All right! Sorry this took so long! I got a chance to test most of these (anything that was submitted before like Friday, pretty much).
Contest #86 ResultsLitharge by grepThis feels not all that distinct from Nomad Camp to me, except it's even less interesting because you sometimes get Nomad Camp for the +buy and have to suffer through the topdecking. And in the opening it has the same issue Nomad Camp does, which is that you might open it to hit $5... and then not hit $5. In fact on a 4/3 you have only a 40% chance of hitting 5, and the other 60% of the time you've opened silver/$4 and slowed your cycling. Sure, it's marginally better than buying Silver in money, but it is probably just a waste of a landscape most of the time. I'm not sure that I ever actually wanted to buy this in testing.
Migrate by faustThis is quite swingy in the early game. Opening it on turn 1 has a 60% chance of getting you Gold and a 40% chance of getting you nothing (except for stuff like Nobles). Later on, it becomes a slightly cheaper way to add actions if you have multiple buys and are drawing deck, which is... well, it's something, but that's kinda underwhelming. It's nice to get Golds for cheap, but it's not so nice to get nothing and it's especially not nice to see your opponent getting stuff like Goons or Grand Market while you flip Estates and get zip.
Tend by spinefluThis is a really cool idea! It feels wrong to just stick an 11th card in the otherwise nicely-ordered 10-card starting deck, but it's kinda cool. In terms of not messing with openings, making it a cantrip is definitely less irritating than the old version without the +1 Card, since you could be stuck with a 3/3 on a board where the $4's are important. That said... holy crap this thing was already strong, and with the +1 Card, it's now insane. One of the reasons Church is strong is its ability to save green cards across shuffles, and this is like Church on steroids. It's a cantrip so you can spam it, and it costs $2, and you start with one already in your deck, and it has no cap on the number of cards it can set aside, and it gives you economy too? Sign me up! And this came out in testing, too-- Tend just makes engines work, and work really well. Turns out permanently removing all the green cards from your shuffles while also letting you start your turn with a bunch of coin is very good. So while it's a great idea to make a card that starts in your deck, I don't feel like it should be this one. It's just too crazy good.
Highwayman by mandioca15This is somewhat interesting; it has the Villa effect of being buy-neutral to pick up when you anticipate needing more buys on future turns. But it doesn't really feel like it has a leg up on Villa; it's just far less interesting (aside from needing less cost reduction to autopile, but it sucks way more to autopile). If you think about it, it's really just a Woodcutter for $2 that's also buy-neutral. You get it when you want a Woodcutter, you don't otherwise, it just lets you wait a little longer before getting it. It's nice, but it doesn't feel that impactful to me.
Chancellory by LordBaphometWhoa, this is so good! Topdecking is a powerful effect, especially in the early game-- that's why Royal Seal is bad, and Tracker is sometimes a good open. Being able to open Chancellory and take advantage of the topdecking both immediately and consistently is crazy. I was only able to play against bots, and I didn't bother making a bot smart enough to contest this, so I basically got free rein of it. And it feels kinda like the Flag-- you pretty much have to contest it if your opponent goes for it, but there's not nearly as much of a first mover disadvantage since the first mover gets a $4 card onto their deck instead of a garbage terminal silver junking them up. A fun way to spice up the openings for sure, but way too centralizing in my opinion.
Manufacture by AquilaI didn't get a ton of time to play with this, but it feels underwhelming. The first choice is awkward, since early on it will probably just get you a free $2, which is not all that great. (Unless it's a power $2 like Peasant or Chapel, of course.) The second choice is... also awkward, since you need to already have to have the card you want, and there are not a ton of $5's that you want to spam but that don't help you as much on-play. As a result, you probably already hit $5 that turn, so instead of buying the $5 you can copy the $5 and buy a $3, so this option gets you a free $3, after a few shuffles. Also not that impressive. The third option... well, like I said, I'm not playing against humans, so I can't have intricate endgame dances. But I'd imagine that it's not really all that intricate; as soon as you get into greening, if you haven't cashed your Manufacture yet, you cash it for points asap.
Mausoleum by D782802859Fun! But as other people have pointed out, overpowered. And also usually not a good source of spirits, because $6 is greater than the cost of an actual Lab and instead I get a worse Lab and a green card, or for $4 I can get a Wisp and a dead card that Wisp can't even draw. Ghost as the only village... maybe, but that seems on the level of awkwardness as Prince as the only village, possibly more because Ghost's effect isn't nearly as good as Prince's. So I'm mostly taking Mausoleum as a cheaper Duchy (and maybe grabbing some free spirits because why not), and in most cases it will be a cheaper Duchy because the condition is so easy to hit.
Sailor by FragasnapThis is kind of a hard card to evaluate. It seems very good; it's like a slightly worse Caravan Guard/Supplies mashup that has a great on-gain effect (especially with gainers). I noticed that you said it's a net stop card, but it's actually not-- since it draws one card next turn, it's a net Peddler, like Supplies. Its Peddler mode is weaker than Supplies, but the +buy and the on-gain probably more than make up for that. And it has a high chance of hitting $5 for you in the opening (at the expense of triggering a probably-bad shuffle), so it seems pretty good. In testing, it usually felt like a nice supporting card, but never the star of the show, though I never got a board where it was the only +buy.
