Lots of good entries on display here! I always get a bit nervous that my prompts aren't that good, but man I love these cards. You all cooked here, but which one of you will take the crown?
kru5h - Polis
Delayed until the next time you play one! Lost City with a +Buy is strong, but your first Polis effectively Exiling itself to forever remain in play is a really good balancing factor. This just feels good to play, and I'd love to have this on an Artisan or Altar board just because I think that'd be really fun to try and pile out. One interesting thing about this is if you happen to collide two in your hand without one in play, you can't play both without a different Village, and I think that kind of hindering your progress early on makes you be more considerate of when you buy it versus e.g. Laboratory. Well done!
Finalist
anordinaryman - Advisor City
Proving just like Landing Party that Lost City can work at $4 if it's balanced right. Unfortunately, I'm not really a fan of Advisor, and this card kind of puts it flaws front and center. Waiting on your opponent? Check. Decision paralysis? Check. With Advisor, at least you're deciding between one of three to discard, but here, you could potentially be deciding from 6 or more which to have your opponent play, and you have to pick two of them. Are there good ideas here? Yes, but I think this deserves to remain a fan card.
BryGuy - Mirage City/Bargain City 
...I really like these two. Is the wording the cleanest or most official? No, but I get what you're going for here, and I don't want to punish that. Mirage City is a nice Encampment-type card, and Bargain City actually being relatively weak +Buy is honestly a good thing in my eyes. Unlike Storyteller, you don't draw first, and that means at best (playing a Silver or better) that this is hand-neutral like Worker's Village. You'll always remove the Mirage City from your deck on play, and you can genuinely go either way with choosing whether to add a Bargain City to your deck, because sometimes you don't want to remove coins from your deck by spending them for more +Cards. One of the rare few times I see it being a bit weaker than something else it could be compared to and that actually working in the card's favor, and I'll always be a fan of any card that helps support draw-to-X. (Just play a Treasure and don't spend the coins for cards, and now your handsize is down 2 from a single card without losing any advantage) This design is really good, and god I wish it was official.
Finalist
silverspawn - Council Hall
Complement to the entrant here: Silverspawn, you consistently have incredibly clean cards, and in an alternate universe I could absolutely see these being official. Unfortunately, I think this one is played just a bit too safe. Is this a good card? Yes, but it just doesn't excite me in the way a good amount of these other cards do. I want to put this as a finalist, I really do, but it's just not doing enough to stand out to me.
NoMoreFun - One Horse Town
I've always had the joke in my head about inverse Shanty Town being terrible, but you took that idea and made it a genuinely good card. Having to discard an Action or god forbid multiple to get the +Actions is a tradeoff you don't generally want to make but may be forced to, and I think that makes this card better. Only complaint is that I think this would be better at $4 since you can open two of these, but having more than two of these in your deck later on may mean your hand is just full of Moats and that's not really a good position to be in. Good card, but that pricing is kind of a major flaw here and I can't make it a finalist due to that.
valb7k - Way of the Elephant
I like this in theory, but this just seems too good in practice. Even with the restriction of having a Gold to play, being able to turn literally anything into a Lost City seems insane. Encampment and WotHorse are balanced around the fact that they return cards to their pile, either as punishment for failing to draw into a Gold or as part of the effect, but the downside for missing the Gold is just... playing the card normally? Which really isn't that bad?
So let's look at this from a different angle. What this does is give your Golds the effect to turn a card into your hand into a Lost City. That's, uh, really good. Gold's normally supposed to be weak, it's available on every board of every game ever, and making it this powerhouse that can easily set yourself up to draw through your deck seems too good to me. I like the idea of making Treasures give you Actions, but the extra draw that this gives just seems too good in practice. (See Barge for a card that this would be busted with)
Again, like this in theory, but it's just too powerful.
D782802859 - Lost Temple
Another "good in theory, questionable in practice" card, though admittedly I think I'd put cards like Inventor into that camp too. Judges be biased, after all, and that's not something we can avoid. For this card, this kind of suffers the Groom problem on a board with gainers where it just incentivizes the pile to drain too quickly. Have multiple in hand, Lost Temple, play a Ironworks to gain an Ironworks, then another Ironworks to gain another Lost Temple, and quickly you can drain both those piles and the Estates for a quick game end. Is this specific interaction going to come up often? No, and I think one of the conditions for this costing less being trashing makes this more interesting, but there's gonna usually be at least one of these three triggers on the board and possibly more that ends up making this usually a $4 Lost City. Add trash-for-benefit jank that normally gets pulled with Peddler to the list (albeit that it can only trigger once per turn) and the fact that opening 3-4 with Goat in the 4 hand can get you this turn 1 and this just seems too good. I'd change it so that each of its triggers reduces its cost by $2, so you have to do one of each to make it cost $2 and hey you've put in a good bit of work in, but in this current state, it's so close, it just needs a bit more.
grep - Castrum
A good Tribute v2. Does it stand on its own? ...Yeah, I think it does. segura's comparison to other $5s and better (below) does a good job at justifying this card's price at $5, with the main factor that pushes it over the edge being the +Buy as stated in its submission.
I disagree. The extra Buy makes it fairly centralizing in plenty of Kingdoms and the card is only weak (gee, you get 5 vanillas!) if it hits more than 2 Actions:
4 Treasures - Animal Fair
3 Treasures, 1 Action - stronger than Gold
2 Treasures, 2 Actions - Festival
These are all decent or stronger than $5. If you also reveal green and thus draw, the card is basically always stronger than Market.
