I decided to read these from the bottom up this time.
After looking at them all, I skimmed follow-up comments, mostly looking for ballot updates from LF.
Lockbox
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $4
Now and at the start of your next turn: +1 Buy.
When you discard this from play, if you do not buy a card this turn, you may set aside up to 3 Treasures from play. At the start of your next turn, put the set-aside Treasures into your hand.
Really weak on play. Still somewhat weak on the next turn (it's basically Market Square). But its strength is at the end of the second turn, when it can save a bunch of treasure. I think this works as a concept, but I'm not personally so fond of having the cool effect being so far delayed.
Star Charts
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $5
Now and at the start of your next turn, look at the top 4 cards of your deck, discard any number of them, and put the rest back in any order.
While this is in play, when a player buys a card other than a Victory card, he gains a copy of that card, putting it on top of his deck.
I like the name, and it fits with the main action. Not so much the while-in-play though. The main action is fine. The while-in-play is easily the most interesting part of the card though. Unfortunately, I don't think it works. It's a significantly powerful effect -- Talisman without cost restriction. That's arguably better than Haggler. The catch is that it also works for opponents, and for this reason I think the card is much more powerful for opponents than for you. I'm not sure I'd ever buy it, but I'd really love for my opponents to play it.
Shipwreck Cove
Types: Action Attack Duration
Cost: $5
+2 Cards. Each other player chooses a card he has in play and discards it. If that card would do something at the start of that player's next turn, that effect is cancelled. At the start of your next turn, +1 Action.
PotC reference?
So, this is a card that attacks others' Durations. I've considered this before but I think it is problematic. When this is the only Duration on the board, the attack is really weak -- others can just not buy any SC and the attack never harms them. When there ARE other Durations, this card can feel very bad for the victims. For example, it would just feel so terrible if you manage to kill my Tactician. Moreover, its presence on the board discourages players from buying Durations in general, and then SC itself need not be bought if nobody is buying Durations. It restricts player choice.
The vanilla bonuses are also a bit strange. It is terminal, but it's a next-turn village. The upshot of this is that it makes village-terminal balance rather confusing. That's kind of interesting, actually. But yeah, the fact that it makes players feel restricted in their choices really kills it for me.
Harbourmaster
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $5
+3 Cards. You may discard this from play. If this is in play at the the start of your next turn, trash it and +3 Cards.
It's a Smithy that can be a non-terminal Hunting Grounds on the next turn, but you have to trash it for that. That's alright. I wonder if there are any broken scenarios where you can keep playing the same Harbourmaster over and over in the same turn, since you can discard it from play... eh, probably not with any official cards. It could get hairy with fan cards that put back cards as they are discarded though.
I think this is decent. Probably needs a bit of rewording to get it to function properly. Conditional effect next turn means that it doesn't necessarily have an effect next turn, which means that you might have to clean it up at the end of your turn.
Tariff
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $4
+$2. Choose another player. At the start of your next turn, +$1.
While this is in play, when the chosen player buys an Action or Treasure card, you my discard a card. If you do, +1 Card.
Kind of political? Not really, I guess. The chosen player doesn't get hurt in any way. That player could choose to buy fewer non-VP cards, but you were the one to choose them so the politics of that is fair, I think. Still, it might be easier just to follow Tribute and always use the player to your left. I mean, Tribute itself would benefit more from choosing an opponent than Tariff would.
I'm not sure this even needs to be a duration. The main effect is basically a weaker Merchant Ship, but the vanilla bonuses are secondary to the conditional filtering. And it doesn't really need to be while-in-play? It could just as easily say, "on his next turn, whenever he buys..." OK, then it is throneable and maybe that's a little confusing. I guess the reminder of the Duration card helps.
I imagine it is quite reasonable to play. It doesn't excite me though.
Clipper
Types: Action
Cost: $3
+1 Card. +1 Action. Put a Coin token on an Action card pile in the Supply.
Cards cost $1 less per Coin token on their Supply pile, but not less than $0.
I don't have a great reason for it, but the idea of reducing the cost of individual cards doesn't really appeal to me. I'm not sure if I'd want to buy Clipper anyway, because it helps my opponents as much as it helps me. I guess it would be nice for non-mirrors, and I
would get first crack at the cheaper price. But still, it seems too weak to be worth buying.
Beacon (A)
Types: Action
Cost: $6
+1 Action.
While this is in play, keep the top card of your deck revealed. During your Action or Buy phase, when the top card of your deck is an Action or Treasure, you may discard this from play. If you do, play that card and gain a copy of it.
