Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Weekly Design Contest => Variants and Fan Cards => Mini-Set Design Contest => Topic started by: rinkworks on June 25, 2012, 02:14:40 pm
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I enjoyed having a fan card contest in here some time ago (run by Davio; thanks!) and thought it would be interesting to do so again. But I wanted to do something different than simply allowing contestants to submit whatever card they wanted. So I thought of the idea of having a small series of contests, each with its own narrow set of constraints.
I'll roll these out one week at a time, with two card design challenges per week. I haven't decided how many weeks I'm going to go, but not too many. Maybe four or five? Each week, we'll be able to vote on the previous week's submissions. So each card design challenge will have a separate winner, which means at the end of the series we'll have designed, as a community, a small Dominion expansion!
Submission Rules
* Submit no more than one card per person per challenge. You do not need to submit for all challenges if you don't want to, but of course you can't win if you don't compete.
* Submit your cards to me via this forum's messaging system. Submissions made after each week's deadline cannot be accepted.
* Each card you submit must have a name, a cost, a list of types, and the exact wording that should appear on the card. Also include a brief description of any special design considerations (e.g., Stash having a unique back), but do NOT include any other information, such as strategic commentary or examples about it would play.
* Although you must submit names for each of your cards, the names will not be listed on the voting ballots, so make sure your card's appeal does not depend on your choice of name.
* I will accept revisions to your contest entries provided they are submitted to me before the deadline. If you submit a revision to an entry you have previously submitted to me, resubmit your revised card(s) in their entirety. That is, don't tell me "Oh, can you make that +2 Cards say +3 Cards instead?" Just resubmit the full card.
* Only submit cards that are your own design.
* You may submit cards that have been previously posted here in this forum, including those that have been refined by the community as a whole, provided you can still claim that the central conceit of the card -- and the majority of its final version -- is yours.
* A single card might conceivably qualify for multiple challenges within this series. However, you may not submit the same card for more than one challenge.
* Do not disclose your submissions publicly, either in this thread or elsewhere!
Voting Rules
At the end of each submission period, I'll post the cards I've received with placeholder names and accept votes for the best ones. Obviously you may not vote for your own cards. More on how we will do this later. The end result will be that we'll have a single card winning each individual contest. At the end of the series, each individual winning card will be listed together in the Mini-Fan Expansion that is the real ultimate goal of this enterprise.
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The deadline for this week's challenges is Monday, July 2, at 8am EDT.
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Challenge #1 - Peddler Variant
Objective: Design a card that offers +1 Card, +1 Action, and +$1 (e.g., Peddler). It may offer other benefits or penalties, but it must offer at least +1 Card, +1 Action, and +$1, and it may not offer more cards than +1 Card, more actions than +1 Action, or more $ than +$1. Receipt of these bonuses may, however, be conditional upon meeting some requirement (e.g., Tournament), as long as sometimes you may receive all three required bonuses.
Official Examples: Peddler, Market, Treasury, Oasis, and Tournament would all qualify for this challenge.
Official Non-Examples: Bazaar wouldn't qualify because it offers too many +Actions. Grand Market wouldn't qualify because it offers too much $. Pawn wouldn't qualify because although you can get +1 Card, +1 Action, and +$1 out of it, you can't get ever get all three.
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Challenge #2 - Curser
Objective: Design a card that may cause other players to gain Curses. It need not always dispense Curses, so long as it does so at least some of the time it is used. The card text must specifically mention Curses (thus disqualifying Ambassador, which would otherwise qualify).
Official Examples: Witch, Young Witch, Sea Hag, Torturer, Mountebank, Familiar, Jester, Ill-Gotten Gains.
Official Non-Examples: Ambassador and Swindler, because although they can cause other players to gain Curses, Curses aren't mentioned on their card texts. Masquerade has the same problem, plus the technicality that cards passed via Masquerade do not count as "gained."
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Ballots
Challenge #1 Entries (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3125.msg58726#msg58721)
Challenge #2 Entries (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3125.msg58721#msg58726)
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Results
Challenge #1 Results (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3125.msg62075#msg62075)
Challenge #2 Results (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3125.msg62082#msg62082)
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Okay, a design challenge :)
But you should have miswritten something : "The card text must specifically mention Curses (thus disqualifying Ambassador, which would otherwise qualify).", and you list Swindler in the official examples (and on my 1st games, I swindled coppers into coppers !!!)
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Okay, a design challenge :)
But you should have miswritten something : "The card text must specifically mention Curses (thus disqualifying Ambassador, which would otherwise qualify).", and you list Swindler in the official examples (and on my 1st games, I swindled coppers into coppers !!!)
Ah, you're right. I'll fix this in the original post.
