Ballroom (Action) Set aside up to 2 Action cards from your hand. Play one of them twice, then play the other twice.
A Throne Room Variant. This time though, it’s 2 different Action cards that are going to be played twice. This means that the net total of Action played through Ballroom is 4. This is more than what King’s Court does! Hence the cost (used to be , but it became obvious that it was too overpowered).
However, Ballroom might be harder to setup. We always dread that time where you draw your King’s Court/Throne Room without any Action cards in your hand. With Ballroom, to be fully efficient for what you paid, you need 2 other Actions! This is primarily why there is a little +1 Card that snuck in there. I know what they say about “+1 Card”: it’s awkward. But here, putting it a +2 Cards would’ve been overkill, even for a card. And putting no draw at all worsens the problem of Ballroom not colliding with any Action cards, like I previously mentioned. So it is what it is for the time being.
| | Clock Tower (Landmark) When you shuffle, +1 and trash an Action card from the Supply.
Through all these cool Landmarks Empire gave us, none dealt with Shuffling. So I took that opportunity. Clock Tower seems to encourage smaller decks. Or decks with stuff like Chancellor, Scavenger, etc. For every shuffle, you score a . That’s simple enough. But then, yeah, you have to remember to do so. But Star Chart exists, so I’m allowed to do stuff like Clock Tower *sticks tongue*!
The trashing clause has been included for a very simple reason. dispatching card-shaped things need to do so whilst bringing the game closer to an end state. Here, people could just, y’know, keep shuffling their decks, hoping to out shuffle and out their opponents. And there’d be an overall tendency of not buying cards, cuz that’d go against having a small deck easy to shuffle for Clock Tower. In sum, the game would go nowhere. Or at least slow down. So yeah. With the trashing effect, the game will at least move forward. Plus, it’s flavorful: it’s as if time is running out!
|
|
Custodian (Night – Attack – Duration) Set aside a non-Duration card you have in play. At the start of your next turn, put it into your hand. Until then, each other player cannot buy a copy of it.
The idea behind Custodian is rather simple. You jail away a certain card you’ve played. It’s now illegal for others to buy that card (it’s locked away by the keymaster after all)! However, they may still gain that particular card through other means, like with a Workshop. Custodian didn’t use to have the “non-Night” thingy. But then, what happens if you set aside a Custodian that wants to set aside the Custodian that just set him aside? My head is spinning. So yeah, that’s necessary.
Custodian’s Attack could be mild or rather annoying. Hard to say in theory. If you focus more on the Attack part, it’s tough to know which card you want to block from your opponents. It’s kinda like Contraband in a way, but it applies for everyone.
EDIT: Custodian was edited to lock away a non-Duration card instead. Tracking stuff should be even easier with this revision. And it still prevents a Custodian to lock another one!
| | Debate (Event) At once, whoever reveals the card with the highest cost takes equal to that cost and if it wasn’t a Victory card, gains a copy of it. If it was you, take less. Otherwise, +1.
Oh boy. Debate. Originally posted in the “Actually Passable Card Ideas” thread, this card suffered quite a bit of changes (thanks to Minotaur for pointing out the original flaws). Now, we are left with this painfully large wall of text (gotta cover those edge cases, man)! But functionally, it should be alright.
So it’s an interactive card. Everyone reveals something from their hand. The highest “bidder” (the one with the most expensive card) gains a copy of it, but also takes some as some kind of payment for their win. That oughta teach you to use the taxpayers’ money for these useless political Debates! Of course, this has to not work with Victory cards. Can you imagine if it did? The horror! Anyway, the initiator of the Debate’s got to have had a reason to do so. So they gain a if they “lose” the heated Debate and take a little less should they win. If these consolidation prizes didn’t exist, then you could just lose a Debate you bought and feel silly (and mad) you wasted your Buy all the while helping your competition!
There’re multiple ways to go around a Debate. You could initiate one, purposefully losing to get that . But if everyone else does not wish to get any , they could also all reveal a Copper. In that situation, you’d win the Debate, knowing you always win ties. So, you paid for a Debate, using your Buy, only to end up gaining a Copper. Hurray? There’s a little bit of a mental game in there.
