Sorry for the delay. Here's the judging:
How long do you wanna keep it out?
Immigrants • $5 • Action - Duration
+2 Villagers
The next time you spend a villager, gain a card costing exactly $1 per card you have in play (but nor more than $7)
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On play, its an alt-Necropolis that gives Villagers instead of Actions. When a Villager is used, the "next time" function is triggered, gives mandatory exacta gain of a card worth $1 per card the player has in play. From the card itself, it's ambiguous what happens if you have more than 7 cards in play when you spend a Villager. I saw your post clarifying that you gain nothing, but (at a minimum) that should be in an FAQ for the card.
Thematically, it fits fine with Renaissance. Functionally, it's a bit of an odd duck. As a village/splitter, it's a tough sell. While Villagers are better than Actions, Necropolis is an extremely weak card, and at $5 the upside isn't nearly enough. And that's before the real risk of it regularly junking you with Estates and Silvers (or wanted $1/$2/$3 Kingdom cards). As a pure gainer it has more potential. With a solid engine (or a bunch of cantrips) you could probably get 4 or 5 more Action cards in play within a turn or 2 for a $5 or $6 gain. But even there, a $5 gainer that sits out for 2-3 turns is still pretty weak, even if it gains a $6 or $7 (Importer gains $5 for $3 and only sits out one turn).
On the other hand, in the presence of discounting, this has the potential to become extremely centralizing. If you gain and play 6 of these, and then play any discounter, you can instantly gain 6 Provinces, which will almost certainly win you the game. On the way there, if you have 3 Immigrants in play and then play the discounter, you can gain 3 more, winning the pile rush and ensure you'll be able to pull off the later Province (near) pile. While this has some similarity to Royal Carriage/Bridge, and, in some ways, is harder (because Immigrants is terminal if you can't spend Villagers) this one works with all of the discounters including Inventor, Highway, and (with some modifications) Canals.
Even without discounting, I wonder about buying 5 of these and putting them into play, then holding them until the end of the game. The ability to insta-gain 5 Duchies (enough to overcome a 5/3 Province split) as you buy the last/penultimate Province seems like an incredibly strong tool, maybe even one worth the burden of getting 5 of these (especially if that was eased with something like Artisan or Innovation). It might even be worth gaining the 6th copy (especially if you can T4B) to keep your opponent from matching you.
This feels like a kind of bust or boom card. Instead of the $7 limit, you may want to just make it non-Victory cards; in that case, you may want to either make the gaining optional, or costing-up-to, to strengthen it as a gainer.
COPY EDITING:
If you don't change the phrasing to clarify, it should, at a minimum, say "but not more than $7" and have a period at the end of that line. You should also capitalize Villager.
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In memoriam
Heirloom: Lucky Coin
$4 Night - Duration
The next time you gain a Treasure, gain a cheaper Spirit from one of the Spirit piles.
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In memoriam is a Night card that does nothing on-play, but the next time the player gains a Treasure, they also gain a cheaper Spirit. It uses three mechanics from Nocturn: Night cards, Heirlooms, and Spirit piles. By making it a Night card, it will (usually) not trigger until a subsequent turn. The presence of the Lucky Coin makes it (generally) easier to gain a Treasure and trigger IM and gain an Imp (or Will-o'-Wisp). It's an interesting use of those three mechanics, and a fun way to get to the Spirit pile.
My one concern would relate to the ability to gain Ghost. The two existing cards that gain it have significant limitations. Haunted Mirror requires you to trash the card, then discard an Action; this requires both foregoing the use of the Action card and colliding HM, the Action, and (if you don't use Cemetery's on-gain) trasher. With Exorcist, you have to trash a $5+ card to gain it. Here, while there is the delay of waiting a turn (or two), all you need to do is gain a Gold (or $5 Kingdom Treasure). This is something you'd likely do anyway (even in an engine, you generally want some payload), so there's not much of a cost. This potentially gets even stronger when combined with Devil's Workshop. If you collide the two, you can forgo gaining to get a Gold and a Ghost that very turn. While Ghost is a powerful engine component, the fact that it is coming with Gold (which is a stop card, even if you probably want some of them in most engines), and the fact that there are only 6 of them means this isn't entirely busted.