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rinkworks, how do you feel about using an approval voting system for this? A.K.A., each voter may vote for as many cards as they choose, but may not vote for any card more than once. It might provide a little more smoothness to the curve if we have a small number of voters and also would eliminate "third party candidate syndrome". By that I mean that if cards A and B are very similar and the vote ends up being Card A: 30%, Card B: 30%, and Card C: 40%, Card C wins even though 60% of people preferred the basic concept of cards A and B.
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Looks like fun! I will contribute.
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I think this is a great idea. I like LastFootnote's idea for voting.
Question, though. If I have an idea for a card but I don't know if it's priced right or maybe I want criticism on some part of it, would it be a good idea or a bad idea to post it on the forum for others to critique? I've posted a couple cards here before but I don't have a wealth of community-enhanced ideas to draw on for this challenge.
I feel like if many people post their ideas and have them tweaked and enhanced before submitting, it could enhance the overall final expansion. But if only a couple post their ideas beforehand, it may give them an advantage with the voters who worked to help improve the card.
If posting ideas here is frowned upon I will probably still submit but I don't have a great way to playtest some of my more insane fun concepts.
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Great idea. Excellent idea.
I will definitely contribute. Let's activate the synapses and think of great cards.
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Entered
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I will definitely post something.
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Can Duration cards and dual type cards be submitted, or are there card type limitations?
Are we allowed to use VP chips, mats, or unique tokens?
For the Peddler variant, may the card conditionally, but not inherently, provide more than 1 Card, 1 Action, and 1 Coin?
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I have my ideas figured out. Do we post them or PM them?
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I have my ideas figured out. Do we post them or PM them?
"Submit your cards to me via this forum's messaging system"
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Perhaps we can also keep this going by (eventually) giving you ideas for particular contests. Enough so that we can get it to at least mini-fan expansion size, possibly full. Though at some point, we would probably want some challenge like "Design a card that fits well with the set so far, with restrictions: It needs to be of this (these) type(s), cost X, and have something to do with Y".
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I think this is a great idea. I like LastFootnote's idea for voting.
Question, though. If I have an idea for a card but I don't know if it's priced right or maybe I want criticism on some part of it, would it be a good idea or a bad idea to post it on the forum for others to critique? I've posted a couple cards here before but I don't have a wealth of community-enhanced ideas to draw on for this challenge.
I feel like if many people post their ideas and have them tweaked and enhanced before submitting, it could enhance the overall final expansion. But if only a couple post their ideas beforehand, it may give them an advantage with the voters who worked to help improve the card.
If posting ideas here is frowned upon I will probably still submit but I don't have a great way to playtest some of my more insane fun concepts.
Does anybody have a good answer to this? Rinkworks, do you have a preference?
I have 3 ideas so far to fit into these 2 categories, and I'd love some input from those who are more experienced with fan cards to be sure they aren't too game breaking weird. But I don't want to post them on the forum if that wasn't the intent of the OP.
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Some assorted replies, but first I added a clause to the requirements for Challenge #1, which was something I thought was covered but apparently hadn't. Namely, that it needs to be possible to receive all three required bonuses -- +1 Card, +1 Action, and +$1 -- on a single play of the card. Tournament still counts, because although you don't get all three bonuses every time, you do get all of them sometimes. However, Pawn does NOT qualify, because although you can get all three bonuses with it, you can't ever get them all at the same time.
Only one of the cards I've received so far are affected by this additional rule, and I'll work that issue out with the author through PM's.
rinkworks, how do you feel about using an approval voting system for this?
I hadn't completely decided on a voting system, but I did want to use some system that would avoid the usual problems with "first-past-the-post" voting systems. My thought was to give everybody a fixed number of points to distribute how they please, but I think your suggestion is a simpler and less swingy solution. Anybody object?
Question, though. If I have an idea for a card but I don't know if it's priced right or maybe I want criticism on some part of it, would it be a good idea or a bad idea to post it on the forum for others to critique? I've posted a couple cards here before but I don't have a wealth of community-enhanced ideas to draw on for this challenge.
I feel like if many people post their ideas and have them tweaked and enhanced before submitting, it could enhance the overall final expansion. But if only a couple post their ideas beforehand, it may give them an advantage with the voters who worked to help improve the card.
My intention for that allowance was to avoid locking out people who had already posted card ideas in here and spent time refining them. The trade-off is that it allows people to be able to know whose card was whose, but I figured if there was some old thread with a card in it, most people either wouldn't remember it or at least wouldn't remember whose it was. But if we post cards this week for this week's contest, it'll be a lot more obvious what's happening and akin to disclosing your submissions before the results are in. Additionally, to address your final point, I suspect most people will be submitting "cold." So I'm inclined to disallow this. I'm open to arguments to the contrary, but let's say no for now.
Can Duration cards and dual type cards be submitted, or are there card type limitations?
Are we allowed to use VP chips, mats, or unique tokens?