I suppose that this is meant to be a Duration that lasts for more than one turn. I think the wording needs tweaking to make that work. Arguably, it is always doing something until it is discarded in that it reveals the top card of your deck. It feels like a stretch though, so a clarification like other such submissions have would be useful.
As far as long-lived durations go, this is pretty interesting. There is no cost restriction on cards to copy, so this is actually pretty powerful, but it's $6 cost reflects that power. My complaint is that this could be really swingy. One player just happens to keep revealing power cards on top while others only ever see Coppers. I don't know how likely that is though.
Cottage
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $3
+2 Cards. +2 Actions. Put 2 cards from your hand on top of your deck. At the start of your next turn, reveal the top 2 cards of your deck. You may discard one of them. You may trash one of them. Put the rest back in any order.
The vanilla bonuses are really good. Putting 2 cards back weakens it, but it's hard to say by how much. Courtyard is actually improved, but in this case your hand size still decreases. The Duration effect is odd in that it is pretty much unrelated to the first turn effect. It's also quite a powerful effect -- optional trashing outside of your hand, as well as optional filtering. I think this might even be worth $5.
I'm not really a fan though. The different effects feel too disconnected.
Ship of the Line
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $5
You may gain a Victory card costing less than a Province. At the start of your next turn, +3 Cards.
While this is in play, Victory cards cost $1 more.
Cost increasers get confusing with cost reduction, especially when they are "while in play". It's not at all clear which effects apply first. However, this can be adequately solved via FAQ.
A duration that increases VP is an extremely powerful "attack". It can lock out players from buying any VP, which is just not good for the game. The fact that it is functionally a Duchy gainer (and occasionally an alt VP gainer) means that you can very rarely ignore SotL. This is especially true in games with more than 2 players and games where you can play multiple SotL in a single turn. VP cards quickly become too expensive to buy, so your only hope is to win the Duchy/Estate/Alt VP splits before the 3-pile (which may include SotL itself).
Investment
Types: Action
Cost: $5
You may choose an Action card from your hand. Set aside this and the chosen card on your Investment mat. Return them to your deck at the end of the game.
When you play an Action card, +$1 per copy of it on your Investment mat.
I've definitely seen this before. I think it's a fine concept. I like it.
People should note that this is generally not too powerful because this is a $5 one-shot and you have to jump through quite a few hoops. You need to buy this, you need to buy the action card to Invest, probably many times. You need to match up Investment with that card, and the turn you use Investment is probably an otherwise weak turn (you're down an action and two cards). When Investment is good, it's more likely to be an interesting combo rather than something broken. The most likely use case for Investment is powering up cheap cards rather than stronger ones, because it's easier to buy a lot of the cheap cards and it hurts less to have to Island away one of them for the rest of the game.
Shipyard (A)
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $4
+1 Card. Now and at the start of your next turn, trash a card from your hand.
I almost submitted something very similar to this (didn't have the +card, but had a simple while-in-play) but decided not to because I thought it would be a very common submission. As it turns out, it was not common, but there are a few cards that do something sort of like it with interesting twists (Recycle in particular, which is a Remodel-family card rather than a pure trasher).
I think that a Duration trasher is a fine card and fits in really well with the existing Seaside cards. I'm kind of surprised that there wasn't an official card that does this, though I guess there was only so much space in the expansion. Trashing is almost a vanilla effect, and it's fairly interesting on a Duration. The first turn it's unremarkable, but the second turn it's Junk Dealer (without the money). That's pretty good. The part that makes it more interesting is that there's no guarantee that you'll want to trash anything in that second hand. What if you draw 5 Provinces?! Or, somewhat more likely, 5 useful engine pieces. So it has the Lookout problem, which I don't think is a huge problem to begin with. But you have a bigger selection with this than with Lookout, so it's even less of an issue.
I will probably vote for this. But I do think that other cards submitted are more interesting versions of this.
Fisherman
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+1 Buy. +$1.
When you discard this from play, put one of your Fisherman token on a Supply pile that costs $6 or less which is not a Victory card pile.
When you buy a card, gain a copy of it for each of your Fisherman tokens on that pile and remove all of your Fisherman tokens.
Clarification: Each player has his own Fisherman tokens (maybe in different colors) and you only gain copies of the bought card for YOUR tokens.
Only one Fisherman submitted? Surprising. And it's not a Duration!
Double line... don't really like that. Is it necessary? You don't get to gain a copy of something the first turn you play it, I suppose. It also means TR-Fisherman doesn't put out multiple tokens. The latter doesn't matter much, but maybe the first point does. Is it too good if you can gain a copy this very turn? I'm gonna say no, because then this is a lot like a terminal Talisman. Not that great. Or maybe it is, since it can gain cards costing up to $6? Hm, actually not sure about that.
