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Author Topic: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy  (Read 41715 times)

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eHalcyon

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #50 on: December 19, 2013, 11:24:13 pm »
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Quote
Elicitor
Types: Action
Cost: PP*
+1 Action. Discard a card. For each P in its cost, gain an Action card, putting it into your hand. If there is no P in its cost, +2 Cards.

If you have a Potion in play, this costs P less.

Too crazy with high-ticket Actions like Possession and King's Court.

It's for each Potion in its cost, not each coin.  Discarding KC just gives you +2 cards, and discarding Possession would only gain one action.

Quote
Drunkard
Types: Action
Cost: P
Discard any number of cards. Draw until you have 5 cards in hand. You may discard a Potion or an Action. If you do, play this again.

When you buy this, +2 Buys.

I don't know how I feel about a card you could play till infinity.  Well, I mean, it's pretty hilarious, I'll give it that.  I guess my initial disposition is positive.

I don't think this plays to infinity:

Play Drunkard.  Discard 4 cards, draw 4 cards.  Discard a Potion/Action and you only have 3 cards left.  Discard 3 cards, draw 3 cards.  Discard another card and you would only have 2 cards left.  You'd run out of cards after two more iterations.

Quote
Metallurgist
Types: Action
Cost: P
+1 Buy. You may trash a Treasure from your hand. If you do, +P. You may trash a Potion from your hand. If you do, +$3.

A few things on this card.
1) Transmute is not bad because of the effect, it's bad because of the cost. P as a cost is awkward to buy.
2) Your effect is weak. Weaker than Transmute I think. I can get +P if I trash a treasure (Copper), which is only good if there are other Potion cards, or it can trash a Potion for +$3, but it needs to be paired up and then why did I take this huge detour when Smithy-BM has already won the game. I won't be buying Potions just to feed the Metallurgist.
3) I like the name though.

Ehh, Transmute wouldn't be any better with a higher cost.  It's just that the effect isn't good enough to warrant a Potion cost at all.  It's pretty rare you would buy a Potion just for Transmute, even less so if it cost $2P or $3P.

Quote
Enclave
Types: Action
Cost: $2P
+2 Actions. You may discard your hand. If you do, +1 Card per Action card you have in play.

Hmmmm. It's interesting that's for sure, but I can't decide if it's worth it. Certainly not as my main village. It'll be a Necropolis until I have a junky hand, and even then I need to have played a bunch of cards first to pick anything up, so it's not good until I've probably drawn lots of cards. I can see it being good in a cantrip engine, or with Caravan, but those decks are rare enough.

Why do you need a junky hand?  All you need is to have played a card or two.

Quote
Distill
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: PP
+2 Actions. Each player may return a card from his hand to the Supply. (Yours may come from your discard pile. You may trash it instead.) For each card returned, each player other than the one that returned it gains a copy of it. If there are no cards in your hand, discard pile, or deck, you win.

Yuck. I don't like the PP cost (Which is crazy annoying and expensive to get), I don't like the weird "everyone ambassador's everyone" else (probably just resulting in everyone gaining each others trash/ending up with more junk than when they started with more than 2 players) and I really don't like that win condition. Plus it doesn't even make sense. I need that card in my deck to be able to get the efect, but then I have a card in my hand, so I don't win (also should then be a Victory card). So I assume it should say "aside from this." Even then you would need a self trasher that also trashes other cards (Death Cart...uh...Island. That's it right?) to get down to 1 card, because everyone else will just pass you a card from your Distill to make sure you never get down to just 1 card. Oh yeah, and once you're at that point you'll never win because you'll be so far behind everyone else. I don't care if I pass KC to you. You have nothing to use it on aside from Distill.

Bold mine.  It doesn't count cards in play, so it is theoretically possible to win with this card.  It is practically impossible though, because you give your opponents a chance to give you a card just by playing it.

It doesn't need to be a Victory card because it doesn't give any Victory points.  It's just an alternate win condition.

Oh, a thought on this card that I don't think I mentioned in my own big review -- this probably can't ever clean your deck down.  With Ambassador tennis, you are typically returning 2 cards on your turn and getting 1 card back when your opponent attacks.  In the long run, your deck slims down.  But with Distill, the tennis is built right into the card and it's only one card at a time.  So you get rid of one junk card from your deck, but your opponent immediately sends a junk card right back to you.  If you choose to return, then you even give your opponent more junk cards to send to you -- the tennis would never end.  Your only option then is to choose the trash option, in which case you don't send any junk to your opponents.  Thus you help everyone else trim down while you stay at status quo.  It's only after their decks are completely trim that you get to start trimming down your own deck.  And that's just in 2p... in 3p or more, your deck actually gets bigger whenever you play this. 

Quote
Voodoo Doll
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $3P
+$2. Each player with 5 or more cards in hand discards an Action card (or reveals a hand with no Action cards).