For the Peddler variant, may the card conditionally, but not inherently, provide more than 1 Card, 1 Action, and 1 Coin?
Yes to your first question. Unless a particular challenge has a type restriction (neither of this week's do, but some future ones will), you have free reign on the type(s) of your cards.
Yes to your second question. VP chips, mats, and unique tokens are all allowed. If you're inventing a mechanic Dominion doesn't already have (like some new kind of token), make sure it's clear how that mechanic works.
No to your second question. The card can only ever put 0 or 1 cards into your hand, supply 0 or 1 actions, and yield 0 or 1 coins. (If you have a card that conditionally provides more of any of these, there is probably going to be a future challenge that that card will fit into.)
Perhaps we can also keep this going by (eventually) giving you ideas for particular contests. Enough so that we can get it to at least mini-fan expansion size, possibly full. Though at some point, we would probably want some challenge like "Design a card that fits well with the set so far, with restrictions: It needs to be of this (these) type(s), cost X, and have something to do with Y".
Sounds fun to me. I want to avoid dragging it out too long, but I'm happy to see how things go (and how much work tabulating the results turns out to be) and play the number of challenges by ear. Once I get through my initial slate of challenge ideas, I do think it would awesome to solicit challenge ideas from everyone.
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One more quick note: I caught a couple of grammar errors on submissions I've received so far. I decided to reply to these submitters and point that out. I (1) won't guarantee to find all grammatical problems, and (2) won't point any other kind of wording issue out, such as, for example, one not using the right Dominion terminology. But I figured English would be a terrrible thing to lose a potentially good card to, especially when English might not be the first language of all submitters.
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I speak English, don't show me mercy on grammar. See; that's a comma splice right there.
I'm gonna make a game out of guessing which card is whose.
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Solution:
Warlock Guild
$7
Action - Attack
+1 Card
+1 Action
+1$
Each other player gains a Curse card.
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But if we post cards this week for this week's contest, it'll be a lot more obvious what's happening and akin to disclosing your submissions before the results are in. Additionally, to address your final point, I suspect most people will be submitting "cold." So I'm inclined to disallow this. I'm open to arguments to the contrary, but let's say no for now.
I've been working on a set of cards that I happened to be ready to post today, just as this contest came up. I submitted my cards to you as well as posted a thread about my set. To be honest I'd rather get feedback on my cards even if it means being disqualified for the contest, but the disqualification is your decision to make. No hard feelings if you do.
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I think an elimination style would be better for picking the winner. The problem I fear with LastFootnote's method is that an outstanding but controversial card like "Goons" or "Bishop" doesn't get a universal seal of approval even though it's large impact is a good large impact.
I think something like American Idol would work best. On that show, whoever has the fewest votes of "this is my absolute favorite guy" is eliminated each round. Until only two or three are left, and then people whose favorites are knocked out vote for the preferable remaining competitors.
That takes weeks, but you could emulate the same process using ordered lists. Each "round" you assume each player voted for the highest remaining card on his list, and eliminate whichever card had the least votes, rinse and repeat.
It is kinda complicated but I think it synthesizes opinions the best. In Footnote's method, if I think Bishop and Goons both seem too screwy to work out well, I have to vote no on both. But if I happen to like the trash-for-benefit-as-a-win con philosophy of Bishop better than Goons' design philosophy, I'm left with no way to indicate that. You could say my opinion is invalid because I didn't like either, but I don't think it's so with Dominion cards, I can approve of how a card works if it reaches healthy function and at the same time be skeptical that it can actually function that way. If I'm wrong in the latter, more objective assessment I would still want to express my subjective opinion.
Does anyone see what I'm getting at? I'm not sure I do anymore.
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We no can submit proposed art?
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Sent in my submissions, but the message isn't showing up in my "sent items" folder. I'm always a little paranoid about this sort of thing. Any idea what's up?
Edit: Ah, I didn't check the box to save a copy. Disregard this post.
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Sent in my submissions, but the message isn't showing up in my "sent items" folder. I'm always a little paranoid about this sort of thing. Any idea what's up?
Edit: Ah, I didn't check the box to save a copy. Disregard this post.
There is also an option to make that always on in your settings in case you forget again
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I think an elimination style would be better for picking the winner. The problem I fear with LastFootnote's method is that an outstanding but controversial card like "Goons" or "Bishop" doesn't get a universal seal of approval even though it's large impact is a good large impact.
I think something like American Idol would work best. On that show, whoever has the fewest votes of "this is my absolute favorite guy" is eliminated each round. Until only two or three are left, and then people whose favorites are knocked out vote for the preferable remaining competitors.
That takes weeks, but you could emulate the same process using ordered lists. Each "round" you assume each player voted for the highest remaining card on his list, and eliminate whichever card had the least votes, rinse and repeat.
