thinking of a way to add them to your next hand, but a 7 card hand would probably be too strong.
 
Rats - Maybe when you trash it, you get +2 Cards instead of just 1?

Feast - Originally I thought of changing the gained card cost to "up to $6", but that may be too strong?

Explorer - Maybe add +1 Action, or how about you get 1 Gold for each Province revealed?

Adventurer - Maybe add +1 Action?  I have no idea how to make this $6 card playable.  This is the only card I really want to change the cost on.

Secret Chamber - No idea yet.  Hard card to tweak.

Develop - No idea yet.

Mandarin - No idea yet.  Weird card to tweak.

Saboteur - No idea yet.



Thoughts on any of the above changes?

[eHalcyon]

Pearl Diver change is interesting.  TR change is fine, of course.  I think there are others that could use similar housekeeping.

Bureaucrat doesn't need that change at all.  Worse, allowing it to gain Silver to hand pretty much makes Explorer obsolete.

Moat doesn't need to be better in a kingdom without attacks.  +2 cards, +$1 without a reaction should be costed at $3 at least, probably $4.

The Chancellor change would be really slow and annoying to play IRL, and really strong for good deck trackers.

If you make that change to Duchess, it has to gain the Attack subtype... and man, that's too strong.  Duchess is fine as it is.  You already get to have it for free (with Duchy buy).

Spy doesn't need to be slower...

Tribute becomes way too strong if you get to count duplicates.  Seriously way too strong.

IMO, Lookout is more interesting with the mandatory trashing.  Making it completely safe to play is just, ugh.

Vagrant was just fine as it was.  It's a $2 card!  The change is too good for $2.




Contraband is great the way it is.  If you don't want to get banned from something, just don't play it.

Cache is fine.  Rats is fine.  Explorer is fine!

Secret Chamber is fine because it only costs $2!

Develop is already really strong in many cases. (Edit: probably overselling here. But still, Develop has strong niche use cases and is generally OK on most boards just for Estate->Silver on deck.  It's fine as it is.)

Mandarin is fine.

Saboteur doesn't need a buff (already annoying), nor a nerf (already weak).




If I didn't mention it, it's still probably just fine.  I think the only cards that benefit from tweaking are Scout and Adventurer and *maybe* Chancellor (which is completely eclipsed by Scavenger), *maybe* Feast (barely has a niche at all).



Main thing -- $2 cards don't need buffs.  They cost $2 for a reason.

[pst]

I think most of these I think are perfectly fine as they are and don't need any boost. One card that I would have liked a boost for as well is Transmute, but for me, the thing to "fix" with Transmute is the weak effect of trashing treasures -- you normally don't want more Transmutes. It's nice that trashing treasures gives an action card for symmetry, and Transmute is the only action card guaranteed to be there, which I guess is the reason for the behaviour. So I'd prefer "Treasure card, gain an action card costing at most $3+P". Because of Transmute there always is. It could be $2+P as well, but $3+P is nice because it helps if you get the dreaded $2+P on a Familiar board.

[Grujah]

Spy can now make your entire one hand crap (by bottomdecking only victory cards during one shuffle) - which cards generally should do.

Counting house is interesting, rest - most don't need those changes. Duchess and Bureaucrat especially. Moat too. Woodcutters as well.

[brokoli]

The only cards I would change are Scout and Transmute. Maybe counting house too, but that is not absolutely needed.
For Scout, the +$1 is IMO the best change. +1 card makes it too strong.
For Transmute, maybe a benefit when trashing a curse ?

[KingZog3]

It seems like you want to fix a lot of cards that you don't know how to play to their fullest. Explorer is amazing in certain games where you can gain Gold every turn. Also Silver into hand is WAY stronger than you think, which is why your bureaucrat fix is insane. Also, why fix things like Vagrant. It's just a card you buy if you can spare the extra $. It's $2, it's fine. People say Adventurer needs fixing, but it doesn't. There have been games where it's definitely worth the $6. Same as Expand. Usually not worth $7, but sometimes you just can't live without it.