I don't like this that much.  This particular attack card concept has been discussed before, and most agree that it's a bad idea.  Making others discard actions just discourages players from buying any action cards in the first place, thus pushing a BM game.

So, it's interesting. This is countered by BM-nothing, of course; but BM-nothing is really weak in general, obviously. Which means if you play BM-nothing for fear I'll use Voodoo Doll, then I can play a pretty weak engine and still win. So there's a rock-paper-scissors thing going on here which makes this more interesting than it sounds.

And note that Voodoo Doll is also well-countered by a dense, Action-heavy engine. If my hand is four Scrying Pools and a Pearl Diver, your Voodoo Doll isn't pulling its weight either.

Yeah, my feeling is that Voodoo Doll just doesn't really work in general.  Depends on how strong the attack actually is... if it's strong enough, maybe the Potion cost does make it an interesting RPS situation.  I discussed a bit about how I think the cost comes into play.  Not sure though.
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KingZog3

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #51 on: December 19, 2013, 11:50:36 pm »
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Quote
Enclave
Types: Action
Cost: $2P
+2 Actions. You may discard your hand. If you do, +1 Card per Action card you have in play.

Hmmmm. It's interesting that's for sure, but I can't decide if it's worth it. Certainly not as my main village. It'll be a Necropolis until I have a junky hand, and even then I need to have played a bunch of cards first to pick anything up, so it's not good until I've probably drawn lots of cards. I can see it being good in a cantrip engine, or with Caravan, but those decks are rare enough.

Why do you need a junky hand?  All you need is to have played a card or two.

Yeah, I don't know why either. I just don't know...But I still think that using this as my main action is kind of meh. It's not good to play before anything is in play, so lots of  cantrips helps this a lot.

Quote
Distill
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: PP
+2 Actions. Each player may return a card from his hand to the Supply. (Yours may come from your discard pile. You may trash it instead.) For each card returned, each player other than the one that returned it gains a copy of it. If there are no cards in your hand, discard pile, or deck, you win.

Yuck. I don't like the PP cost (Which is crazy annoying and expensive to get), I don't like the weird "everyone ambassador's everyone" else (probably just resulting in everyone gaining each others trash/ending up with more junk than when they started with more than 2 players) and I really don't like that win condition. Plus it doesn't even make sense. I need that card in my deck to be able to get the efect, but then I have a card in my hand, so I don't win (also should then be a Victory card). So I assume it should say "aside from this." Even then you would need a self trasher that also trashes other cards (Death Cart...uh...Island. That's it right?) to get down to 1 card, because everyone else will just pass you a card from your Distill to make sure you never get down to just 1 card. Oh yeah, and once you're at that point you'll never win because you'll be so far behind everyone else. I don't care if I pass KC to you. You have nothing to use it on aside from Distill.
Oh, a thought on this card that I don't think I mentioned in my own big review -- this probably can't ever clean your deck down.  With Ambassador tennis, you are typically returning 2 cards on your turn and getting 1 card back when your opponent attacks.  In the long run, your deck slims down.  But with Distill, the tennis is built right into the card and it's only one card at a time.  So you get rid of one junk card from your deck, but your opponent immediately sends a junk card right back to you.  If you choose to return, then you even give your opponent more junk cards to send to you -- the tennis would never end.  Your only option then is to choose the trash option, in which case you don't send any junk to your opponents.  Thus you help everyone else trim down while you stay at status quo.  It's only after their decks are completely trim that you get to start trimming down your own deck.  And that's just in 2p... in 3p or more, your deck actually gets bigger whenever you play this. 

I did mention all that, just in 1 sentence.
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sudgy

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #52 on: December 19, 2013, 11:53:29 pm »
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I had the same idea as Druid did before with the whole "+P can be saved by making it a choice"...
« Last Edit: December 19, 2013, 11:56:08 pm by sudgy »
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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #53 on: December 19, 2013, 11:54:26 pm »
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By the way, I really like "Retort" as the name of a Reaction card. Presumably what's actually meant by the card name is this thing, but the idea of reacting to something with a "Retort" reminds one pleasantly of insult dueling.
Retort is totally eHalc's card.
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KingZog3

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #54 on: December 19, 2013, 11:57:38 pm »
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I had the same idea as Druid did before with the whole "+P can be saved by making it a choice"...

Should have called shotgun on it.
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dghunter79

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #55 on: December 20, 2013, 12:25:22 am »
+1

Quote
Elicitor
Types: Action
Cost: PP*
+1 Action. Discard a card. For each P in its cost, gain an Action card, putting it into your hand. If there is no P in its cost, +2 Cards.

If you have a Potion in play, this costs P less.

Too crazy with high-ticket Actions like Possession and King's Court.

It's for each Potion in its cost, not each coin.  Discarding KC just gives you +2 cards, and discarding Possession would only gain one action.