It is kinda complicated but I think it synthesizes opinions the best. In Footnote's method, if I think Bishop and Goons both seem too screwy to work out well, I have to vote no on both. But if I happen to like the trash-for-benefit-as-a-win con philosophy of Bishop better than Goons' design philosophy, I'm left with no way to indicate that. You could say my opinion is invalid because I didn't like either, but I don't think it's so with Dominion cards, I can approve of how a card works if it reaches healthy function and at the same time be skeptical that it can actually function that way. If I'm wrong in the latter, more objective assessment I would still want to express my subjective opinion.
Does anyone see what I'm getting at? I'm not sure I do anymore.
I believe what you are trying to describe is the Alternative Vote (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting) system which the Great British public were unfortunately not intelligent enough to understand and adopt in a referendum not long ago. I, however, fully support the use of this system whenever possible.
Will also be submitting cards for this at some point.
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Whoa. Cool!
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There's always trade-offs in the voting system. If you go too far one way, like towards LastFootnote's system, you'll knock out the most objectionable cards, which can at some point include the best options. Eventually you're left with cards which nobody hates, but which aren't stellar either. Like, you end up with wishing wells or labs all over the place. Which is fine, but lacks some panache.
On the other hand, if you go too far towards a plurality system, you end up with a card that certainly has panache, but which can be really objectionable to lots of people, potentially even totally broken.
In any single-vote system, you have the problem that the card everyone likes second-best, which, if there are 20 different cards, is probably the best one, can easily get knocked out first. Not really sure about fixing this though, without introducing other problems.
Overall, other than the problem just above, TINAS's suggestion of the Alternative Vote system looks pretty good, except that it could easily take a long time? I guess if you just have people who voted for the eliminated thing change THEIR votes, you can speed it up.
Finally, you have the issue of public vs private voting. Public voting has problems in that you are disincentivized from voting until the last minute, in order to make your vote have the most potential impact. But private voting has the downside that you can easily have large numbers of people casting totally irrelevant votes, and you basically lose their valid opinions on the process. Of course, the public v private thing also has interplay with the voting system you choose.
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Sent in my submissions, but the message isn't showing up in my "sent items" folder. I'm always a little paranoid about this sort of thing. Any idea what's up?
Edit: Ah, I didn't check the box to save a copy. Disregard this post.
There is also an option to make that always on in your settings in case you forget again
Weird, I thought I enabled that option for everyone. Will double-check.
EDIT: now it's default for new users.
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AV wouldn't take much longer than any single-round voting system. Just get everyone to order all cards from favourite to least favourite, and in each round of voting count each person's vote for the card highest on their list that is still available. If no cards receive 50% of the votes, eliminate the one with the least votes and repeat until you get a winner. You could probably put together a spreadsheet to do it all for you in next to no time.
And yeah, private voting if AV is used.
Edit: And if people don't want to order the whole list, they don't have to. Just as many as they want to vote for and leave the rest. If all of their preferences get knocked out before a winner is chosen, there's just 1 more no-show on the turnout for future rounds.
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If you go too far one way, like towards LastFootnote's system, you'll knock out the most objectionable cards, which can at some point include the best options.
Wait, what? How does this make any kind of sense? Could you give an example of how this could happen?
I'm trying to follow your train of logic. How is it that the most 'objectionable' cards can include the 'best options'? If people think a card is objectionable, they won't vote for it. If they think a card is one of the best options, they will vote for it. If what you mean is that the cards that people vote for aren't actually the best options, then no sensible democratic voting system is going to give you what you're looking for.
If what you're worried about is that everyone will vote for not only the interesting cards they like, but also all the boring cards that they see as 'good enough', then that's a problem with the voters themselves. However, I don't think we have to worry about this, because I think most people will find boring cards 'objectionable' and will therefore not vote for them. If people genuinely like the 'boring' cards, then who are we to argue?
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If you go too far one way, like towards LastFootnote's system, you'll knock out the most objectionable cards, which can at some point include the best options.
Wait, what? How does this make any kind of sense? Could you give an example of how this could happen?
I'm trying to follow your train of logic. How is it that the most 'objectionable' cards can include the 'best options'? If people think a card is objectionable, they won't vote for it. If they think a card is one of the best options, they will vote for it. If what you mean is that the cards that people vote for aren't actually the best options, then no sensible democratic voting system is going to give you what you're looking for.
If what you're worried about is that everyone will vote for not only the interesting cards they like, but also all the boring cards that they see as 'good enough', then that's a problem with the voters themselves. However, I don't think we have to worry about this, because I think most people will find boring cards 'objectionable' and will therefore not vote for them. If people genuinely like the 'boring' cards, then who are we to argue?
Possession. I love possession, and it's a great card, but lots of people hate it.
