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[eHalcyon]

I think Fragasnap is probably right that ULS is practically unusable outside of BM, to the detriment of the game. The only exceptions I can think of are the obvious combo with Silk Road, and taking a free Great Hall or Island (or, when buying a Province, a free Nobles or Harem). Maybe you could play it with Watchtower trashing the Estates, just because you want the +4 Cards...

So from what I can see, this is a really simple card that is extremely interesting already because opinion on it is so divergent.  There were people who thought it would be too strong in an engine, stacking like Goons or Bridge.  There are people who think it is unusable for engines.  There are people who think it is too good for BM -- and on this note, I will say that however strong it is, I'm pretty sure Wharf-BM is still better.

I think that it often will be pretty weak for engines.  Warfreak points out a few exceptions with alt VP and Watchtower.  I have one more that I think is very cool -- "Remodel" style engines.  That is to say, engines that have an emphasis on Remodeling (or Expanding or Developing).  That fits pretty nicely with Hinterlands, where there are several cards that you want just for the on-gain and would be happy to Remodel.

[Warfreak2]

It is obviously terrible for engines. The first thing an engine needs is draw, normally it adds a payload (e.g. 7 Bridges, or 90 Saboteurs) once it can reliably draw itself. ULS is a draw card, so it wants to be bought and played early, but it gives you Estates every time you buy engine components, so it's just totally unfit for purpose.

I don't think it's "too" good for BM, the problem is that it's pretty good for BM but nothing else. I don't know if it's as good as Wharf/BM (I suspect it is competitive), but Wharf is a good card because it's even more powerful in an engine. You don't see Wharf on the board and think "well, looks like a BM game", but on many boards where an engine is possible, the addition of ULS would make it a clear BM board. That's detrimental to the game.

The Watchtower thing is nothing more than a gimmick, you either need enough junk Watchtowers, or draw your deck, to be sure you'll get one in hand. If you can't draw your deck yet, it's not safe to add a ULS, and if you can, another draw card is superfluous. The only engine where it seems like a good idea would be a Conspirator engine which is activated by Great Halls, hoping to draw your deck by the time the Great Halls have run out; but for a four-card combo, that's not very spectacular.

Turbo-Remodel is generally not a good strategy; junking yourself with the whole Estate pile isn't going to improve it.

[eHalcyon]

Not so much talking about "turbo Remodel" as games without +Buy but extra gaining in the form of Remodel-family cards.  I remember an isotropic log where (I think) Stef or Marin managed to play an engine game when there wasn't any +Buy thanks to Cache and Expand, IIRC.  Cache was used to gain more cards from a single Buy, giving more fodder for Expand.

Rather than considering ULS as primary draw, maybe it should be considered part draw, part payload.  If it was the only draw, yeah that's probably not so good for an engine.  But it does help engines by letting you gain multiple VP cards in a turn.

It still seems to me that this simple card has some really interesting strategic implications.  I think people are having conflicting evaluations of it because the strategy for it would end up being quite different from existing cards, and that's a plus in my book.

As far as BMX goes... I really doubt that this is competitive with Wharf-BM.  ULS will clog more quickly from early Duchies, and Wharf can make up for those points without much trouble since it has +Buy built in.  I really think that ULS would be closer to Smithy-BM, where it gets some advantage from the extra VP cards but loses out in the extra dead cards from early plays.  Maybe that's wrong, I don't know.  Even if ULS is strong BM, I don't see a big problem with that.  Other engines could still outrace it, possibly making use of ULS, possibly ignoring it.  It's not terrible to have a BM-ish card sometimes either.

Whoever designed this card, I hope you appreciate all the defense you're getting from me.

[nopawnsintended]

I think Fragasnap is probably right that ULS is practically unusable outside of BM, to the detriment of the game. The only exceptions I can think of are the obvious combo with Silk Road, and taking a free Great Hall or Island (or, when buying a Province, a free Nobles or Harem). Maybe you could play it with Watchtower trashing the Estates, just because you want the +4 Cards...

