CHALLENGE #34 - No Vanilla Bonuses Submission: (Updated / final version)
Consul
Type: Action
Cost: $4
Trash a card from your hand. The player to your left names a more expensive Action card in the Supply.
Choose one: gain and then play the named card; or gain a silver.
My favorite interaction cards are ones like Contraband, Advisor, and Envoy. So, here is a sorta upgrade variant in that vein! I will say this card nicely has some cool synergy with alt-cost cards without having to spell them out, and I like that. You can get your opponent to consul you into upgrading an engineer into an overlord -- not bad! You can always turn your golds into possessions (and transmutes if there are no other potion cards). Good advice! Of course, if you don't like your opponent's advice, you can always take the silver, but that doesn't go to your hand and is a pretty weak upgrade.
If you ignore the fun opponent part of this card, it's trash a card, gain a silver. Not the most inspiring on its own, but is definitely useful as a mediocre upgrader. The fun part, and the way to make the most of this card, is trashing the right cards and building a flexible enough deck, that you want the action cards your opponent gives you. And if your deck can't handle too many terminals, you can turn them into silvers, something that's often useful in decks that can't handle many terminals (exceptions being a minion deck with no villages ... that deck does not want too many silvers, it would rather have candlestick makers. Which your Consul can help you turn your coppers into!).
I have updated this to address the issue of your opponent giving you too many terminals. The way I originally I had this card in my own files attached a village effect to it and gained the card to hand, but I like the theming of a forced play. But the forced play does open up some issues, so I modified this so you always have a decent fallback -- silver. Silver is fine because there is always an action card costing 1 more than it -- Consul!