What I mean is, Elicitor gains any action straight to hand, and it's not too tricky to buy bunches of Elicitors and pair them.  So, it can be "Play Elicitor, +1 Action, discard Elicitor, gain King's Court and Possession in hand.  That's a little much. 

Easy enough to fix, I guess.

Quote
Drunkard
Types: Action
Cost: P
Discard any number of cards. Draw until you have 5 cards in hand. You may discard a Potion or an Action. If you do, play this again.

When you buy this, +2 Buys.

I don't know how I feel about a card you could play till infinity.  Well, I mean, it's pretty hilarious, I'll give it that.  I guess my initial disposition is positive.

I don't think this plays to infinity:

Play Drunkard.  Discard 4 cards, draw 4 cards.  Discard a Potion/Action and you only have 3 cards left.  Discard 3 cards, draw 3 cards.  Discard another card and you would only have 2 cards left.  You'd run out of cards after two more iterations.

It doesn't Cellar, it draws to 5 each time.  So, it keeps drawing the same amount.  If your discard is empty and you have 5 cards or fewer in hand, you can draw and discard the same Scout for the rest of your life, I think.

Also, if your hand is Watchtower, Tunnel, Potion, Drunkard and your deck and discard are empty --
Play Drunkard, discard Tunnel, gain Gold, trash Gold, draw Tunnel, discard Potion; REPEAT, discard Tunnel, gain Gold, trash Gold, draw Potion, discard Potion; REPEAT until the Gold pile is empty.  Neat trick.

eHalcyon

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #56 on: December 20, 2013, 02:10:33 am »
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Quote
Distill
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: PP
+2 Actions. Each player may return a card from his hand to the Supply. (Yours may come from your discard pile. You may trash it instead.) For each card returned, each player other than the one that returned it gains a copy of it. If there are no cards in your hand, discard pile, or deck, you win.

Yuck. I don't like the PP cost (Which is crazy annoying and expensive to get), I don't like the weird "everyone ambassador's everyone" else (probably just resulting in everyone gaining each others trash/ending up with more junk than when they started with more than 2 players) and I really don't like that win condition. Plus it doesn't even make sense. I need that card in my deck to be able to get the efect, but then I have a card in my hand, so I don't win (also should then be a Victory card). So I assume it should say "aside from this." Even then you would need a self trasher that also trashes other cards (Death Cart...uh...Island. That's it right?) to get down to 1 card, because everyone else will just pass you a card from your Distill to make sure you never get down to just 1 card. Oh yeah, and once you're at that point you'll never win because you'll be so far behind everyone else. I don't care if I pass KC to you. You have nothing to use it on aside from Distill.
Oh, a thought on this card that I don't think I mentioned in my own big review -- this probably can't ever clean your deck down.  With Ambassador tennis, you are typically returning 2 cards on your turn and getting 1 card back when your opponent attacks.  In the long run, your deck slims down.  But with Distill, the tennis is built right into the card and it's only one card at a time.  So you get rid of one junk card from your deck, but your opponent immediately sends a junk card right back to you.  If you choose to return, then you even give your opponent more junk cards to send to you -- the tennis would never end.  Your only option then is to choose the trash option, in which case you don't send any junk to your opponents.  Thus you help everyone else trim down while you stay at status quo.  It's only after their decks are completely trim that you get to start trimming down your own deck.  And that's just in 2p... in 3p or more, your deck actually gets bigger whenever you play this. 

I did mention all that, just in 1 sentence.

I think we're reading this in entirely different ways, and I think my way is correct.

As I understand it, your interpretation is that this is a Victory card that gives you victory at the end of the game if you fulfill the condition, except that its very presence makes fulfilling the condition impossibile.

My interpretation (which is based on the way it is worded and the fact that it isn't Victory typed) is that it gives you an instant win after you play it if the conditions are met.  That is, you play the card, you follow the instructions.  One of those instructions is to check if you have no cards other than in play, and if that is true then you win immediately.  By my interpretation, it is theoretically possible to win by playing Distill.  However, the mechanics of the card make it extremely difficult to do.  Nearly impossible, in fact, because it gives opponents a way to foil you every time unless you manage to eliminate their hands first so they have nothing to send to you.

By the way, I really like "Retort" as the name of a Reaction card. Presumably what's actually meant by the card name is this thing, but the idea of reacting to something with a "Retort" reminds one pleasantly of insult dueling.
Retort is totally eHalc's card.

No it's your card!

Quote
Elicitor
Types: Action
Cost: PP*
+1 Action. Discard a card. For each P in its cost, gain an Action card, putting it into your hand. If there is no P in its cost, +2 Cards.

If you have a Potion in play, this costs P less.

Too crazy with high-ticket Actions like Possession and King's Court.

It's for each Potion in its cost, not each coin.  Discarding KC just gives you +2 cards, and discarding Possession would only gain one action.