There are a few ways that it's better than Talisman. First, it can gain more expensive cards. Second, you can "save" the clone effect for another turn. Third, you can stack up the effect to trigger on a single buy, whereas with Talisman you'd need to use multiple Talismans or multiple buys.
Hm, overall I don't know what to think of this. It's probably OK.
Thugs
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $4
+2 Buys. +$2. Each other player with 4 or more cards in hand discards 1 card for each card he gained last turn. Each other player with no cards in hand draws 3 cards.
Woo, non-Duration!
I applaud the attempt at hitting the "past turns" bullet point. I don't really like the memory required here though. Smugglers only cares about the previous player's turn which
just ended. Thugs requires remembering every player's turn. Still, this is probably not too difficult.
Nonetheless, this seems kind of crazy. This attack scares people out of using multiple buys. If someone used both the Buys from a Thugs play, they end up discarding 3 Cards, leaving just 2 cards in hand. That's basically a dead hand. The clause at the end doesn't really help because it's almost never going to kick in unless someone gained 5+ cards on the previous turn, so why even include it? Maybe to encourage players to go big or not at all -- if you're going to buy multiple things, try to buy 5 or more cards. But even with that, 3 random cards is a really poor consolation prize.
The attack is probably fine from a gameplay standpoint, in that it's not too hard to play around it. But I don't really like cards that make players feel restricted in their choices.
PPE: As far as the memory thing goes, I read this as "he gained on his last turn", not just "last turn". SirPeebles (and maybe others) point out that, as written, it only looks at the previous player's turn which means it would usually only hurt that one player.
Cannon
Types: Action Attack Duration
Cost: $5
+1 Action. +1 Buy. At the start of your next turn, you may trash up to 2 cards that are not Curses. If you trash exactly 1 card, each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand. If you trash exactly 2 cards, each other player gains a Curse.
Like I said for Raider (below), I'm not a fan of the Durations that attack on the second turn. For this one in particular, I don't even see a reason why it should do it on the next turn. It also feels arbitrary that it can't trash Curses. Is it so that it doesn't counter itself?
Recycle
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $5
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing up to $2 more than the trashed card, setting it aside face down. At the start of your next turn, return the gained card to your hand and trash a card from your hand, gaining a card costing up to $1 more than that trashed card.
Peculiar! So on the first turn it's a Remodel, but you gain that card to your hand next turn. That's already a neat way of making a gain-to-hand card. But this goes a step further and has you Upgrade a card on the next turn as well. This is especially cool because you could do it to the card you just gained, making Recycle a delayed Expand. The option to Upgrade something else makes this nice and flexible. It's worth noting that the second gain is "up to $1 more", which means that it can't trash away Copper. This is important because, otherwise, I think it would be too powerful for $5. As it is, it's still pretty great -- $5 Expand is good and you can still go Estate->Silver.
I'm a fan. This is my favourite card so far. I'm reading these from the bottom up, so that puts this ahead of many, many cards in my book. The only thing I don't like is the name. It doesn't feel Seaside at all. I don't have any good suggestions though.
Martello
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $3
Now and at the start of your next turn: +1 Action and +1 Buy.
While this is in play, when any player gains a card, you may choose for him to put that card on top of his deck. If you do, he may first discard the top card of his deck.
My main concern is that it can get a bit political. Other than that, it's fairly interesting. It is basically an attack, but it correctly omits the Attack typing. It won't actually hurt anyone until they start greening, but then it's really annoying. Ah, I guess it also combos with junkers quite strongly.
I don't mind this. It's pretty interesting.
Kraken
Types: Action Attack Reaction
Cost: $6
+$2. Put a card from your hand on top of your deck.
When you put this on top of your deck, you may reveal it. If you do, choose a card in the Supply; each other player gains a copy of the chosen card, putting it on the bottom of his deck.
Cheers for a non-Duration!
The trigger for the reaction is a bit odd, but I suppose it works similarly to Tunnel. The Attack typing is actually inappropriate for this card. The on-play is not an attack at all -- the attack is only in the Reaction, which is unblockable in the same way that IGG is unblockable. Lighthouse and reactions like Moat trigger when attacks are played, but this "attack" occurs when the card is top-decked, not when it is played. The typing is thus a bit misleading and can confuse casual players. It's even more confusing if you use Kraken to top-deck and trigger another Kraken, because players could technically react to the Kraken play, but the attack still goes through because it comes from the Kraken that wasn't played.