This is the card closest of leaving this set of cards. I do not like how complicated it is and how much there is on this card. I fear that the first impression most players will have reading this is “huh?” with them promptly opening the rulebook for clarifications. Dominion needs to be straightforward with its cards. Debate isn’t. That’s troublesome.
|
|
Dice Games (Action) Roll the D6. Either discard a card to re-roll, or apply the result of the dice. (You may put a Tracker token on this to remember the result.)
This isn’t the first time Dice have been suggested in Dominion cards. I’ve seen some toying around this idea in their own custom cards. An obvious piece of criticism against this concept would be that it’s too swingy. Swinginess bad! Look, I agree. That’s why I added a little something on Dice Games to help you mitigate that luck! More power to the player. So you can discard a card in hand to reroll. I feel like that’s kind of a cool-ish idea, nah (tootin’ me own horn here)?
Dice Games comes with, of course, it’s own dice. Pictures of the 6 faces of that dice are illustrated above. So you can kinda see what kind of ratio I went with with this card.
Also, since these kind of, like, “multiple choice” cards can be tough to track if a couple of ‘em are used in a turn, it comes with its own little Tracker tokens that you can put on your played Dice Game. Thus, on your Buy phase, you’ll have an easier time computing what happened with your dice rolls. Stuff like Pawn, but even Ironmonger or Minion, can be quite challenging to track in big turns. I didn’t want Dice Games to fall into that category. So there you have it.
By the way, the cost has been specifically picked so that no matter your initial split, you can afford a Dice Games and have it fully paid by turn 3.
EDIT: The last paragraph isn’t true anymore, since Dice Games’ cost was revised to make it cheaper.
| | Draft (Action) +1 Buy Trash this. Gain a card costing up to .
This was born out of the interest of seeing if a cost Kingdom card could exist. Poor House paved the way for cards. So Imma try the same, but with a free Kingdom card instead. And thus comes Draft. It’s kind of a crappy gainer, but the +Buy it provides means that, no matter what, you’ll be able to toss in another Draft alongside the Buy you take this turn. So the Cycle continues. Therefore, Draft can kinda be seen as a Kingdom pile meant to be emptied quickly if you want to end the game on 3 depleted piles. Or, you know, sometimes you’re desperate for a +Buy. Draft gives it to you (albeit, only once). So, all in all, Draft is a small but nifty lil’ utility card.
|
|
Duality (Action) +1 Action Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal 2 Action cards, discarding the rest. The player to your left chooses one. Play that one and discard the other.
I wanted to give those “The player to your left blablabla [...]” cards a shot and so Duality came to be. I also wanted one card to represent more of a concept with a cool illustration rather than an actual physical thing like a person or a building, kinda like stuff like Replace or what have you. Hence the name “Duality”.
Duality can kinda be seen as a Village where its +1 Card will be an Action card. So because it is a Village+, it must at least bear a price of . However, since there is a certain lack of control about which Action gets to be played (all thanks to your devilish left neighbour), I believe this drags down Duality juuuuust a tad. Is this enough to put it back into the price range? I haven’t tested Duality enough yet to make this decision. My hunch is that it is priced correctly, but I’d like to hear more opinions on that matter.
| | El Dorado (Landmark) The first player who buys a Gold takes Collecting Artifacts.
Collecting Artifacts (State) At the start of your turn, another player may take this. If nobody did, +1 and Gold makes this turn. ----- When you take this from another player, gain a Gold.
Initially suggested this Landmark in the “Really bad card ideas” thread. If it was posted there, then what is it doing here, in a (hopefully) serious card list? Well, my first instinctive concern was that once a Gold would be obtained, Collecting Artifacts, the State card El Dorado comes with, would throw every player into decision mode at each start of turn of whoever currently has it. And, although not too bad in 2-player games, imagine the decision and thinking process in 4-player games. Sounds like it would considerably stretch the length of that game, which, in my opinion, should be avoided when possible.
That being said, I still love the idea of a moving Artifact that must be passed around to deter its owner, much to the detriment of whoever claims it. And I especially love the fact that it doesn’t start active in an El Dorado game, nor does it ever have to (Although in online Lord Rattington games, it will definitely trigger, lol). The funny part is, most of the time, when you buy a Gold, it’s because you’re looking for a money game. But claiming a Collecting Artifacts to stop someone else to reap so many circumvents that. All of your precious Golds will make and boy oh boy, you’ll be crying crocodile tears. On the flipside, maybe, as an Engine builder, you don’t want the Big Money guy to collect so many . But then, taking their Collecting Artifacts would add a clogging Gold card in your Engine. Hmmm.
