We come to the judging, finally! I have ordered entries by username.
alion8me:
ReassignHaving each player start out with Necessity will massively speed up the game, I think that's the biggest impact of this Event. Maybe Necessity and Luxury could change up the gameplay a bit more rather than being straight up boosts; for insteand Necessity could be "+1 Coffers, take your -1$ token". Still almost always positive, but not quite as powerful. I think I'd also prefer if it was a little bit harder to flip the State, right now it's pretty easy to get just what you need without much opportunity cost. Maybe get rid of the +buy or up the price.
anordinaryman:
Eager HoundI gotta say I don't like the fuzziness of the shuffling rules, like it's unclear what the opponent is allowed to do exactly, and that will create uncomfortable situations where someone might be accused of cheating when they believe they act within the intended rules. It's also unclear to me whether you're supposed to be able to see where those are in your deck, as in a regular game that can be hard to avoid. Speicifically, when you play this and "discard up to 2", can you see whether the second card in your deck is an Eager Hound before deciding on how much to discard? Finally, this is going to be a Double-Lab+ when it's on the top of your deck and as such I feel that it is underpriced.
Aquila:
Camping and TravellingThis is a fairly simple way to open up design space, and I think it's neat. I would advise a retheme as currently it is both flavorwise and conceptually close to the Journey token while having subtly different mechanics. The cards all seem like good fits, though I am not sure that Historian really encourages switching it up. I might like Prospector better if it did nothing on play and you could call it when flipping for its effect, makes it even slower and spikier and more in the spirit of Reserve cards.
Carline:
MasterThis is a pretty cool concept, I like the idea of changing setups that you can force on your opponents if they don't suit you. So, the idea has a lot of potential. However, I think some more work needs to go into the Young X cards. In particular Young Saboteur needs some kind of limitation or will easily lead to pins. And you have double-junking here, which is Mountebank-level strong. So, some rebalancing to be done here, then this could be a really cool card.
D782802859:
TraitorSo this is kind of like an Apprentice variant? It's always cantrip, which is an improvement over Apprentice, but slower and less effective at converting the trashed stuff into draw. I think it's definitely worthwile for megaturns and anyways cantrip trashers are never bad. And there's an interesting decision in here in whether to use the flipping more than once. With the right setup you can probably make double-Tactician-like strategies work. So, from that perspective, I like it. i will say that I think flipping the mat is not the best design choice here, it's fiddly with all the tokens on it and could probably be worded without having to be flipped, so I gotta subtract some points for that.
gambit05:
CoupleThis reminds me most of Lurker. Playing 2 Couples leaves you with an extra Villager, an extra Coffer, and a Horse compared to 2 Lurkers, but it's a bit harder to pull off since you need to play enough cards and Convenience gives you no Actions. So overall, the balance is fine I think, and the gameplay should be somewhat less frustrating than Lurker since it's harder for your opponent to snipe your trashed Actions. I like it.
grep:
Lair/DragonCertainly a cool idea for a card. It is missing shuffling instructions though. Dragon should probably be returned upon play in order to prevent Scheme abuses. If you do this, you can also make a portion of it dependent on returning it, to limit the devastation of
Smaug throning this. Lab is a kind of meh effect for a 1-shot, so I'd be in favor of changing the vanilla bonuses a bit.
grrgrrgrr:
Magic CoinIt kind of rubs me the wruong way that a card called "Magic Coin" is not a treasure... well, I can look past that. I'm not sure it is enough of an upgrade for Coppersmith. THe main problem is that it can't do the thing that makes Coppersmith shine - make Coppers produce $4 or more; you'll never get better than Silver with this. And this card wants to be used with a deck that draws and discards a lot, so probably an engine, and Silvers are still bad in an engine. This kind of limits the use of this to engines that cannot trash Coppers (and Apothecary; admittedly it is
very good with Apothecary). It's fine for those situations, but I can't help but feel that it is too weak overall.
Gubump:
ClockmakerAn artifact was one of the first ideas that came to my mind for this contest, that's definitely a worthwile design space. It worries me though that this Artifact is extremely powerful. First side Clock is Innovation+, second side is Citadel, so both are like at least $7 projects. That makes having the clock an extremely swingy affair. I imagine that the gameplay would be super frustrating. Especially since having the Clock makes it easier to keep it as you can always gain and set aside a Clockmaker if necessary. So I think this needs to be weaker in order to be a fun experience.
infangthief:
Conservation/National ParkVery clever use of the dobule-sided mechanic. This creates an interesting tension; it provides as many VP as a Province, so it's very good late game, but your opponent could plan for you buying it and load up on Duchies/Estates; so the timing and whether to get it at all makes for some very interesting decisions.
Jonatan Djurachkovitch:
DiplomacyIt's not easy for me to judge how strong this is, it feels a bit weak. Clearly the Expansion side is better than the Funds side. I assume that's why the VP bonus incentive is there to encourage putting coins on Funds. But it does not seem particularly elegant to me, I would prefer if there was more of a focus to what the state does, here it's already "a little bit of everything" and then also giving VP exacerbates that. I also think that Diplomacy itself should be a Project rather than an Event as you'll only ever buy it once.
LibraryAdventurer:
CheaterA main unanswered question I have it what happen when I draw a Two-Bit for my first hand (i.e. not during cleanup)? Current wording suggests you don't put in on your Tavern mat, which means openings will significantly differ based on whether it's in your first or second hand. I'm also confused about gaining Two-Bits "from its pile" as usually there are no piles for Heirlooms, and I don't know how many Two-Bits there would be. I think overall the concept of "kinda bad Heirloom that's hard to get rid of" is interesting, but these cards seem to have too much going on, I would suggest trying to trim them down to more streamlined versions.
lompeluiten:
QuadrangleI'm not sure what the backside does, I assume giving you +2 cards instead of the card's frontside effect, but for that the wording needs to change I think. I feel like it's a bit too strong, like it would be fairly easy to trigger the backside when you draw through your deck, and that effect is that of a double Lab, and it can set itself up, so with 2 of these in hand you already have 2 Labs.