As far as the attack goes, it has potential to be really powerful. You would typically use it on Curses to start, but then you can switch to Copper afterwards. If Ruins are available, this can also give those out, but only in the way of Ambassador (i.e. not everyone is guaranteed to get a Ruin, depending on the stack order). But it takes some effort to trigger it and the card itself is expensive. It's therefore reasonable.
I like it. The main change I'd advocate is removing the Attack type. I also think it would be fine at $5. That's still pretty expensive, especially since you need multiple copies and some luck to trigger the best part.
PPE: I see that LF has already removed the attack type.
Flagship
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $5
Set aside a card from your hand face down. At the beginning of your next turn, reveal the set aside card, then reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a copy of it. Discard the other revealed cards and either trash both copies or put them into your hand.
Ooh, weird. I think the trashing would be surprisingly strong because you only need to match this card with one junk card, not to mention that the second card is trashed from the deck instead of from your hand. In a Cursing game, you only need to pair this with one Curse to get rid of two. When you're not trashing, this can also function as a sort of super-Haven.
I like this. The concept is simple but I think it would play in an interesting way.
Vessel
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $4
Now and at the start of your next turn: +1 Buy and +$1.
While this is in play, when another player gains a card costing $4 or more, gain a card costing less than it.
Simple enough, and fairly interesting. A version of the bottom was seen in a previous contest as a reaction. The nice thing about putting it on a Duration is that opponents know about it in advance. That means that you won't have situations where a player buys a Province for a narrow win, only to be foiled because an opponent reveals a reaction to gain a Duchy. I like this.
Mermaid
Types: Action
Cost: $2
+1 Action. Discard the top card of your deck. Put the bottom card of your deck into your hand. You may put up to 2 cards from your hand on the bottom of your deck.
Non-Duration, way to go!
Blindly discarding the top card doesn't add a lot to the card, does it? Sometimes it is helpful when it discards junk, but sometimes it is aggravating when it skips your key card. The latter overwhelms the former, I think. Ignoring that, this is a bottom-drawing cantrip that can put cards back onto the bottom. Reminds me a bit of Pearl Diver.
This is really niche... probably too niche. I'm not sure, but I don't think you want to put Victory cards there. OK, you can make them miss the reshuffle... but then you see them twice this shuffle. It's just as well to keep them in your hand and discard them. Moreover, future Mermaids just draw that junk back into your hand. You can maybe stack up combo cards? But it would be slow and unreliable -- you need to line up Mermaid with combo pieces, and future Mermaids can only add one extra card to the bottom. If you don't manage to assemble your combo, there's a high chance that all the pieces you put there will miss the reshuffle. Even if you get a bunch of combo pieces together on the bottom of your deck, it would take unbelievable deck control to ensure that you draw all those cards in the same hand. If you have 4 combo pieces on the bottom of your deck, you could very well draw just two of them in one hand, and then the other two are drawn after that and miss the shuffle.
I'm not really feeling it.
Beacon (B)
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $2
+2 Cards. At the start of your next turn, +1 Card and put a card from your hand on top of your deck.
While this is in play, when you gain a card, trash that card or put it on top of your deck.
The name and the while-in-play are clearly Watchtower references. I'm pretty sure this is too strong for $2. Watchtower's draw-to-6 is pretty often just +2 Cards, matching Beacon. But if you want to use Watchtower's reaction (in your Buy phase), you can't even play it. And that's not even considering the next turn filtering or the fact that you get the Watchtower reaction for two turns instead of just one. Granted, Beacon might sometimes be a liability (e.g. when greening) but I expect it helps more than hurts. At the very least, the trade-offs put it on even ground with Watchtower.
All that said, it ends up too similar to Watchtower for my taste.
Dispatch
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $4
Trash a card from your hand. Gain an Action card costing up to $2 more than it, setting it aside face down. At the start of your next turn, play that Action card.
This is just like Supply Ship (below), except it's Remodel to start instead of Workshop. I like both, but I'm not sure which I like better.
This should just set aside the card face up. Everyone sees what you gain, so there's no point in setting it aside face down.
PPE: LF has given a convincing reason why it should be face down. I find it odd that he didn't also make that change on Supply Ship, which doesn't specify face up or face down. Also, I failed to notice the same thing with Recycle (probably because I liked Recycle so much). Whether it's necessary is still debatable, but it's a reasonable change.
Observatory
Types: Action
Cost: $2
+1 Action. Trash a card from your hand. Look at one card from your deck per $ in its cost. You may put one of them into your hand and discard any number of the others. Put the rest back in any order.