What I mean is, Elicitor gains any action straight to hand, and it's not too tricky to buy bunches of Elicitors and pair them.  So, it can be "Play Elicitor, +1 Action, discard Elicitor, gain King's Court and Possession in hand.  That's a little much. 

Easy enough to fix, I guess.

Ahh, I see.  I don't think that's a huge issue.  Buying a card taht costs $PP is already tough enough -- basically Treasure Map.  But to do what you're talking about you basically have to hit TMaps (Potions) twice to get two Elicitors, then hit them a third time (two Elicitors) to gain those two action cards.  It's just so much work and/or luck that it's impractical, and if you manage it then you deserve it.

Quote
Drunkard
Types: Action
Cost: P
Discard any number of cards. Draw until you have 5 cards in hand. You may discard a Potion or an Action. If you do, play this again.

When you buy this, +2 Buys.

I don't know how I feel about a card you could play till infinity.  Well, I mean, it's pretty hilarious, I'll give it that.  I guess my initial disposition is positive.

I don't think this plays to infinity:

Play Drunkard.  Discard 4 cards, draw 4 cards.  Discard a Potion/Action and you only have 3 cards left.  Discard 3 cards, draw 3 cards.  Discard another card and you would only have 2 cards left.  You'd run out of cards after two more iterations.

It doesn't Cellar, it draws to 5 each time.  So, it keeps drawing the same amount.  If your discard is empty and you have 5 cards or fewer in hand, you can draw and discard the same Scout for the rest of your life, I think.

Also, if your hand is Watchtower, Tunnel, Potion, Drunkard and your deck and discard are empty --
Play Drunkard, discard Tunnel, gain Gold, trash Gold, draw Tunnel, discard Potion; REPEAT, discard Tunnel, gain Gold, trash Gold, draw Potion, discard Potion; REPEAT until the Gold pile is empty.  Neat trick.

Ahhhhhhhhh.  I read that wrong, my bad.  Mild edit to my big post to note this.

Oh, that's definitely problematic with Tunnel.  That's too bad.
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GwinnR

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #57 on: December 20, 2013, 04:37:44 am »
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The cards I like:

Quote
Contraption
Types: Action
Cost: $4P
+1 Action. Look at the top 3 cards of your deck and reveal one of them. Gain an Action costing less than it. Discard any number of the looked-at cards. Put the rest back in any order.
A bit unfair, becauseplayers who have good cards yet get more good cards, but it's not too unfair. Maybe a bit to weak for its costs.

Quote
Quicksilver
Types: Treasure – Reaction
Cost: $2P
When you play this, reveal your hand. This is worth $1 plus $1 per Action revealed.

When another player plays an Action, you may discard this. If you do, gain a copy of that Action.
I like the first part, because it gives you a benefit for the actions you couldn't (or didn't want to) play. But I think the reaction-part is a too strong, espeacially with potion-cost cards.

Quote
Refinery
Types: Reaction
Cost: $4P
When you buy a card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, if the card you bought is an…
Action card, set it aside when you gain it, putting it into your hand at the start of your next turn.
Victory card, set it aside when you gain it, returning it to your deck at the end of the game.
Other card, each other player gains a copy of it instead of you.
Only reaction? But ok, then you can only use it, when you buy a card. Again I think this is too strong for its costs. And what happen, if you buy a action-victory card as Great Hall? Do you choose, if you get it back next turn or at the end or is this an "other card" and you won't react?
But I like the possibility to put victory-cards away till the end. So you can buy them earlier.

Quote
Assistant
Types: Action
Cost: $4P
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an Action other than an Assistant. Discard the rest, then play that Action twice.
Ok, this is just a Golem for one card. But this changes some things: You can use it with less action cards and the revealed card is more important.

Quote
Research
Types: Action
Cost: $1P
Trash 2 cards from your hand. Gain a card costing exactly $2 or $1P more than the total cost of the trashed cards in coins.

When you gain this, gain an Action costing up to $4.
Ok, another X-Build. Nothing really new, but nice choice between $2 and $1P, which is the cost of Research, so you can trash 2 Coppers for a Research. Well constructed.
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KingZog3

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #58 on: December 20, 2013, 10:53:16 am »
0

Quote
Distill
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: PP
+2 Actions. Each player may return a card from his hand to the Supply. (Yours may come from your discard pile. You may trash it instead.) For each card returned, each player other than the one that returned it gains a copy of it. If there are no cards in your hand, discard pile, or deck, you win.