A solid entry, with good use of the themes/mechanics.
COPY EDITING:
All of the words in card titles (except for articles and prepositions) are capitalized, so "In Memoriam" should be how it is written.
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Smelting Pot • $4 • Action - Duration
+1 Action
+1 Card
Trash a card from your Hand. If you trashed … an Action, +$2; a card costing up to $1, +1 Buy
The next time you trash a card, gain a Spoils.
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Smelting Pot is a mandatory trashing cantrip* which bonuses +1 Buy when trashing Coppers/Curses/Shelters/Ruins, and +$2 when trashing Actions. It's next time effect triggers when you trash another card, and gains you a Spoils. In the vast majority of games, SP will be the best trasher, and the thing you use to next trash a card. Practically speaking, this means that the effect of this is to require a player to buy 2 (or more) copies of SP, perpetually keeping one copy of SP stuck in play while it waits for the next copy (which will then take its place). That also means that each time you play SP (after the first), you will gain a Spoils. Like all trashers, it becomes junk once you've trashed all the junk in your deck, and at worse, some other form of trashing drops you a second piece of junk (unless/until you can collide them, trashing one with the other and leaving the second in play).
This is way too strong. The penalty of having to buy/gain one extra copy of this ($4 card) to make the other copy/copies work is so minor compared to how incredibly good it is. There are only only a handful of official cantrip* trashers, and the ones that cost $4 come with drawbacks, not bonuses. While the conditional +Buy/+$ aren't that strong, the Spoils gaining is. Gaining a Spoils each time you play a cantrip (which, presumably, you'll play each time through your deck) effectively adds a delayed Gold to your deck, which is good enough to turn a $3 Village into a $5 Bandit Camp. While this isn't as good (since you may not play it every time and you'll eventually stop playing it), it's pretty close, and adds some significant payload early on as you're thinning your deck to hit the good cards you're buying more often.
An interesting mechanism and a good fit with the set, but too strong. A possible change might be to add the "Looter" type and make it gain a Ruins instead of a Spoils. While this will slow the trashing a lot, the Ruins pile will quickly run out, and trashing them will trigger both bonuses.
COPY EDITING:
By convention, +Card(s) always goes above +Action(s), so these should be flipped.
* Of course, a "+1 Card, +1 Action . . . trash a card from your hand" is not a true cantrip, as the trashing reduces your hand-size by one.
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Conscripts
 - Action - Duration - Attack
+
Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand discards a card.
The next time anyone plays an Attack card, afterwards +2 Cards.
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Conscripts is a play on Militia; it's a terminal Silver handsize attack for $4. Instead of knocking opponents down to 3 cards, it only makes them discard 1 card, and won't get them below 4. The next time someone plays an Attack card, you get +2 Cards after it resolves. You said it fits with Dark Ages because it's an Attack.
I think (and others have said this before I even got here) that the problem with effects (usually Reactions) which leave an attacked player in a better position is that it leads players not to get the attack (because why Attack if your opponent will end up better off), and if no one is going to get the Attack, then no one will get the Reaction, eliminating two cards from the Kingdom. This isn't exactly that, because it can only trigger once after it's played, and it is both the Attack and the counter-attack in one card. Still, I think the fact that playing this might help your opponent will lead to it not being bought in most games.
I also feel like its connection to Dark Ages is tentative at best. While attack cards are something of a minor theme, they're hardly unique to that set, and these could fit in almost any other set just as well, if not better (including Plunder, where they're arguably a better fit).
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Investor • $2 • Action - Duration
+1 Action
Trash a card from your hand. Next time anyone trashes cards, gain a card costing up to $2 more than one of them.
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Investor is a non-terminal remodeler that trashes a card on-play, then waits until someone trashes another card to gain a card costing up to $2 more. The phrasing here ("Next time anyone trashes cards, gain a card costing up to $2 more than one of them") is a little unclear. Does "trashes cards" mean that it only triggers when someone trashes multiple cards? I would presume not, but that could be clearer. Also, does "than one of them" only include the other card(s) trashed, or does it include the card you initially trashed as well? Based upon the previous version, it seems that only the later-trashed cards would be the basis for the gaining.