Anyway, I like the devilish dilemma El Dorado/Collecting Artifacts subject players to. S’why it’s here!
|
|
Handler (Action) Choose one: Play this as one of the set aside Ways; or +1 Card and +1 Action. ----- Setup: Set aside 3 Ways face up.
Handler kind of works like Druid, as in it sets aside 3 things and plays them differently. Handler has an exclusive use of 3 unused Ways (which, by the way, can’t be played as by other Action cards). It also gives its user the option that if, in a particular turn, none of these Ways are interesting to them, they can simply cantrip Handler away.
This card isn’t particularly strong. But it could be. I had it in a game where Way of the Chameleon and Way of the Horse were 2 of the 3 set aside Ways. I used a Handler as a Chameleon, replaying it as Way of the Horse afterward. This netted me and an additional Action after promptly returning the Handler to its pile. It was a pretty cool thing to do.
Yes, way of the Mouse adds a 4th out-of-Supply card shaped thing. Handler can potentially become a table clogger, lol. Again, like Druid when The Swamp’s Gift is out for play!
| | Hops (Treasure – Duration)
At the start of your next turn, + if this is still in play.
I once heard that Treasure – Duration cards shouldn’t be a thing because they are hard to track. A lot of cards, such as Counterfeit, kills Treasure cards in play and remembering what’s supposed to happen on your next turn with no visual aid can be annoying. Dominion games can sometimes already be hard to figure out with all these crazy cards and we therefore shouldn’t strive to add more complicated edge cases. And if this isn’t proof enough, well, just remember that no Treasure – Duration cards exist in official Dominion expansions, a concept I’m sure Donald X. thought of before.
And yet here I am with Hops, trying to revive the idea. The simple addition of a “if this is still in play” makes it so that you don’t have to track stuff anymore. You Counterfited a Hops? Well, my friend, you just voided its Duration clause.
Anyway, onto the card itself. Uhhhh... Hops is cheap and easy to play. You probably don’t too many of these “Silvers split in 2 turns”. Yeah. ‘Nuff said.
|
|
Market Town (Action) +1 Card +2 Actions +1 Buy + Draw one fewer card for your next hand.
A card probably in dire need of fixing. In the aforementioned Odyssey “expansion”, we had a card similar to this. It was named Town Center. Here, I’m trying to revive the spirit of that card. The concept being that you have a powerful Market (like Grand Market) at the detriment of your next turn. Market Town is also a Village, so it’s bonkers.
It’s hard to judge if it’s worth cutting your next hand at the benefit of your current one. If Tactician taught us anything, then the answer is probably “yes”. Besides, after your 5th Market Town, you’ll suffer no additional penalty for your next turn. Granted, your opponents must let you run away with a lot of Market Towns for that to be true, but still.
This card used to be . But in my games, no one wanted to invest that much money into that. Now, my last bit of concern is whether I should remove the +1 Buy, or drop it to +1 Action, or drop it to +. Or, y’know, simply leave it as it is. Argh.
| | Mobsters (Night – Treasure)
If it’s your night phase, remove all of your . Otherwise, take at the end of your Buy phase.
Now, this looks insane (and weird) at first glance, but this could the card I’m the proudest of in this list. Yeah, the initial plan was to try to fulfill the gimmick of a Treasure – Night card. But this evolved quite a bit since then. Just like Werewolf, the duality of its types means it can be played in 2 different phases. And consequently perform 2 different things depending on when you play it.
Mobsters, fittingly, involve . It works kinda like Capital in the sense that it gives you an amazing payload at first, but at the consequence of taking later on. Here, the taking process happens at the end of your Buy phase, meaning you could play 2 Mobsters for a Province and worrying about the later. Or, if you kept a 3rd Mobster in your hand, you could call to your shady friends to immediately pay back that in your Night phase. It works!
Thematically, I love the approach here. In the, errr, “Day” phase, or daytime if you prefer, these hoodlums agree to give you a nice sum of money. But if you can’t repay your loan, then the mafia puts you into debt. You owe them. But, in your Night phase, the Mobsters can perform their criminal behavior without fear of being caught. And so, they can erase that debt of yours if you agree to perform certain “tasks” for them, tasks that aren’t particularly law-abiding.
|
|
Plague Doctor (Action – Attack – Duration) Each other player gains a Curse. At the start of your next turn, +1 Action and +.
