ENTRY | COMMENT |
| Buying Power Types: Event Cost: $0 If you do not already have it, take the State called Bull Market or Bear Market; whether or not you took it, flip it over. Bear Market Types: State Setup: In games using Buying Power, place one copy of this on the table with this side up. Bull Market Types: State When you flip this over to this side, +$1.
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| +Buys are a strange resource as players can rarely use 3 Buys and 4 rarer still. An effect like this is largely a buff to Market Squares and their ilk as producing large number of Buys is somewhat uncommon. Grand Market and Worker's Village hardly need the boost, but Market Square and Market will be happy to see it. The biggest issue I have is its implementation. Because it uses a shared State and the first buy of Buying Power nets that +$1 where the second buy (regardless of who buys it) will flip back to Bear Market for no effect. This is a large first player advantage. Further than that, in many games the first player to produce an extra Buy will take Buying Power even if the coin isn't needed simply because it disables the other player(s) flipping to Bull Market.
I'd much prefer it lean into its Artifact-like nature and be reworded to something like "If you don't have Bull Market, take it. Otherwise, return it." And Bull Market be an Artifact that reads "When you take this, +$1." Then in low-Buy games, +Buys can still turn into +$1, but each player gets that opportunity back only when someone takes Bull Market from them or they set aside time to rid themselves of it.
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| Con Artist Types: Action, Attack Cost: $3 +$2. You may spend a buy. If you do, each other player reveals the top two cards of their deck, trashes a revealed Treasure other than Copper, and discards the rest. If a treasure was trashed by this, +$1. |
| Con Artist is a Bandit payload if you can feed it a Buy. The Bandit Attack is a somewhat frustrating trashing effect because of how regularly it misses, so you can really only afford to spend a +Buy if you have more than you can possibly use anyway and you can't proc the ability with expectation of getting that +$1. Without really easy sources of +Buy, you probably will just skip Con Artist.
I'd really prefer the card have more consistency, especially for spending a +Buy which is often an expensive cost.
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| Crooked Quarter Types: Action Cost: $6 +2 Cards, +2 Actions, +$2. If your hand size is even, discard a card. If your remaining Actions are even, -1 Action. If your $ is even, -$1. |
| Crooked Quarter is in its ideal a Lost City + double Peddler, but will typically be most used as a Fugitive + double Peddler. As a $6-cost card, the amount of processing time this card demands might be okay. At the same time, I think on the games in which the Grand Market pile is emptied (which will be much more common as Grand Market games are guaranteed to have +Buy), and how much more annoying those games would be to play if I had to think about each Grand Market I played.
Any one of these three conditions would be fine, but all three of them is overwhelming.
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| Dilemma Types: Action Cost: $5 If you have more than one Action, you may spend all Actions for +4 Cards and +1 Action. If you didn't, +4 Actions. |
| Dilemma is a big draw that eats all but 1 of your Actions, and a minimum of 2 Actions to be used. In order to be sure it always has use, you can always produce +4 Actions with it. 2 Dilemmas produce a hand of 7 cards just like 2 Laboratories would. Smartly, rather than giving a mere +3 Actions to activate itself, Dilemma gives +4 Actions to allow the player to play an extra card in the middle. With other sources of +Action, you can theoretically increase your hand a lot.
I don't think the card presents much of a dilemma, but it is a compelling Laboratory/Lost City sort of thing.
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| Freight Ship Types: Action Cost: $6 +3 Actions. You may spend up to 4 actions to draw that many cards. |
| Paying $6 to get a Village is pretty bad compared to Border Village. Using Nobles as a more similar rubric, $6-cost splitters are usually pretty bad at splitting. If the game has some ludicrous form of +Actions otherwise, you can also play this as a Hunting Grounds, but then you're spending +1 Action on a timely Moat, which is a pretty small benefit. This looks mostly to me like a super expensive Smithy that you can play as a Laboratory if you draw it at the wrong time.
It looks perfectly balanced but not very interesting.
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| Goods Types: Treasure Cost: $4 $1, +1 Buy. If at the end of your Buy phase you have no Buys left, +2 Coffers. In games using this, all Events cost $1 more and when you buy an Event, +1 Buy. |
| Uncertainties regarding buying events aside, Goods is immensely similar to a non-terminal Merchant Guild, where its condition makes it less explosive in multiple. (1 Goods buying 2 cards nets +2 Coffers, which is the same as Merchant Guild; 2 Goods buying 3 cards nets +4 Coffers, which is 2 less than Merchant Guild.) The in-games-using-this effect has become a major annoyance trying to address certain combos: While those combos should probably be addressed, the way it serves as a bandage to the card makes it distracting.
