I tried to be briefer, but I got more long-winded as I went down.
Logothete
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+2 Actions. Reveal your hand. +1 Card and +$1 per Victory card revealed. Reveal your hand again and put all the revealed Victory cards at the bottom of your deck in any order.
If it doesn't whiff, then I get a nice turn now but then I kill at least a turn in the future. I wouldn't find this fun.
Cold Iron
Types: Treasure Attack Victory Reaction
Cost: $4
Worth $1. When you play this, each other player with 5 or more cards in hand draws a card then puts cards from his hand on top of his deck until he has 4 cards in hand.
Worth 1 VP. When another player plays an Attack card, you may discard this from your hand. If you do, gain a Silver, putting it into your hand, and you are not affected by the Attack.
I see what you did there. Cute, but there's a practical thing that I don't know would be solvable -- what colour should he card be? Even Dame Josephine only needs 2 colours because Attack and Knight are non-colour-coded subtypes. This needs yellow, green and blue.
Other than that, I think it's OK. The attack is probably weak enough that it's fine as a Treasure.
Sphinx (1)
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $4
+1 Card. +1 Action. If this is the first time you played a Sphinx this turn, each other player guesses how many Action cards you will play this turn. At the end of your Action phase, each player who guessed incorrectly gains a Curse.
Clarification: The players guess in turn order.
Political. If multiple players make different guesses, you can choose not to play an extra card just to make everyone gain a Curse. Moreover, this is actually really, really close to Familiar because of that. If you have 2 actions in hand, you can guarantee handing out a Curse. If someone guesses 1, you play more actions like normal. If they guess 2 or more, you just stop before you reach that number.
Sphinx (2)
Types: Action
Cost: $3
Choose one: +3 Cards and discard a card that is not a Victory cards (or reveal a hand of all Victory cards); or +$3 and cards cost $1 more this turn; or trash 3 cards from your hand and gain a card costing $0.
Oddly popular name. I guess it fits the "choice" aspect, though I'm not entirely sold on mythological creatures here.
This seems too powerful to me at first, though maybe it isn't. Trash 3 and gain is AMAZING, very often better than Count's trashing option. The money option is usually really bad, but has neat interactions with [scaling] TfB. I suppose the draw is not great either, but it's probably about the same power as +2 Cards. So this is a lot like Steward but with worse coin and way better trashing.
I'd like it more if it didn't parallel Steward so closely.
Paladin
Types: Action Attack Victory
Cost: $4
+1 Action. Choose one: Each player (including you) discards a card; or each player (including you) draws until he has 4 cards in hand.
Worth 1 VP for every 4 Attack cards in your deck (rounded down).
I think the attack actually hurts you more than it hurts others? But if you can draw your deck, you can easily pin others with multiple Paladin plays. Seems kind of broken in that respecct.
The Victory for Attacks is odd but I don't like it that much. I don't have a good reason for not liking it though.
Landlord
Types: Action Victory
Cost: $5
+2 Cards. You may discard a Victory card. If you do, +1 Action.
Worth 1 VP per empty Supply pile.
Simple enough. I think it sounds alright. Weak Lab for action, Weak Duchy for VP (sometimes more, often less).
Dance
Types: Action Attack Reaction
Cost: $4
Choose one: Each player (including you) puts a card from his hand on top of his deck; or each player puts his deck into his discard pile.
When another player shuffles, you may reveal and discard this from your hand. If you do, +2 Cards.
Like Paladin above, this can pin others. It's a little less dangerous than Paladin because it's terminal, but it gets worse with more than 2 players. Moreover, this doesn't allow others any recourse -- at least with Torturer, I can choose a Curse instead. This is entirely in the attacker's hands.
Quartermaster
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $3
+$2. Discard a card. Each other player with 4 or more cards in hand discards a card that shares a type with and costs more than the card you discarded (or reveal a hand with no such card).
Probably OK. Sort of like Taxman.
