MENAGERIE EXTENSION CONTEST - RESULTS
Lots of good ideas again. Sorry for the wait.
Horse Thieves (Action - Attack, $4)
+$2
Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand discards a Treasure card (or reveals a hand with none). Either gain a copy of a discarded card or gain a Horse onto your deck.
Early on, this is basically a Cutpurse that also gains a Horse onto your deck. As the game progresses, and the Copper density lessens (or becomes nonexistent), the gap widens: Cutpurse becomes a terminal Silver, while Horse Thieves may force the opponent to discard a Silver or Gold, possibly gaining a copy in the process (and if you don't want to, well, here is another horse!). It is pretty much a 100% superior Cutpurse by a drastic amount; Cutpurse's stackability has next to no relevance really.
And if you play that card while the opponent only has a Gold in his hand, you got a huge swing in your favor. A little too huge for a $4 costs that produces $2 on play, if you'd ask me. An effect like this is especially devastating during the greening phase.
Way of the Manatee (Way)
Set aside an Action card from your hand. At the start of your next turn, play it twice.
This is really similar to Way of the Turtle. It lacks the ability to delay an Action indefinitely, but its effect otherwise requires less actions and less copies of a certain card. For instance, suppose you want to start your next turn with 11 cards. With Turtle, it'd mandate two spare actions, and two Smithies. But with this way, it mandates one action, one Smithy variant, and one arbitrary Acion card. Although this is a nice feature, Way of the Turtle is already good enough for this.
I think that this way can leed to very confusing setups, if you chain Action cards using this way. Additionally, it interacts very strangely with cards with a "while in play" effect. Especially if you use it on Highway: are cards going to cost less outside of your turns?
Apiary (Treasure, $5)
$2
When you next gain a card this turn, you may Exile a non-Victory card from the Supply. For the rest of the turn, cards you have a copy of in Exile cost $1 less.
This looks like a fairly awkward mashup between Silver, Charm, Transport and Quarry. The exact set of cards whose price will be deducted will be fairly hard to keep track off. And in the majority of the cases, Victory cards cannot be Exiled, so the set remains unimpressive. As such, you may wonder, is this worth implementing at all? (it will get dangerously strong when Province can be Exiled, however)
The Exiling it brings is pretty powerful, as Way of the Camel does that at the expanse of an Action and not providing $2. I think it is also good that the card doesn't do this prior to the first purchase (as it would otherwise become a Talisman that works on everything), but the implementations still strikes as (somewhat) awkward.
Gangster (Action - Attack, $5)
Gain two Horses, putting one on top of your deck.
Each other player with at least 5 cards in hand discards an Action or Treasure costing at least $2 (or reveals they can't). If they discarded a card costing at least $4, they gain a Horse.
A Villain that navigates past Victory cards. An attack that is pretty tame mid game, but can be pretty infuriating early game and late game. Villain's primary claim to fame is the Coffers gaining (in the absence of Butcher), which this card doesn't have. Instead, Villain increases the hand size of next turn. This makes the card actually far more similar to Enchantress. Enchantress doesn't hit Treasures and doesn't hit each turn, but is much cheaper. I can foresee this card this card extremely infuriating early game, potentially game breaking at that, but unlike Ghost Ship, its effectiveness dips tremendously mid game.
Jockey (Action, $2)
Gain a Horse. You may play a Horse from your hand.
-
While this is in play, when you play a Horse, +1 Action.
In the majority of the games, this is going to be the only Horse gainer. And in those cases, it is sadly going to be far too weak. The chance of drawing Jockey and Horse together will be way too low to make this an even remotely viable way to get +Actions. And turning a singular Horse into an Encampment will not be terribly exciting as playing Horse+Jockey doesn't increase your handsize.
With other horse gainers, it can be a fierce source of +Actions, although it will still be awkward to get things working.
Unicorn (Action, $8*)
+4 Cards
Gain a Horse.
-
When you buy this, you may Exile an Action card other than a Unicorn from your hand to pay $1 less per $1 it costs.
