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[Captain Stupendous]

Hey everyone, I had an idea for a kingdom card pile whose intended effect would be to allow players to kind of build their own market/grand market/bazaar card. You'll see what I mean when I explain it. It's like the knights deck in that there are several different cards in the deck and they are shuffled together and the topmost one is the only card available for purchase. So here are the cards, they all cost $2.

Apple Merchant
Action, Merchant

+2 cards

You may play a Merchant card from your hand.

Pear Merchant
Action, Merchant

+1 card
+1 action

You may play a Merchant card from your hand.

Orange Merchant
Action, Merchant

+1 card
+$1

You may play a Merchant card from your hand.

Strawberry Merchant
Action, Merchant

+1 card
+1 buy

You may play a Merchant card from your hand.


I'm thinking that the deck would contain three apple and pear merchants and two orange and strawberry merchants. Also, I considered changing the wording of the special ability to be something like "Until the end of your turn, Merchants cost no actions to play." but thought that would probably be too strong. Any thoughts?

[Warfreak2]

I'd call them something else, as there's already an official card "Spice Merchant", which would cause confusion since it's not a "Merchant" card even though the name conforms with this set. You don't need "when you play this" if it's just an effect that happens when you play it; "you may play another Merchant card from your hand" is fine.

Actually your wording is problematic because "when you play this" effects trigger before the card resolves (for example, "when another player plays an Attack card" such as Witch, you reveal a Moat before they get their +2 Cards and give each other player a Curse). In that case, if I play Apple Merchant, actually I have to play my Pear Merchant for +1 Card, +1 Action before I get my +2 Cards from Apple Merchant. This matters because, as you have it now, I can't play the Pear Merchant that I drew by playing Apple Merchant. That's unintuitive, and probably unintentional. (If it was intentional, you could just put the "you may play..." before the +2 Cards.)

[Captain Stupendous]

Thanks for pointing that out Warfreak, I went back and modified the cards to fix what you pointed out and make the wording consistent with the wording on Cultist. Also I'd be open to any name suggestions, I'd been having trouble coming up with a name for this kingdom deck and came up with the fruit market idea just a few minutes before the original post. I was aware of the card "Spice Merchant" and for that reason was probably going to change the name eventually anyway. Do you think that swapping out Merchant for Vendor would settle any confusion? If you have any other name ideas or thoughts on the balance of the deck I'd love to hear them!

[LastFootnote]

I had a thought like this the other day, but decided not to work on it. I think chances are good that your version is too weak. The trouble is that when they do collide, they're mediocre, and when they don't collide most are awful.

My version was more like this (feel free to adopt it if you like it):

Apple Vendor
Types: Action – Vendor
Cost: $2
+1 Card. +1 Action. If you have at least 2 Vendors in play, +2 cards.


Pear Vendor
Types: Action – Vendor
Cost: $2
+1 Card. +1 Action. If you have at least 2 Vendors in play, +3 Actions.


Orange Vendor
Types: Action – Vendor
Cost: $2
+1 Card. +1 Action. If you have at least 2 Vendors in play, +$2.


Strawberry Vendor
Types: Action – Vendor
Cost: $2
+1 Card. +1 Action. If you have a least 2 Vendors in play, gain a card costing up to $4.


I'd create 6 other unique Vendors to go with them, but that's just me. Here, the first Vendor played is just a cantrip, but after that you start to get exciting bonuses.

[Warfreak2]

I don't think "most are awful"; they're $2 so it's OK that they're worthless if you only have one of them (c.f. Fools Gold). OTOH, "you may play a Merchant card from your hand" is almost as good as +1 Action (c.f. Cultist), so Apple Merchant is a weaker Lab, Pear Merchant is a weaker Village, Orange Merchant is a weaker Peddler, and Strawberry Merchant is a weaker Market Square. (Maybe Apple Merchant should be $3 because its equivalent is better than the others?) Probably more of them should have +1 Buy, and put 20 of them in the pile, so that you really can build a plausible deck out of them.

They're a bit like Apple devices, with proprietary connectors that don't work with cards from other suppliers.

[Captain Stupendous]

I think I agree with Warfreak when he says that they aren't all awful at $2. The way I intended them was to equal various powerful "vanilla" when you put them together. So playing an apple vendor and a pear vendor is the same as playing a laboratory, in fact its a little better because then you can play another vendor without using the action from the pear vendor. Likewise, playing two pear vendors is the same as playing a village, a pear and an orange is a peddler, two pears and an orange is a bazaar, etc. I had actually thought of putting 20 of them in the pile and perhaps making the apple vendor cost more since it is slightly more powerful, but didn't want to unless I thought it was really necessary.

[Warfreak2]

Apple is already the most powerful one: when activated it's Laboratory, which is a $5 card. (It's also the easiest one to activate, since it gives you 6 cards to find another Vendor card from). The rest, activated, are all $4 or $3 (Peddler is widely accepted to be balanced at $4).

Compare with Menagerie, which is $3, but when activated, has an effect which should cost at least $6. Since you're only getting a Market Square, a Village or a Peddler in the good scenarios, it should be easy to activate them. Having 20 of them so you can flood your deck seems like a reasonable solution; it also gives you space to add some more variety to them.

[Warfreak2]

Some ideas for more variety:

Peach Vendor, Action/Vendor, $2
Gain a card costing up to $4. You may play another Vendor card from your hand.

Banana Vendor, Action/Vendor, $2
+$2. You may play another Vendor card from your hand.

Grape Vendor, Action/Victory/Vendor, $2
Worth 1VP per 5 Vendor cards in your deck.
---
+1 Card. You may play another Vendor card from your hand.

Plum Vendor, Action/Vendor, $2
You may play another Vendor card from your hand.
---
While this is in play, Action cards cost $1 less.

Coconut Vendor, Action/Duration/Vendor, $2
Now and at the start of your next turn: you may play a Vendor card from your hand.

[AJD]

Vander Vendor, Action/Vendor, $2
You may play another Vendor card from your hand.
---
If you trash this, gain a Gold.

[cluckyb]

Vander Vendor Venture, Action, $2
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Vander Vendor. Discard the other cards. Play the Vander Vendor.

[scott_pilgrim]

Vander Vendor Venture Adventurer, Action/Vendor, $6
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal two Vander Vendor Venture.  Put the Vander Vendor Ventures into your hand and discard the other revealed cards.  This card is way overpriced.

[mail-mi]

Vander Vendor Venture Adventurer Gollem, Action/Vender, $4P

Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal two Vander Vendor Venture Adventurer cards. Discard the other revealed cards. Play the two Vander Vendor Venture Adventurers in any order.

[MarkowKette]

I really like those vandor's.

Except the coconut vandor which is if double-activated still only a necropolis maybe add a coin on both turns to make it a fishing village if double activated?


But maybe 10+ different vandors would overpower fairgrounds?

[qmech]

Van der Waerden

If there are at least 9 cards in your deck, then it contains a length 3 arithmetic progression of Treasure cards or non-Treasure cards.