Concerto
Types: Action
Cost: $3
+1 Action. Look through your discard pile. You may reveal a card from it and put it on the bottom of your deck. If it is an
Action card, +1 Action; Treasure card, +$1; Victory card, +1 Card.
Sounds reasonable. Might be fine at $2.
Architect
Types: Action
Cost: $6
+1 Action. +$2.
While this is in play, when an Action Card (including this) would give you any amount of $, you may draw that many cards instead.
This is Lab that can be a Silver, because it would apply to itself. The flexibility sounds pretty strong to me even at $2, and that's before factoring in what it does to other cards. I also know that I've seen this (or a very similar) mechanic proposed before but I don't remember what issues were brought up then. I'm not sure if it's too crazy or just the right amount of crazy.
Acropolis
Types: Action
Cost: $5
When you play this, +1 Card per unused action you have (Action, not Action card). +2 Actions.
We're going Greek now?
Maybe OK... Without village support, the first one is actually a Necropolis. The second one would be a Village, and then it grows from there. With support, it has potential for some seriously crazy draw. It's interesting. I don't know if it's balanced.
Prefecture
Types: Action Victory
Cost: $5
Reveal a cards from your deck until you reveal a Victory card. If you do, put it and one other revealed card into your hand. Discard the rest.
Worth 2 VP.
2VP feels tacked on at first, but it has a purpose in that other Prefectures will act as stop cards. This is the Demonic Tutor concept again, but with a sprinkling of luck to determine the selection you can choose from (unless you trash away most of your green). Being a terminal means it usually needs some support. As far as Tutor variants go, I like this one.
Nabob
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $5
+2 Cards. Trash a card from your hand. Choose one: Gain a card costing up to $2 more than the trashed card; or each other player gains a card costing up to the cost of the trashed card.
I thought Nabob was a coffee brand. Apparently it's a real word too.
This seems incredibly powerful. Masquerade is already really good for draw+trash (the passing helps, but the trashing is more important). Nabob does the same, but instead of passing it just straight up junks other players. And then there's also an option to use it as draw+Remodel? Too good for $5. Maybe $6? I'm tired by these dominating power card concepts though -- I'd like some more niche ideas.
Courtier
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $4
You may gain a Duchy. If you didn't, gain a Silver. Each other player may gain an Estate. If he didn't, he gains a Copper.
So this is usually just "Gain a Duchy/Silver, everyone else gains a Copper". There are problems with Copper trashing and this card doesn't address them. Also, "Gain a Duchy" is actually a really powerful effect.
Monastery
Types: Action
Cost: $4
Gain a card costing up to $6. For each $1 over $4 it costs, each other player may choose one: he trashes a card from his hand; he gains up to 2 Coppers, putting them into his hand; he discards his hand and draws 5 cards.
Workshop+. It costs a smidge more but it can gain to higher prices... but when used that way, other players get a choice of three decently powerful bonuses. I like it, for a Workshop variant. Granted, Intrigue already has Ironworks as a Workshop variant.
Lawyer
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+$2. Reveal the top card of your deck. If you reveal a Victory card, discard it and gain an Action card costing up to $5. Otherwise, put the card back and gain an Action card costing up to $3.
Mechanically, maybe just fine. But it feels neither thematic (can someone explain why this is lawyer-like?) nor cohesive, and it's just not that interesting to me.
Lord
Types: Action Victory
Cost: $4
Reveal your hand. If you revealed a Treasure card, a Victory card, and an Action card (each separate cards), then +$3. Otherwise, +$1.
Worth 1 VP.
Probably OK. Also a little boring to me.
Bailey
Types: Action Victory
Cost: $4
Do this three times: Choose one: +1 Action; or discard a Victory card, and +$2 if you did.
Worth 1 VP.
Don't really like the double colon here. Seems too powerful? With one Victory card, it's nearly a Festival. With two, it's nearly a Platinum. With three, it's +$6. And it's worth 1VP to boot. I guess it doesn't stack well.
