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[nopawnsintended]

So if the possibility of hitting your own Province is such a bad thing (it really isn't), then it's better just to put some other restriction on there so that the Province doesn't get trashed in the first place.  A cost restriction on the trashing would be one way.  Another option would be to have it discard Victory cards instead of trashing them.  Then the trashing also whiffs on Estates, which also helps mitigate how powerful Charter can be just on its own.

The possibility of hitting your own Province is bad if there's nothing you can do about it.  At least with Lookout, you get some choice about whether you trash Province or some other card in the top 3 cards (and if you turn over 3 Provinces, maybe you have too many).  But, having no choice is bad.  Maybe that's my opinion/taste, but it's a firmly held conviction that I find to be quite reasonable.

That said, I like the idea of whiffing on trashing Victory cards (both on trash and gain).  That interaction with Sab seems to be the issue that people are having more than anything.

[markusin]

So if the possibility of hitting your own Province is such a bad thing (it really isn't), then it's better just to put some other restriction on there so that the Province doesn't get trashed in the first place.  A cost restriction on the trashing would be one way.  Another option would be to have it discard Victory cards instead of trashing them.  Then the trashing also whiffs on Estates, which also helps mitigate how powerful Charter can be just on its own.

The possibility of hitting your own Province is bad if there's nothing you can do about it.  At least with Lookout, you get some choice about whether you trash Province or some other card in the top 3 cards (and if you turn over 3 Provinces, maybe you have too many).  But, having no choice is bad.  Maybe that's my opinion/taste, but it's a firmly held conviction that I find to be quite reasonable.

That said, I like the idea of whiffing on trashing Victory cards (both on trash and gain).  That interaction with Sab seems to be the issue that people are having more than anything.

When it comes to gaining Provinces from the trash, well, that's already possible with Rogue/Graverobber + cost reduction.

Whiffing on VP cards can be a nerf, except the card still lets you gain from the trash if it discards a VP card. So, you don't waste your trash gain on getting your Province back, and that might defy the author's original intention.

[scott_pilgrim]

So if the possibility of hitting your own Province is such a bad thing (it really isn't), then it's better just to put some other restriction on there so that the Province doesn't get trashed in the first place.  A cost restriction on the trashing would be one way.  Another option would be to have it discard Victory cards instead of trashing them.  Then the trashing also whiffs on Estates, which also helps mitigate how powerful Charter can be just on its own.

The possibility of hitting your own Province is bad if there's nothing you can do about it.  At least with Lookout, you get some choice about whether you trash Province or some other card in the top 3 cards (and if you turn over 3 Provinces, maybe you have too many).  But, having no choice is bad.  Maybe that's my opinion/taste, but it's a firmly held conviction that I find to be quite reasonable.

That said, I like the idea of whiffing on trashing Victory cards (both on trash and gain).  That interaction with Sab seems to be the issue that people are having more than anything.

When it comes to gaining Provinces from the trash, well, that's already possible with Rogue/Graverobber + cost reduction.

Whiffing on VP cards can be a nerf, except the card still lets you gain from the trash if it discards a VP card. So, you don't waste your trash gain on getting your Province back, and that might defy the author's original intention.

That's only going to make a difference when good things are being trashed and not being gained by other Charter (A)s, which seems fairly uncommon.  I don't think it's a big deal.

Here is my opinion on why the potential Province trashing is a bad thing: In a sense, it has the reverse Treasure Map problem.  By Treasure Map problem, I mean when it's probabilistically suboptimal to go for Treasure Map but you get lucky and collide them anyway, which ends up giving you an advantage.  So by reverse Treasure Map problem, I mean that it can be probabilistically optimal for you to play Charter (A) (since you have a low ratio of Provinces in your deck and the consequence of hitting the Province times the probability that it happens is less than the benefit of hitting, say, a Copper times the probability that that happens), but you get unlucky and hit a Province anyway.  The reason why this is a much bigger problem than the Treasure Map problem is that good players generally know not to go for Treasure Map without support, so as you reach high levels of play the problem disappears entirely.  But when you reverse the problem, it never goes away, because you're still looking at cases where making the correct play can screw you over.