King's Court. Great card, hated card.
Swindler.
Ill-Gotten Gains.
I'm saying you end up with good cards like lab. Everyone likes lab. But it's not GREAT. I mean, I guess the other issue is that it's only up-or-down, with no differentiation between 'well, I like all these, but this is my FAVOURITE.' Because, if people actually vote as you're saying here, you basically end up with... a plurality system, where people don' vote for anything other than their favourite, because they don't want to help anything else beat their favourite, and hence voting for anything else would be a strategic blunder.
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Goons. It's a good card that creates very unique games. But it's not going to get as many stamps of approval as a Wishing Well, which is definitely balanced but kind of boring. Some will think Goons stacks too well, or that Goons stacking won't be fun when the attack component is involved at the same time. But you'd be missing out on a lot.
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Why not do it like I do it with my rankings:
Everybody sends in a ranked list of all submissions.
Every submission gets points equivalent to its rank (The 9th ranked submission gets 9 points) and then the submission with the least points wins.
This is very similar to the proposed system but way easier to calculate.
But I also see the problem of "downvoting". So let's say with have 12 votes, and one card gets voted 1st 10 times and 10th (last) 2 times for a total of 30 points.
And there's another card with 7 times 2nd and 5 times 3rd for a total of 29 points. This card would win. But is this the preferred result?
IMO it would be best calculating the median of these points.
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I think preference lists and multi-round voting systems (whether actually multi-rounds or simulated) would be cool but overkill and beyond what I want to take on. I wonder if there is a simpler hybrid system that will be good enough.
How about this idea? Let's say that everybody gets to vote for a favorite and give it 3 points. This allows people to throw a chunk of points at an attractive but controversial card. Additionally, voters may award 1 point to any number of other cards, indicating "I think this card is acceptable and works." If voters want to refrain from awarding any of these additional points (so as to further bolster their top pick), that's their prerogative. On the other hand, if their top pick isn't one they feel so strongly about that they wouldn't mind seeing a few other cards win instead, they can award some additional points to express that feeling as well.
Ultimately, the winner will probably require BOTH the enthusiastic 3-point votes, plus some 1-point approval votes.
I don't know if 3 and 1 is the right proportion here. Maybe 2 and 1 would work better. But that's the idea. Not quite as optimal or flexible as a fully weighted preference ballot, but simpler to understand and simpler for me to tally.
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If you go too far one way, like towards LastFootnote's system, you'll knock out the most objectionable cards, which can at some point include the best options.
Wait, what? How does this make any kind of sense? Could you give an example of how this could happen?
I'm trying to follow your train of logic. How is it that the most 'objectionable' cards can include the 'best options'? If people think a card is objectionable, they won't vote for it. If they think a card is one of the best options, they will vote for it. If what you mean is that the cards that people vote for aren't actually the best options, then no sensible democratic voting system is going to give you what you're looking for.
If what you're worried about is that everyone will vote for not only the interesting cards they like, but also all the boring cards that they see as 'good enough', then that's a problem with the voters themselves. However, I don't think we have to worry about this, because I think most people will find boring cards 'objectionable' and will therefore not vote for them. If people genuinely like the 'boring' cards, then who are we to argue?
Possession. I love possession, and it's a great card, but lots of people hate it.
King's Court. Great card, hated card.
Swindler.
Ill-Gotten Gains.
I'm saying you end up with good cards like lab. Everyone likes lab. But it's not GREAT. I mean, I guess the other issue is that it's only up-or-down, with no differentiation between 'well, I like all these, but this is my FAVOURITE.' Because, if people actually vote as you're saying here, you basically end up with... a plurality system, where people don' vote for anything other than their favourite, because they don't want to help anything else beat their favourite, and hence voting for anything else would be a strategic blunder.
WW, this is not correct. Approval voting does not lead to people voting for just their most favorite. Approval voting has a very nice property that allows strategic voting: Voters can vote for BOTH a compromise candidate and their favorite without harming the chances that their favorite will win. This is not true with plurality voting.
Any type of rank voting (say, allotting points among candidates or saying "how much" you like a candidate) is vulnerable to extreme strategic manipulation and can result in very bad outcomes. I would definitely not recommend these types of voting systems. In fact, approval voting can be thought of as the limit of rank voting when people vote strategically, another nice property.
There are issues with Alternative Voting that do not occur in Approval Voting: for instance, one can cause a candidate to eventually lose by ranking it too high. Some of these issues actually creep up on American Idol. Also, Alternative Voting may fail to elect the Condorcet winner if it exists (a Condorcet winner is a candidate that wins every possible head-to-head match up) -- approval voting does not.
The Wikipedia pages on Approval and Alternative voting are pretty good, by the way.
I strongly think Approval Voting is the way to go here. It's simple. It's easy. It has nice strategic properties.