Wall
Types: Action Reaction
Cost: $4
Choose two: Look at the top card of your deck and discard it or put it back; or gain a card costing up to $3; or trash a card from your hand. (The choices must be different.)
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, you may discard any number of cards from your hand. At the start of your next turn, draw that many cards.
Probably overcosted. Sounds OK, but nothing really unique.
Overseer
Types: Action
Cost: $4
Put a marker on an empty District of the Overseer Mat. If you put it on the
Residential District, +1 Card and +2 Actions
Craftsmen's District, +3 Cards
Commercial District, +1 Card, +1 Action, and +$1
Industrial District, gain a card costing up to $4
Logging District, +1 Buy and +$2
If four districts of the mat have a marker, remove all the markers.
Rules Clarification: There is one communal Overseer mat, split into the five districts.
I think this might be too much text to reasonably fit onto an actual card. The proper fix for that is to put all the individual bonuses onto the mat itself and just say something like, "get the bonus for the chosen district". I like the idea, and the concept itself is flexible enough that it can take a LOT of tweaking without losing the spirit of it. Main concern is that it might be too much p1 advantage, but there are probably bigger offenders among official cards. No big deal.
Shrine
Types: Action Victory
Cost: $5
+1 Action. Choose one: trash a card from your hand; or +1 Card.
Worth 2 VP.
Ehhh. Great Hall with extra VP and you can choose to trash instead. OK I guess, but not so interesting.
Committee
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+$2. The player to your left names a card. Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck and choose one that is not the named card. Trash it or gain a copy of it. Put the untrashed cards back in any order.
Maybe too powerful? Others can either name junk and risk you gaining something awesome, or they can name something good and let you trash. Or, quite possibly, gain something else good. Man, this can let you gain Provinces. Add a non-Victory clause in there and maybe it'll be OK, but it still seems too good. Probably fine at $5 without the virtual coin.
Taylor-Compton
Types: Action Victory
Cost: $5
+1 Card. +1 Action. Discard any number of Victory cards. +$1 per card discarded.
Worth 1 VP.
Didn't get the name
at first. Dunno how it would actually play.
Usurer
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $5
Discard any number of cards. Choose one: +$1 per card discarded; or each other player discards until he has the same number of cards in hand as you.
Hahaha, nope. Cute concept, but this can actually guarantee locking down opponents with just a single play. That is absurd. If my hand is terrible, I can deny your next turn. If I have virtual coin (and note, if you have village support then Usurer itself provides that virtual coin), I can play them out and then deny your next turn. If I can draw my deck, you're not playing another turn again. Ever.
Even without that game-breaking flaw, I don't really like a Secret Chamber variant in the same expansion as Secret Chamber.
Dungeon
Types: Action Victory
Cost: $5
+1 Action. Trash up to 3 cards from your hand.
Worth 1 VP per $ in the cost of the cheapest card in your deck (in Coins).
Huh. OK, it's cute, but the VP condition is too swingy. In plenty of games you can trash down easily with Dungeon such that they are each worth a Duchy in the end (Silvers). That's really powerful. In other games, you can try to do that but then someone plays Witch and suddenly all your Dungeons are worth no VP at all. It's then swingy because you have to hope to match up the offending Curse with a Dungeon before the end of the game. So I don't think the conditional VP actually works in practice, and without that it's not very interesting.
Majordomo
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+1 Action. Discard a card. If it is a
Victory card, +1 Card; Treasure card, +2 Cards; Action card, +3 Cards.
Sounds reasonable. I like that at best it is still a nerfed Stables or Lab, and at worst it still isn't quite a cantrip. Probably works at $3.
Wedding
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $5
+1 Action. You may trash up to 2 cards from your hand. If you trashed exactly 1 card, each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand. If you trashed exactly 2 cards, each other player gains a Curse.