So for people who are dismissing it by saying "just never play Charter (A) after you have a Province"; I suspect that there will be cases in which it is indeed the correct play to play Charter (A) with a Province in your deck, and yet you can still hit that Province and suffer hugely because of it.  Let's say that you just lose the game if you trash a Province, and you have 20 cards in your draw pile with one Province in it.  That's only a 5% chance of just losing the game when you play Charter (A), but if you hit one of your other Charter (A)s, that's +3 cards, and maybe you know that that's enough to bump you up to $8 for another Province this hand, or if you hit your Copper, that's a bad card out of your deck, or if you hit your Catacombs you get a cantrip workshop effect, or if you hit one of your average cards nothing bad happens.  I feel like many of those types of scenarios give you a higher probability of winning the game by playing Charter (A), but you still have the problem of potentially trashing your Province(s).

So, I actually really like eHalcyon's fix, with the prevention of gaining victory cards from the trash.  That is:

+1 card, +1 action. Reveal the top card of your deck.  If it's a victory card, discard it.  Otherwise, trash it.  You may gain a card from the trash that is not a victory card.
When you trash this, +2 cards.

[eHalcyon]

So if the possibility of hitting your own Province is such a bad thing (it really isn't), then it's better just to put some other restriction on there so that the Province doesn't get trashed in the first place.  A cost restriction on the trashing would be one way.  Another option would be to have it discard Victory cards instead of trashing them.  Then the trashing also whiffs on Estates, which also helps mitigate how powerful Charter can be just on its own.

The possibility of hitting your own Province is bad if there's nothing you can do about it.  At least with Lookout, you get some choice about whether you trash Province or some other card in the top 3 cards (and if you turn over 3 Provinces, maybe you have too many).  But, having no choice is bad.  Maybe that's my opinion/taste, but it's a firmly held conviction that I find to be quite reasonable.

That said, I like the idea of whiffing on trashing Victory cards (both on trash and gain).  That interaction with Sab seems to be the issue that people are having more than anything.

When it comes to gaining Provinces from the trash, well, that's already possible with Rogue/Graverobber + cost reduction.

Whiffing on VP cards can be a nerf, except the card still lets you gain from the trash if it discards a VP card. So, you don't waste your trash gain on getting your Province back, and that might defy the author's original intention.

Yes it's already possible, but it's not easy to do. You are asking for multiple terminals AND cost reduction, which probably needs to be highway or you'll need even more village support. It's problematic with Charter as is because it is a cantrip.

[Schneau]

A little less than 12 hours left to get your votes in! I'm definitely hoping more people vote than for Hinterlands, which had 31.

[LastFootnote]

I hope to have the results up sometime tonight, but I haven't even started tallying the votes yet. All I can tell you for sure so far is that my card got zero votes. Archetype, y u no vote!? 

[Asper]

I hope to have the results up sometime tonight, but I haven't even started tallying the votes yet. All I can tell you for sure so far is that my card got zero votes. Archetype, y u no vote!? 

He's not the only one who didn't vote. I'm guilty myself
Honestly i din't even look at most cards. Sorry to all those who would otherwise have got my vote...

I spent a few days in and on the way to London which caused me being about 36 hours in a row without real sleep (twice) last week, so i'll let the fact that i still feel like a wreck be my excuse.

[dghunter79]

Well, in the meantime, here is a novel I wrote about developing Danse Macabre.  A card which I also voted for!  (Along with Bargain, Garderobe, Incendiarist, and Stronghold.)


After making a few cards that went mostly unremarked upon, I'm very happy to have a card provoke some conversation, even though not everyone liked it.  Thanks for the attention, it was incredibly rewarding! 