This card is nasty. Unlike Witch, Plague Doctor is a Village, so that non-terminality means you probably can afford a couple of ‘em and build around that. It doesn’t overstay its welcome once the Curses are gone. Plus, if you play one every turn (meaning you DO have to get a couple Plague Doctors), then you’ll always start with 2+ Actions. Beside that, Plague Doctor is pretty basic. I believe is the correct price for this Duration card (even though it doesn’t do anything for you the turn you play it).
| | Science Grant (Project) Gain a Potion. During your turns, Potions are also Actions with “+1 Card, +1 Action, +”.
Again, here we have something that’s been created around a gimmicky idea. The idea being, of course, to try to have a card with a 2 cost. I couldn’t figure out a way to make a normal Kingdom card work with this idea, so my attention shifted toward Projects. And here we are with Science Grant. A 2 Project. The mere idea of a Project costing can seem preposterous. So imagine a 2 Project. That’s pushing the envelope a little bit.
But hear me out! I think the effects of buying that Project more than makes up for the weird investment of buying at least 2 Potions. Because, in a nutshell, it transforms all of your bought Potions into Peddlers! So now, they’re pretty interesting cards. And hey, maybe you’ll even want to buy more of them from there on, knowing their new function! Maybe, lol... maybe the Potion pile could even be emptied before the game ends. That’s something you don’t hear every day.
At first, I wanted to have a little setup clause in the bottom of Science Grant stating: “Setup: Add a Kingdom with a cost to the Supply”. I wanted people to have more reason to invest into Potions than simply aiming toward Science Grant with them. But I realized that it was fine as it is. And also it is waaaaay less wordy right now.
|
|
Secret Path (Action – Duration – Victory) At the start of your next turn, +3 Cards, then discard 3 cards. ----- 1
I confess: I only did this to see a beautiful green/orange card. Here, we have the poor man’s Den of Sin. It used to make you draw 2 and discard 2 at the start of your next turn. But this was tweaked to “+3 cards, discard 3 cards” instead. It was weak sauce before that. Unlike Den of Sin, it takes an Action to get that bonus. Plus it isn’t gained to your hand. Finally, while you can sift a little bit with it, it doesn’t increase your handsize. And the 1 is not enough to make up for that, even if Secret Path is cheaper than Den of Sin. And uhhh when you play it, well, it does nothing for you this turn. So ‘grats my dude.
I like the card though. It’s probably sucky, but it exists. The flavour of the card is cute, which hopefully will sway people to toss pity points at it. Although for the flak I gave it, I should probably say that Secret Path is probably an auto-hit the next turn you play it should you open with one and, I dunno, a Silver. That’s a cool thing it does.
| | Statue (Action – Victory) Set this aside and an Action card from your hand costing up to . ----- Worth equal to the cost in of the set aside card.
Another card I’m extremely pleased with. Statue can give a lot of , but requires some serious setup to do so. First, imagine you set aside a Action card. With a bought Statue, this sums up to an investment of and 2 Buys. Plus some deck control and/or shuffle luck to have the 2 cards collide. For 5. Seems like a poor investment. However, it has a payload that can make a difference in certain games. It gives more than Duchy dancing, for instance.
So Statue can be seen as an “on the side” way of adding to your score. Tucking away Action cards you no longer need in your endgame phase. Kinda like when you start Remodeling your Golds which are better transformed in for you at this stage of the game. Converting a Mint or something when people start greening doesn’t seem like such a bad plan.
|
|
Stray Cat (Action – Reserve) +2 Cards Put this on your Tavern mat. ----- When you draw a card during your Action phase, you may trash this from your Tavern mat for +3 Cards.
Another Odyssey card that got completely transformed. Stray Cat is a nice little utility card. And it works with itself so it’s not a complete failure in Kingdoms where it can’t be triggered. The Stray Cat allows you to draw a little more when you draw with something else during your Action phases. But it’s a single use card, so it goes to the trash right after. As if the cat caught stuff for you (like the Magpie does) and goes on its way right after. It can be a mega turn enabler if used at the right time though, so that’s cool. But if you fail, you’ll have to invest into another one to try again. Stray Cat is slow, but strong when used.