Fixes like the "may" on Throne Room are good, but I already play with that anyway. It also only makes a difference in extremely rare cases.

Moat doesn't have to be playable. Playable means it's the center piece of your strategy. Moat is used to block attacks. You buy it if you're betting attacked a lot. That's how you play it. The extra $ is not needed.

Your Chancellor fix is ok I guess. It makes it stronger, so it would have to be $4, but it's very memory rewarding. Not that that's bad, but it can be not fun if one person is good at remembering their deck, while the other just wants to have a good time playing a game of Dominion.

The trashing on Lookout is good. That's the point of the card. You shouldn't be playing it near the end of the game unless you know what's coming next. The risk is what defines the card. Without it it's mostly just a regular trasher.

The extra Coppersmith copper is either too good, or gets in the way. If I'm running a tight deck (4 Copper 1 Coppersmith), that Copper is just a great way to ruin my deck.

+1 card on Woodcutter might actually make it worse. I may not play it as it risks drawing an action dead. It's weak yes, but really its a card just for the +buy.

Navigator is fine. The point is to check if the next turn is good or not. It's better than you think. Often you lose games because your turn with all the Villages and Smithys came too late. Navigator makes it come sooner.

Rats?! The beauty of Rats is that they a card only for TFB. Besides, 2 cards on trash is crazy good. That chages the card from simply replacing itself to actually keeping your hand size at 5 cards. Salvager a Rats for $4 and then have a 5 card hand again.

Cache, Contraband, Secret Chamber, Develop, Mandarin and Saboteur are good. Just because a card isn't always good doesn't mean it need fixing. There are situations for all of these cards where they are perfect for their price.

Scout might need some fixing. The +$1 suggested by brokoli seems the best.

[LastFootnote]

The only card I would change is Scout. I would give it +$1. Most of these these suggestions are just you not being willing to get better with these cards. Not all cards should be powerhouses. Many of the cards you name are very cool as niche/support cards.

Just as an example, your Vagrant change would eliminate Mystic/Vagrant, one of Dark Ages' coolest combos.

[GeronimoRex]

I agree that the Pearl Diver buff is interesting... though I think it would make it too powerful for a $2, since spamming Pearl Divers would be able to do an amazing job cleaning up your draw pile.

Transmute is tricky. The symmetry and simplicity needs to remain. I often buy it as-is, since it allows trashing Estates for Gold in the early game. I think any buff makes it too powerful for its cost, but I like the cost. Even the self-gaining ability is okay, since it makes it easy to run down the Transmute pile without having to buy lots of potions. And if you have another trashing card that needs fodder, the extra Transmutes are great fuel for the trash.

Counting House is an edge-case card in most instances. Not useful in most boards, but really fun to build a strategy around in the right kingdom. If I were going to buff it, I'd probably add a first line that says "Gain a Copper." That would guarantee at least one Copper in the discard pile, and it would slowly help power it up by adding coppers to the hand. Actually, I like that buff. Still an edge-case card, but makes it slightly more effective.

Coppersmith I like the idea of buffing, but I don't have any ideas that don't make it too powerful (e.g. adding +1 Card makes it too powerful -- too likely to have $6 or $8 on turn 3/4.) Maybe have it "You may gain a Copper." -- wouldn't help that turn, but would give the option of putting more Coppers in the deck if the player wanted more Coppers.

Bureaucrat, Moat, Chancellor, Duchess, Spy, Tribute, Lookout, Navigator, Woodcutter, Vagrant are fine as-is.

Feast would be purchased a lot more often if buffed... I'd make it "Trash this card. Gain one or two cards with a total cost up to $5." That would allow the option for pickups like Moat/Village -- not a big buff, and not helpful on all boards, but enough to make it viable. And/or add +1 Action so it's not a dead card when drawn with another terminal. Really frustrating to open Feast/Woodcutter on a Witch board only to have your Feast/Woodcutter collide on turn 3.