I knew I wanted to do a card that was kind of morbid, like Rats and Knights.  So, first I thought of the name.

The second thing I thought of was a card that trashed on buy, an idea I really dug.  Like Grand Market, activated City, Prizes, Hermit and Madman, this would be a card you couldn't get the usual way.  Who doesn't love that?  And because Dark Ages has Rogue and Graverobber in addition to the usual amount of gainers, it fits nicely into the set.  There's more likely to be a path to Danse Macabre, if you really want it.

But I didn't want Macabre to be a dead card when there's no way of gaining it.  So, an on-trash benefit seemed like it would fit the card and the set in a satisfying way.  Just had to come up with a nice on-trash benefit.

For a while, Macabre cost 6 and could top-deck an action.  At first, it's on-trash could top-deck ANY action.  Hey, why not?  How often would it appear with King's Court anyway.  But, I dunno.  With Baker in the kingdom, you could get a second-turn Forge paired with your three starting Estates, and that seemed like way too much, even for me.  Then it could just top-deck cheaper actions, and that seemed ok, if a little derivative of Border Village.  But, it had this really boring interaction with Graverobber, where you'd buy Danse Macabre, topdeck Graverobber, then use Graverobber to topdeck Danse Macabre.  Kind of programmatic.   And Graverobber should be one of the more fun interactions, so I ditched that idea.

Next, Macabre cost 4 and could get two cheaper cards.  But that seemed like it would often be too strong.  So, I thought, what about a cheaper card and an even-still-cheaper card?  That would be good sometimes, and suck sometimes.  Again, it fits with the set, because, hardy-har, Poor House-Hamlet.  And though the effect would often suck when there's no $2s, it would never be COMPLETELY irrelevant, because in pretty much any kingdom, there's a plausible game state where you would want to buy Estate on 4, and now you can get a Silver with it. 

It was hard to come up with a simple way to describe a second, even-cheaper card.  Finally, I thought of "two cards of different costs" and decided, OK, that doesn't exactly mean what I want it to mean, but it's simple.  Then I realized, actually it means exactly what I want it to mean!  A card and a cheaper card = two cards of different cost.  That epiphany was a the high point of my card-designing hobby so far.

And then finally I had to decide what the card actually did.  But, I couldn't think of anything, so I gave up.  I started working on this other card that plays an action for no effect, then gets a cool benefit.  Then I decided to just put that onto Danse Macabre.

Problems with the card
The biggest problem with the card is the on-trash effect.  I love it, but it's really pile-draining.  If there's a good $2-$3 combo, like Hamlet-Menagerie, the game will end as soon as it starts.  I'd prefer not to change the benefit, but the only solution I really came up with is limiting the number of Macabres to 8.

Some people are vexed by the "play an action for no effect."  That's understandable, as it's the only thing in the game like that.  But, that's also what makes the card cool.  Playing an action for no effect is, as these things go, not ALL that confusing.  It's easy to track.  Yeah, it creates rules questions, but all of them have clear answers.  An action played this way plays as if it has no text in its box.  It triggers Conspirator, Horn of Plenty, Urchin, and Horse Traders, because it still has a card-type and a name.  But it does nothing else.  It has no "while-in-play effects."  Durations played this way leave play during clean-up, as Tactician does when you play it with no cards in hand, (that is, "for no effect.")

EDIT: I see now that the technical Dominion term for the text in the box is "abilities" not "effects."  It would be clearer wording to use the correct term on the card itself.

I prefer "play an action for no effect" to "set-aside an action now and discard it during clean-up."  Though they have similar effects, the first phrasing is simpler.  So that's my marginal preference.  Of course, discarding an action is simpler still, but it's not as harsh a penalty, and so the benefit can't be as cool.  That's my least favorite way of doing the card.