I quite like triggering on using all buys. If it had a more unique the function I might be more forgiving of its clumsy in-games-using-this effect.
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| Illicit Workshop Types: Night Cost: $4 If you have no $ and no cards in hand, gain a card costing up to $5. Otherwise, trash a card from your hand. |
| Illicit Workshop is a super-Workshop or an awful trasher depending on whether or not you are able to empty your hand and spend all your coins. This is neat because it encourages you to spend all of your coins in a way you might not normally. Further, it doesn't need to worry about emptying the Supply because you can only use one in a turn.
It is unique as a bad trasher that turns into a good card in a fashion more meaningful than a card like Trade Route. I am worried that the whims of a money spike or poorly timed Estate will give the card a lot of frustration on second shuffles.
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| Merchant Quarter Types: Action Cost: $5 +3 Cards, +1 Buy. At the start of Clean-up, you may pay $2 for +2 Coffers. |
| +3 Cards and +1 Buy is a powerful effect evidenced by Margrave's overbearing strength and the comparative reigning in of Tragic Hero and Barge. Merchant Quarter gives a double Pageant instead, which seems better than Barge (you get the draw and Buy first and decide to lose resources later), but not unreasonably so, as paying $2 is similar to discarding 2 cards. Funny Wine Merchant combo.
This seems pretty alright. I'd like something more unique. By the bye, if you're trying to touch up Sanitarium's wording, consider "at the start of your Buy phase, if you have no unused Actions, you may..."
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| Pawnbroker Types: Night Cost: $5 Trash a card from your hand. If you have any Actions remaining (Actions, not Action cards), gain a card costing up to $3 more. Otherwise, gain a card costing up to $2 more. |
| Unless I'm misreading this, Pawnbroker is just wildly better Expand. If you have an +Action, it is Expand (and, because it does not consume your Action for so doing, any other Pawnbrokers in your hand are also Expands), if you don't have an +Action, it is a Night Remodel. Doing anything other than turning everything into Pawnbrokers and then Provinces is surely a losing move.
Non-terminal Remodels are pretty strong, so with a smaller bonus for having an Action, this could be good fun.
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| Promote Types: Event Cost: $3+ You may overpay for this, to trash a card you would discard from play this turn. Then gain a card costing the amount you overpaid more than it. |
| Promote is Enhance from play. The ability to both play a card and trash it makes it a fair bit better than Enhance, which explains the cost hike. You can also throw more coins into it to get more value from it. Promoting Coppers requires $5 to get to a $2-cost card and $6 for a $3-cost which is a fairly poor comparison to Trade. Promoting Silvers has to spending $5 to lose a Silver and get the $5-cost you could've bought anyway.
Outside of another nice way to trash Actions that have aged out or tossing $4 to turn a $4-cost into a Duchy in the end-game, Promote doesn't seem to have a lot of use cases to keep it sufficiently differentiated from similar Events.
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| Shipping Village Types: Action Cost: $3 +1 Card, +3 Buys. Ignore any further +Buys you get this turn. While this is in play, you may spend 1 Buy for +1 Action. |
| Only your first 2 Buys are of high value, so being able to generate a few and then start trading them for much more valuable +Actions sounds interesting on the face of it, but in practice it seems like one will struggle to use Shipping Village as a lone source of +Action. Much like Snowy Village, it generates a lot of "+Actions" in itself, but then disables all others, causing other Shipping Villages to be Ruined Libraries.
In thinking about it, it bears more than superficial similarities to Snowy Village, and I find it hard to get excited for that reason.
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| Sisterhood Types: Action Cost: $3 +3 Actions. At the start of your Buy phase, you may convert each of your unused Actions into +1 Buy. |
| Sisterhood is a variation of the splitter with a Buy, where it gives anywhere from +3 Actions to +3 Buys (or more) on the player's choice. Shades of Squire, which can also give +Actions or the same number of +Buys. Donald X. has gone on record before that cards that produce a large number of +Buys are trouble for the typically precipitous drop in value of your fourth Buy in a turn, making such cards either expensive when you don't need the +Buys or silly when you can use them. This generally avoids that problem by being able to act as a major splitter in opposite parts to the +Buys it otherwise provides.