Non-Duration, wooo!
This probably needs to specify "top of your deck". The theme is there, though it's mild.
I think this might be too strong for $2, but I'm not sure. Non-terminal trashing is not so bad by itself. This gives a bonus on top of that -- it's like Salvager or Apprentice, but for filtering instead of coin or card draw. That said, Apprentice just lets you have all the cards rather than filtering them, and Salvager's money is pretty nice too. It's not as great to trash an expensive card with Observatory. $2 might be fine, though I think $3 would be more appropriate.
I think this is alright.
Treasure Fleet
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $4
+$2. Now and at the start of your next turn, +1 Buy.
While this is in play, when you buy a card, gain a Treasure card costing less than it, setting it aside. At the start of your next turn, put that card into your hand.
Is "Treasure Fleet" an actual thing? Hmm,
maybe/url].
This is simple and probably works fine. Pushes BM. Probably needs to cost $5 because you're going to be able to gain Silver most of the time, in which case this is generally better than both Explorer and Merchant Ship. Maybe it's too similar to them.
Commune
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $2
Now and at the start of every turn this card is in play: Trash a card from your hand. Draw until you have 5 cards in hand.
Do not discard this from play during your Clean-up phase. While this is in play, it is also in the Supply.
"It is also in the Supply" needs clarification. I assume that this is a concept I've seen before which means you can buy the Commune that someone else has in play, thereby robbing them of their power. The concept I remember was for single cards -- that is, there is only a single copy of it in the supply.
This non-single version of it can get really political. If I want a Commune, should I buy one from the Supply or take yours? If two other players have Commune in play, which playr should I steal it from?
Hm, thinking more about it, Commune might actually be a trap on some boards. It seems fairly innocent and decently powerful (especially at $2) as non-terminal trashing that still lets you have a 5 card hand. But what happens on a board without gainers or +Buy? Suppose I open with Commune and don't play it until Turn 5. By that time, I've bought 3 cards (not including Commune) so my deck has 13 cards in it. With Commune, I trash a card, so I'm down to 12. Now I can buy a card -- back up to 13. Next turn I trash something and I buy something. If nobody ever buys away my Commune, I will never have a deck bigger than 13 cards. It's inevitable that I'm going to end up trashing good cards, and I will choke heavily when I start to green. It's therefore incredibly dangerous to play Commune if there's no way to keep feeding it cards. Even with +Buy, Commune can really put you in a vice grip if you can't play it often.
PPE: All that discussion was pointless because, as WW points out, you can turn it off just by buying it from yourself. Huh.
Customs Officer
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $1
+1 Card. +1 Action. While this is in play, when you gain a card, you may return it and this to the Supply. Gain a card with cost exactly equal to the total cost of the returned cards.
This doesn't do anything to require the Duration typing. I imagine the concept is that it stays in play between turns so that it can defend (once) against junkers. So it needs some next-turn bonus, and probably the only one that would work at $1 is a next turn +1 Buy. Even then it might be enough to warrant $2.
As it is, it can function as a one-shot almost-Market. For example, you could buy a Duchy and then return this to get Gold instead. If you do, the CO was basically worth $1 and thus it was a Buy-less Market on play. If something is done to make it last until the next turn, then you can save this "coin" for the next turn, so it sort of functions like a more limited coin token.
It's a tough call, but I think
adding a bonus to the next turn is too significant a change. Each of the vanilla bonuses would cause this card to play very differently, and most likely require a price increase too. Otherwise, I do like the concept. Maybe the creator can think about how to fix it up and submit it to the second Seaside challenge.
Supply Ship
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $5
Gain an Action or Treasure card costing up to $4 and set it aside. At the start of your next turn, play it.
I'm OK with this. It's similar to Duration-TR but it seems manageable. I still like the possibility of playing Treasure outside of the Buy phase.
Yeah, I like this.
Drift Bottle
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+2 Cards. Choose one: Trash the card on the Drift Bottle mat; or gain the card on the mat and discard a card per $ it costs. Put a card costing between $3 and $6 from the Supply on the mat.
Setup: Put a Silver on the Drift Bottle mat.
Clarification: There is just one communal Drift Bottle mat.
A non-Duration, huzzah!
The concept is cute, quirky and thematic. I'm just not sure how well it would play. Is DB even worth buying? The first play is +2 Cards, you may gain a Silver and discard 3 cards. I suppose that usually means that you can get the Silver at a discount, because you're probably discarding Estates and Coppers. And then what do you do? Put another Silver on there, or something better? If you're the only one playing DB, maybe you put something better out there. If not, you probably just stick Silver or something weaker on there. And if that happens, then this card is just +2 Cards, trash a card from the Supply.