The obvious problem with this (imo) is that it strongly incentivizes players to trash $0 cards and stick their opponent with gaining a $2 card (rather than a $3/$4 card from trashing an Estate). You could, I suppose, gain another Investor, and try to trigger your own Investor yourself, but this seems to me like a losing proposition, especially if you end up with multiple copies in your deck. It might create some interesting non-Attack player interactions, but I think these would overwhelmingly tend to make it a worse thinner/remodeler, and have players just pushing weak card into each others' decks.
The trashing mechanic fits Dark Ages well, the name slightly less so. An interesting entry, but one I'm not really sure about.
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Zookeeper
$5 - Action - Duration
+1 Action.
Gain a Horse.
The next time you play a Way or a card with an animal in its name (Horse, Goat, etc...), choose one: +$2, +2 Cards, +2 Actions, or +2 Buys.
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When you gain this, gain a Horse.
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Zookeeper gains you a Horse both on-gain and on-play, and is non-terminal. The next time ability triggers either when a player uses a Way or when they play a card with an animal in its name, and gives +2 of any of the 4 vanilla bonuses. This fits the theme of Menagerie well, both in flavor and in interacting with both Horses and Ways (in a manner the official set doesn't even do).
My first reaction is that, if you were always able to play something that triggered the "next time" ability right after playing Zookeeper, it would be strictly better than Lab in at least 3 ways (on-gain bonus, on-play Horse gaining, and flexibility to take a different vanilla when you don't want +Cards [i.e. when you've drawn your deck/discard]). Of course, you won't always be able to, and having to wait on that bonus is a huge disadvantage compared to the super-Lab. How long you'll wait is going to vary wildly with what else is in the Kingdom. With no Way or fitting Kingdom card, the worst-case scenario is that you'll trigger it when you play the Horse you gained playing it, meaning Zookeep will sit out an entire shuffle. However, even with no support, you might trigger it with the Horse you got on-gain/the Horse you gained the last time you played it. With one copy, your Zookeeper would eventually land in your deck below the Horse, and get behind it. But with multiple copies, you have the chance to get back ahead. The presence of other triggering cards helps this immensely, as does the presence of most Ways.
This feels like it's a little too strong in a few too many cases, but overall it isn't totally busted. Even in a Kingdom with a very favorable way and several Kingdom cards that trigger it, the super-Lab it might become, while very strong, is not irredeemably broken. A really fun entry that fits its expansion well.
COPY EDITING:
Conventionally, +$ is always listed last among the vanilla bonuses (the other three are in the correct order).
While no official cards reference it, the rule book refers to playing an Action card "using a Way" rather than to "playing a Way."
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Burglar • $5 • Night - Duration
The next time you end your Action phase without having played any Action cards, +3 Cards at the end of that turn.
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Burglar is a $5 Night card that, on turns you end your Action phase without having played Action cards, gets you +3 Cards for the following turn (which go in your hand at the end of the turn, making them vulnerable to handsize attacks). I believe you are correct on the timing: it cannot trigger (or be discarded) the turn it is played unless you returned to your Action phase (which no official card can do from the Night phase), and it would discard the turn it is triggered. This means that, in a deck with no Action cards, it will stay in play for 2 turns, giving you the extra cards on turn 3 (counting from the turn you played it).
The obvious, official comparison is Den of Sin. At the same price, it gives you 2 cards instead of 3, which is a significant disadvantage. However, you get those cards one turn after playing it (instead of 2), the extra cards aren't vulnerable to handsize attacks, you don't have to forgo playing Action cards, and DoS has the gain-to-hand bonus. The mechanics of Burglar mean you can play it as frequently as DoS. In a draw-your-deck scenario, you could play half of your Burglars every other turn, and they'd function identically to DoS, but getting you far more cards. But something like that would be almost impossible to pull off without playing any Action cards. Still, in a Kingdom with no (discard down to X) handsize attack, BM + Burglar is a very strong option.
This fits Nocturne with the use of the Night mechanic. It also fits thematically with the likes of DoS and Night Watchmen. A solid entry.