Yuck. I don't like the PP cost (Which is crazy annoying and expensive to get), I don't like the weird "everyone ambassador's everyone" else (probably just resulting in everyone gaining each others trash/ending up with more junk than when they started with more than 2 players) and I really don't like that win condition. Plus it doesn't even make sense. I need that card in my deck to be able to get the efect, but then I have a card in my hand, so I don't win (also should then be a Victory card). So I assume it should say "aside from this." Even then you would need a self trasher that also trashes other cards (Death Cart...uh...Island. That's it right?) to get down to 1 card, because everyone else will just pass you a card from your Distill to make sure you never get down to just 1 card. Oh yeah, and once you're at that point you'll never win because you'll be so far behind everyone else. I don't care if I pass KC to you. You have nothing to use it on aside from Distill.
Oh, a thought on this card that I don't think I mentioned in my own big review -- this probably can't ever clean your deck down.  With Ambassador tennis, you are typically returning 2 cards on your turn and getting 1 card back when your opponent attacks.  In the long run, your deck slims down.  But with Distill, the tennis is built right into the card and it's only one card at a time.  So you get rid of one junk card from your deck, but your opponent immediately sends a junk card right back to you.  If you choose to return, then you even give your opponent more junk cards to send to you -- the tennis would never end.  Your only option then is to choose the trash option, in which case you don't send any junk to your opponents.  Thus you help everyone else trim down while you stay at status quo.  It's only after their decks are completely trim that you get to start trimming down your own deck.  And that's just in 2p... in 3p or more, your deck actually gets bigger whenever you play this. 

I did mention all that, just in 1 sentence.

I think we're reading this in entirely different ways, and I think my way is correct.

As I understand it, your interpretation is that this is a Victory card that gives you victory at the end of the game if you fulfill the condition, except that its very presence makes fulfilling the condition impossibile.

My interpretation (which is based on the way it is worded and the fact that it isn't Victory typed) is that it gives you an instant win after you play it if the conditions are met.  That is, you play the card, you follow the instructions.  One of those instructions is to check if you have no cards other than in play, and if that is true then you win immediately.  By my interpretation, it is theoretically possible to win by playing Distill.  However, the mechanics of the card make it extremely difficult to do.  Nearly impossible, in fact, because it gives opponents a way to foil you every time unless you manage to eliminate their hands first so they have nothing to send to you.

I take back the Victory card thing. You're right that it probably shouldn't be. But I said that it's essentially impossible to win with this. Everyone always know when I'm about to win, so they just pass me anything. It doesn't really matter what they pass, because I have to trash it in order to win. Theoretically, yes you can, but only if you're playing morons. It doesn't take a lot of skill to see when I have no cards left. It's clear what I'm going for. And with more than 2 players, playing this will just increase your hand size, so even with Chapel, I can get down to Chapel-Distill, I play Distill, put Chapel back and then get 2 cards from other players. Then what? I'm further from winning. I did say that in my original post.

I don't like the weird "everyone ambassador's everyone" else (probably just resulting in everyone gaining each others trash/ending up with more junk than when they started with more than 2 players)
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dghunter79

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #59 on: December 25, 2013, 11:38:15 pm »
0

Quote
Elicitor
Types: Action
Cost: PP*
+1 Action. Discard a card. For each P in its cost, gain an Action card, putting it into your hand. If there is no P in its cost, +2 Cards.

If you have a Potion in play, this costs P less.

Too crazy with high-ticket Actions like Possession and King's Court.

It's for each Potion in its cost, not each coin.  Discarding KC just gives you +2 cards, and discarding Possession would only gain one action.

What I mean is, Elicitor gains any action straight to hand, and it's not too tricky to buy bunches of Elicitors and pair them.  So, it can be "Play Elicitor, +1 Action, discard Elicitor, gain King's Court and Possession in hand.  That's a little much. 

Easy enough to fix, I guess.

Ahh, I see.  I don't think that's a huge issue.  Buying a card taht costs $PP is already tough enough -- basically Treasure Map.  But to do what you're talking about you basically have to hit TMaps (Potions) twice to get two Elicitors, then hit them a third time (two Elicitors) to gain those two action cards.  It's just so much work and/or luck that it's impractical, and if you manage it then you deserve it.

Yeah, but Elicitor is the card where it effectively only costs P during your buy phase, and then reverts to PP during your action phase.  So, it's pretty easy to buy them.  Also, the first person to pair two Elicitors can play one Elicitor, discard the other, and then gain more two Elicitors to hand.  Repeat.

There is something kind of insane and interesting about the idea of gaining two action cards right into your hand.  But I think you'd need to cap the cost of the gained actions at 5.  Gaining King's Court or Golem to hand is overpowered. 

Even with a cap it might still be overpowered because gaining a card to hand is really strong!  There's almost zero cards that do that.

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #60 on: December 26, 2013, 01:15:10 pm »
0

The first poll is up! It will run for 10 days.

Also, Wizard has been updated at the request of the author!


Quote
Wizard
Types: Action
Cost: $4P
+1 Card. +1 Action. +1 Buy. Gain a copy of the cheapest card with a Potion in its cost that the player on your right gained last turn. If he didn't gain such a card, gain a copy of the cheapest card he gained instead.