Then third, there's the benefit.  +4 Cards and +1 Action is pretty strong.  Is it too strong?  Well, that's the benefit of Village-Smithy.  It's also only one more +card than Stables, which discards dumb Coppers instead of wasting actions.  But, at 4, Danse Macabre is cheaper than Stables.  On the other hand, it's harder to get.  But, with Ironworks, Talisman, Haggler, etc, it's not THAT hard.  So, is the bonus too good?

Ironworks-Macabre I thought about a lot.  It's really strong.  It's different from Ironworks-Village-Smithy, because the Ironworks IS the Smithy.  (Or the Village.  Or it's an Ironworks!)  If you open Ironworks-Silver and then just buy Ironworks and use Ironworks to gain Danse Macabre, by turn 7 you can draw your deck, buy a Province, and also gain more Macabres.  You can do that 8 turns in a row, with luck.  I think you probably are unlikely to have that optimum luck -- sometimes you'll have dead hands.  And, hey, other combos can get all the Provinces by turn 14.  (Right?) 

But, the whole sequence feels like it might be programmatic and boring.  I think the problem is, wasting an action is sad.  Actions are fun.  Drawing cards is a little less fun.  I worry that +4 cards, +1 Action doesn't quite make up for wasting an action, in terms of enjoyability.  I suspect the bonus is not so game-breakingly strong, even with Ironworks.  But I wonder if it should be more interesting than "lots of cards."

Finally, some people don't want the card to have two lines.  They just want one big mushy sentence.  I don't get that at all.  Lines are great.

[Schneau]

Well, in the meantime, here is a novel I wrote about developing Danse Macabre.  A card which I also voted for!  (Along with Bargain, Garderobe, Incendiarist, and Stronghold.)


After making a few cards that went mostly unremarked upon, I'm very happy to have a card provoke some conversation, even though not everyone liked it.  Thanks for the attention, it was incredibly rewarding! 

I knew I wanted to do a card that was kind of morbid, like Rats and Knights.  So, first I thought of the name.

The second thing I thought of was a card that trashed on buy, an idea I really dug.  Like Grand Market, activated City, Prizes, Hermit and Madman, this would be a card you couldn't get the usual way.  Who doesn't love that?  And because Dark Ages has Rogue and Graverobber in addition to the usual amount of gainers, it fits nicely into the set.  There's more likely to be a path to Danse Macabre, if you really want it.

But I didn't want Macabre to be a dead card when there's no way of gaining it.  So, an on-trash benefit seemed like it would fit the card and the set in a satisfying way.  Just had to come up with a nice on-trash benefit.

For a while, Macabre cost 6 and could top-deck an action.  At first, it's on-trash could top-deck ANY action.  Hey, why not?  How often would it appear with King's Court anyway.  But, I dunno.  With Baker in the kingdom, you could get a second-turn Forge paired with your three starting Estates, and that seemed like way too much, even for me.  Then it could just top-deck cheaper actions, and that seemed ok, if a little derivative of Border Village.  But, it had this really boring interaction with Graverobber, where you'd buy Danse Macabre, topdeck Graverobber, then use Graverobber to topdeck Danse Macabre.  Kind of programmatic.   And Graverobber should be one of the more fun interactions, so I ditched that idea.

Next, Macabre cost 4 and could get two cheaper cards.  But that seemed like it would often be too strong.  So, I thought, what about a cheaper card and an even-still-cheaper card?  That would be good sometimes, and suck sometimes.  Again, it fits with the set, because, hardy-har, Poor House-Hamlet.  And though the effect would often suck when there's no $2s, it would never be COMPLETELY irrelevant, because in pretty much any kingdom, there's a plausible game state where you would want to buy Estate on 4, and now you can get a Silver with it. 

It was hard to come up with a simple way to describe a second, even-cheaper card.  Finally, I thought of "two cards of different costs" and decided, OK, that doesn't exactly mean what I want it to mean, but it's simple.  Then I realized, actually it means exactly what I want it to mean!  A card and a cheaper card = two cards of different cost.  That epiphany was a the high point of my card-designing hobby so far.