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Jeweler • $4 • Action - Duration
+1 Card
The next time you play a non-Duration Treasure, play it again, then you may trash it.
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Jeweler is a terminal Action which gives +1 Card, then thrones the next Treasure that player plays, with the option to trash it afterwards. This serves two obvious purposes: thinning Coppers (or other unwanted Treasure cards) early, and doubling your best Treasure card later in the game to add to payload.
A terminal +1 Card is generally taboo in card design, and while I'm pretty open-minded about breaking such taboos, I'm not sure what the reason for doing so here is. It also makes it difficult to gage the strength of the card versus things like Moneylender and Tiara, because I'm not sure how to evaluate a terminal +1 Card. On one hand, it increases the pool from which you can either thin or just throne a Treasure (giving you a better chance of getting the one you want). On the other hand, it might just draw a dead Action card, making it worse than nothing. I'm inclined to think that all that ultimately evens out, and makes it a fairly balanced card (albeit with a definite imbalance towards BM decks over engines).
This fits Prosperity well, both with it's theme and the interaction with Treasures. I think the use of the "next time" mechanic is less compelling. Given the ubiquity of Treasure cards in most decks (and the fact that no one's going to use Jeweler in the rare deck without them), there would be little practical difference in making this a non-Duration card which said "The next time you play a non-Duration Treasure this turn..." or even "You may play a non-Duration Treasure from your hand twice..."
This is an interesting card that definitely defies a lot of conventional wisdom in card design.
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Vallary | Treasure - Duration | $5
+$2
You may play an Action card from your hand to gain a Horse.
The next time you play a non-Supply card, +1 Card
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Vallary is a $5 Kingdom Treasure card which produces $2, allows you to play an Action from your hand, and if you do, gives you a Horse that, when you play it, will draw you an extra card. It uses Horses to fit with Menagerie.
Playing Action cards during your Buy phase is often less desirable than playing them during your Action phase. The +Actions are generally useless, and if the +Cards draw you Action cards, they are drawn dead (absent other ways to play cards during your Buy phase). Thus, using Vallary's play-an-Action ability might be a drawback, rather than an advantage. If you opt not to do so (or if you draw Vallary without any Action cards in your hand) then you won't gain a Horse. If you don't have a Horse, and don't have another way to gain non-Supply cards, Vallary will be stuck in play. It think this will happen fairly frequently, making this a hard card to use regularly.
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Tenant
$4 Action - Duration
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing up to $2 more than it.
The next time you trash a card, gain a card from the trash.
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Tenant by Will(ow|iam) Dark Ages
Tenant is a remodel variant. On-play, it's identical to Remodel. However, the next time you trash a card, it you gain a card from the trash. Both the trashing and the name fit well with Dark Ages (although I'm less sure of how the name fits with what it does). For reasons I won't get into, a general gain-from-trash effect (without limitations as to card type/cost) has tended to be frowned upon as a design element, as it has the potential for weirdly strong game-flipping impacts. This (indirectly) illustrates why).
In theory, the next time ability allows you to remodel a card you actually want to keep (and which, presumably, costs more than your junk), regaining it right after you trash it (effectively discarding, rather than trashing it). Practically, this means that you can only thin a single card from your deck using this. This is a huge disadvantage compared to a plain remodeler, which both thins cards (plural) from your deck while gaining you useful cards. The only way I could see to play this is to buy a single copy early, and use it just once, then get a second copy in the late game and use it to discard (i.e. trash then gain from the trash) a Gold/Province to gain a Province. This is both much too strong and makes the initial gaining kind of annoying.
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Marksman • $3 • Action - Duration
+1 Action
Choose one: +1 Card; or trash a card from your hand.
The next time you have exactly 4 Action cards in play during your Action phase, do the other one.
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On play, Marksman is either a cantrip or a non-terminal trasher. When you get exactly 4 Action cards in pay, it triggers the other effect. It generally fits into Allies' theme of choosing from a list (especially a list of non-matching choices), and fits the (pretty broad) style as well. The timing of the trigger is a bit odd, and could create some challenges. I presume that if the Marksman is the fourth card, it will immediately trigger both effects? I don't think that is necessarily self-evident. Also, if you have 3 of these in play (each of which were played as a cantrip), you play a Village, and when the first one triggers you trash a Trail and play it. Do the other Marksmen still trigger? There are no longer exactly 4 Action cards in play.