Adventurer -- I think recosting to $5 is the only thing that makes sense. The number of kingdoms where you would want Adventurer instead of Gold for $6 has got to be close to zero. Even at $5, there are many kingdoms where it would never be purchased. However, I think +1 Action is too much of a buff, even at $6, because once it's non-terminal, then it will often be better than Gold and will keep the deck cycling even with greening. Maybe it would have made sense at $7 with +1 Action, +1 Buy, in the Prosperity expansion. Then it becomes a big-money, late-game power card, which keeps with the spirit of Prosperity. No matter what, Adventurer is most effective in Prosperity games where you have the time to refine and raise the value of your treasure. Even as-is, Adventurer might make sense if you just changed it's set to Prosperity, so that having Adventurer on the board would add an additional 10% chance of it being a Colony board.

Scout -- if Scout got buffed, we'd need a new Scout. Gotta have something at the bottom of the pecking order to pick on. Forum entertainment value for Scout makes it valuable as-is.

[HiveMindEmulator]

If you find yourself needing to change more than 10 cards, you're probably mis-evaluating the cards. Not that many cards need fixing. Usually people who make these suggestions just end up making the cards more overpowered than they were underpowered. And often they also lose the elegance of simplicity.

Changes of yours that are ok: Pearl, Throne, Tribute, maybe Counting House and Lookout. The rest are worse than the printed cards, either because they make the card too strong or because they make it too complicated for a marginal change.

I'm curious about why people think this Chancellor change makes the card stronger. It looks marginally different to me. Either you want to discard your deck or you don't. There's no way of knowing what's beyond maybe the top 3-4 cards on your deck, and even that much is rare.

[StrongRhino]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

But seriously, the only thing needing fixing is "you may" on Moneylender and TR.

[RTT]

Why dont change Masquerade with you may trash a card from your hand if you have at least 2 cards in your hand
or something like that what stops the KC pin.

[Warfreak2]

The Masquerade pin is rare enough, and contains its own counter (play Masquerade and they have to pass you a KC, a Goons, or a Masquerade), it doesn't need fixing; but the most elegant one would be that if you don't pass a card left, you don't receive one from the right. Otherwise it's just Throne Room and Moneylender that need "you may", and I'd accept Scout and Adventurer as just being $2 and $5 cards respectively.

[Awaclus]

The Masquerade pin is rare enough, and contains its own counter (play Masquerade and they have to pass you a KC, a Goons, or a Masquerade), it doesn't need fixing; but the most elegant one would be that if you don't pass a card left, you don't receive one from the right.

Sucks to be the player on your right.

[forthemame]

I'm surprised so many people feel these cards don't need any tweaking.  Perhaps I'm wrong, but I've played many many games online and in person and many / most of the ones I list seem to be rarely used.  It seems like there's only 1 or 2 winning strategies on most random kingdom combinations, and I've noticed these cards seem to be the culprits as they're rarely purchased consistently.

It'll take a lot of playtesting to fully balance, but I think my playgroup will go ahead and make minor tweaks to several of these cards despite most of the replies stating to otherwise leave them unchanged.

[LastFootnote]

I think my playgroup will go ahead and make minor tweaks to several of these cards despite most of the replies stating to otherwise leave them unchanged.

What a shock!

[Drab Emordnilap]

People always talk about Moneylender and Throne Room; what about Graverobber?

[Warfreak2]

The Masquerade pin is rare enough, and contains its own counter (play Masquerade and they have to pass you a KC, a Goons, or a Masquerade), it doesn't need fixing; but the most elegant one would be that if you don't pass a card left, you don't receive one from the right.

Sucks to be the player on your right.

What? Perhaps you have misunderstood. Everyone chooses a card from their hand, and places it face down on the table, to their left, as per the rules. The only difference is now, you pick up a card to your right if you passed a card left. So the player to my right passes a card left, but I didn't pass one left so I don't take it; instead, the player to my left receives a card from their right, which turns out to not have been sent by me, but by the player on my right. Everyone either sends and receives one card each, or no cards each... what did you think would happen to the remaining card on the table that I wouldn't pick up?