So from what I can see, this is a really simple card that is extremely interesting already because opinion on it is so divergent.  There were people who thought it would be too strong in an engine, stacking like Goons or Bridge.  There are people who think it is unusable for engines.  There are people who think it is too good for BM -- and on this note, I will say that however strong it is, I'm pretty sure Wharf-BM is still better.

I only commented on cards that I liked to this point, but given all the attention paid to ULS, I'll give a comment.  I'm not a huge fan of this one.  In particular, the issue of how crazy it is in Colony games is worth emphasizing.  People have mentioned that you get a Province with your Colony if you hit $11 with this, but equally important is that you get a Province with your Platinum, and no longer have to choose between Plat and Province.  That seems to me to be a big deal.

Also, I have to agree with previous comments (I forget who made them) that the gaining Victory cards feels odd for a mega-terminal draw card (i.e., +4, rather than +3 Cards).  If I'm going for BM-terminal draw, I like to get lots of money density.  The fact that the "bonus" on the card hurts that objective makes this less interesting to me.  That's a matter of taste.  I can see people liking having to fight the card to get the money density up, but that's just not for me (sorry).

Most of all, this just doesn't feel like Hinterlands to me.  Hinterlands has a lot of gainers, but they gain things that tend to help you with big, ugly decks (usually treasure, thinking IGG, Trader, Jack, Tunnel, Cache), rather than junk them up.  The gain here is supposed to be junk, so there's that.  Plus, none of these are primarily payload gainers like ULS (maybe with the exception of using Haggler to gain a Border Village to gain a Duchy, but that involves two cards, not just playing one).  So, in my view, ULS has a different feel than Hinterlands.  Maybe that's a plus for people out there, but it is a minus for me.

*FWIW: Divergent opinions on the strength of cards might be worth liking a card more, but divergent opinions on the interestingness are not.  By my reading, the commentary about ULS has been equal parts disagreement about strength and interestingness/taste.  I could be reading the comments incorrectly though.

[Warfreak2]

If I'm going for BM-terminal draw, I like to get lots of money density.  The fact that the "bonus" on the card hurts that objective makes this less interesting to me.

If you're playing BM-terminal draw, your average hand (after playing the draw card) will be larger, so your money density can be lower than if you just played straight BM.

[nopawnsintended]

If I'm going for BM-terminal draw, I like to get lots of money density.  The fact that the "bonus" on the card hurts that objective makes this less interesting to me.

If you're playing BM-terminal draw, your average hand (after playing the draw card) will be larger, so your money density can be lower than if you just played straight BM.

For this comment, my baseline feeling was not a pure BM deck (rather, other BM terminal draw decks), but your point is fair enough.  Maybe that's the purpose for the extra card draw, but my objections to the card pertain more to whether I would enjoy playing with it and whether it feels like Hinterlands (to me) than if the card would be a good BM enabler. My point here was that it doesn't feel like my kind of bm;td card.  If I were to try playing with it, I could be wrong about its feel though.

[eHalcyon]

My point here was that it doesn't feel like my kind of bm;td card.

What does "bm;td" stand for?  Big Money...?

On a different note -- is the voting period for this contest also extended?  I haven't sent votes in for this one yet.

Also, any other cards people want to talk about?

[nopawnsintended]

My point here was that it doesn't feel like my kind of bm;td card.

What does "bm;td" stand for?  Big Money...?

On a different note -- is the voting period for this contest also extended?  I haven't sent votes in for this one yet.

Also, any other cards people want to talk about?

Big Money; Terminal Draw.  bm;td is my own, unless someone else independently discovered it.

[Lhurgoyf]

Pilgrimage
Types: Action
Cost: $3
+1 Action. +2 Buys.
While this is in play, when you gain a Victory card, Victory cards cost $1 less this turn, but not less than $0.

I would raise that with just 2 Pilgrimage cards and $4, a player can buy 3 Estates and 2 Provinces. That is certainly not an unreasonable random occurence in a deck of cards with 3 or 4 Pilgrimage cards in it.