Clarification: This card has a unique back, like Stash. If there are multiple cards that have the same lowest cost, choose one of them.
« Last Edit: December 26, 2013, 01:21:31 pm by LastFootnote »
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soulnet

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #61 on: December 26, 2013, 01:34:27 pm »
+1

To be consistent with the clarification, wizard should say "a cheapest" instead of "the cheapest".
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LastFootnote

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #62 on: December 26, 2013, 01:42:41 pm »
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To be consistent with the clarification, wizard should say "a cheapest" instead of "the cheapest".

While I understand what you mean, I don't think "a cheapest card" is syntactically sound. Perhaps the clarification should be on the card itself. I could see that.
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soulnet

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #63 on: December 26, 2013, 01:58:11 pm »
+1

While I understand what you mean, I don't think "a cheapest card" is syntactically sound. Perhaps the clarification should be on the card itself. I could see that.

I don't know if it is or not, I just know it is usual in math articles to say analogous things, that's where I got it from. But still, saying "the cheapest" sounds wrong to me (not dubious or ambiguous, plain wrong). Maybe say "a card not more expensive than any other card he gained" or something like that.

Also, "cheapest", with any article, is ambiguous/wrong if costs with more than one potion are allowed. If the revealed cards are costed 1P and PP, there is no cheapest? Both are?
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Archetype

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #64 on: December 26, 2013, 02:08:29 pm »
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Woah. There's 3 Elixirs now?
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Robz888

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #65 on: December 26, 2013, 02:08:35 pm »
+1

I am going to do a video review of the cards, I just haven't had any time.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #66 on: December 26, 2013, 02:15:27 pm »
+1

I don't know if it is or not, I just know it is usual in math articles to say analogous things, that's where I got it from. But still, saying "the cheapest" sounds wrong to me (not dubious or ambiguous, plain wrong). Maybe say "a card not more expensive than any other card he gained" or something like that.

I understand exactly what you mean, but in this specific case I'd rather have a slightly wrong wording than a syntactically incorrect or really awkward one. If the clarification is on the card, it's easy to understand what is meant.

Also, "cheapest", with any article, is ambiguous/wrong if costs with more than one potion are allowed. If the revealed cards are costed 1P and PP, there is no cheapest? Both are?

Since none of the published Alchemy cards cost PP and neither does Wizard itself, I don't really care about this. People have already been over why costing something at PP is a bad idea and I agree with them. I'm OK with leaving this ambiguous for now.

What it boils down to is that unless the card wins, I'm not going to bother finding the prefect wording for it. If it wins, we can totally have this conversation then.

Woah. There's 3 Elixirs now?

??? There were 3 Elixirs before. Weren't there?

I am going to do a video review of the cards, I just haven't had any time.

I empathize, and look forward to your video!
« Last Edit: December 26, 2013, 02:19:40 pm by LastFootnote »
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eHalcyon

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #67 on: December 26, 2013, 03:34:47 pm »
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Quote
Elicitor
Types: Action
Cost: PP*
+1 Action. Discard a card. For each P in its cost, gain an Action card, putting it into your hand. If there is no P in its cost, +2 Cards.

If you have a Potion in play, this costs P less.

Too crazy with high-ticket Actions like Possession and King's Court.

It's for each Potion in its cost, not each coin.  Discarding KC just gives you +2 cards, and discarding Possession would only gain one action.

What I mean is, Elicitor gains any action straight to hand, and it's not too tricky to buy bunches of Elicitors and pair them.  So, it can be "Play Elicitor, +1 Action, discard Elicitor, gain King's Court and Possession in hand.  That's a little much. 

Easy enough to fix, I guess.

Ahh, I see.  I don't think that's a huge issue.  Buying a card taht costs $PP is already tough enough -- basically Treasure Map.  But to do what you're talking about you basically have to hit TMaps (Potions) twice to get two Elicitors, then hit them a third time (two Elicitors) to gain those two action cards.  It's just so much work and/or luck that it's impractical, and if you manage it then you deserve it.

Yeah, but Elicitor is the card where it effectively only costs P during your buy phase, and then reverts to PP during your action phase.  So, it's pretty easy to buy them.  Also, the first person to pair two Elicitors can play one Elicitor, discard the other, and then gain more two Elicitors to hand.  Repeat.

There is something kind of insane and interesting about the idea of gaining two action cards right into your hand.  But I think you'd need to cap the cost of the gained actions at 5.  Gaining King's Court or Golem to hand is overpowered. 

Even with a cap it might still be overpowered because gaining a card to hand is really strong!  There's almost zero cards that do that.