Lease by LibraryAdventurerI don't think I ever ended up testing this one, unfortunately. It seems to have little middle ground between useless and centralizing... but now I'm comparing Leasing Witch to Expedition, and I'm realizing that this is actually quite good. Though it still seems to me that Leasing attacks, especially junking attacks, is going to be dominant, and you usually won't be Leasing other things unless either you have nothing better to do or there's a strong synergy (such as Feast). Also, there might be tracking issues on when it "leaves play"-- for instance, I think as written you can Lease Fortresses and then steal them with Improve. Which is funny, I suppose. But overall... it's probably just right to be Leasing cursing attacks most of the time when they're on the board, which is just gonna lead to an infuriating game.
Fold by NoMoreFunCute. Powerful in a lot of situations, to cycle around to your better cards faster, or skip hands that you know will be bad. The main disadvantage? It requires constant deck tracking, because unlike Messenger you have the option to do this every turn. But in general, it doesn't REQUIRE deck tracking, since if you can afford it, it will help you shuffle faster and that's something you usually want (assuming your deck is better than it was last shuffle). I don't have much else to say about this. It's reminiscent of Save and Borrow-- not game-warping, but something to constantly be aware of.
Haunted Cruise by silverspawnI don't think I ever bought this. I can imagine a board where you might... but it would not be pleasant. First, it only even works to hit $5 on a 3/4, so if it is that important, one person can just get screwed. And it's really only important with $5's that are either great junkers or great trashers-- Old Witch, Witch, Mountebank, Recruiter, and Sentry come to mind. Maybe Counterfeit. I guess it's also good with other Exilers, like Camel Train or maybe Stockpile. But it just feels like a sad cross between Borrow and Desperation that really only works in the opening.
Smuggled Goods by artlessInteresting! But probably not too great unless you have something to do with the Smuggled Goods after gaining it. Watchtower does nice double duty. Copper trashers like Spice Merchant or Counterfeit don't mind it... but most other things don't really have much to do with it. And it's a pretty sad hand that can generate $1 with 5 spare cards, but can't generate $5. So it seems like the extra junk is often not going to be worth the gain.
Stud by gambit05I didn't get a chance to test the new version, but it looks way worse. The old version is a cantrip with a nice on-gain and Peddler potential if you had a Horse in hand, and this is... a really bad village, with a marginally better on-gain. I haven't tested it, but it's hard to imagine buying it, unless the nonterminal draw was REALLY good and I REALLY needed a village. Even the on-gain only has a 50% chance of getting you to $5 on turn 2, which is rarely gonna be worth it (and frustrating if my opponent hits it and I don't).
Navy by mail-miThis is quite strong. It's hard to see the impact of the attack versus bots, but it's about as strong as Minion's attack (just delayed by one turn), and Minion's attack is good. And this is a weaker Caravan Guard/Supplies, but it makes up for that by being playable on gain. There's a bit of a question of how this interacts with Squirrel/Flag and the like, but that seems like a minor issue. A more major issue is probably just that this attack is on what's effectively a cantrip, so it's very likely going to be inflicted every turn or almost every turn, and it's quite an annoying attack for that, so it probably isn't skippable, and it probably makes games less fun (though it being duration draw does counter its own attack, much like Haunted Woods).
Phoenix by pubbyThis is so cool!! However Phoenix itself is pretty, uh, underwhelming. It doesn't look like it can strongly effect gameplay, particularly in a destructive way
Single-card trash for no benefit is... not great. One-shot trashing self to grab back a trashed card such as a Mining Village is... a little better, but hard to pull off. So I may never actually buy Phoenix, but still appreciate its presence, like Baker and Fool. That doesn't really feel like something you should be aiming for, though. I get that it's good to have multiple Potion-cost cards together, but one thing that does is always ensure that on the opening turn when you could blow up Gunpowder for Phoenix, you could also blow it up for something else... and that something else is probably going to be better.
Underling by anordinarymanThis is a pretty sad card. It suffers from the same syndrome as Haunted Cruise and Smuggled Goods-- the junk is just not worth the benefit. And one of the hallmarks of bad cards with good on-gain effects (think Skulk) is the ability to feed it to trash-for-benefit... but because this has the debt cost, you can't even do that (barring things like Sacrifice and Zombie Apprentice). So you get a slight speed boost in return for a permanent slowdown. I would definitely be in favor of changing its cost to $3 and adding a clause to prevent autopiling, but I think improving the top would probably be a better way to fix this. I think it would be not too strong if it gave +$2, and probably more interesting.