This is an interesting card, even when we already have a cost-varying drawer in Wayfarer. The self synergy is pretty potent: exiling a Horse to make this cost $5 is pretty good. And unless the RNG-gods decide you dray your Horses before Unicorn, this is also really easy to accomplish. Given that the card's effect is roughly worth $7, this interaction could make the card a little to much to the strong side. (although Grand Market is fairly similar in this regard)
I also think that exiling other cheap actions to this card is going to be extremely suboptimal compared to Exiling Horses, since they are harder to gain (unless you play with Ironworks), but the value is roughly on par. Exiling Villages in particular will be really suboptimal. This can make the effect somewhat one-dimensional. Although the presence of +Buy, Actions that outlive their usefulness and Transport will be exceptions to this.
FINALISTHawk (Action-Duration, $5)
Now or at the start of your next turn: gain a card to your hand costing up to $4.
I'm going to take your second submission, even though you forgot to alter the OP. It definitely should be a $5 cost, as it is in the same league as Falconer, Cobbler and Sculptor. It has the disadvantage of being always terminal, but the versatility definitely makes up for it. In fact, I kinda view this as the way Falconer should have been, as it is much less luck dependent. It is going to be pretty powerful, though. It will likely be initially used for its Duration effect, and later on for its current-turn effect when there are enough +Actions. In that sense it is similar to Artisan: it cannot gain $5 costs, but doesn't lower the handsize as much.
Bit unfortunate that I cannot see anything about this in the Secret History; maybe I'm not paying enough attention. It sounds like a very trivial use for the subtheme this card uses.
FINALISTHorse Catcher (Action, $3)
Choose one: +2 Cards; or gain 2 Horses; or gain a Horse to your hand
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While this is in play, when an Action you played leaves play, you may Exile it
The top part looks fine for a $3 cost. The bottom part looks worrisome, though. If there is some way to manipulate the position of Horse Catcher in your deck, this card is going to hoard a lot of Horses very consistently. Of course, you will need +Actions to get any good use out of this card, but I am afraid it will still be too much for a $3 cost.
Stablehand (Action, $3*)
+1 Action
You may discard a treasure from your hand to gain two horses.
-
When you buy this, instead of paying the cost, you may exile a horse from your hand
Yeah, this is very weak. Maybe if there was also +1 Card in the effect, it would be somewhat passable. The below-the-line part isn't going to mean much when the card only costs $3.
Horse Trade (Event, $4)
Gain a Horse per Silver you have in play
This will be a niche card for the most part; it heavily relies on +Buy to be any good. But when this is present, it can be quite a powerhouse. Especially with Watchtower, this can be a cheaper Stampede with no limitations! You obviously need a deck that can support the Silver; it won't outperform Experiment when you only have two silvers. But Horse Trade itself helps in this, and supporting $3 or $4 Silvers is usually not that big of a deal. It will be especially nice with Seer. I think replies #460 and #461 are spot on.
FINALISTWay of the Caribou (Way)
+3 Cards
Each other player draws a card.
This looks like a nice Way. It packs many similarities with Way of the Otter. As a drawer, it is much stronger and it could potentially be your only source of draw. But to use it without +Actions can be quite risky. Much like Counsil Room, this is going to be good with handsize attacks. I like it. I am also going to be curious at the dynamic in Champion games: are people going to spam Attacks so that the opponent won't get the advantage?
FINALISTWay of the Rabit (Way)
Trash this. Gain two cheaper Action cards.
This obviously should be "Return to the supply" or it will have a bad interaction with Fortress. Disregarding that, this seems to be rather weak. It needs to have an Action that outlives its usefulness AND cheaper spammable cards to be of any use. And even then, there needs to be the opportunity cost to play this before the spammable actions run out. This will definitely have its uses, but Way of the Butterfly generally does the exchanging part better.
VERDICTThe top 4 will be:
4) Hawk
3) Horse Trade
2) Unicorn
1) Way of the Caribou
Congratulations, Timinou, for winning this contest! Also, congratulations to the other finalists and thanks for the submissions.
This also brings the next question: What will the next contest be?