Note that you can’t immediately draw 3 cards by calling a Stray Cat you just played because of the +2 Cards it gave you beforehand. The drawing of those 2 cards happened BEFORE you put that kitty on your Tavern mat.
| | Tithe (Action – Attack – Duration – Reserve) Each other player with no takes . At the end of your next turn, put this on your Tavern mat. ----- At the start of your turn, you may call this for +.
This card, I suspect, is going to be hard to gage. First, there are no Attack in Dominion. And I understand that attempting to carry out that idea can be seen as a potential pitfall. Second, this is a Duration card that does something at the end of your next turn, something that could be hard to remember. Third, this Frankenstein card that combines a little bit of everything can be confusing and hard to place in one’s deck.
But darn if I didn’t want to try to make a Reserve – Duration hybrid. The slowness, here, counterbalance the annoyance of the Attack and the huge bonus of calling it from your Tavern mat. I believe the slowness IS a feature, not a bug. It ties in with the other concepts printed on Tithe. But uuuuhhh I’d like to hear you guys’ opinion on the matter.
|
|
Truce (Event) If you don’t have the Pact, take it.
Pact (Artifact) When you take this, gain an Action card. ----- When someone takes this from you, gain a Copper.
I should say that this wasn’t tested that much. There might be an uncovered broken scenario with this Event. I hope you guys can help me figure out if such scenarios exist.
Anyway. Buying a Truce gives you the Pact, a nice deal at first glance. You get to gain any Action card in the Kingdom, potentially stuff like Possession! But, if your rivals decide to take that Pact from you, you’ll be junked by a Copper. This can go on and on. This is a liiiiittle similar to El Dorado and Collecting Artifacts shown earlier.
My biggest hunch would be to put a cost limit as to what Action cards can be gained with Truce. Maybe cards up to ? Or should it stay as it is and go “screw it, carnage time”?
| | Vigil (Action – Attack) +1 Action + The next time you play a card this turn, each other player with 4 or more cards in hand discards a copy of it (or reveals they can’t).
I like Vigil a lot. The Attack seems annoying, but fair. This is kind of like Pillage where you get to target the better cards in your opponents’ hand rather than having them discard whatever they want à la Militia. Or sometimes, you can try to use Vigil to block a Copper in the early game and this turns into yet another Cutpurse. But heck if it isn’t annoying. Vigil requires some setup and some effort by the player using it, so having your opponents discard just what you want at the right time is a nice payoff. And there’s always this cool little combo where you play 2 Vigils back to back. The first one being played only to take a peek at your opponents’ revealed hand (unless they discard a Vigil, which, whatever, it’s still nice) and the second one being played to know exactly which next card to play with the new information you’ve just gathered. To poke them where it hurts!
This is a non-terminal Attack. We ought to be careful with these. Coven from Menagerie says that it’s not completely illegal to do so however. And I think it’s fair to say that Vigil wouldn’t work without that +1 Action. It’s just so tied in with what this card is trying to accomplish.
|
|
Watchmaker (Action – Reserve) +2 Cards You may put this and an Action card from your hand on your Tavern mat. ----- At the start of your turn, you may call this to play a non-Reserve Action card from your Tavern mat.
And finally, we end this massive wall of text with Watchmaker. First of all, I just want to say that I’m annoyed that the first part of that card spans into 3 lines. It used to take 2 lines and the text was nice and big, but I just had to add the “you may” part for accountability. I also am disgruntled that the art is not really of Dominion’s time. I mean, watches aren’t really medieval material after all. But it sounded cool, so I followed through with that name.
Okay. So Watchmaker is probably best seen as a megaturn enabler. You get a couple of them and you call everything at once at the beginning of a given turn. But that is a slooooooowww setup, my friends. You’ve got to invest in a bunch of Watchmakers AND Action cards you plan on setting aside for it to become a thing. I still haven’t unlocked the full potential of this card in my playtests, nor am I sure it even exists. Maybe you guys can help me come up with a scenario where the slow process of setting a bunch of stuff aside to play it for free on a later turn can truly shine? Hard to see right now. Maybe it should be a ? Pricing stuff is hard.
And uh, oh yeah. The +2 Cards, I think, is necessary to help the poor Watchmaker collide with an Action card.
|