Oops!  I knew that when I first reviewed it, but I must have forgotten at some point during the discussion.  My bad.
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LastFootnote

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #68 on: December 27, 2013, 11:54:15 am »
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I'm about to change Distill on the ballot. Apparently, the idea is that you are able to trash the cards that other players give you, not the card that you would otherwise be returning to the Supply. That makes a lot more sense, but in my defense, the original submission was not at all clear about this. The author has also asked that "you win" be restored to his original, more verbose "the game is over and you win". So the updated version looks like this:

Quote
Distill
Type: Action – Attack
Cost: PP
+2 Actions. Each player may return a card from his hand to the Supply. (Yours may come from your discard pile.) For each card returned, each player other than the one that returned it gains a copy of it. You may trash any number of the cards you gain this way. If there are no cards in your hand, discard pile, or deck, the game is over and you win.
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KingZog3

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #69 on: December 27, 2013, 04:39:19 pm »
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I'm about to change Distill on the ballot. Apparently, the idea is that you are able to trash the cards that other players give you, not the card that you would otherwise be returning to the Supply. That makes a lot more sense, but in my defense, the original submission was not at all clear about this. The author has also asked that "you win" be restored to his original, more verbose "the game is over and you win". So the updated version looks like this:

Quote
Distill
Type: Action – Attack
Cost: PP
+2 Actions. Each player may return a card from his hand to the Supply. (Yours may come from your discard pile.) For each card returned, each player other than the one that returned it gains a copy of it. You may trash any number of the cards you gain this way. If there are no cards in your hand, discard pile, or deck, the game is over and you win.

I see. That does fix the issues that this had before. It is not possible to win, not just theoretically. Now the problem is that I feel this card is mostly who can get it and play it the most. Because the win condition excludes all other VP, it's actually a race for me to get 8 Provinces (Or end 3 piles) before my opponent empties their deck. I still don't like it, because of that whole "VP doesn't matter anymore."
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LastFootnote

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #70 on: December 27, 2013, 04:52:20 pm »
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I'm about to change Distill on the ballot. Apparently, the idea is that you are able to trash the cards that other players give you, not the card that you would otherwise be returning to the Supply. That makes a lot more sense, but in my defense, the original submission was not at all clear about this. The author has also asked that "you win" be restored to his original, more verbose "the game is over and you win". So the updated version looks like this:

Quote
Distill
Type: Action – Attack
Cost: PP
+2 Actions. Each player may return a card from his hand to the Supply. (Yours may come from your discard pile.) For each card returned, each player other than the one that returned it gains a copy of it. You may trash any number of the cards you gain this way. If there are no cards in your hand, discard pile, or deck, the game is over and you win.

I see. That does fix the issues that this had before. It is not possible to win, not just theoretically. Now the problem is that I feel this card is mostly who can get it and play it the most. Because the win condition excludes all other VP, it's actually a race for me to get 8 Provinces (Or end 3 piles) before my opponent empties their deck. I still don't like it, because of that whole "VP doesn't matter anymore."

In fairness, a complaint about Dominion that I used to see a lot (on BGG) is that it only has one route to Victory. Now that's kind of a trick because a lot of cards (especially alt-VP cards) change the dynamic of that route dramatically. But apparently that bothers some people.

That being said, I don't think I'd like playing with Distill either.
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KingZog3

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #71 on: December 27, 2013, 05:17:11 pm »
+1

I'm about to change Distill on the ballot. Apparently, the idea is that you are able to trash the cards that other players give you, not the card that you would otherwise be returning to the Supply. That makes a lot more sense, but in my defense, the original submission was not at all clear about this. The author has also asked that "you win" be restored to his original, more verbose "the game is over and you win". So the updated version looks like this:

Quote
Distill
Type: Action – Attack
Cost: PP
+2 Actions. Each player may return a card from his hand to the Supply. (Yours may come from your discard pile.) For each card returned, each player other than the one that returned it gains a copy of it. You may trash any number of the cards you gain this way. If there are no cards in your hand, discard pile, or deck, the game is over and you win.

I see. That does fix the issues that this had before. It is not possible to win, not just theoretically. Now the problem is that I feel this card is mostly who can get it and play it the most. Because the win condition excludes all other VP, it's actually a race for me to get 8 Provinces (Or end 3 piles) before my opponent empties their deck. I still don't like it, because of that whole "VP doesn't matter anymore."

In fairness, a complaint about Dominion that I used to see a lot (on BGG) is that it only has one route to Victory. Now that's kind of a trick because a lot of cards (especially alt-VP cards) change the dynamic of that route dramatically. But apparently that bothers some people.

That being said, I don't think I'd like playing with Distill either.

That is a fair point. 3 piling is the second route to victory (in my mind).