The issue is that if you give Pilgrimage anything different Vanilla effects, it's going to look too much like another card. If you drop that buying Victory-cards stacks the effect (so just a flat $1 decrement for Victory cards) or draw cards, it looks an awful lot like Highway. If you make it terminal or give coins, it looks like Bridge.

What about this change:

Pilgrimage
Types: Action
Cost: $3
+1 Action. +2 Buys.
While this is in play, when you gain a Victory card, Victory cards with the same name cost $1 less this turn, but not less than $0.

So you can chain-buy Duchies or Estates, but two estate-buys don't affect Provinces at all. Hm this makes it very unhelpful in Province buys, but at least it isn't overpowered. What do you think?

[eHalcyon]

Pilgrimage
Types: Action
Cost: $3
+1 Action. +2 Buys.
While this is in play, when you gain a Victory card, Victory cards cost $1 less this turn, but not less than $0.

I would raise that with just 2 Pilgrimage cards and $4, a player can buy 3 Estates and 2 Provinces. That is certainly not an unreasonable random occurence in a deck of cards with 3 or 4 Pilgrimage cards in it.

The issue is that if you give Pilgrimage anything different Vanilla effects, it's going to look too much like another card. If you drop that buying Victory-cards stacks the effect (so just a flat $1 decrement for Victory cards) or draw cards, it looks an awful lot like Highway. If you make it terminal or give coins, it looks like Bridge.

What about this change:

Pilgrimage
Types: Action
Cost: $3
+1 Action. +2 Buys.
While this is in play, when you gain a Victory card, Victory cards with the same name cost $1 less this turn, but not less than $0.

So you can chain-buy Duchies or Estates, but two estate-buys don't affect Provinces at all. Hm this makes it very unhelpful in Province buys, but at least it isn't overpowered. What do you think?

I think it's a very interesting change.  Maybe too big a change though, for this contest.

[Warfreak2]

It'd still be somewhat broken, you'd only need four of them and $12 to buy all the Provinces. Three and $15 would get 7, only 1 Buy short of all 8.

[nopawnsintended]

My point here was that it doesn't feel like my kind of bm;td card.

Also, any other cards people want to talk about?

How about these three?

Chapterhouse
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+1 Action. +$1. Draw until you have 6 cards in hand. Discard 2 cards.
When you buy this, each other player draws a card. When you gain this, each other player with at least 4 cards in hand discards a card.

Barn
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+1 Card. +1 Action. Discard a card. If you discarded a Victory or Curse card, gain a Treasure costing up to $4. Otherwise, +$1 and gain a Victory card costing up to $4. Put the gained card into your hand.
When you buy gain this, gain an Action card costing up to $4, putting it onto your deck.

Safe House
Types: Victory – Reaction
Cost: $3
Worth 2 VP.
When you gain a card costing $0, you may discard this. If you do, gain a Gold.

These are my favorites on the list of 8 that I mentioned before.

On Chapterhouse, I like the split between Buy and Gain.  It also seems like a nice sifter for small hand strategies, which fits the Hinterlands theme well.  People tend to be split on liking the top and/or bottom.  I like it all.

On Barn, I like the fact that the gaining combos with the sifting to handle and enable big, junky decks that are good for Alt VP.  Also, there's a Hinter-combo people haven't brought up: with two Barns, you can gain and discard a Tunnel in the same turn.  Also, if you like that people seem conflicted on its cost, some have called it strong and some have called it weak.  On the commentary, people have called this card too complicated while others have liked it.  As others have mentioned, the card could probably do without the below the line effect for those who don't like complexity.

On Safe House, I have a soft spot for Tunnel, and this is Tunnel for junking attacks.  I like that a lot.  On the other hand, others have mentioned that this enables buying a "better Cache" for $0 at the cost of having a victory card in the deck.  Viewed that way, it might be too strong.  I don't know.  I still like it, but maybe that's because I don't like curses... so I appreciate strong defenses to them.  Also, others have called this too similar to Tunnel.  I'm not sure it is too similar, but I can see that point too.  I guess my favorite part of Hinterlands is the Tunneling. 

[GwinnR]

Ugh.  I have no idea which cards to vote for.