I'll be extra interested in others' thoughts about this card.
Royal Armada
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $5
+1 Card. +1 Action. You may choose an Action card in your hand and set it aside. At the start of your next turn, play it twice.
I think it would get too confusing too quickly and easily just by playing RA-RA. A different Duration TR (one play now, one play later) is discussed in the Secret Histories. One question is how long it should stay on the table when played on a Duration, and the same question arises here. I don't know, maybe putting both plays on the same turn is enough to make it manageable. I still think it could get really confusing, and it's just not so compelling to me anyway.
Raider
Types: Action Attack Duration
Cost: $5
+$2. Each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand. At the start of your next turn, +$1 and each other player discards down to 4 cards in hand.
As per pre-contest discussion, I'm just not a fan of these next-turn attacks. Yes the rules may be clear already, and if not they can be clarified by FAQ, but it can still be really confusing especially for casual players. Yes official cards can already be confusing, but that's not really a good reason to make more cards that are confusing.
All said and done, this card looks like it would be fine. It's just not my personal preference.
Seafarer's Charm
Types: Treasure Reaction
Cost: $0
Worth $1.
When you discard this from play, you may put it on top of your deck. When another player plays an Attack card, you may discard this from your hand. If you do, you are unaffected by that Attack.
Sunken Treasure
Types: Treasure
Cost: $3
Worth $1.
When you shuffle, put this at the bottom of your deck.
Clarification: Seafarer's Charm and Sunken Treasure are not Kingdom Cards. Each player begins with one of each in place of two starting Coppers. Determine whether these Treasures are used by the proportion of Seaside cards, as one would Colonies or Shelters. Sunken Treasure has a special back. When shuffling, you may choose the order in which you resolve multiple Sunken Treasures or Stashes.
Props for a non-Duration submission!
I like how highly thematic these are, especially the bottom-decking
Sunken Treasure. I'm not sure how set-appropriate it is besides the theme, but I suppose Seafarer's Charm does have a next-turn/top-of-deck mechanic and Sunken Treasure technically does do a "future turn" thing. It fits well enough. If we support up to 6 players, these take up 12 slots, which could be trouble if the DA winner is one of the ones with support cards.
But on the cards themselves... Sunken Treasure is basically a better Copper. It tends to miss shuffles, and it has a higher cost for TfB. It has an interesting effect on the opening when Nomad Camp is on the board, because you know for sure that opening NC won't get you $5 on turn 2 (assuming that ST needs to be at the bottom even for the start of the game).
Seafarer's Charm is a weaker Moat that can self-Scheme. That could make for some interesting decisions. If my opponents have attacks, is it worth slowing down my cycling and weakening future hands with a Copper just for the potential defense? If they play an Attack, should I use SC or should I save it for the $1, or to block another attack later? Should I still buy an Attack? Maybe not, since they have a defense from the start. Or maybe I buy more attacks than I normally would, because SC can only defend once.
Overall fairly interesting.
Shipyard (B)
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $5
+2 Cards. Set aside a card from the Supply costing up to $6. While it is set aside, copies of it cost $1 less, but not less than $0. At the start of your next turn or when the game ends: Gain the set aside card.
You can gain ANY card! But it's delayed, and that card is cheaper for everyone else for a round. Very interesting idea. I think that it's too dangerous to allow ANY card to be gained. With just two Highways, I can gain a Province. Then the next player only needs one Highway to gain a Province. And then Highways are no longer even necessary to gain Province with Shipyard!
The fix I'd like to see is to limit it to Kingdom cards only, and the cost restriction could probably be removed. Not sure if this would cause problems with alt VP. Another way would be to restrict it to non-VP cards, but I think it would be just as dangerous to allow gaining of Platinum.
Docks (A)
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $4
Now and at the beginning of your next turn: +1 Card per card you have in play.
The worrying thing is how much the power changes with other Duration cards. With FV and Caravan, this could be absolutely insane draw. Even without other durations, this stocks incredibly with itself. It's quadratic increase, isn't it? A single Docks draws 1 card next turn. 2 Docks draw 4 cards. 3 Docks draw 9 cards. That's pretty crazy.
If the board has no Durations or villages, then non-terminal cards mean that Docks can still be pretty powerful terminal draw on play with a smaller next-turn bonus. If everything is terminal, Docks is just a terminal Caravan. So sometimes Docks is weaker than Caravan, but I think it would be better most of the time. The potential is so big that $4 is probably too little.