To the author: Maybe a victory condition like this could work for Dominion, but this isn't very much fun. I don't think trashing my deck every turn is fun. There isn't much complexity in this, plus the cost, as said before, is essentially Treasure Map to get.
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cluckyb

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #72 on: December 30, 2013, 03:36:40 pm »
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Felt like a lot of the cards here were either overly complex, or just did things other Alchemy cards already do but differently or were overly complex. So here are the ones I'm probably going with:

Quote
Conjuror (A)
Types: Action
Cost: $2P
+3 Cards. You may discard a Potion. If you do, +1 Action. Otherwise, gain a Potion, putting it on top of your deck.

Nice simple smithy variant.

Quote
Clairvoyant
Types: Action
Cost: $3P
+1 Action. Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Set aside a revealed Action card. Put a revealed Victory card into your hand. Discard the rest. Play the set-aside Action.

Interesting village/scout hybrid. Might be too expensive, also kinda complex, but is a cool idea.

Quote
Incantation
Types: Action
Cost: $3P
+1 Card. +1 Action. Trash a card from your hand. If you do, reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a card that costs more than it and shares a type with it. Put it into your hand and discard the rest.

Seems like a cool enough mechanic that is at least worth advancing for further discussion.

Quote
Quicksilver
Types: Treasure – Reaction
Cost: $2P
When you play this, reveal your hand. This is worth $1 plus $1 per Action revealed.

When another player plays an Action, you may discard this. If you do, gain a copy of that Action.

This one has borderline support. I like the top half but don't like the bottom half.

Quote
Catalyst
Types: Action
Cost: $3P
+1 Card. +1 Action. +1 Buy. +$1. Reveal then discard any number of Action cards. For each card discarded, +1 Card, +1 Buy, and +$1.

I think this could lose the +Buy from discarded cards, but "turns your other actions into peddlers" is a really cool Market+ twist. Turning them into Markets just feels a bit too strong. I think its my favorite card in the round though.

Quote
Research
Types: Action
Cost: $1P
Trash 2 cards from your hand. Gain a card costing exactly $2 or $1P more than the total cost of the trashed cards in coins.

When you gain this, gain an Action costing up to $4.

A little clunky, but a remodel variant for Alchemy would be cool.

Quote
Enchanter
Types: Action
Cost: $2P
+3 Cards. You may play an Enchanter from your hand.

Another nice smithy variant. Steps on cultists toes, but the extra card should make it easier to chain them which is cool.
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dghunter79

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #73 on: December 30, 2013, 11:30:46 pm »
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Quote
Incantation
Types: Action
Cost: $3P
+1 Card. +1 Action. Trash a card from your hand. If you do, reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a card that costs more than it and shares a type with it. Put it into your hand and discard the rest.

Seems like a cool enough mechanic that is at least worth advancing for further discussion.

This is the only one I voted for besides my card.  I think it's an interesting addition to the cantrip trashing family.  How do people think it ranks with Upgrade and Junk Dealer?  I feel like the cycling alone could be hugely useful.

Quote
Catalyst
Types: Action
Cost: $3P
+1 Card. +1 Action. +1 Buy. +$1. Reveal then discard any number of Action cards. For each card discarded, +1 Card, +1 Buy, and +$1.

I think this could lose the +Buy from discarded cards, but "turns your other actions into peddlers" is a really cool Market+ twist. Turning them into Markets just feels a bit too strong. I think its my favorite card in the round though.

Yeah, it's interesting, but I think even without the +buys, this is too strong in engines.  And then the rest of the time it's not very useful at all.

Quote
Research
Types: Action
Cost: $1P
Trash 2 cards from your hand. Gain a card costing exactly $2 or $1P more than the total cost of the trashed cards in coins.

When you gain this, gain an Action costing up to $4.

A little clunky, but a remodel variant for Alchemy would be cool.

Hm.  I think as written this is very difficult to use, except earlyish in the game, to trash down and get more Researches.  Midgame, it's gonna be really difficult to pair this with two cards that you want to trash that add up to exactly 2 less than the card you want.  If it's only an early game trasher, then Potion feels like a tough cost to justify.

KingZog3

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Re: Treasure Chest Design Contest — Card #7: Alchemy
« Reply #74 on: December 31, 2013, 02:35:59 am »
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Quote
Research
Types: Action
Cost: $1P
Trash 2 cards from your hand. Gain a card costing exactly $2 or $1P more than the total cost of the trashed cards in coins.

When you gain this, gain an Action costing up to $4.

A little clunky, but a remodel variant for Alchemy would be cool.

Hm.  I think as written this is very difficult to use, except earlyish in the game, to trash down and get more Researches.  Midgame, it's gonna be really difficult to pair this with two cards that you want to trash that add up to exactly 2 less than the card you want.  If it's only an early game trasher, then Potion feels like a tough cost to justify.

I agree that this may be hard to use. Maybe if the gaining was mandatory, but otherwise it'll mostly replace the card you trashed with things you don't want.

I didn't see this said anywhere before, but this on-gain is a nice way to give incentive to get the Potion for this. It slows you down less. I feel something like this could maybe make Transmute more worthwhile.
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