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If you go too far one way, like towards LastFootnote's system, you'll knock out the most objectionable cards, which can at some point include the best options.
Wait, what? How does this make any kind of sense? Could you give an example of how this could happen?
I'm trying to follow your train of logic. How is it that the most 'objectionable' cards can include the 'best options'? If people think a card is objectionable, they won't vote for it. If they think a card is one of the best options, they will vote for it. If what you mean is that the cards that people vote for aren't actually the best options, then no sensible democratic voting system is going to give you what you're looking for.
If what you're worried about is that everyone will vote for not only the interesting cards they like, but also all the boring cards that they see as 'good enough', then that's a problem with the voters themselves. However, I don't think we have to worry about this, because I think most people will find boring cards 'objectionable' and will therefore not vote for them. If people genuinely like the 'boring' cards, then who are we to argue?
Possession. I love possession, and it's a great card, but lots of people hate it.
King's Court. Great card, hated card.
Swindler.
Ill-Gotten Gains.
I'm saying you end up with good cards like lab. Everyone likes lab. But it's not GREAT. I mean, I guess the other issue is that it's only up-or-down, with no differentiation between 'well, I like all these, but this is my FAVOURITE.' Because, if people actually vote as you're saying here, you basically end up with... a plurality system, where people don' vote for anything other than their favourite, because they don't want to help anything else beat their favourite, and hence voting for anything else would be a strategic blunder.
WW, this is not correct. Approval voting does not lead to people voting for just their most favorite. Approval voting has a very nice property that allows strategic voting: Voters can vote for BOTH a compromise candidate and their favorite without harming the chances that their favorite will win. This is not true with plurality voting.
This is obviously false. I like candidate A best, but B is, I guess, okay. There's, I don't know, 4 candidates. I vote A and B. B beats A by a single approval. I have harmed the chances that my favourite won by voting for B. Of course, going in, I could have only voted A, but then this makes it more likely I get C or D. Now, I do think people will vote for more than just their favourite, but I was responding to LF's answer to my previous objection, which is my main thrust, and which I believe still stands.
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Cards must have names, but they won't be shown for voting. Does this mean that the names aren't hugely relevant? We can rename the winning cards as a forum if they're that bad, right?
I don't want to submit "Thing" if it's going to be it's final name in the expansion, you see.
(Note: I am not submitting "Thing" but I can't guarantee my names will be much better than that).
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I think preference lists and multi-round voting systems (whether actually multi-rounds or simulated) would be cool but overkill and beyond what I want to take on. I wonder if there is a simpler hybrid system that will be good enough.
How about this idea? Let's say that everybody gets to vote for a favorite and give it 3 points. This allows people to throw a chunk of points at an attractive but controversial card. Additionally, voters may award 1 point to any number of other cards, indicating "I think this card is acceptable and works." If voters want to refrain from awarding any of these additional points (so as to further bolster their top pick), that's their prerogative. On the other hand, if their top pick isn't one they feel so strongly about that they wouldn't mind seeing a few other cards win instead, they can award some additional points to express that feeling as well.
Ultimately, the winner will probably require BOTH the enthusiastic 3-point votes, plus some 1-point approval votes.
I don't know if 3 and 1 is the right proportion here. Maybe 2 and 1 would work better. But that's the idea. Not quite as optimal or flexible as a fully weighted preference ballot, but simpler to understand and simpler for me to tally.
If I write you a C program that can calculate the alternative vote system for you, would you use it?
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Cards must have names, but they won't be shown for voting. Does this mean that the names aren't hugely relevant? We can rename the winning cards as a forum if they're that bad, right?
I don't want to submit "Thing" if it's going to be it's final name in the expansion, you see.
(Note: I am not submitting "Thing" but I can't guarantee my names will be much better than that).
We'll all know that "Curse Thing" is yours. Ditto to "Peddler variant with twist X"
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I think preference lists and multi-round voting systems (whether actually multi-rounds or simulated) would be cool but overkill and beyond what I want to take on. I wonder if there is a simpler hybrid system that will be good enough.
How about this idea? Let's say that everybody gets to vote for a favorite and give it 3 points. This allows people to throw a chunk of points at an attractive but controversial card. Additionally, voters may award 1 point to any number of other cards, indicating "I think this card is acceptable and works." If voters want to refrain from awarding any of these additional points (so as to further bolster their top pick), that's their prerogative. On the other hand, if their top pick isn't one they feel so strongly about that they wouldn't mind seeing a few other cards win instead, they can award some additional points to express that feeling as well.
Ultimately, the winner will probably require BOTH the enthusiastic 3-point votes, plus some 1-point approval votes.
I don't know if 3 and 1 is the right proportion here. Maybe 2 and 1 would work better. But that's the idea. Not quite as optimal or flexible as a fully weighted preference ballot, but simpler to understand and simpler for me to tally.