And then finally I had to decide what the card actually did.  But, I couldn't think of anything, so I gave up.  I started working on this other card that plays an action for no effect, then gets a cool benefit.  Then I decided to just put that onto Danse Macabre.

Problems with the card
The biggest problem with the card is the on-trash effect.  I love it, but it's really pile-draining.  If there's a good $2-$3 combo, like Hamlet-Menagerie, the game will end as soon as it starts.  I'd prefer not to change the benefit, but the only solution I really came up with is limiting the number of Macabres to 8.

Some people are vexed by the "play an action for no effect."  That's understandable, as it's the only thing in the game like that.  But, that's also what makes the card cool.  Playing an action for no effect is, as these things go, not ALL that confusing.  It's easy to track.  Yeah, it creates rules questions, but all of them have clear answers.  An action played this way plays as if it has no text in its box.  It triggers Conspirator, Horn of Plenty, Urchin, and Horse Traders, because it still has a card-type and a name.  But it does nothing else.  It has no "while-in-play effects."  Durations played this way leave play during clean-up, as Tactician does when you play it with no cards in hand, (that is, "for no effect.")

I prefer "play an action for no effect" to "set-aside an action now and discard it during clean-up."  Though they have similar effects, the first phrasing is simpler.  So that's my marginal preference.  Of course, discarding an action is simpler still, but it's not as harsh a penalty, and so the benefit can't be as cool.  That's my least favorite way of doing the card.

Then third, there's the benefit.  +4 Cards and +1 Action is pretty strong.  Is it too strong?  Well, that's the benefit of Village-Smithy.  It's also only one more +card than Stables, which discards dumb Coppers instead of wasting actions.  But, at 4, Danse Macabre is cheaper than Stables.  On the other hand, it's harder to get.  But, with Ironworks, Talisman, Haggler, etc, it's not THAT hard.  So, is the bonus too good?

Ironworks-Macabre I thought about a lot.  It's really strong.  It's different from Ironworks-Village-Smithy, because the Ironworks IS the Smithy.  (Or the Village.  Or it's an Ironworks!)  If you open Ironworks-Silver and then just buy Ironworks and use Ironworks to gain Danse Macabre, by turn 7 you can draw your deck, buy a Province, and also gain more Macabres.  You can do that 8 turns in a row, with luck.  I think you probably are unlikely to have that optimum luck -- sometimes you'll have dead hands.  And, hey, other combos can get all the Provinces by turn 14.  (Right?) 

But, the whole sequence feels like it might be programmatic and boring.  I think the problem is, wasting an action is sad.  Actions are fun.  Drawing cards is a little less fun.  I worry that +4 cards, +1 Action doesn't quite make up for wasting an action, in terms of enjoyability.  I suspect the bonus is not so game-breakingly strong, even with Ironworks.  But I wonder if it should be more interesting than "lots of cards."

Finally, some people don't want the card to have two lines.  They just want one big mushy sentence.  I don't get that at all.  Lines are great.

I applaud you for what was to me the most thought provoking card in the set, as well as this nice writeup! I don't expect Danse Macabre to win, but I voted for it and enjoyed its uniqueness!

[Archetype]

Well, I made Smelter (A).

Smelter (A)
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $3
+1 Action. Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card of equal cost, putting it on top of your deck.
When you would gain a Silver, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, instead, gain a Spoils from the Spoils pile.

I was messing around and made a mini expansion entirely revolving around Spoils a loooong time ago. The bottom part of this card was one of those cards:

Profiteer
Types: Action-Reaction
Cost: $4
+1 Action
+1 Buy
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Spoils. Put it into your hand, discard the other revealed cards.
                                               
Whenever you gain a Silver, you may reveal this card from your hand. Gain a Spoils instead.