I like the concept and I might vote for it. I think the fix I'd like to see is for it to
only draw on the next turn. Then it feels a bit like Menagerie, where you jump through a few hoops for a big pay-off. I think drawing on the turn you play it just makes it too explosive.
Fishmonger
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $3
+1 Card. +1 Action. +1 Buy. At the start of your next turn, +1 Buy.
Just a really simple duration +Buy. This is almost certainly the correct price. My complaint is that this is both really similar to and way less interesting than Market Square.
Scalawag
Types: Action Attack Duration
Cost: $3
Each player may trash a Copper from his hand. If you trashed a Copper, each other player gains a Curse. At the start of your next turn, +1 Card for each Scallywag that any player has in play. If there is more than one in play, trash this.
While this is in play, when another player plays an Attack card, you may discard it. If you do, gain a Silver, putting it on top of your deck.
The top seems complicated and unfocused. There's trashing, there's cursing, there's drawing, and there's a self-trashing penalty which seems pretty swingy. And then the bottom also has Silver gaining? Maybe it's supposed to be analagous to JoaT, but this still seems scattershot whereas JoaT actually has a purpose as an after-the-fact Moat.
The bottom part is also extremely odd... you can discard other players' Attack cards to gain Silver? Do they still get the effects of the Attack? If not, that seems really harsh. If so, it just makes tracking harder for most attack cards but it neuters a select few. The ones that come to mind are Goons and Scalawag itself. There is probably a typo and it's supposed to say that you may discard Scalawag itself (in which case it should say "you may discard
this").
Convoy
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $5
+1 Action. Each other player may choose one: he draws a card; or he trashes a card from his hand. Now and at the start of your next turn, +2 Cards and +$1.
Too similar to Wharf for me. It trades +Buy for $1, which is a wash to me. Probably the +Buy is a bit better. But then this is non-terminal. The catch is that opponents also get a pretty nice benefit. but overall, I still think it's too close to Wharf.
Dock (B)
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+2 Actions. +1 Buy.
While this is in play, when you gain an Action card, you may put this and the gained card on top of your deck in either order.
Bravo for submitting a non-Duration!
So, this is a really weak village. It has a fairly neat bonus though. A negative is that it almost seems like a more limited Walled Village, but it does let you play actions earlier by top-decking them. Not sure about this, but it is interesting.
PPE: the card was updated to be in the Buy phase only. Not a huge change, and my opinion is still "not sure about this".
Harbour
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $4
+$1. You may trash this.
Do not discard this from play during your Clean-up phase. While this is in play, at the start of your turn, +1 Card. When another player buys a Victory card, discard this from play and gain a Harbour.
Huh, weird. As I said at the start, I'm reading these from the bottom up. The mechanic here is quite similar to Settlement, which also grants a bonus every turn until someone buys a Victory card.
I'm still not fond of this semi-permanent Duration concept, but the bonus here of an extra card feels more reasonable to me than the bonus of Settlement. It also helps that the first play of Harbour is really terrible. It's a little odd that this also has you gain an extra Harbour, but I suppose it's actually a penalty. Since the Harbour pile self-drains, opponents can buy somewhat weaker VP like Duchy and push closer to end game by 3-piling. Not only that, Harbour itself is junk if it's not staying in play, so it hurts more when opponents buy that VP card. You lose your extra bonus AND your deck is a little worse off until you manage to get the Harbours into play again.
I'll have to think some more about it, but I think I like it. A bonus every turn is really powerful, but I think this does a lot more to balance it than Settlement.
Shipyard (C)
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $5
+2 Buys. Now and at the start of your next turn: Look through your discard pile, reveal up to 3 Coppers from it, and put them into your hand.
While this is in play, when you would gain a card, you may gain a Copper instead.
So this is a limited Counting House as a Duration. The +2 Buys on the first turn means you could buy Copper to draw for the second turn if you really want to. The "while in play" also provides a really light defense against junking.
CH as a Duration is kind of interesting. Even if it whiffs the first turn, it'll probably do well on the second turn. It can actually whiff on the second turn if played right before the reshuffle, but that means that the first play should have worked.
Even so, maybe it's not all that interesting. It's not that different from Merchant Ship, where you get some varying coinage in the form of Copper rather than just a flat +$2. I'm not sure about this.
Expedition
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $4
Gain an Action card, putting it on top of your deck. Put a copy of it on the Expedition mat. At the start of your next turn: +1 Action and return the copied card to the Supply.
While this is in play, at the start of each other player's turn, he may play a card from the mat, returning it to the mat from play or from the trash at the end of his turn.