Non-terminal better-than-Steward trashing with your choice of Militia or cursing attack. Not cohesive. Too powerful. Doesn't even fit the name.
Liege
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $5
+2 Cards. Each other player discards a Victory card (or reveals a hand with no Victory cards). If any player discards a card this way, play this again.
So this is +2 Cards with even more cards if players have VP in hand? A little odd, but I guess that's alright. One issue is that this has tremendous p1 advantage with more than 2 players. When a player plays Liege, not only does he get a big benefit out of it, but he makes it less likely that subsequent players will get a big benefit because he drains the VP cards out of others' hands. Still, this is a rather unique concept. Might be nicer if it didn't stack as far (e.g. just give another +2 Cards instead of "play this again").
Traitor
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $4
+$1. Choose one: Name a card costing up to $3 and each other player with 5 or more cards in hand discards a copy of the named card (or reveals a hand without it); or, choose an Attack card from your hand and play it twice.
The first choice is too powerful already -- it's a Cutpurse that can hit Silver or various engine components. OK, it doesn't stack like Cutpurse does, but hitting just one Silver is already really painful. At least Taxman costs you a Treasure card; Traitor still grants you a bit of coin. An optional TR for attacks is just icing on the cake.
Homestead
Types: Action Victory
Cost: $4
+2 Actions. Reveal cards from the top of your deck unti you reveal a Victory card. Put that card into your hand and discard the rest.
Worth 1 VP.
Overcosted? It's a Village that only ever draws Victory cards. It can draw itself, but that only gives you more actions. Combos well with other hybrid VP though, I suppose. It's probably generally more useful than GH, but it's not strictly better.
A little boring to me.
Observatory
Types: Action
Cost: $3
+1 Action. Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck. If you revealed a Victory card, put all the revealed cards into your hand. Otherwise, discard them.
It's Scout, but with bigger risk/reward. If you reveal a Victory card, it's better than Lab. If you don't, you end up cycling cards that were probably good for you. I think it's OK, but I don't know how I feel about putting a card in for Intrigue that basically invalidates an Intrigue card.
Tiller
Types: Action
Cost: $4
Trash a card from your hand. The player to your left chooses a card in the Supply costing at least $2 more than the trashed card. Gain it.
This is almost always worse than Remodel, so it probably shouldn't cost $4. Otherwise, it sounds OK.
Architect
Types: Action
Cost: $5
Trash a card from your hand. Choose one: gain a card costing up to $2 more than the trashed card, which you may put on top of your deck; or +2 Buys and +$ equal to the trashed card's cost in Coins.
Remodel+top deck is already really good and enough for a $5 card. The option for Salvager with extra Buy just puts this over the top. When both options are worth more than $4, the card that gives those options is probably worth more than $5, and I think that's the case here. The choice isn't compelling to me either -- Remodel and Salvager are actually pretty close in function already.
Groundskeeper
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+1 Card. +$1. Discard a card. Choose one: set aside up to 3 cards from your discard pile, discarding them after your next reshuffle; or shuffle your discard pile and put it at the bottom of your deck.
Very subtle effect that can still whiff. Is it really good enough for $5? I find it very difficult to evaluate by theorycraft alone.
Heir
Types: Victory
Cost: $4
At the end of the game, choose one: Trash an Estate from your deck and this is worth 1 VP per Estate in your deck; or trash 2 Curses from your deck and this is worth 2 VP; or trash 3 Coppers from your deck and this is worth 3 VP if you have no Treasures in your deck.
It sounds overly complicated for not a lot of difference. Seems like a choice just for the sake of having a choice. Other cards have interesting choices because it's not always clear what is optimal -- should I use my Steward to trash now, or should I draw and hope to hit $8? Should I discard to Torturer, or should I take the Curse because another Torturer will be played before my turn? And so on. But with Heir, the optimal choice can be found because the game is already over. However, it might still take a bit of work to figure that out, and then it's just annoying.