I personally won't like it because of how small its benefit is for the frustration that +3 Actions beget on a stop-card. I've played with a fair number of such cards and I always end up unhappy for having far too many +Actions when they clump and then far too many terminals because of a shuffle.
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| Souk Types: Action Cost: $4 +1 Card, +1 Action, +1 Buy. You may spend 3 Buys to gain a Gold. |
| Souk is a Market Square at $4 where its extra ability is to trade 3 Buys for a Gold, as opposed to Worker's Village which just gives +2 Actions. Compared to Worker's Village, it is a small benefit, but it will be bought often enough as a smooth source of +Buy. Proccing its extra ability requires that you generate at least 1 Buy prior to playing the Souk (often playing 2 Souks will be the easiest way to do that), but unless you're getting a fourth +Buy, you're trading your ~5 card hand for that Gold, which is a middling trade. Buying 3 Souks in an attempt to regularly trigger its ability and then actually buy something sounds frustrating. A Souk flood is sure to be weak (5 $4-cost cantrips in a turn to gain 2 Golds),
It seems fine. It think it would end up feeling frustrating when betting on whether or not one can generate an Buy to do something with the Golds that earlier turns generated.
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| Spiv Types: Action Cost: $4 Gain a card other than Spiv costing up to $4. You may use a Buy. If you do, play it. |
| A Workshop with a benefit that permits spending a +Buy to immediately gain an play the gained card (A +Buy for a Lost City, effectively). With a good source of +Buy, this is sure to be a top tier Workshop. It definitely powers up any available cantrip to the nth degree moreso than most Workshops, which makes me worry about piles in games with the likes of Worker's Village or Market Square. With a less consistent source of Buys, it will be a niche effect that could result in frustrating 0 Buy turns. Its ability to play Night cards mid-turn is probably not worth the confusion of being able to "play" Victory cards.
Deceptively simple with room for a fair number of tricks and traps.
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| Spree Types: Event Cost: $0 Set aside a Copper. If you do, +1 Buy next turn. (and discard the set aside Copper at the end of your next turn) |
| Spree is permits you to transfer a Buy which you couldn't make use of a Buy into another turn. In that way, it reminds me of Tactician, but without having its more exciting combos.
I think I'd like it better if it played the Copper to help along the deferred Buy, or even provided extra Buys proper with +2 Buys.
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| Spyglass Types: Treasure, Duration Cost: $5 $2. If you have no Actions left, at the start of your next turn, +1 Card, +1 Action. |
| Spyglass is a Silver that gives you a Lost City next turn so long as you are actually consuming those +Actions. A smart design, as the effect naturally encourages building around terminal Actions, and if you ever miss you're left with a bunch of Treasures you can play anyway.
Looks like fun.
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| Taxidermy Types: Project Cost: $3 Once per turn: You may spend an Action for +1 Card. |
| A Faithful Hound you have every turn if you want it. Its timing is inspecific, so I assume I can do it at any point during the turn. You can use a leftover Action to get a 6-card hand at Clean-Up or you can use Caravan Guard on another player's turn to draw an extra card.
It is so esoteric, it sounds like a mistake, but as I think about it, I kind of like the effect.
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| Tomb Robbers Types: Action Cost: $4 +1 Card, +1 Action. Choose one: +1 Coffers per 4 Coffers token you have; or at the end of your Buy phase, you may pay $1 for +1 Coffers. When you buy this, you may overpay for it. For each $1 you overpaid, +1 Coffers. |
| Tomb Robbers is a cantrip that can be powered up into a super-Baker or else is a Pageant. It has an immediately dangerous overpay for Coffers. Donald X. has gone on record that getting lots of Coffers is dangerous, and overpay-for-Coffers is itself really strong. Each Tomb Robbers helps you get to that dangerous threshold where all your Tomb Robbers become Coffers generators that buff each other up.
I am immediately leery of such a scaling effect, especially in buffing itself so much. I would like to see how much trouble this is as a near mono-strategy (as it obviously needs +Buys to be able to use the Coffers it generates). For now, I am too scared of the card to okay it.
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| Tough Customer Types: Night, Attack Cost: $4 You may spend a Buy to have each other player gain a Curse. You may spend an Action for +1 Villager. You may spend $1 for +1 Coffer. |
| Tough Customer lets you buy a Curse for other players, trade an Action for a Villager ala Patron, and Pageant. An Event that gives out Curses would be bad news, and this edges close to that, but it consumes a card and is timely, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. The loss of a Buy will often mean doing little else, which possibly encourages trading your unused resources for Coffers and Villagers.