[achmed_sender]

People always talk about Moneylender and Throne Room; what about Graverobber?

Because it's very rare that you want to play it, but neither expanding an action nor picking something out of trash. And often there won't even be something to pick up, so there's practically the "may" - just choose the trash-option with nothing to gain in it.

Brace yourselves - HoP-games-with-Silver-in-Trash-Edgecases are coming...

[forthemame]

The only card I would change is Scout. I would give it +$1. Most of these these suggestions are just you not being willing to get better with these cards. Not all cards should be powerhouses. Many of the cards you name are very cool as niche/support cards.

Just as an example, your Vagrant change would eliminate Mystic/Vagrant, one of Dark Ages' coolest combos.

These cards can still be niche/support cards, but some of these tweaks will let them be used in kingdoms that aren't otherwise suited to allow for them to be used effectively.  Saying you have to get better with the cards is like saying you have to be a better driver with your Pinto when racing in Formula 1.  There's limits to these cards, and pushing their usefulness baseline up, they become more viable without being too strong.

The Vagrant change (et al) is just me thinking out loud; I haven't playtested these to see the impact.  I'll refine things a bit first.

[eHalcyon]

If you find yourself needing to change more than 10 cards, you're probably mis-evaluating the cards. Not that many cards need fixing. Usually people who make these suggestions just end up making the cards more overpowered than they were underpowered. And often they also lose the elegance of simplicity.

Changes of yours that are ok: Pearl, Throne, Tribute, maybe Counting House and Lookout. The rest are worse than the printed cards, either because they make the card too strong or because they make it too complicated for a marginal change.

I'm curious about why people think this Chancellor change makes the card stronger. It looks marginally different to me. Either you want to discard your deck or you don't. There's no way of knowing what's beyond maybe the top 3-4 cards on your deck, and even that much is rare.

Do you really think the Tribute change is OK?  It seems too powerful to me.  I mean, I guess it is checked by the inherent unreliability -- maybe I just want cards but I keep getting coin instead -- but counting duplicates just makes all possibilities so strong.  +$4, +4 Cards, or +$2 and +2 cards... all are great and worth more than $5.  I am discounting the effect of Curses and actions though.

I don't think the Chancellor change is necessarily too strong -- it would just be really tedious to play IRL.  Depends on the players, I guess.  But I imagine many people would slow down to try to track their deck better, and then agonize over the current state of their deck as to whether they should flip over yet another card.

I think my playgroup will go ahead and make minor tweaks to several of these cards despite most of the replies stating to otherwise leave them unchanged.

What a shock!

To put it a bit more gently -- it's quite possible that the reason you (forthemame) think that these cards are too weak is because of group think.  The same thing can lead people to think that Pirate Ship is gamebreakingly overpowered.  Just to call out a couple:

Moat is plenty useful on a board with a strong attack.  This is especially true with more than 2 players, and with certain stacking attacks like Torturer.  Yeah it's weak without attacks, but not every card can or should be good all the time.

Duchess is gained free with Duchy.  If you never gain Duchess when you get a Duchy, it's probable that you are underestimating Duchess.  It can be useful for injecting a bit of extra money when you are heavily greening.

The official Lookout is already plenty useful as a non-terminal trasher.  It becomes a dead card in the late game, but that's a small price to pay for clearing out a bunch of your starting junk in the early game.

Contraband is great when there are many different cards you want, so that there isn't any one thing that an opponent can ban to wreck you.

Saboteur is often weak so it doesn't need a nerf.  At the same time, there are instances when it becomes very powerful (mostly when you can build an engine to play several every turn) so it doesn't need a buff either.



