Edit: My new submission:
I like this concept a ton, but there's a bunch of issues with it.
There's a precedent for phrasing things that have specific vanilla bonuses. "Actions with +$ amounts in their text." So you should make this "Reveal any number of Action Cards with + Card amounts in their text."
However, your card is difficult to play. You reveal them... are they still in your hand? What if you reveal a throne room, can you throne room the card you already revealed and thus play it three times (once from the Accountant, etc.) Look to another card for inspiration how to solve this problem: Golem. You should have this card set cards aside from your hand, so that it is clear that they are not in your hand anymore.
Those are two issues, but there's the bigger one with this being able to play cantrips. The solution to this is to simply have this card not be able to play cantrips. My change would be this:
Accountant - Action - $4
+2 Cards
Reveal and set Aside any number of Action cards from your hand without + Action amounts in their text. Play the set aside cards in any order.
Price, I am unsure about. At the very least this has the Cultist chaining ability. But it doesn't give ruins but is more versatile. I think 4-5 could be right. Probably 4 as it's a little difficult to use right.
I agree that "set aside" solves the main issue. I don't quite understand why it's a problem if it can play cantrips though? But you may have missed that it can only play cards that draw 2 or more cards; so it couldn't play Village, for example. But it could play Laboratory.
I did miss the 2 or more cards for X thing.
Thanks for your feedback!
Some clarifications about how the card is intended to work: As you might have seen in my post where I have submitted the card, I had several versions, which basically differ in their power level and costs. chronostrike correctly pointed out that +X car
d (X is any number) allows playing cantrips, which could be too strong. So, with the suggestions of chronostrike and segura about power level and card costs in mind, I decided to go for the less powerful (+X Card
s in text), cheaper ($4) version. This should be more balanced and also more interesting in terms of game play strategies.
With respect to the wording about revealing and setting aside:
The instructions (as given) boil down to “Reveal some cards….play them…” with some text in between about the details what can be revealed. I indeed looked at Golem; it doesn’t set cards aside, although here it is less problematic as the cards are revealed from the deck and not from the hand.
However, the actual “in between” state of the revealed cards before they are played (main problem: are they still part of the hand?) can indeed become problematic in some cases (e.g. with Scholar).
So, I think you and GendoIkari are right: The most unambiguous way is to include “set aside” in the text of Accountant and so I will do.Whatever wording is used, I cannot imagine a case where a Throne Room can be revealed with (any version of) Accountant. So, that shouldn’t be a problem.
Also, there are only a few cards that draw 2+ cards and also give +Actions. I see no problem with that either.
For anyone interested:
Any version of Accountant I presented ensures that there is at least one target in any possible Kingdom (i.e. Accountant itself).
I roughly/quickly* counted the number of cards with “+X Card
s” (X >1) in their text. There are 64/354 = 18%. That means that ~80% of possible Kingdoms have, besides Accountant, at least 1 target card (with “+X Card
s” in text). There are 139/354 = 39% cards with “+X Car
d” (X = any number) in their text. Here, ~97% of possible Kingdoms have, besides Accountant, at least one such card.
* I do not claim that the numbers are exact. I didn’t look into the details of split-piles, Exchange cards such as Travelers, non-Kingdom Supply piles etc. and I only counted once.
As a side note. some cards have the “+X Card
s” in their text, but only as an option (e.g. Steward). Of course, you can play them via Accountant, but you do not have to choose that option. Some Duration cards get the “+X card
s” in their next turn (e.g. Haunted Woods). Again, you can play them. Cavalry has “+2 Cards” in its text; you can play it, although this is an on-gain instruction. You do not get +2 Cards, but you gain 2 Horses here as per instructions.