It is a nice low-cost Curser. I might want it to do a little more for the player of it. As it stands, it looks kind of Young Witch levels of bad.
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| Wandering Beggar (top 5) Types: Action, Duration +2 Cards. The player to your right reveals their hand prior to their Clean-Up. At the start of your next turn: Per Treasure revealed by the player to your right: +$1. +$X equal to the unspent $X the player to your right.Tradesman (bottom 5) Types: Action Cost: $3 +1 Buy, +$1. At the start of your Clean-Up, spend each $3 unspent $ for +2 Coffers. |
| Wandering Beggar is a complex Duration draw that later gives coins if the preceding player cannot use all of theirs. No tracking issues here as the Wandering Beggar is sitting on the table. If that number ends up regularly being $2 or more, stacking Wandering Beggars will be crazy. If Tradesman is successfully dug out of the pile, it is likely that Wandering Beggar is generating a fair number of coins which will make Tradesman's Buy and poor Coin-to-Coffers conversion more useful. If that were to occur however, I can't imagine that the game isn't accelerated to a degree that will render Tradesman's appearance too late anyway.
Wandering Beggar is a cool idea, but its value is primarily derived by one player getting unlucky between spiking coins or wanting buys, when I would prefer it care more about players doing things they want to do anyway. Tradesman is a largely needless complication.
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| Woodsman Types: Action Cost: $3 +1 Buy, +$2 In games using this, during your Buy phase you may spend 1 Buy to gain a Secluded Village, 2 Buys to gain an Enchanted Forest, or 3 Buys to gain a Magic Axe. Secluded Village Types: Action Cost: $2* +2 Actions. Reveal your hand. If you have no Action cards in hand, +2 Buys. (This is not in the Supply.) Enchanted Forest Types: Action Cost: $4* +1 Card, +1 Action, +$1 At the start of Clean-Up, if you have any unused Buys, you may put this onto your deck. (This is not in the Supply.) Magic Axe Types: Treasure Cost: $5* $2, +1 Buy. At the start of Clean-Up, you may trash a card you would discard from play this turn to gain a card costing up to $1 more than it. (This is not in the Supply.)
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| Woodsman is just Woodcutter. It comes with an In-games-using-this that adds three whole piles of extra cards in the form of an awful splitter, a repeatable Peddler, and a Treasure Improve. Buying a Woodsman in order to access Enchanted Forest is frankly a possibility, and a nice buff for Woodcutter. Often you're trading a $5-cost buy, but you're occasionally getting a better deal than that.
I have only mild issues with a card that is simply an upgrade of an existing card, even if that card is cut. I have bigger issues with the amount of complexity, table space, and card space this consumes with the large number of extra cards it employs. I quite like Enchanted Forest: A lovely Peddler variation which works so easily as a non-Supply pile card, and I'd love to see a set leverage such a non-Supply pile card across multiple Kingdom cards (similarly to Horses). It looks like a great evergreen card that multiple cards could gain, even moreso than the comparatively messy Spirit pile. I would look more favorably upon a $4-cost Woodsman that itself gave permission to grab an Enchanted Forest (rather than an in-games-using-this effect).
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| Workhouse Types: Action Cost: $2 +$2. You may take Exhausted. If you do, +1 Coffers. When you gain this, play any number of Treasures from your hand, and spend any amount of Coffers for +$1 each. Then pay any amount of $; +1 Villager per $1 paid. Exhausted Types: State When you next have unused Actions during your Action phase (Actions, not Action cards), immediately return this and -1 Action.
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| Workhouse is a terminal Silver or a super-terminal Gold that can be "overpaid" for Villagers. The wording to permit overpaying for an on-gain effect is beleaguered: I'd just turn the thing into a proper overpay. Other comparable cards would be Embargo and Duchess as terminal payload at $2, which are weak and this is stronger mostly for its on-gain, or Lackeys as a one-time source of Villagers, but this being nothing but coins is probably weaker.
I really love your Exhausted state as a mechanism for a set. It is simple and compelling. Workhouse itself I don't like as much. Terminal Silvers are very expensive in terms of +Actions, so unless you're paying at least $3 for its on-gain effect, you're probably not getting much value out of those Villagers other than feeding the Workhouse itself, and even +$2 and +1 Coffers seems bad for $5.
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