Mostly, I think this is too weak of a card to be really interesting. Even if you buy two of these, getting four Action cards in play early in the game is going to be a challenge. One thing that could help that would be to thin your deck with a trasher, but you'll have only trashed, at most, 2 cards (unless there's another trasher, in which case, you'd just use that). Trashers are at their best at the beginning of games, when it could be hard to make this work. I think it also compares poorly to other, similar cards. While it's not strictly worse than Church, I cannot image any Kingdom where I'd take Marksman over Church. Given how similar the cards are ($3 Duration trashers), that's a good indication that this is probably not strong enough.
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Successors • $4 • Action - Duration - Victory
Chose one: +2 Cards or +$2.
The next time you gain a card costing $6 or more gain a card costing up to $4.
1VP
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Successors is an Action - Duration - Victory card worth 1VP which gives either Moat or Terminal Silver on play, while its next time ability gives a modified Haggler, triggering when you gain a $6+ card to gain you another costing up to $4. A great fit for Intrigue, with multiple types, a "Choose one", and the card's flavor.
This is a bit of a weird design, and I've struggled to judge it. Mill (and Great Hall in 1E) is a cantrip, so gaining it effectively takes up no space in your deck (unless you hit a terminal collision). Nobels, while not a cantrip each time it's played, can do a number of things in an engine, and, importantly, never take up 2 useless spots in your hand (unless drawn dead). The Moat effect is (absent some excellent source of +Actions) generally terrible, and while one terminal Silver isn't necessarily bad, having a bunch of them is. Thus, adding several of these to your deck will not be that different from adding a regular, unplayable Victory card (in terms of them getting in your way).
Then there is the next time effect. You could use it to gain more Successors when you buy Gold/Provinces, but as previously mentioned, you probably don't want too many. In a game with multiple decent $2/$3/$4 engine pieces (or with Experiment), you could keep gaining those (along with some Successors, who you could support with those). Absent that, the gaining (which is mandatory) becomes a punishment much of the time, especially late in the game. Given these challenges, the "next time" effect could become a benefit, keeping the card out of your deck. However, even in a slog where you're gaining cheaper cards, it will be hard to forgo gaining Golds and triggering the gain. You might be able to pull that off with some discounting, but it would still be a challenge.
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Wolf • $3 • Action - Duration - Attack
+1 Action
+1 Card
The next time you end your turn without having played a Wolf, each opponent discards a card.
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Wolf by petamatt Hinterlands
Wolf is an Attack which gives a cantrip on play, and after a turn in which you didn't play a Wolf, makes each other player discard a card. This attack is totally busted (even without the ability to take extra turns). If you notice, the only official handsize attacks that can get a player's hand below three cards are Cutpurse (which only discards Coppers) and Torturer (which gives the player the choice of gaining a Curse instead). With just 3 of these in play, if you played a Militia on the turn you didn't play a Wolf, you would totally wipe out your opponents hand. Combine that with Outpost/Voyage/Journey, and you can actually accomplish a full pin (emptying your opponent's hand every turn, effectively preventing them from doing anything). You have to limit the attack to players with at least 4 cards in hand.
The timing is also a little weird. Since they trigger when you end your turn, it isn't totally clear whether they would then be discarded or stay in play until the following turn.
COPY EDITING:
By convention, +Card(s) always goes above +Action(s), so these should be flipped.
The syntax of Attacks in official Dominion is "each other player" rather than "each opponent".
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 |  | Bricks
➁ Treasure - Duration
①
+1 Buy
The next time anyone
gains a Victory card,
trash this for +1 VP. | Bricklayer
➑ Action
+3 Cards
Choose one:
Play a Treasure from the
trash; or +① per Bricks
you have in play. |
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A split pile, Bricks is a one-shot Copper+Buy that turns into a VP whenever anyone gains a Victory card. Bricklayer is a terminal draw card that either allows you to play a Treasure (presumably Bricks) from the trash or get +$1 for each Bricks you have in play. It uses 3 mechanics from Empires (split pile, VP tokens, and Debt) and the names fit Empire's theme nicely (even if the art you selected does not).