Vote for mine.

or Mine.

<insert Mine and Mint mix-up joke here>

I wouldn't mint, if you'd vote for mine.

[Warfreak2]

Barn
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+1 Card. +1 Action. Discard a card. If you discarded a Victory or Curse card, gain a Treasure costing up to $4. Otherwise, +$1 and gain a Victory card costing up to $4. Put the gained card into your hand.
When you buy gain this, gain an Action card costing up to $4, putting it onto your deck.

Autopile with one Bridge in play? I'll take 10 of these and rush Silk Roads, thanks. Broken.

[nopawnsintended]

Barn
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+1 Card. +1 Action. Discard a card. If you discarded a Victory or Curse card, gain a Treasure costing up to $4. Otherwise, +$1 and gain a Victory card costing up to $4. Put the gained card into your hand.
When you buy gain this, gain an Action card costing up to $4, putting it onto your deck.

Autopile with one Bridge in play? I'll take 10 of these and rush Silk Roads, thanks. Broken.

Oops, I crossed out the wrong word.  I guess this had been fixed, and I unfixed it. :-/ 

Finally, Barn's on-gain clause has become on-buy to avoid piling issues.

[Fragasnap]

Chapterhouse
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+1 Action. +$1. Draw until you have 6 cards in hand. Discard 2 cards.
When you buy this, each other player draws a card. When you gain this, each other player with at least 4 cards in hand discards a card.

The on-buy\on-gain effect is cute, but I think it's too technical where Hinterlands is so easy to explain for the most part. The Action effect is a fun little variant on Peddler, but looks too much like a big-Oasis unless you have the few cards you can easily use to drop your handsize down (and this stacks properly as opposed to Oasis, obviously).

Barn
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+1 Card. +1 Action. Discard a card. If you discarded a Victory or Curse card, gain a Treasure costing up to $4. Otherwise, +$1 and gain a Victory card costing up to $4. Put the gained card into your hand.
When you buy this, gain an Action card costing up to $4, putting it onto your deck.

This seems so fiddly to me. When I first read it, I didn't catch that it gives +$1 because there's so much going on here. Discarding Victory cards for Silver into hand makes this basically better than Explorer and discarding anything else turns this into a sort of Oasis, except that it junks you up with Estates (and that they go into hand is important for stacking Barns).
I'd love to gain Silk Roads, Gardens, Tunnels, or Great Halls with this stuff. That would be stupidly strong.

Safe House
Types: Victory – Reaction
Cost: $3
Worth 2 VP.
When you gain a card costing $0, you may discard this. If you do, gain a Gold.

I don't like how similar this is to Tunnel. In fact, I'd say it's often better than Tunnel since it turns Coppers into half-Caches. Tunnel is already Tunnel. Tunnel is strong. We don't really need another Tunnel.
I'm also not excited about having a Victory card from Hinterlands rather than Intrigue. Furthermore, we already have Tunnel, Island, Farmland, Harem, and Nobles that give flat 2VP. If we're going to have another Victory card, I'd rather it be something more interesting than that.

[Schneau]

• The deadline for turning in your ballots is Monday, September 16, 2013 at 8am CDT.

Voting closes tomorrow! Get in your votes if you want them to count!

[eHalcyon]

My point here was that it doesn't feel like my kind of bm;td card.

Also, any other cards people want to talk about?

How about these three?

Chapterhouse
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+1 Action. +$1. Draw until you have 6 cards in hand. Discard 2 cards.
When you buy this, each other player draws a card. When you gain this, each other player with at least 4 cards in hand discards a card.

Barn
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+1 Card. +1 Action. Discard a card. If you discarded a Victory or Curse card, gain a Treasure costing up to $4. Otherwise, +$1 and gain a Victory card costing up to $4. Put the gained card into your hand.
When you buy gain this, gain an Action card costing up to $4, putting it onto your deck.

Safe House
Types: Victory – Reaction
Cost: $3
Worth 2 VP.
When you gain a card costing $0, you may discard this. If you do, gain a Gold.