Donald said a Silver is a roughly a Spoils. So that's how the bottom part was made. Simply switching one for the other. I could've made the bottom "OR when you gain a Spoils gain a Silver instead", but that would get too wordy too fast. And I figured that people would want Spoils anyway {insert edgecase here}.

Top part was stupid. It discards your deck if you have no Spoils. So, instead of trying to fix it up, I trashed it and started over.

Now, I wanted it to cost $3. Trader costs $4 and both of them interacted with Silvers  so I wanted them to be as different as possible. I wanted the top to be able to get Silvers some how, but not anything boring like '+1 Action; Gain a Silver'. Plus, it needed to be a bit more Dark Ages-y. I didn't want the only excuse for it to be in the set be because of the Spoils. 'So what about +1 Action. Trash a card from your hand. Gain a Silver?' Wait. That's Trader but worse.

I then began thinking about names. 'Smelter' was fun to say, so that became the name. I thought what a Smelter would do in Dominion terms, and realized they'd trash things for other things. So I came up with '+1 Action. Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card of equal cost and put it into your hand.' Now that was cool. It interacted with other on-trash things in DA by activating a Cultist or Squire or something. Plus, it still had a bit of self-synergy (like, almost as much synergy as Watchtower and it's Reaction). But then I realized just how powerful Smelter was if the card went in your hand. 'Trash a Cultist, Draw 3 cards. Gain a Cultist. Play a Smelter'. Rinse and repeat.

So that left me with two options: Axe the +1 Action or make the gained card go on top of your deck. I could axe the +1 Action, but that would make the card if more niche. It was pretty specific before, but without +1 Action, I don't think I'd ever buy it. Putting the card on top of your decks seemed good. It gives similar combos as before, but adds a bit more skill. If you want to get a better $4 card, the one you want will go on top of your deck. So you need to draw cards to get it into your hand. Plus, if you're really skillful, you can essentially save a card in your hand for your next turn by essentially putting it on top of the deck.

That seemed nifty. So I sent it in.

--

So here's how I feel about the card itself: I really, really like it. Some people LOVED the bottom part, but thought the top part was lame. But I think the top part of the card being so niche is what makes it shine. Most reactions can't have '+1 Action' because then you'd always stock up on them for their reaction and suffer very little penalty. With this card there is a slight bonus in during that (Play a Smelter. Trash a Smelter, gain a Silver. Reveal Smelter, gain a Spoils instead), but its better off used for two separate purposes (like Watchtower). Either use it for 'next turn' purposes by exchanging Silvers for Spoils and trashing cards to be put on top of your deck or use it in conjunction with DA to super-charge your on-trash benefit cards, swap out that Ruins for a Poor House, or fix your early game mistake by swapping Counts for Rebuilds.

I don't think this card will win, but I hope people take a second glance at it. So many uses for such a simple card, and I think that was largely overlooked.

[markusin]

I actually liked how niche the top part of Smelter (A) was, though I don't think you'd be able to trash Silver to top-deck Spoils with its current wording.

Why does every card have to be the best card ever on almost every board?

[Archetype]

I actually liked how niche the top part of Smelter (A) was, though I don't think you'd be able to trash Silver to top-deck Spoils with its current wording.

Oh I knew that. I was just acting like I didn't so that people wouldn't think it was my card.

[GeoLib]

Why does every card have to be the best card ever on almost every board?

This. I feel like we have strong tendency to reject cards that seem too weak. I like cards that are niche because then it's so gratifying when you make them work. I remember when I first learned dominion playing with my sister and I used chancellor to put my deck in my discard and then played counting house. It was the greatest thing ever (yes, I realize this combo really isn't very powerful). Donald's favorite card is rats even though it sucks a lot of the time; It's fun to figure out how to build a good deck after rats have eaten through all of your cards.

I also voted for Smelter (A), for both the top and bottom.

[scott_pilgrim]

Why does every card have to be the best card ever on almost every board?

