Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Variants and Fan Cards => Topic started by: terminalCopper on July 27, 2015, 12:17:11 pm
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I personally like cards which look insane at first sight ... the following card appears much worse than laboratory, because of the discard, and of course, trashing copper is usually good. But ... well, I don't want to elaborate on my tests, because I primarily would like to get some feedback: what are your first ideas looking at it?
CardRequiringANiceName 5$
Action - Attack
+2 cards
+ action
Discard a card.
Each opponent may trash a copper. If he doesn't, he gains a curse.
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I'm reminded heavily of ***Thief here
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My feeling is that, on average, trashing a Copper from opponents' hands is pretty much a wash. They're out $1 this turn, but also have one less Copper. On engine-friendly boards it's clearly a benefit, but on slog boards it's awful.
I think the attack part (each opponent may trash a copper; if he doesn't, he gains a curse) might work out, but it's very weak for a while. Probably the rest of the card shouldn't be non-terminal, but should be pretty generous.
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My feeling is that, on average, trashing a Copper from opponents' hands is pretty much a wash. They're out $1 this turn, but also have one less Copper. On engine-friendly boards it's clearly a benefit, but on slog boards it's awful.
I think the attack part (each opponent may trash a copper; if he doesn't, he gains a curse) might work out, but it's very weak for a while. Probably the rest of the card shouldn't be non-terminal, but should be pretty generous.
I would think that it's much more helpful than a wash. I mean, the same effect on Bishop is a drawback to Bishop's power. (I know it's optional and you can trash other junk, but more often than not Copper is what you'll have to trash to it, and you would want to). And people sacrifice entire turns to trash cards with Chapel. If think that unless you have exactly $5 (or $8) to spend, you'd almost alway be happy to trash a Copper from your hand.
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Against an engine deck without trashing, it slowly replaces your opponent's 7 starting Coppers with up to 10 Curses, leaving him with a thinner deck (but costing him money in hand) in between.
Against an engine deck with strong trashing, it's a straight-up curser, but your opponent will likely be able to deal with the Curses (although the fact that you can chain them increases your chances of breaking his engine if you manage to get several hits in a row; although, if it's a deck drawing engine, he'll have no cards in his discard pile, so he'll draw the Curses last).
It counters Copper trashers (or Copper sifters) like Spice Merchant and Stables pretty hard, but is countered hard by non-Copper trashers (like Jack, which also benefits from the handsize reduction, or Hermit, which suddenly is able to eliminate all your starting cards).
The main comparisons I see are to Cultist (which is also a weakened Laboratory with weak junking that benefits from playing multiples in the same turn) with a bit of Swindler (which often turns Copper into Curses in the early game).
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This is very similar to my Superstitious Village, so I can tell you in advance some of the possible problems that come with this sort of mechanic.
The main one is that it becomes rather swingy as to who can set up s stack of then m and start it on a turn the opponent has few Coppers in hand. Generally, if you can get to that point you'll have won the curse-split, but that race seems to be rather luck-based. Furthermore (this one isn't the case for my card), once the curse pile is empty, whoever has fewer curses is more likely to get the rest of their coppers trashed, and so will have an advantage that may be enough to win the game, making that relatively binary result determine the winner by itself.
I still like the card, and it definitely causes unique decisions, which is IMO one of the goals of designed cards.
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Thx for feedback!
I am surprised no one said "this card will be too weak". At least, this was my very first fear. Well, usually it is, but I was surprised that it actually works against an opponent who can't trash curses. I'd even say: this is the only situation, I'll ever buy it, because it affords so much work to curse your opponent while offering so few benefit, that you really need those curses to stay, otherwise you should skip it.
This is very similar to my Superstitious Village, so I can tell you in advance some of the possible problems that come with this sort of mechanic.
[...]
The main one is that it becomes rather swingy [...]
I think both your card and mine have different mechanics to reduce swinginess. Your card helps your opponent to trash the curses later on, while mine is less swingy for three reasons:
- at 5$, it is much harder to spam
- trashing copper is much weaker than "trash a card", and after the curse war, in a cursed deck, you will frequently chose to keep the copper. Even if it is a benefit to trash it, it is rarely a huge one
- in a mirror, the discarding is better for the one who lost the curse split
So yeah, I think it's a rarely useful curser, which is something Dominion doesn't have yet. I'd expect it to be in the bottom 20% of Qvist ranking - I like these cards. I'll do some more playtesting, and if it appears to be too weak, I will improve sifting by one card (+3cards, discard 2).
Btw, I like to name it "Kollekte" in german, which is maybe "alms" in english, is that correct? I am thinking about the situation in the church where everyone is asked to spend some coins.
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Btw, I like to name it "Kollekte" in german, which is maybe "alms" in english, is that correct? I am thinking about the situation in the church where everyone is asked to spend some coins.
I would use another english translation, like "Collect", as Alms allready exists as an Event from Dominion - Adventures.
Also, have you tried it on a board with fast trashing? You should be able to play it very often in no time. If your opponent can trash Coppers either way, you're not even helping them as much, i think.
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Btw, I like to name it "Kollekte" in german, which is maybe "alms" in english, is that correct? I am thinking about the situation in the church where everyone is asked to spend some coins.
I would use another english translation, like "Collect", as Alms allready exists as an Event from Dominion - Adventures.
Thx.
Also, have you tried it on a board with fast trashing? You should be able to play it very often in no time.
That's true.
I tried it once and it seemed like "Lab+chapel" > "Collect+Chapel", as the curses got chapelled instantly, and the discard really hurts in a trimmed deck. But maybe, before the opponent draws his deck, it's worth a try to stop an engine halfway up the tree.