Here come my thoughts on the cards, ordered alphabetically by designer. I think I may have been a bit critical overall, please don't take that to mean that I didn't like your submission. I just try to provide helpful feedback.
| Shoemaker - anordinaryman
Right away I like the setup rule and how it mirrors Baker. Adding a Villager at the start is a subtle but impactful change, as it makes double terminal openings much more viable. The card itself is very situational, but then that is fine for a $2. It works with other Coffers, with draw-to-X, and cards that care about discarding, I think these are enough scenarios in which it can be good.
| | Faithful Knight - Carline
A simple and maybe a bit obvious card to make here. I am not 100% sure whether you can get both Coffers and Villagers from a single play of this - it seems that way though. I think I would rather have you get just one type of token back on a single play, this would encourage getting more than 1 copy of this.
Overall, I think this is solid. It can always be a cantrip and is otherwise quite situational, but it allows for some fun plays. I do wonder a bit whether "convert any number of tokens" would not work better as an Event, but this card goes some way towards making me think otherwise.
| | Penance - D782802859
I don't know that this needs a "you may". The existing card that seems the most similar to this is Storyteller, so that will be my comparison. This also provides draw in exchange for buying power. With Storyteller, you get one extra card compared to this, but you need to already be able to generate the $. The -1 card token thing seems a little bit fiddly and easy to forget, not sure it needs to be there, there could be another penalty. of course I understand that then it would no longer qualify for this contest, but leaving a card design suboptimal just to meet some random criteria isn't a good call.
Otherwise I think it's a nice and probably balanced variant on Storyteller. | | Fireplace - fika monster
Discarding a Fireplace gives +2 tokens of a kind, which is usually weaker than its cost (+2 Villagers is a $2, +2 Coffers is a $4, roughly). That's fine, since open discarding it's also nonterminal. and it does the swapping, which is quite neat. Overall I think this is a solid design; I worry a little bit about Villager spam as that takes some complexity out of the game, but I think the reaction can be quite fun even when it only reacts to itself. Good job on the first submission! | | Trade Union - Fragasnap
I think +2 Villagers for $2 is fairly good. Usually Villages that don't draw are hard, but with this you are not required to play it before your draw card, so that makes it better. The "once per game" on an Action is a bit confusing as it's unclear whether it's once per copy of this or once in total (I assume the latter). I'm not sure about the token adding, it seems probably balanced, but somehow I am not excited for it. I guess having to slog through a couple of bad turns for the later benefit doesn't excite me. | | Hostage - gambit05
This is a neat little one-shot, but I am not quite happy with the power level. I think it is best compared to Experiment. Compared to that, this one clumps the draw together (which I'd say is usually better), costs $1 more, gives you an extra Coffers and if you don't need it to be nonterminal gives you another token of choice on top. So I feel like overall, it compares a bit too favorably. | | Commune - grep
I feel like this has a bit much going on. Swap all Coffers for Villagers, okay, interesting concept for a project. Then a Villager Pageant, that's kind of neat but I'm not sure why these things are slapped together. And finally a scoring thing, that I think is supposed to make the conversion more viable... I don't know, I feel like a project should do a specific thing and this is a bit all over the place, I suppose to make it relevant on more boards. And also, why does it cost Debt? I don't really see a reason for that.
And balance-wise, I think this is just going to completely warp the game on the right boards, say with Recruiter or Merchant Guild. That can be interesting, but I just wish it was a little more focused. | Greedy Fairy cost $2 - Action +2 Buys Choose one: +1 Coffer; or remove any 2 tokens you have, to duplicate a token you have.
| Greedy Fairy - majiponi
I think the design is solid. There are some wording peculiarities with "any token you have": At the start of the game, when you did not place your +1 card token, do you "have" it? And what does it mean to remove it then? Do you "have" your Journey token? These cases should probably be excluded. And do you "have" your -1 card token when it's on top of your deck?
While this needs further clarfication, the card is fine otherwise. +2 buys, +$1 is an option for Squire, and this is better than that, so even without other tokens it's going to be worth it. I am not sure how often you'll want to trade 2 tokens for one, especially at the cost of a weak terminal though, so I'm not sure the second option is going to see all that much use even when other tokens are available. | Heist Map Treasure - $3 +$2, +<1>, +1 Buy You may return this to its pile to pay all of your <_>. +1 Coffers per <_> you paid. | Heist Map -- NoMoreFun
This seems to be, in effect, a mix of Fool's Gold and Stockpile - you can play lots of them in a turn in order to get +$2, +1 Coffers, +1 buy each, but have to return one. It seems a bit strong - considering that the final Heist Map you play already finances itself. I think some numbers tweaking would be required to make this work. I'm also unsure about the use of Coffers here; I understand that was necessary to meet the criteria for the contest, but I'm wondering whether this might not be better off providing +$ per <_>.