I mean, if I have multiple Heirs, do I have to make this choice for each one? Like, if I had 8 Estates and 8 Heirs, would I have to trash an Estate to get the first one to be worth 7VP? But then if I want the second Heir to count Estates, I have to trash another Estate? Similar questions arise for trashing Curses or trashing Copper. If not, then the choice is really trivial -- I can look at my deck contents and figure out the one that gets me the most VP. If I have to do it for each one, the choice is still trivial but it takes a heckuva lot more work to figure out the best case.
Or if for some reason the rule is that you have to decide before looking through your deck contents... well, that's just forcing casual players to either track their deck during the game (which they may find unfun) or make an uninformed decision that may be suboptimal (and then it feels really, really bad if you lose because you chose the wrong option).
Mob
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $5
The player to your left reveals his hand. Choose one of the revealed cards costing up to $6. Either gain a copy of it or each other player gains a copy of it, your choice.
Seems a little swingy in what you end up revealing. Also, making just the player to your left reveal his hand doesn't sit well with me. Usually it makes little difference, but sometimes that knowledge matters and only having one player exposed seems unfair.
Nouveau Riche
Types: Action
Cost: $4
You may discard an Estate. If you do, +3 Cards. You may discard a Duchy. If you do, +$2. You may discard a Victory card. If you do, +1 Action.
Clarification: It should be clear from the wording here, but you don't choose between these three options. You choose whether or not to do each in order.
Seems OK. A little swingy, but not much more than Baron.
Hidden Passage
Types: Action
Cost: $3
You may trash a card from your hand. Each other player may reveal the top 2 cards of his deck. If he does, he trashes one and discards the other.
Really weak. Terminal trash-from-hand is already pretty terrible, and this doesn't even give a bonus like Lookout does. Instead, it gives opponents a
benefit in that they can choose to do a mini-Lookout. I probably wouldn't buy this even if it were free.
Legate
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+1 Action. +$1. Each player (including you) reveals the top 3 cards of his deck and puts one of them (your choice) in his hand, then puts the rest back on top in an order he chooses.
Interesting name. I learned a new word (that I probably won't remember)!
The filtered draw is pretty strong, but giving it to opponents severely weakens it, especially because it's a filtered Lab for them. As with Hidden Passage, it's so much better for opponents that I probably wouldn't buy this either.
Secret Plot
Types: Treasure Victory
Cost: $3
Worth $1. When you play this, each player may set aside a card face down on his Secret Plot mat. You may look at the cards on your mat at any time; reveal them and return them to your deck at the end of the game.
Worth 1 VP for each differently-named card on your mat that no other player has a copy of on his mat.
OK, the name is the greatest. "Secret Plot" fits Intrigue really well, but it's funny on a Victory card because of the double meaning of "Plot". I love that.
The card itself is mediocre. You can use it as an infinite Island, but everyone else gets that too. That weakens it quite a bit. Making it worth even one VP could be quite tricky as well -- Coppers and Estates are almost certainly never going to do anything for you. Other VP cards are unlikely as well because opponents will be happy to Plot away their Provinces. To get VP, you'd have to try putting away something decent. Silver maybe, or Gold or a key action card. But is that even worth it? What if others have the same idea? I guess it's thematic that way.
There is a practical concern in that people could very easily forget about revealing their mats at the end of the game and just dump them into the rest of their deck like with Native Village and Island. There's also a significant amount of text to fit underneath the big coin. Eh, this might be OK.
Castellan
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $5
Do the following three things in any order; you get the version in parentheses: Each player draws until he has 5 (6) cards in hand; each player discards down to 3 (3) cards in hand; each player trashes up to 1 (2) cards from his hand.
Is it supposed to be 3 (3)?
"Choose the order" is a concept that I toyed with when thinking of a submission for Intrigue, but I never came up with something where it worked really well. I think it's been discussed on the forums before too, a long time ago.
