Weekly Card Contest 91 ResultsThis week I didn't have the ability to test the cards myself, so results are based on theory, this time.
Twins - gambit05I believe this has the most twos out of any card submitted, coming in at a total of 6! The effect is pretty nice, although I do agree with commenters that it's almost a strict upgrade to Ride. I also can't remember the last time I've seen a fan card that would make a stronger Mouse than Encampment. The implications of having this be your only +Buy source are also pretty neat.
Caver - AquilaCaver - Action, $2 cost.
+2 Cards
If your deck is empty, + $2.
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This is gained to the bottom of your deck (instead of your discard pile).
It's a $2 Moat with the bonus effect being that overdrawing with it lets you get +$2 instead (and perfect draws that leave your deck empty, but I imagine it'll more often be used for the latter considering that buying terminal +2 Cards in a more money-ish deck isn't a very good idea usually). It strikes me as being fine power-level wise, but also I don't see it playing very differently from a vanilla +2 Cards.
Edict - majiponiEdict
cost $2 - Action
Reveal the top 2 cards of your deck. Discard them for +$2 or put them into your hand.
Another $2 Moat; this one lets you sift instead of draw if the revealed cards are bad. It sounds pretty nice. A technical point: it can say "look" instead of "reveal", because other players don't need to see the cards for accountability reasons (see Catacombs VS Journeyman). I like it overall.
Coachman - Freddy10This strikes me as powerful relative to its cost. The downside on this is fairly low, and it's also optional - you can choose not to take the extra +2 Cards after seeing your initial draw. That being said, it also leads to an interesting new dynamic regarding how you have to put your deck together compared to most other draw cards.
Huckster - Xen3kNow, an attack. I don't think I agree with other commenters at all that this is close to militia in power; it's somewhat reminiscent of Vault's optional benefit to other players, except that you're forced to do it. Although it won't always be a beneficial effect for your opponent, I suspect it will be often enough that you don't really want to play this at all, with all the cycling you'll be giving your opponent for free.
Butler - NoMoreFunButler
Action - $5
Choose one: +2 Coffers; or +2 Villagers; or play an Action card from your hand twice
A throne room variant. It obviously draws a comparison with Crown; usually the Throne effect will be the one you want, but the others are a nice consolation prize, and in the case of Butler, they are very nice indeed. The fact that you fundamentally want this to act as a Throne most of the time really makes it so this doesn't go off the rails easily. I like how this card solves the problem of "making Villagers take effort to get".
Prayer - silverspawnThe first card I've reviewed thus far without multiple twos on it! It's a neat idea that I think solves the problem inherent with cards that take other cards out of play looping way too easily. It probably isn't worth buying in every game; you really want +Actions or some method to gain multiple cards a turn (probably both) in order to have this be effective. Being situationally useful isn't a bad thing to have in a card; I am somewhat worried that this is dead too often though.
Combine - anordinarymanI like how it can trash cards in play; I think this ability is deceptively powerful, but in a way that makes the game more interesting rather than less. The main issue I have with it is that estate trashing with this is super swingy; if you buy it in the opening, the difference between drawing two estates in hand with this and one is enormous.
Import - spinefluI really like this card; I have a soft spot for gainers, and this certainly does a lot of that. One concern is that it might empty piles too easily. I don't think that's the case, since it can't gain itself, but it would be worth keeping in mind when testing it. I especially like how this works early-game; it can potentially get you a lot of cheap cards very quickly, but it also makes it even harder for you to get more $5s unless you have a plan for it.
Anvil/Hammer - spheremonk These feel weak to me. Trying to use these as your primary draw seems very difficult, and they're not a great supplemental one-shot given their terminality. I like the general concept of "shuffled pile of one-shots that you can reveal the other one to keep", though.
Wine Cask - D782802859Very interesting. Playing with this seems difficult; it generates a crazy amount of money for how little it costs to add to your deck, so you probably want it at some point, but it also does nothing until then, making it hard to tell when exactly you should pick it up. Obviously it's also great if you can somehow get it into your deck without gaining it; I believe Camel Train is currently the only way to do this without cooperation from your opponent.
Colosseum - scolapastaThis project doesn't seem to me like it would add to the game in an interesting way. Events are, generally, quite strong; most of the time, at least one of the random events added to the kingdom with this will be good enough that buying Colosseum is worth it, especially with the cost reduction component. And then if the set aside events are both bad, you just don't buy it. Either way, I don't think this plays out differently enough from simply having 2 events on the table to be worth it.
Sycophants - FragasnapThis feels confusingly wordy to me. It also has the issue where +Cards is generally not as valuable a bonus later in your turn; in order to draw with Sycophants, you've probably already come close to drawing your deck anyways. It's final mode is also not as great as it sounds, as you probably won't get to take advantage of its cantrip nature. I'm not really sure why it has a cap, either.
Monk - chronostrikeI like this. It seems like you can get it to trigger fairly often, both from attacks and from yourself, while not being something you can just base your entire game around most of the time. Reactions like this are pretty fun to play with.
This week's winner was
Wine Cask, by D782802859. The way that it would play is fairly unique (Miser, Pirate Ship, and Travelers are the only cards that I can think off the top of my head that start weak and power up over the course of the game for one player, and this is quite distinct from all those), and it really encourages you to think about building in a different way than you normally do. I'm not 100% certain on the numbers, but given that this is a weekly contest, that's kind of to be expected; it seems like it's in the ballpark, though.
The runners-up this week are
Import, by spineflu, and
Monk, by chronostrike. Both of these cards just hit a very nice point in "simple but interesting", to me.
Anyways, that was a great contest. The cards this week were fun to read through and it was also enjoyable to see how many twos ya'll tried to fit onto a single card.