LordBaphomet:
Pilfer/RecruitThis is largely fine but not super exciting. The Events are mostly something you buy when there's nothing better to do with your $3, and considering that it's just frustrating when the wrong side is up, but it's not like it's really worth it to engineer a situation where the wrong side is up for your opponent. Plus, the fact that only one side provides economy can lead to increased first player advantage.
mail-mi:
BartenderThis is a neat variant on Expedition, the extra buy is significant but it comes with the downside of getting tired. I'm not sure all the numbers in this add up to a good balance, like maybe you want it to cost less or draw you more cards to justify the Tiredness, but then can be evaluated in testing. Conceptually, it definitely works and offers some interesting decisions without being too complex.
majiponi:
Wizard/ValkyrieIt's cute to use the fact that this card will be visible to your opponent in your hand as part of the design, but I'm not sure I like the self-moating. The first player to get the junker is already at an advantage, and the fact that the junker can be used as defense against being junked yourself makes this worse. I think being able to put this anywhere in your deck can lead to intense analysis paralysis, and be potentially political, as you know where there other players put their Wizards and you can choose where you want it to be able to defend/attack best each shuffle. I think that might slow the game down too much.
mandioca15:
ConstructThis seems pretty weak? You pay $8 and 2 buys to get any benefit from this, and the benefit you're getting is that... you add cards to your deck later, but they go into your hand. I can't think of many times I'd want to delay getting a card into my deck so long just for that benefit. it might work if this cost less. There would be some megaturn potential here but the fact that you can only put them into your deck one at a time really breaks this. This needs to be either significantly cheaper or more powerful.
NoMoreFun:
ImpersonatorThis design is quite neat, and I like the way its two abilities self-syngerize if you manage to topdeck your gains. It might be a bit powerful with topdecking; Impersonator + Courtyard gives you Labs+ for $2 pretty easily. It might be easier to balance if it discarded from the top if your deck upon activation (and maybe gave an extra action to make up for that). But maybe it's okay to keep it in; there aren't that many cards that topdeck from hand after all, and Mandarin can use all the boosts it can get.
scott_pilgrim:
Shaman VillageI quite like the concept of reverse Stash. And this way of doing things certainly is interesting, even if it could make things take a bit as the other player decides where to put them. There is also a political element; if you know you'll have a Moat in hand you can just let them collide and watch the world burn. Finally, I believe it can escalate too much if you do manage to collide them. you probably want a bunch if them, and if you have 3 in hand it's 3 Curses per player, with 4 it's already 6. I think it would work better as "you may reveal a Shaman Village from your hand to make each other player gain a Curse".
silverspawn:
Village OutpostThis is quite nice, it will definitely be more powerful than Village when your engine comes together but it might take longer for it to come together. I'm not certain this shouldn't maybe cost $4; it is particularly good when other Villages are also available, just to make sure your first hand post-shuffle doesn't suck. I like the simplicity and think it can work.
spheremonk:
Abundance/SubsistenceThere are some wording issues I think, like this seems to assume that flipping over a card activates its effect, which at least there is no precedent for (and Necromancer seems to suggest that it shouldn't work that way). I also think there can be situations where you shuffle a deck with this in it, and there are no instructions for how that works. but now to the actual effects. I cannot parse how long this stays out; it feels like the intention is three turns ($4 - +3 cards - $1 for an Estate) but on the other hand purely from the wording I'd say that the second and third option happen on the same turn. Power-wise it's probably fairly powerful if you can set it up reliably. but not particularly exciting, the bonuses are pretty vanilla after all, and it feels like it's going to be more frustrating than fun to play.
spineflu:
AssayThis one didn't come with instructions about shuffling. I gotta assume that you're not allowed to put it anywhere as otherwise it would be strictly better than Stash for $4. It's also for the most part better than Masterpiece as written, since you can get the same number of Silver-equivalents but one less Copper-equivalent for the same price. The fact that it's largely better than Stash also seriously hamers the design where it tries to be a card that synergizes with other red-backed cards in your deck, but you won't have any incentive to buy Stash, the only other red-backed card to date, when this is in the supply.
Xen3k:
Hidden WitchThere's a fun little rabbit's hole in that Hidden Witch has the Reference type, so when Hidden Witch refers to its Reference it might just refer to itself. I mean, it's clear what is meant here but it would be good if Hidden Witch could somehow be prevented from having the Reference type. Anyways. This card is, for the most part, a Journey token card. Though granted, it would be harder to implement the different types - could just be an Action/Night cards though. Its also quite powerful; Spinster is a straight up $5 effect, and Crone is it least as good as Sea Hag. Granted, for a junker only being able to junk every other time is unfortunate, but I still think Spinster could get away with being a regular Peddler. I think I'd prefer if Spinster was terminal though, in order to prevent Hidden Witch spams.
My finalists are: Village Outpost (silverspawn), Impersonator (NoMoreFun), Bartender (mail-mi) and Conservation/National Part (infangthief). All of these take the concept into very different directions, so it's not easy to compare them. With Impersonator I am a bit too worried about it being broken, and Village Outpost I just feel should cost $4. And thne, Conservation/National Park is just a little more exciting than Bartender.
So
Winner: Conservation/National Park by infangthief
Runners-up: Village Outpost by silverspawn, Impersonator by NoMoreFun, Bartender by mail-mi