Testing this on a Carnival board (145114731) for somewhat of a baseline comparison (not exactly the same, I know, but bear with me here) I generally got 2-3 Actions, so it's not unreasonable to compare this to a $5 mega-Necropolis or inconsistent Festival, but in practice you're not always going to have trashers and you're likely to hit more Victory cards (or cards that like being discarded) as the game goes on. So, uh, long story short, good card. I think it's honestly fine for it to be a massive village at times because sometimes this might be the only village on the board and you want high action density. So, you know what? Good and balanced card. I wish this was official.
Finalist
fika monster - Communal Ride
I think this is weaker than Village for the same reason Council Room giving +4 Cards isn't broken or, for a more apt comparison, for the same reason you generally don't pick the +3 Cards option on Governor early. Lost City for $3 is cool, sure, there's a reason people go for Shanty Town, but your opponent(s) being helped by a card you played generally helps them more than a card they added to their deck themselves because they didn't have to do anything to earn its benefit. Does that make this card bad? No, but it's kind of unremarkable to me, just slapping that extra bit on the end and adjusting the price, and I feel like there's a good bit more creativity to be had even with two bonuses your entry being decided for you.
Tiago - County
This could easily win this contest under another judge. Simple, to the point, and tries something that hasn't been done before, giving you Actions for having Treasures in hand. Am I that judge? Maybe, tune in to find out, but just know that this is a good card and I have nothing really to add to this.
Finalist
JW - Metropolis
For costing $1 more than Upgrade and Modify, I think it compares too well to both. One of the tradeoffs of Upgrade is that you're forced to trash your excess into Golds once you're done trashing, and one of the downsides of Modify is that the cantrip effect and the Remodel effect are mutually exclusive, and this just avoids both. You're able to use this like Hideout when it's good to and just have another Lost City when you're done trashing, and I think that's just a bit too good. I hate comparing cards to other cards sometimes, but there's also like 500 cards in the game right now, so I can't really avoid doing that easily. Yeah $6 is harder to hit than $5 but I still just think this is too good for its versatility and power, especially given Lost City on its own is probably a $5.5 in practice.
LibraryAdventurer - Ambitious Village
I like the idea of this card, but uh, don't put green into play. Tools sure, but Pilgrimage is arguably worse than it. Imagine gaining for example a Province, Fairgrounds, and Duchy off a single $4 buy. If this discarded green for Actions instead of playing them this would be fine if a bit luck-based (see how finicky Herald is) but as it stands... Just please don't put green into play. Ever.
segura - Gatekeeper
Sweet and simple. Does something that hasn't been done before and does it well. The single Villager this gives is small but guarantees that you'll be able to keep going even if you hit only terminals, but it's not enough to make you rely on this as your only Village. Hitting 2 Actions with this isn't likely early in the game but gets easier in the midgame and harder again once you're in the endgame, making it risky to keep this and not end the game. Just some incredibly solid gameplay all around. I really like this one.
Finalist
RovingBear - Imposter
Seems boring at first glance, just turning something else into a Village, but the more I thought about it the more it really isn't. You can play the Imposter and call it on separate turns, meaning your handsize is incredibly flexible. Or, alternatively, on the same turn, if you have a good draw-to-X on the board. Ruins are a lot less bad with this in play since you can just Imposter them into something better, and Death Cart becomes a lot better since it's easier to collide it with the spike in draw power this provides. Getting this prevents terminal collision easier, since you can just Imposter one of them, but you're still giving up its initial effects. You can deliberately purchase cheap Actions to function as your Village, or more practically just overbuy the terminals you're already getting. This feels like Coin of the Realm on Steroids, and I love it. I initially wrote this card off, thinking it'd just act as a slow Village because you'd have to play it similarly to how you do Shanty Town, but man am I glad I gave it a second look.
Finalist
grrgrrgrr - Golden Company
Different condition to getting this back than its obvious comparison, Landing Party. Unlike it rewarding Big Money, this rewards engines... while being tricky to get back due to being put onto the bottom of your deck. You're normally drawing your deck on most boards, but man this really ensures that you make sure you do because if you don't, you've lost all your Actions for possibly two turns or more. High risk, high reward, especially with you having to underbuy these lest risk losing them to staying in play, and that adds a lot of strategy to a card that could otherwise be brainless like Lost City.
Finalist
HorazVitae - Seasonal Market
What Fisherman should've been, to be honest. Having to rely on discard pile management during your turn similar to Swashbuckler makes this card significantly more dynamic than it would be otherwise. It's still solid when a Peddler, see Artificer without a discard or Baker, but I kind of wish this was weaker when you missed having a discard pile? I know that's a bit weird to say, but this is still solid as a $5 without one, and yeah these two different functions average out to a $5, but I guess I wish there was a bit more missed opportunity for not having a discard pile. That's definitely personal bias, though, and this still ends up a really good card.
Finalist
Honorable Mentions: Castrum by grep, Gatekeeper by segura, Mirage City/Bargain City by BryGuy, Polis by kru5hRunner-Up: Golden Company by grrgrrgrrWinner: Imposter by RovingBearCongrats to RovingBear, on the win, and thank you to all who entered! I loved reading all your card designs, and I can tell a lot of thought went into all of them, even the ones I didn't rank as high. This was such a fun contest to run, and I can't wait to see what's in store for the future of the WDC!
Author
Topic: Weekly Design Contest #219: Livin' in the (Lost) City) (Read 1590 times)