Keep in mind that there will always be cards that are weakest.  Even if you buff all of these, something will still be weak.  It's OK that some cards are less commonly purchased -- the neat thing is when you find those rare kingdoms where the "bad" cards shine.  Crazy draw engines where Coppersmith nets you $7+ on its own.  Engines making use of every card available where you pick up the pieces quickly via Contraband.  Develop chains!  Pretty much every card will shine once in a while.  You won't ever find those cases if you dismiss them out of hand.

[Asper]

Remove the +1 Action from Rebuild. That's all for me.

[LastFootnote]

I think my playgroup will go ahead and make minor tweaks to several of these cards despite most of the replies stating to otherwise leave them unchanged.

What a shock!

To put it a bit more gently -- it's quite possible that the reason you (forthemame) think that these cards are too weak is because of group think.

Actually, I just find it funny/sad when somebody's like, "What do you think of these changes?" Then the community is like, "Those changes are bad!" Then the person almost always says, "I'm going to make these changes anyway!"

My point is, if you're just posting to get vindication, rather than looking for actual critiques, don't bother posting.

[Awaclus]

What? Perhaps you have misunderstood.

Yes, that's what happened.

I'm surprised so many people feel these cards don't need any tweaking.  Perhaps I'm wrong, but I've played many many games online and in person and many / most of the ones I list seem to be rarely used.  It seems like there's only 1 or 2 winning strategies on most random kingdom combinations, and I've noticed these cards seem to be the culprits as they're rarely purchased consistently.

It'll take a lot of playtesting to fully balance, but I think my playgroup will go ahead and make minor tweaks to several of these cards despite most of the replies stating to otherwise leave them unchanged.

No card is a strategy by itself. Except Rebuild and sometimes Jack of all Trades. If Saboteur isn't bought, it doesn't mean that the "Saboteur strategy is too weak", it means that the strategy which utilizes Saboteur isn't present on the board, and making Saboteur more powerful won't change the fact. If you improve Rats' on-trash benefit, it's still useless on boards without trashing, and if you make it good enough to be worth it with non-TFB trashers, it becomes completely dominating the games with TFB trashers.

And there's always only one winning strategy: the one that wins, and it takes skill to know which one it is. If it is obvious that one strategy is superior to all the others, it doesn't take a lot of skill, but it does require a lot of skill to know, when to buy a weak card or when to ignore a power card, because those things are not obvious.

[forthemame]

I think my playgroup will go ahead and make minor tweaks to several of these cards despite most of the replies stating to otherwise leave them unchanged.

What a shock!

To put it a bit more gently -- it's quite possible that the reason you (forthemame) think that these cards are too weak is because of group think.

Actually, I just find it funny/sad when somebody's like, "What do you think of these changes?" Then the community is like, "Those changes are bad!" Then the person almost always says, "I'm going to make these changes anyway!"

My point is, if you're just posting to get vindication, rather than looking for actual critiques, don't bother posting.

Regardless of what you think, the cards simply aren't being bought and used effectively when I play online and in person.  I'm going to change the cards I play with a bit to help with that when I play in person.  If they work for us, then who cares what you think.  Get over yourself.

[scott_pilgrim]

If they work for us, then who cares what you think.  Get over yourself.

If you don't care what we think, then why did you bother posting?

The thing is, the people who posted here are trying to be helpful and show you why they do/don't think your changes will make Dominion a better game, because by posting, you implicitly asked for them to do that.  If you're going to ignore their advice anyway, then there wasn't much point in posting this thread.

Anyway, most of the card you mentioned are weak, but not so much so that they need changing.  I think it would be disappointing if you found a game where a normal Bureaucrat could have been awesome for whatever reason, but everyone is getting them anyway because gaining Silver to hand is so good.  And there are some minor variants you could make that probably wouldn't hurt the game at all, but if you buff all the weak cards until they're not weak, then you just get a new batch of weak cards that get ignored.  Maybe that makes for an interesting metagame, if that's what you're going for, but I can understand why the general consensus of the people here think it's a bad idea.  It's impossible to perfectly balance all the cards in the game, you might as well just settle for DXV's attempt.