My Submission: |
A FAR BETTER THING RESERVE Cost: $2 When you buy a card, you may call this, to Exile that card, and to Exile any number copies of it from your hand.
When you gain this, put it on your Tavern mat. | |
My submission is
A Far Better Thing. A one-shot pure Reserve card, it goes to your Tavern mat when you gain it, and can be called when you buy a card to send that card (and copies of the card in your hand) into Exile. Once it does, it becomes a dead card in your deck, as there is no way to put it back onto your Tavern mat (unless you return it to the Supply and gain it again).
The card has a somewhat limited use, which is part of the reason why it is priced at $2. The first and most obvious is as
a one-shot opportunity to thin your deck. If you have multiple Coppers or Estates in your hand, you can buy one and send them all to Exile.
AFBT's design means this function is immediately available to use, can be used without taking a space in your hand, and does not require a collision with the cards you want to Exile. While his would initially seem to be a rather significant bonus over the Exiling Action cards (and making it compare favorably to Banish), this is advantage is considerably mitigated by the fact that it also junks you with itself, so it thins your deck by one fewer dead card (and, in the case of Coppers, puts a worse card into your deck than one you are getting rid of). But, it also gives you another copy of the card.
The second use (which can go along with the first) is to
swap it with a Victory card you buy, then trash AFBT. This allows you to both thin the dead card and still get the VP from the Victory card you gained. This is where the name came from: it is a reference to the final lines in Dickens's
A Tale of Two Cities. AFAB stays behind to face execution while the other card "escapes" to the Exile mat.
The final, and most obscure use, would be to
synergize with Museum or Fairgrounds, and allow you to add a differently-named card to your pile without adding a useless card to your deck. Similarly, it synergizes with Menagerie, if you swap it for your first Province, Menagerie will distinguish it from a subsequently purchased Province. And finally, AFBT will not trigger Fortune Teller or Bureaucrat.
Because each of these is fairly limited in its benefit, I think a $2 price is balanced. I would appreciate any feedback anyone has.