I also really like the on-buy/gain of Chapterhouse, but it was pointed out that this may be quite confusing for players not on f.ds.  It's a point of practicality, but I think a very valid one.  The main action did not click for me, but I'm starting to like it a little more.  Thinking more on it though, I am concerned about the power.  It gives $1, then it's a Lab (from 5 card hand) followed by a discard.  If chained, the draw is as strong as Governor.  Kind of hard to get a feel for how good that is.

Overall though, my favourite part of the card is also the thing that kills it.


I don't like Barn because it feels very fiddly.  Not really looking for another silver gainer.  Some people were speculating that ULS would only be viable in BM; well there's pretty much no question for this one.  It usually just gives you Silvers and Estates, neither of which are conducive to an engine.  It's not so great with alt treasure -- you'll only want a single copy of most of the treasures at $4 or less, and you'll want them on t1 if at all.  It is likely to be extremely powerful with several alt VPs, but not in an interesting way.


On Safe House, I do like the reaction as a response to junkers.  I don't like it as a way to get $0 half-Caches.  And I do think that it is too similar to Tunnel.

[Asper]

Some last thoughts i had:

Midnight Gathering and Shaman are basically the same idea, but differently balanced. I like Midnight Gathering a bit more, and i also think it's not such a bad idea. Of course it's basically a 5$ that only later decides which of your cards it will be, but it still needs you buying those originals.

Stranger should use the Tribute method to find the cards which should become cheaper. I like the general idea and so i'll vote for it. Same goes for Artefact which probably should just be "+1Card, +1Action, Trash a card from your hand"  on play.

Mill and Lucky coin are both no-fun cards that can wreck even your opening buys and leave you with a serious disadvantage early on. Lucky Coin is the worse.

I feel Troglodyte Cave might work better costed at 6$ with a little bonus, so gaining Duchies would be possible.

Ring Leader, if played in an engine, can wreck your next hand, leaving you with only one valuable card. I considered voting for it before, but i guess i won't.

Cards i consider voting for:
Consulate, Artefact, Troglodyte Caves, Sanctuary, Witch Doctor, Midnight Gathering, Stranger


Oh, i just see i don't have much time left
Better decide now...

Edit: Oh yeah, cards should fit Hinterlands... Guess that narrows my choice a bit.

[LastFootnote]

I'll post the full results later today, but the winning card is Diviner, submitted by jamespotter! It got 11 votes.

Full disclosure: I cast the tiebreaking vote in this contest, rather than running another poll. This wasn't a vote in addition to my normal vote; it was just that I totaled all the other votes before casting my own.

Here is the winning card, for reference:

Diviner
Types: Action
Cost: $3
+2 Cards. +1 Buy.
While this is in play, when you buy a card, reveal the top 2 cards of your deck, discard any number, and put the rest back on top in any order.

Congratulations, jamespotter!

[Just a Rube]

Interesting that there was way less consensus for the Hinterlands cards. Or maybe we just had way fewer ballots submitted.

Either way, congratulations to jamespotter.

[LastFootnote]

Interesting that there was way less consensus for the Hinterlands cards. Or maybe we just had way fewer ballots submitted.

It was both. There were 31 ballots submitted, which isn't way fewer, but it's definitely fewer.

[XerxesPraelor]

Wow, it's surprising that the card that won wasn't any of the cards that was talked about the most. I was pretty much expecting ULS to win. Congrats!

[cluckyb]

Wow, it's surprising that the card that won wasn't any of the cards that was talked about the most. I was pretty much expecting ULS to win. Congrats!

I feel like the ones that generate a lot of discussion are bound to get some votes, but the fact that they are getting discussed means they have possible flaws or super interesting mechanics, whereas the card that one is rather plain but still works.

course I shouldn't talk cause I forgot to vote. now watch my card have been the tied one 

[Asper]

Hmm... I admit i would have liked a more interesting mechanic to win. There's absolutely nothing wrong with Diviner, and most of my votes had to have some things changed (including my own card), but still...

Anyhow, Diviner is a fine card, so congratulations jamespotter