So I can trash a Harem to get a Platinum, a Province and a Bank? That seems, uh, powerful.It's also very situational, which makes up for it. But Harems and Emerald Mines are fun.
So, in many Province games, this card basically does six things. Let's examine each of them.
Trashing an Estate for a Silver in hand isn't too bad. It's like a Trading Post, but it only works on Estates (so it can't clear out your Coppers), and it only trashes Estates one at a time. In a Province game, you'd obviously never trash a Province, and you'd only trash Duchies if you got them early in the game, either from an opponent's Swindler or trashing a Silver with Emerald Mine.
The problem is that trashing a Silver with Emerald Mine seems really weak. You get a Gold and a Duchy from it (for an average money density of 1.5, less than the Silver you trashed), but you lose your Silver AND lower this turn's buying power by $2. It's kind of like a Hoard that requires an action instead of a buy to use (and costs you a Silver while reducing your buying power enough that you'll often just buy your Silver back). The seems like a losing proposition most of the time.
As you say, you'd almost never want to trash Copper. Trashing a Gold nets you a Province, so it's basically a Remodel in the endgame.
To sum up, it's a bad Trading Post early game, of dubious usefulness mid-game, and it's an expensive Remodel late game. That might be worth buying sometimes, but it's hard to say.
When you buy a duchy with Hoard you lower your turn's buying power by 5$.
When you buy a duchy with Hoard you lower your turn's buying power by 5$.
Yeah, but you don't have to spend an Action on Hoard. Which hand would you rather have? Mountebank/Silver/Copper/Copper/Copper or Emerald Mine/Silver/Copper/Copper/Copper? Both hands net you a Gold. You'll have $3 to spend after playing the Emerald Mine, so you can...buy your Silver back.
EDIT: No, still better: which would you rather have? Emerald Mine/Silver/Copper/Copper/Copper or Mine/Silver/Copper/Copper/Copper? If you buy your Silver back, Emerald Mine nets you back a Gold and a Duchy. The Mine hand nets you two Gold in exchange for a Silver. That's a better comparison.
Seems dirty strong on a 5/2 (No more than Witch. But just sayin)
My first thought is this is kinda situational, but pretty well balanced. Of course only playtesting will tell.
To sum up, it's a bad Trading Post early game, of dubious usefulness mid-game, and it's an expensive Remodel late game. That might be worth buying sometimes, but it's hard to say.
When you buy a duchy with Hoard you lower your turn's buying power by 5$.
Yeah, but you don't have to spend an Action on Hoard. Which hand would you rather have? Mountebank/Silver/Copper/Copper/Copper or Emerald Mine/Silver/Copper/Copper/Copper? Both hands net you a Gold. You'll have $3 to spend after playing the Emerald Mine, so you can...buy your Silver back.
EDIT: No, still better: which would you rather have? Emerald Mine/Silver/Copper/Copper/Copper or Mine/Silver/Copper/Copper/Copper? If you buy your Silver back, Emerald Mine nets you back a Gold and a Duchy. The Mine hand nets you two Gold in exchange for a Silver. That's a better comparison.
So... the card's worse than Mountebank (oh no!). And I'd often take a duchy-gold over 2x gold.
And what about the roughly equally likely Mine-Silver-Copper-Copper-Estate versus Emerald Mine, Where you trash estate-> silver and buy a gold versus trashing a silver for a gold and buying a 5$.
It's not strictly better than mine if you restrict yourself to trashing treasures. I see that as a good thing. With the VC trashing, its far better.
This seems crazy, crazy strong, even ignoring the Harem/Bank combo (which will be rare).
Obviously, in the early game the best choice is Estate -> Silver in hand. This is better than Upgrade, as are the other vanilla victory trashes here; Province -> Platinum in hand? Yes please.
Now consider the "bad" trash: Copper -> Silver/Estate. If your average card value is less than 1, this is actually an increase in cash density. Getting to >1 density requires buying 4 silvers or equivalents. In the early game, trashing a copper or two this way isn't a bad deal... especially since when you draw that Estate later with Emerald Mine, it gets turned into a Silver.
Also, this all chains on itself. If you can get one every turn or so, it takes two turns to convert a Silver into a Duchy and a Province (and a Platinum in Colony games). If there's drawing and action doubling on the board, playing two of these in one turn converts an Estate into Duchy and Gold, or a Duchy into Province and Platinum.
With enough of these, every turn you'll be getting a Gold either by trashing Silver or trashing Duchy, then converting the Golds into Provinces.
With the right setup, this sounds like 11-12 turns to 4 Provinces.
With the right setup, this sounds like 11-12 turns to 4 Provinces.
I think getting all that to line up properly would be a small miracle. It is a $5 terminal Action card.