One problem is that it can very easily create Analysis Paralysis. With 3 choices that you can order, it is effectively choosing 1 of 6. Castellan kicks it even further because now you have to be concerned about what the card is doing to opponents as well.
So for choices +-x (draw discard trash), what do the different orders do?
+-x The attack here is pretty weak because they get to draw before discarding, but it mitigates the benefit of optional trashing because they would end up with a 2 card hand if they do that. Actually, the draw usually doesn't matter because it's only up to 5 for them, whereas you get to draw 2 cards. Note that if you trash 2 cards, you would end up with a 1 card hand.
+x- Similar to +-x but now opponents are more likely to benefit from the optional trashing. In exchange, you also get to trash more freely because you'll still have a 3 card hand afterwards.
-+x This order skews the attack more to Minion than Margrave. Everyone gets more choice for what to trash.
-x+ Opponents end up with a regular hand size even if they choose to trash, but this may still be the best order simply because it means you can end up drawing 5 cards from this.
x-+ Very similar to -x+ (trash discard draw), but probably inferior. Opponents are better able to keep their best cards from the starting hand, since they get to draw before discarding. I suppose you do too though.
x+- Ending with the discard attack can be nice, and it restricts opponents' trashing options a bit.
OK, that didn't give me as much insight as I thought it would. It's probably easier to play in game -- it should be easy to decide whether you want to trash or draw first, depending on whether your hand already has cards you want to trash. Still, I can see there being a lot of AP.
The concept is still compelling though. I think it might be more interesting if it was "discard X" rather than "discard down to X". Since there is also fixed draw, this couldn't be used to pin an opponent.
Inquisitor
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $5
+$2. Each other player may discard any number of cards. Choose one: Each other player gains a Curse for each card in hand over 3; or each other player trashes a card from his hand and draws until he has 3 cards in hand.
This is pretty brutal. You pretty much have to discard down to 3 or else you're eating Curses, but you also have to keep one junk card because obviously they will then have you trash. This can get political though. Say Alice discards down to 4 and Bob discards down to 3. Do I Curse Alice or do I make everyone trash?
Narcissist
Types: Action
Cost: $5
You may reveal then discard any number of differently-named cards. For each card discarded this way, if it is an
Action card, +2 Actions; Treasure card, +$2; Victory card, +2 Cards.
Could get really hard to track. I was thinking about a card like this too, and the potential tracking issue was the main obstacle that I couldn't really get around.
Ironworker
Types: Action
Cost: $2
Discard a card. If it is an
Action card, +3 Actions; Treasure card, +$3; Victory card, +3 Cards.
Is this OK at $2? I guess so. Discarding an action card for actions is bad. Discarding a Treasure for $3 is usually equivalent to +$2 at best. Only discarding green is OK most of the time, and it can whiff on that.
Not super interesting though.
Warden
Types: Action
Cost: $6
+1 Action. Choose two in any order: Draw until you have 6 cards in hand; play an Action card from your hand; trash a card from your hand and gain a card costing up to $2 more, putting it on top of your deck. (The choices must be different.)
Ah, another "any order". This time it's choose 2 of 3. For this one the choices are dpr (draw, play, remodel).
dp is like Lab+Village.
dr is like Lab+Village+Remodel.
pd is like Village+Lab+Lab.
rd is like Village+Remodel+Lab+Lab.
pr is like Village+Remodel.
rp is like Remodel+Village.
This is assuming that the "play" card is non-drawing, which it might not be.
So the main difference between pr and rp is whether you want to play that other action before or after remodelling.
Ah, this is probably OK too. AP is still a potential problem. There are also potential tracking issues, especially when choosing to play an Action card before doing something else.
Cannoneer
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $5
+2 Cards. +$1. Each other player with at least 5 cards in hand reveals one of them. He either discards it and gains a copy of it or he trashes it, your choice.
A bit swingy, a bit political.
Author
Topic: Treasure Chest Design Contest Card #5: Intrigue (Read 81698 times)