While I agree that I think I generally like weak cards more than strong cards, it does make a lot of sense that people tend to accept strong fan cards more than weak ones.  If you're playing with a fan card, that's not something you do every day, and the game is fun and interesting because there's this new card on the board that you're not used to.  But if it's weak or niche, and it's not a good board for the card, then you don't get to play with it, and you missed out on that opportunity to experience a new card.  It makes sense that people would rather have the new and interesting cards be cards that they can play more regularly than that, since they don't have nearly as much experience with them as they do with official cards.

[Jack Rudd]

So... my designer's notes for Model Village:

I wanted to make a card with an on-trash benefit. Now given the existence of Swindler, on-trash benefits have to be things that can meaningfully happen in your opponent's turn, so I looked for those things. +Cards... Dark Ages already has a lot of that. Gain a card... it already has that. What about the third option on Governor, remodel a card? Ah, that looks promising.

Of course, there might not be any trashing in the set, so we needed the card to still be playable if there wasn't. How about Village? There are already lots of variants on Village, so another $4 Village variant seemed a reasonable idea. You might not want to trash it very often, but then you don't want to trash Mining Village very often. It's still a perfectly reasonable card.

[Archetype]

So... my designer's notes for Model Village:

I wanted to make a card with an on-trash benefit. Now given the existence of Swindler, on-trash benefits have to be things that can meaningfully happen in your opponent's turn, so I looked for those things. +Cards... Dark Ages already has a lot of that. Gain a card... it already has that. What about the third option on Governor, remodel a card? Ah, that looks promising.

Of course, there might not be any trashing in the set, so we needed the card to still be playable if there wasn't. How about Village? There are already lots of variants on Village, so another $4 Village variant seemed a reasonable idea. You might not want to trash it very often, but then you don't want to trash Mining Village very often. It's still a perfectly reasonable card.

Yeah. I thought it was alright. But with Fortress in DA, I feel it sort of outshines Model Village.

[Titandrake]

I made Surveyor.

As said in the PM to LastFootnote,

It's so much less pressure to only spend ~10 minutes on each card, that way I don't have to worry about winning because I know it won't happen.

Here was my thought process.

• Hm, let's make an upgrader.
• Generalized upgrading is already done pretty well by Upgrade/Remake, so let's limit it to type.
• Well Mine does treasures, and I don't feel like upgrading Actions, so Victory cards it is
• Okay, so Rebuild exists already, and does Victory->Victory, so let's do Victory to, say, Treasure
• Ooo, Beggar reaction is interesting, let's mirror it.

And that's it. The rest was made up on the fly, and I literally added the Reaction while typing the PM, because I realized the card sucked too much after you got rid of starting Estates. I have no idea how the power level is, it feels like a strong open and 2 Golds off 1 Duchy might even make it worth buying Duchies early (which is why the Reaction triggers on VP buy. I'd change the trigger now, it messes with end VP in a kinda arbitrary way.)

It was only sometime in the middle of the week that I realized a Surveyor/Estate opening might be reasonable in a Shelter game. You can turn the Estate into 2 Silver, or trash Overgrown gaining nothing because it says exactly $1 more. So that was neat.

The reception seemed to be that it's neat/cute, although slightly flawed, and it's not particularly interesting. But hey, 10 minutes of random thoughts, not bad.

[StrongRhino]

I made a card that was originally a joke card, but developed into a real one. For some reason my PM never reached LF, so I'll probably try it for the next contest, otherwise I'd tell you about it, it's pretty funny.
Coincidentally, I'm surprised we didn't get a card called Cats.

[Robz888]

I made Renovate, I quite like it, even after hearing other people's feedback.

Renovate
Type: Action
Cost: $4
Trash a card from your hand. You may gain a card costing up to $1 more than the trashed card, putting it into your hand. If it is an Action card, play it.

[eHalcyon]

I made Renovate, I quite like it, even after hearing other people's feedback.

Renovate
Type: Action
Cost: $4
Trash a card from your hand. You may gain a card costing up to $1 more than the trashed card, putting it into your hand. If it is an Action card, play it.