If I write you a C program that can calculate the alternative vote system for you, would you use it?
C? How primitive!
I'll do it in Java!
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If I write you a C program that can calculate the alternative vote system for you, would you use it?
Dude, just let rinkworks use his compromise vote system. It's a good middle ground.
This is obviously false. I like candidate A best, but B is, I guess, okay. There's, I don't know, 4 candidates. I vote A and B. B beats A by a single approval. I have harmed the chances that my favourite won by voting for B. Of course, going in, I could have only voted A, but then this makes it more likely I get C or D. Now, I do think people will vote for more than just their favourite, but I was responding to LF's answer to my previous objection, which is my main thrust, and which I believe still stands.
I guess I don't see this as a drawback. If you voted for Card B, then you have no right to complain when Card B wins. For each card, just ask yourself, "If this card wins, will I be pleased or disappointed?"
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If you go too far one way, like towards LastFootnote's system, you'll knock out the most objectionable cards, which can at some point include the best options.
Wait, what? How does this make any kind of sense? Could you give an example of how this could happen?
I'm trying to follow your train of logic. How is it that the most 'objectionable' cards can include the 'best options'? If people think a card is objectionable, they won't vote for it. If they think a card is one of the best options, they will vote for it. If what you mean is that the cards that people vote for aren't actually the best options, then no sensible democratic voting system is going to give you what you're looking for.
If what you're worried about is that everyone will vote for not only the interesting cards they like, but also all the boring cards that they see as 'good enough', then that's a problem with the voters themselves. However, I don't think we have to worry about this, because I think most people will find boring cards 'objectionable' and will therefore not vote for them. If people genuinely like the 'boring' cards, then who are we to argue?
Possession. I love possession, and it's a great card, but lots of people hate it.
King's Court. Great card, hated card.
Swindler.
Ill-Gotten Gains.
I'm saying you end up with good cards like lab. Everyone likes lab. But it's not GREAT. I mean, I guess the other issue is that it's only up-or-down, with no differentiation between 'well, I like all these, but this is my FAVOURITE.' Because, if people actually vote as you're saying here, you basically end up with... a plurality system, where people don' vote for anything other than their favourite, because they don't want to help anything else beat their favourite, and hence voting for anything else would be a strategic blunder.
WW, this is not correct. Approval voting does not lead to people voting for just their most favorite. Approval voting has a very nice property that allows strategic voting: Voters can vote for BOTH a compromise candidate and their favorite without harming the chances that their favorite will win. This is not true with plurality voting.
This is obviously false. I like candidate A best, but B is, I guess, okay. There's, I don't know, 4 candidates. I vote A and B. B beats A by a single approval. I have harmed the chances that my favourite won by voting for B. Of course, going in, I could have only voted A, but then this makes it more likely I get C or D. Now, I do think people will vote for more than just their favourite, but I was responding to LF's answer to my previous objection, which is my main thrust, and which I believe still stands.
You're right. I misstated what is true. It should have simply read: Under strategic voting in equilibrium, approval voting does not necessarily lead to all people voting for only their most favorite.
The gist of the result is that people will vote for compromise candidate and better (weighing benefits and costs), but I was completely incorrect to say there is no harm from doing so.
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Back to the challenge: fantastic idea, Rinkworks! I just finished my designs.
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Cards must have names, but they won't be shown for voting. Does this mean that the names aren't hugely relevant? We can rename the winning cards as a forum if they're that bad, right?
I don't want to submit "Thing" if it's going to be it's final name in the expansion, you see.
(Note: I am not submitting "Thing" but I can't guarantee my names will be much better than that).
We'll all know that "Curse Thing" is yours. Ditto to "Peddler variant with twist X"
I was under the impression the card names wouldn't be announced until designer names were announced; after the voting?
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Cards must have names, but they won't be shown for voting. Does this mean that the names aren't hugely relevant? We can rename the winning cards as a forum if they're that bad, right?
I don't want to submit "Thing" if it's going to be it's final name in the expansion, you see.
(Note: I am not submitting "Thing" but I can't guarantee my names will be much better than that).
We'll all know that "Curse Thing" is yours. Ditto to "Peddler variant with twist X"
I was under the impression the card names wouldn't be announced until designer names were announced; after the voting?
Sorry. That was a joke.
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I can't tell whose joke is going over whose head here.
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Cards must have names, but they won't be shown for voting. Does this mean that the names aren't hugely relevant? We can rename the winning cards as a forum if they're that bad, right?
I don't want to submit "Thing" if it's going to be it's final name in the expansion, you see.
(Note: I am not submitting "Thing" but I can't guarantee my names will be much better than that).
No reason to lock ourselves into a final name; I just mostly figured that names are fun and would make the results that much more interesting. Plus I didn't want to have to juggle a bunch of "Unnamed Card" cards when tabulating the results.
