Results for the Dark Ages contestRed Army by majiponiIs this just Mountebank as Looter? No, Red Army, or any other Attack or Duration or what other more-than-one-type card in the Kingdom also become Moats.
This feels power-level-wise on the point, i.e. not as overpowered and centralizing as many other junkers.
RUNNER-UPShambles/Digsite by AquilaThis has several problems.
First, would you really buy a Ruins and exchange Shambles to get a reloadable Moat? Nah, that's not worth it.
Second, emulating the Ruins on the top is a cool idea. Not so cool if you don't really do what the Ruins says.
I totally understand why it is mechanically necessary to nerf Ruined Library and buff Survivors but it is just too messy.
Crusade by silverspawnI love $5 Smithies+ that are conditionally non-terminal. I don't have much to say about it, this looks fine and balanced.
RUNNER-UPPlague Doctor by pubby
It is obvious but it has to be said, this is crazy if there are Actions that cost more than $5.
Imagine being able to play Possession or Prince at T4!
Otherwise this looks pretty good.
Ragman by Xen3kThis is hard to judge without playtesting but my hunch is that this is bad if there are no $2 Actions.
Lab nets
+1 Card, but Ragman is on-gain
-2 Cards. Best case is that you hit both Ruins during the first two plays of Ragman.
Then, averaged over the gain and the two plays, Ragman was a Village plus the vanilla effect of the 2 Ruins. But the on-gain junking is worse than the extra draw later for cycling reasons.
And that's tge best case which ignored the matching risk.
So no, I don't think that this is any good. I like it more than Death Cart though.
Restore by spinefluLots of discussion about this one. I cannot fathom when I would ever pick this over any other $5 trasher and would go even further: it it costed $2, I can imagine situations in which I would prefer Raze over this.
Both Upgrade and Transmogrify draw (Transmogrify doesn't draw but gains to hand and thus pseudo-draws) whereas this only floods you with Silvers.
If you want Silver, the Trade family of cards/landmarks is better at that (either you get more Silvers or you get the Silver to hand).
Sacrifical Lamb by D782802859Another Upgrade variant, substituting Upgrade's draw for 2 Coins and a nice reaction.
With its biblical theme, it doesn't have any Dark Ages vibes though.
Vulture by grepI liked Warlord Throne, that was a cool TR variant. But on to the Vulture. There are 4 options:
+ - $5 power
+2 Cards + - $5 power
+2 Actions + - $4.5 power
+2 Buys + - $3.5 power
+ with Survivors - $2 power
So at the first glance, it looks OKish. It's the Ironmonger story, a random effect which you have no control over should be stronger than a deterministic effect.
But the Ruins run out, you can only play Vulture 10 times in the game. I don't know whether the timer on the card is intentional. The Reaction seems to indicate an "out" in case the Action part of it becomes dead.
So to buff it the Ruins should be put on the bottom of the pile or discarded and if the Ruins pile is empty it is shuffled.
Dissect by anordinarymanI cannot add anything to the analysis that anordinaryman already provided. This is a thinking man's card with lots of subtle stuff going on.
RUNNER-UPRUNNER-UPS: Red Army by majiponi, Mountebank as Looter done right
Crusade by silverspawn, the Smithy with the self-looting DoubleLab option
Dissect by anordinaryman, the less vanilla-ish Scrap variant
WINNER: Crusade by silverspawn. Did I say that I love Smithies that can be non-terminal? I also love self-junking.