I thought it was cool, except for the auto-piling that you can do with Fortress.  It's hard to think of a way to fix that, because even if you don't allow Renovate to gain Renovate, you could gain BoM and play it as Renovate.


My card had mixed reactions, I think.  It has mixed reactions from me too.   I have to get going so I'll type something up about it later, but for now I will say -- the original inspiration for my card was actually another jokier card named Cabbage Merchant.  I feel like this is appropriate to say in a reply to Robz.

[NoMoreFun]

I made Brick.

I originally wanted to make a more interesting and "better" Feast (Brick is to Feast as Noble Brigand is to Thief). Feast is $4 card upgrading itself, and the idea of doing things to cards in play was something I thought could be explored, so I made an action card that could upgrade any card in play for $4. It wasn't strictly better than feast; it can't gain cards costing less than $5 in normal circumstances, and it doesn't combo with highway and bridge. However those were minor edge cases so I gave it a penalty, and "gain a copper to hand" seemed interesting (as both a benefit and a detriment). Not being able to trash treasures seemed more like an oversight than a design decision, so I changed the card to a treasure, and I didn't like the idea of a treasure worth $0 (Horn of Plenty should stand alone there). Now the card was definitely too strong for 4; I bumped it up to $5 and here's Brick. Maybe it's different enough from the original concept to coexist.

One of my favourite things is that it's a special copper that loses its specialness  (ie becomes an ordinary copper) when you trash it. LastFootnote's card "Fund" does something similar. I think it's a pretty neat idea.

[SirPeebles]

One of my favourite things is that it's a special copper that loses its specialness  (ie becomes an ordinary copper) when you trash it. LastFootnote's card "Fund" does something similar. I think it's a pretty neat idea.

I don't really see this effect as being like Fund.  Fund doesn't turn into Silver as a penalty.  Rather, it was essentially always just a Silver, except that it can give you a one time bonus.  That's how it fits into the one shot theme.

[NoMoreFun]

One of my favourite things is that it's a special copper that loses its specialness  (ie becomes an ordinary copper) when you trash it. LastFootnote's card "Fund" does something similar. I think it's a pretty neat idea.

I don't really see this effect as being like Fund.  Fund doesn't turn into Silver as a penalty.  Rather, it was essentially always just a Silver, except that it can give you a one time bonus.  That's how it fits into the one shot theme.

That's a good point, and they're completely different cards in their design. I just thought the concept of becoming ordinary was cool.

[eHalcyon]

OK, so, I really wanted to make a card named Cabbage Merchant.  It's a reference to Avatar: The Last Airbender.  The card should certainly deal with trashing, and it would be extra cool if it dealt with Victory cards in particular (because they are green, you see).  As a Merchant, he should probably give money and a Buy.  Then I figured, with his Cabbages getting destroyed, he should surely go mad.  Then I thought, wouldn't it be neat if other cards could upgrade into Madman?

Cabbage Merchant
$3 Action
+1 Buy
+$2
Each player may trash a card from his hand.  If there are 4 or more Victory cards in the trash, you may trash this and gain a Madman from the Madman pile.

But why just Madman?  It would be even cooler if a card could upgrade into either Madman or Mercenary.  The idea is that the starting card *becomes* the other card.  The Hermit goes mad, the Urchin gets tough.  So I tried to think of a thematic way to link Madman and Mercenary.  I ended up with a Soldier who might mourn his friends and go mad with grief, or become greedy and turn into a Mercenary.

I really like this basic concept, but I think my final execution was clunky.  I wanted it to be a weak cantrip attack like Urchin but I couldn't think of a simple one.  The numbers for the triggers were probably too low.  Overall, the idea requires a lot of text and probably isn't awesome enough to be worth it.

[werothegreat]

I made Robber Baron.  I just sort of threw it together.  I hindsight, it's kinda shitty.