Birthright - $6
Put a non-Duration Action card from the Supply onto your Birthright mat. At the start of each player's turn for the rest of the game, that player plays the card, leaving it there.
(This stays in play.)
regarding the bigger problem of playing 10+ cards at the start of your turn, or double remake, or whatever, you could just have it replace the card on the birthright mat (which gets trashed or returned to the supply or something) - only one card there at a time.
You could also just make it a Project:
At the start of each player's turn, that player plays the card you set aside.
When you buy this, set aside a non-Duration Action card from the Supply.
Thanks to
spineflu and
Gubump for the advice. I had thought about using a Project or otherwise limiting it to a single card, but ultimately part of the potential strategy I wanted is at least the possibility of setting up a combo that your deck can uniquely benefit from.
The solution I came up with is to make this the first card in a split pile. I realize that my crazy, gigantic Snow Gear pile last week was super unreasonable, and I really wanted to have just a single card this week, but I really think the split pile is the best way of executing this core idea, which I still really like. The second card I came up with is Legacy, but I really want Birthright to be my submission, as it's the one I think best meets the contest criteria. I'm not sure if that goes against the rules or is disqualifying, I will make modifications accordingly.
I have made other changes as well. I've been thinking a lot about this, and how it might work. I have changed my mind on the question of it playing Command Actions, because those can play Duration cards. Normally the Command stays in play for the length of the duration (so if you use an Overlord to play a discounted Hireling, the Overlord stays in play as the Hireling for the rest of the game--bad deal). Since these cards are staying on the Birthright map, that creates something of a nightmare in terms of tracking, so I added the non-Command modifier.
I also tried to go through all of the remaining Action cards and see which would be absolutely terrible if played every turn. While there are a few that would be pretty unpleasant (Masquerade, Swindler, Count), the one that would be really unbearable is Possession, so I added additional language to exclude any cards that give additional turns (which would also apply to any other fan-made turn-granters that are not Duration cards).
That got me to this:
Which I think was an improvement, but did not solve the double-Remake problem, and the possibility of a player who is going to lose pursuing a strategy of torching the game, rather than trying to win, which I think would be both extremely un-fun and completely counter to both the spirit and current mechanics of the game. My first solution to this problem was to prohibit duplicates of cards already on a Birthright mat, which looked like this:
That's somewhat better, but there is still the possibility of Remake + Dismantle (or whatever other remodeler or other mandatory trasher), which while less likely and less harmful, would still go a long way to grinding the game to a halt. And even if Remake is the only trasher, a Birthright-ed Remake combined with any of the down-to-three handsize attacks (whether also on a Birthright map or played regularly) would also mean a 1 card hand, effectively shutting down the game and contravening the limits that the game clearly has on those attacks. I considered excluding mandatory trashers as well, but at that point the wording was just too long, and a lot of those cards are frankly ones I would want as at least a potential part of the strategy.
I ultimately came to the conclusion that the only way to make this work is to make playing the card(s) on the Birthright mat optional. Ultimately, the aspect of Birthright I like most is trying to find a card which, if played every turn, will help you significantly more than it will help your opponent. There are some relatively simple examples of this: if you've charged up Miser or Pirate Ship by filling your respective mat, you will get a lot more out of it each turn than an opponent who never bought that card (and who, in the case of Miser, trashed all of their Copper). But I think there are trickier approaches. If you've been pursuing a Duke-Duchy strategy and have a few of each, and then put Displace on the Birthright mat, you can Displace Dukes into Duchies and vice versa, with a pretty high likelihood of getting two in a turn, while your Province-purchasing opponent will have to be content either Exiling their Province for a Gold (in their discard) or Exiling a Gold for a Province (and probably not buying another) (or Exiling a Silver for a Duchy, to screw you over). I like this aspect of it more than the mandatory-Cathedral/I-can-survive-hell-better-than-you can aspect, and I am happy to ditch the latter to save the former.
The other card on the split pile is called Legacy. Again, if this is allowed, I don't want it to be considered part of my submission. Birthright fits the contest criteria, it just needs Legacy there so there aren't ten Birthrights (but there's more than one). Legacy gives +1 Action as well as +$1 for each Victory card in the players revealed hand. (Yes I realize it's a Chameleon-ed Crossroads with a fixed +Action). While it's in play (it's not a duration, so only for that turn), when it's player gains a Victory card, they also get +1VP for each Duration card that is still in play from a previous turn. The obvious synergy is with those Birthrights, because if all 5 of them are out there you're getting a non-deck filling Duchy with every Victory card gained. It is also a bit of a trap, as a player might think it useful to use that last Birthright to play a Legacy (costs $7!!!) every turn. But Legacy actually loses most of it's benefit from being put on the Birthright mat -- most obviously it's strong in-play bonus, but it's coins on-play effect is best used (at least in some cases) after an engine is exhausted, rather than at the beginning of the turn. Better to use Birthright-ed cards to get and play Legacy, and set you up to gain multiple Victory cards to take advantage of the bonus.
TL;DRI added some restrictions to avoid issues around tracking and other terrible scenarios, and to limit the number of cards played each turn, I made it a split pile (but I would like Birthright to be my submission if permissible). I will put them in a separate post for easier reference.