The price of Bricks is an interesting question. As anordinaryman pointed out, it is pretty similar to Great Hall, in that (once it is played) it effectively serves as 1VP which does not clog up your deck. This is not entirely true, as the first time you draw it it is a stop card. However, that only happens once, and since it will usually happen early in the game, the $1 will not be that much lower than your average money density (which starts the game at $0.7), so it won't be a huge drawback (and the +Buy will help you get more copies of Bricks). That said, I appreciate the importance of emptying the top pile of a split, so I think it's not unreasonable.
Bricklayer is a really strong card. In addition to the +3 Cards, it will either give you +$1, +1 Buy, and (eventually) +1 VP, or (at least in a two-player game) +$2 or +$3. It's probably correctly priced at {8}, although I'm not sure there's any great reason to give it a Debt cost. Still, a fun, interesting entity that fits the assignment well.
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Ferry Token
Treasure/Duration - $3
+1 Buy
+$3
The next time your Journey token is face up at the start of your turn, +2 Cards and return this to its pile.
____________
When you gain this, turn over your Journey token (it starts face up)
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Ferry Token is a one-shot Gold+Buy which flips your Journey token on-gain. The "next time" effect triggers if your Journey token is face up at the start of your turn, giving you +2 Cards and returning FT to its pile. The use of the Journey token fits Adventures nicely, as does the name.
This feels very strong to me. Because FT repays its own cost on-play, you can always use that $ to buy another copy. If you buy them in pairs, your Journey token will always be face down. Say you open with a pair of these. There's a good chance you'll draw at least one on turn 3. If you draw one, you can play it and (depending how many Coppers you get with it) buy a Gold, a $5 card, or possibly 2 engine components ($3/$4). On turn 4 you'll draw the other FT and the rest of your deck (the +2 Cards makes up for the 2 FTs you gained), including at least 3 Coppers (since your first hand had, at most 4 of your 7 Coppers). Play those, buy 2 more FTs (getting your Journey token back to face up), and start turn 5 with 7 cards. You can generally continue like this, possibly adding more pairs of FT to trigger the effect more often.
In a draw-your-deck engine, it's even stronger. If you're drawing your deck every turn, 2FTs are (practically speaking) equivalent to 2 Hirelings, for the price of 1 (split into 2, cheaper buys/gains). Every turn you play them, buy 2 more, get get +4 Cards at the start of the turn (but have to draw the 2 FTs unlike Hirelings, reducing the benefit).
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Farmers
$4 - Action - Duration
The next time you gain a Victory card, +1 Buy and choose one: +$3; or +2 Cards, +1 Action, and if it's your Buy phase return to your Action phase.
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Farmers is an Action card with no on-play effect; when you gain a Victory card, it triggers, giving +1 Buy and either a virtual Gold or a Lab/LC (if you didn't play the Farmers that turn). This fits with Intrigue's choose one mechanic, and the theme pairs nicely with (the newly retconned) Farm.
My main concern about this card is its potential centralizing effect. Specifically, if one player gained all of these and put them all into play, when it was triggered it would generate $30 and 10 Buys. If you played $4 and gained an Estate, the $32 you had left would be enough to buy 4 Provinces. If you did this after you opponent (in a 2 player game) had gained 4 Provinces in a more traditional manner, you would (absent anything else impacting the score) win by 1VP. With a non-terminal gainer (like Ironworks or Carpenter), that might be doable, and could force the other player to gain some of the Farmers to prevent such a sweep (even if they didn't want to and that screwed up their strategy).
Outside of trying to trigger a mega-turn, it's a bit of an oddity. To get no effect on-play makes it potentially hard to use in an engine. In a big money deck, the fact that you don't get the $3 until after you gain the Victory card makes it useless for hitting key money points ($6 or $8). You could maybe play a BM + 3 Farmers, and try to gain two Provinces the first time you hit $8. But then the Farmers fall back into your deck, and potentially get in the way (especially if you draw 2 in one hand).
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Author
Topic: Weekly Design Contest #209: Next Time, Last Time (Read 2622 times)