And yeah, the interaction with Mountain Pass is completely broken. I don't usually complain too much about 2-card combos, but this just makes the game unplayable when both are in a Kingdom.
| | Temple Garden - silverspawn
This one sure got a bunch of upvotes, and I can definitely see the appeal. It's neat, it makes you wonder whether it's not too powerful only to then concluse that it's probably fine, which is admirable design. I liked this one a lot upon first reading.
now comes the bad stuff, of course. I thought about how this is actually going to play out, and there are two major issues. the first: if you have lots of draw and hardly ever make use to the conversion - it makes a Stockpiling strategy very viable, where you don't buy any Victory cards until the very last turn. It's not quite a megaturn deck, more like a Golden Deck, since you can play pretty much the same every turn until you pull the trigger. And it think by also being a card that you want lots of anyways, it makes these sorts of strategies a bit too viable.
The second problem I see is less on the strategic and more on the tactical side: it is going to be hard to decide what you want to do for the conversion. You need constant awareness of your deck and how likely you are to draw what you need, and since you are playing a bunch of these, I worry about intense analysis paralysis.
| | Cadet/Bosun-- spineflu
Disregarding Bosun completely, Cadet allows for instant Exile of Victory cards, I don't think that is a fun mechanic (and too powerful for a $3 cost). I would suggest adding a non-Victory clause.
I feel like you would usually just use Cadet to load Coppers onto your Caravel mat, and put one card there that you want to play lots of. Would be more interesting if Bosun only counted differently named cards on the Caravel mat. Bosun is very strong - it's baseline is play the set aside action three times, which is like King's Court-level strong (though you cannot Bosun a Bosun). I big issue is that getting one Bosun quickly snowballs, as the 3 Coffers lead you to quickly pick up more Bosuns.
| | Monolith - TheAgileBeast
I am assuming the text should read "convert all your VP tokens into debt", otherwise it would be quite the devastating attack. I think the nerf used here is interesting, but the card will lead to a rush too frequently, leaving one player with a strong advantage but a lot of game still to play, especially with Workshop variants. It might be worthwile to explore a version of this that runs out and returns itself to the supply at some point. | | Trickster/Fool's Wager - Timinou
It's an interesting design space to explore for an attack, as things don't really mess with tokens so far. I think +2 Coffers at $4 is already quite decent value, so it doesn't matter that the attack isn't super powerful. What I'm more worried about is the number of decisions this creates. Every time an opponent, or you yourself play Chariot Race, you have to make a call of whether they would benefit more from VP or from Coffers. I would suggest either trying to get rid of the choices, or to make a single choice that affects the tokens they already have.
For Fool's Wager, I think the wording could be improved, get rid of the "when you play this" and maybe set aside tokens and remove them at the end of the turn in order to make tracking easier. This can be quite powerful, but is limited by being on the bottom of a split pile and there only being 5 copies. I think it's a decent design (and it works with Trickster's attack). | | Leased Land/Work Order - Xen3k
Work Order seems nerfed a little bit too much I feel, not sure you need the Debt. The Coffers gain is rarely worth it now. And in situations where it will be worth it, it can be quite swingy (3/4 opening with Work Order in the first hand). Leased Land is interesting, it's roundabout like a Duchy+ if you have the Coffers. And it interacts nicely with Workshop variants as the Coffers conversion is on gain rather than on buy. But if Work Order is the only source of Coffers, effectively you pay $2 for 1 Coffers, making the effective price for Leased Land much higher.
So my thoughts are: Drop the Debt from Work Order and you have a quite interesting submission. As it stands, it's all a little bit too situational.
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| Settlement -- X-tra
This is a fairly simple concept, and there is value in that already. It can work on its own, but it gets particularly powerful with more VP token generators. My only complaint would be that it's a bit automatic, i.e. you almost always want to do the conversion, especially when you have a steady supply of tokens - 2 Coffers are just better than 1 VP (2 Coffers are 1/4 Province and thus 2 VP, put crudely).
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