I'm not sure why, but I find this difficult to parse. Umm... OK. You gain an action on top of your deck and on a mat. Next turn you get to play that card you gained, but it gets returned to the supply. Or... no wait, the one you return is the one on the mat. That could be written more clearly, I think. So, meanwhile, other players may also get to play that card if they wish. The card will return to the mat whether it's in play or in the trash, so that every other player gets a chance.
So basically you gain any action card, then everyone else gets a chance to use the same action on their turns.
Hmm... since each opponent can only play the copy at the start of their turn, it's hard to disrupt. It's still possible though -- if the card is something that self-trashes, I can prevent its return to the mat via Graverobber or Rogue. This can get really confusing to track if you use Expedition to gain Duration cards.
I do like the concept. It's a neat idea for balancing an otherwise unconditional action gainer. It's a bit too complicated for me though.
Voyage
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $5
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal 3 costing from $3 to $6. Put those cards on top of your deck in any order and discard the rest. At the start of your next turn, +2 Cards.
When you would discard this from play, instead, trash this and gain a Voyage.
Interesting. So Voyage tries to set up your next turn with decent cards, avoiding the starting junk, Curses, Ruins and even Provinces. That's pretty neat. At the same time, it depletes the Voyage pile and eventually your Voyage ends. I like the concept and the "when you would discard" feels thematic.
Old Seafarer
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $6
Before the Clean-up phase, set aside cards in your play area. At the start of your next turn, discard your hand, put the set-aside cards into your han, and each other player draws a card.
While this is in play, you may not play an Old Seafarer.
OK, so this basically lets you re-play the same cards as you did on the previous turn. It's a neat idea, but I think it is broken.
- The "while in play" clause can create impossible situations. What do I do if Golem finds two of these? I play one, then what happens with the other one? Golem says to play it, OS says you cannot.
- It makes Duration cards in general a bit difficult to track, but also way more powerful. Now you can play the same Wharf every turn, for example.
- It would be so easy to build a deck that draws itself every turn. Or more accurately, you will just start with all your cards in hand every turn. You just have to play an OS each turn.
The fix that is needed is that OS can't be allowed to set itself aside. I'd guess that the while-in-play clause is meant to prevent you from playing OS on consecutive turns, but as written it will just set itself aside and then you can play it again on the next turn since it is no longer "in play". Then the clause will work... except it still creates impossible situations, as I've described above. Maybe use a Crossroads-style solution? Still seems really crazy powerful though.
Settlement
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $5
Now and at the start of every turn this is in play: +2 Buys and +$2.
Do not discard this from play during your Clean-up phase. Instead, discard it from play when any player buys a Victory card.
Ehhh. I think this would be very hard to balance. That's a huge effect to have for every future turn. Yeah I can take it away from you by greening, but then you can just play it again later and I've probably hurt myself by greening too early. I don't think you could ever ignore this card.
Coastal Raiders
Types: Action Attack Duration
Cost: $3
Each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand. At the start of your next turn, +$3.
I like this name because it reminds me of A:TLA.
Seems reasonable enough. I think it should probably cost more, but that's an easy tweak.
Sea Harvest
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $5
+1 Action. Gain an Action card costing less than $1 per card in your hand. At the start of your next turn, gain a Treasure card costing less than $1 per card in your hand.
This isn't like Harvest at all!
So it gains an Action and a Treasure based on your hand size. The Action card will generally have the most variable cost. From a 5 card hand, you can gain an Action card costing up to $3 -- not stellar. But if you can draw some cards before playing SH, you might be able to get a more expensive action. The Treasure comes in the next turn, so normally it would gain you a Treasure costing up to $4. That's usually just Silver. The only way to gain something better is with Haven, Caravan or Tactician.
Overall fairly interesting, but that limit on the second turn is too bad.
Oh, I think it needs to be clear whether the next turn "per card in your hand" refers to cards in that future hand, or in your current hand. I assume the former, but the latter is also a possible interpretation.
Shipyard (D)
Types: Action Duration
Cost: $5
+2 Cards. Put a card from your hand on top of your deck. At the start of your next turn, gain a card costing up to $4, putting it into your hand.
Holy smokes, there are four with the same name? Is that a record for this contest? I guess this is an obvious name.
This one mixes different effects. The variation makes it feel like it's lacking in a specific purpose, which is a negative for me. I do like the next turn effect though -- non-terminally gaining a card into hand is pretty powerful, and it makes sense for balance to defer that to the next turn.
Author
Topic: Treasure Chest Design Contest Card #4: Seaside (Read 96834 times)