Brazier by MarpharosI had to implement this as a Reaction, because it basically is. It's also kinda unintuitive that it works during Clean-up as well? But as written, it does. Anyway, that makes it seem pretty dang strong. It's effectively a +1 Card, since it keeps one junk card out of your shuffle, and on top of that it works both on gain and on discard. And then there's the can of worms of it being strictly better than Woodcutter, which is still a design principle DXV adheres to, even though Woodcutter is removed.
Glamour by chronostrikeI was unimpressed by this at first glance. A weirdly focused attack, along with adding a deliberately OP card to the supply? That just seems bad and unbalanced. It took me about thirty seconds of playing with it to change my mind. The balance might not be completely right... but the design is amazing. Even playing against a dumb bot, I got burned by Glamour a lot-- getting to open the Lure is great, but having to discard it sucks! And gaining Glamour for no reason is bad, but when your opponent starts picking up Lures, you probably want to find time for one, especially if the Lure is an engine piece like a village or a draw card. This is just such a fun and interesting card.
Ancient Settlement by xyz123This marks the point beyond which I wasn't able to test, sadly. This is kind of a weird one. I think it has enough going for it to be useful, especially on the 3/4 where you can open a $5 and still make out with a coffer. It's annoying as the only village... but sometimes you build Shanty Town engines. When Necropolis is useful, you don't mind hanging onto it. And this gives a buy, so it does serve two purposes, although neither of them well. I do like what the coffers do to the timing-- I wouldn't expect to trigger the coffers more than 2 or 3 times, but it might lead to me buying villages too early or intentionally not playing actions in order to get them. Interesting design.
Vagabond by X-traThe idea here is neat. I just wish the call condition were a bit... flashier. The combination of +Cards and +$ is particularly ill-suited to a card like this, since you don't know whether you'll need the money after you see what you drew, and you'll probably just use it as a Sinister Plot-esque dud saver, with the money being ancillary. That feels bad. The dead card floating around in my deck ALSO feels bad in the absence of trash for benefit. I like the pure Reserve idea... but I think this was the wrong place to try +2 Cards, +$2.
Negotiate by Fly-Eagles-FlyThis is the kind of thing that would drive me up the wall, which isn't a bad thing per se, but I think this is pretty bad, because of the chance that the coffer gets your opponent to $5. This might legitimately be a second player advantage card, because it can (and should) only be bought by the second player on turn 2, unless the second player buys a $4 on turn 1 in which case the first player can buy this on turn 2. Beyond that... well, it seems to be a mostly desperation play, because unlike Bargain, the benefit to your opponent is immediate, which basically makes this not worth it most of the time. The reason Bargain works is because they need to wait one shuffle to play the Horse, and a second shuffle to play whatever they were able to buy because they had the Horse. Here, if they get a $5 because you got Negotiate, you both see your $5's at the same time, and you're out $1 extra.
Workhouse by Xen3kThis card's on-gain is so bad that I don't really think I would go for it unless it was late and I already had deck control and really needed the buy. I don't really think buying this in the opening helps your odds of hitting $5 much; at best it will put you with 7 Coppers, 2 useful Ruins (Library/Mine), and 1 Estate going into turn 2, which is... bad. You have to wait an entire extra turn to even have a chance of seeing your opens, and then you have more garbage in your deck which it will take a bit for Workhouse to clear out. If Workhouse is the only village... well that can't possibly be worth it. Though it is nice with Fortress, but what isn't.
Metronome by alion8meHmm. Interesting. I think I like it. In general, big turns and terrible turns are better than a bunch of mediocre turns, at least early on. And the fact that it makes you discard your two worst cards, and then draws you two random ones, makes it significantly better than just doing nothing. I suspect that this will be unskippable on most boards, like Sinister Plot (though probably not quite as powerful). But it will be a lot of fun to play with. It might be marred by certain attacks like Swamp Hag that are more devastating on the big turn which will cause it to be annoying if one player's big turn is perpetually right after the other's. Maybe it would be better to make the whole thing optional (no drawing or discarding unless you flip), but that would make it even STRONGER, and it's already really good.
Owl Tower by Jonatan DjurachkovitchI must admit this surprised me; it looked terrible at first glance, like an even sadder version of Harbinger that's already a pretty sad card. But, actually, it plays out closer to Scheme-- it lets you set up any card for your next turn, with the obvious downside of being a duration and not being a cantrip. But the upside is pretty big: you get to pick which card you want after you see your hand. That does a heck of a lot for reliability. It still feels underwhelming in a consistent enough deck, but on sloggier boards where consistency is hard to hit, this can be pretty useful.
Young Smithy by majiponiEh. It's a better draw card than Moat? It's pretty bad as the primary draw in an engine, though getting to start with one on top of your deck each turn while building is nice I guess. But the discards really add up, especially if you want to gain and play. I don't think this is a weak card, and it's not a bad design, but it's really not all that exciting. I much prefer the cards that let you topdeck other gains; they do similar things, but a lot more varied in what exactly you can accomplish with them. I get that this was shoehorned to fit the contest, but it definitely leaves the card worse off for it.
Winner:
Glamour by chronostrikeRunner-up:
Ancient Settlement by xyz123