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I have so many ideas I don't know which one to submit!
We should probably have a "these are my rejected ideas from last week" thread.
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I have so many ideas I don't know which one to submit!
Wow, really? I already submitted a cursing card, but so far I'm drawing a blank on a Peddler variant. The necessity of +1 Card, +1 Action, +$1, but never more than that seems really restrictive. Not that that makes it a bad category for this contest. Probably I'm just not good at coming up with that sort of card.
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I have so many ideas I don't know which one to submit!
Wow, really? I already submitted a cursing card, but so far I'm drawing a blank on a Peddler variant. The necessity of +1 Card, +1 Action, +$1, but never more than that seems really restrictive. Not that that makes it a bad category for this contest. Probably I'm just not good at coming up with that sort of card.
I have problems with the peddler variant too. The curser is simpler.
For clarification: Ironworks wouldn't work as peddler variant because I can get +1 Card, +1 Action, +$1 but not all together, right?
But would an Ironworks variant with an additional +1$ - which you always get - work? Because if you gain a Great Hall, you have met all requirements. I hope I assume right.
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I have so many ideas I don't know which one to submit!
Wow, really? I already submitted a cursing card, but so far I'm drawing a blank on a Peddler variant. The necessity of +1 Card, +1 Action, +$1, but never more than that seems really restrictive. Not that that makes it a bad category for this contest. Probably I'm just not good at coming up with that sort of card.
I also have three different cursing attacks. I only submitted the least brutal one. With the Peddler though, I can't think of anything.
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Why not do it like I do it with my rankings:
Everybody sends in a ranked list of all submissions.
Every submission gets points equivalent to its rank (The 9th ranked submission gets 9 points) and then the submission with the least points wins.
This is very similar to the proposed system but way easier to calculate.
No. It's called the Borda Count and it has exactly the opposite effect of what's desired here. The winners of Borda Count elections tend to be uncontroversial and mediocre.
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I came up with a Peddler pretty much straight away and have been happy with it ever since. Been through a few different Cursers though and still not 100% happy with my latest one (others have all been completely ruled out due to rules issues and such).
Maybe I'm just strange?
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Here's a helping hand with Peddlers ideas.
Workaround
Action
$6
Gain a card costing exactly 3P.
All even-costing cards cost 1$ less.
Gain a VP chip for every Estate left in the supply.
Reveal your hand, if it consists of exactly 8 Provinces:
+1 Card, +1 Action, +1$.
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Here's a helping hand with Peddlers ideas.
Workaround
Action
$6
Gain a card costing exactly 3P.
All even-costing cards cost 1$ less.
Gain a VP chip for every Estate left in the supply.
Reveal your hand, if it consists of exactly 8 Provinces:
+1 Card, +1 Action, +1$.
haha nice
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I've heard Donald plans to release a Treasure -- Action -- Victory card that costs less than $4.
Therefore, I am simply going to submit Ironworks, which will indeed be a Peddler, one day.
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What? Page 3 and no Arrow's Impossibility Theorem?
f.ds, i am disappoint
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What? Page 3 and no Arrow's Impossibility Theorem?
f.ds, i am disappoint
Wait... Isotropic's being replaced? :o
Oops, wrong rule
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Would Highway count as a Peddler? My guess is "yes".
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Would Highway count as a Peddler? My guess is "yes".
Wheee, that's a tough one. Because it can effectively give you more than $1, that would seem to violate the rules. But since it doesn't have +Buy, it needs outside help to do that. And if you rule out outside help, you have to rule out basically everything, right? Because you could theorize having a card that says "While this is in play, if another card says +1 Card, it means +2 Cards."
So, since it does not offer +Buy, I say "Highway" counts.
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Gee, I would have thought it wouldn't, because while it's effectively at least a peddler, it doesn't ACTUALLY give you the coin. Which is important in some cases (everything already free, KC it, etc.).
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If everything is already free, having an additional 1$ is as useless as lowering everything's cost.
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I agree with WW. Highway is not a Peddler because it doesn't give you +1 card, +1 action, and +$1.
I mean, I would say Highway IS a Peddler, just that when you specified the definition of a Peddler variant, perhaps you should have said, "any card that gives +1 card, +1 action, and a bonus equivalent to +$1." I think Highway fits the broad definition of Peddler, just not your given definition.
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I agree with WW. Highway is not a Peddler because it doesn't give you +1 card, +1 action, and +$1.
I mean, I would say Highway IS a Peddler, just that when you specified the definition of a Peddler variant, perhaps you should have said, "any card that gives +1 card, +1 action, and a bonus equivalent to +$1." I think Highway fits the broad definition of Peddler, just not your given definition.
I see your point. I did consider expounding on the rule for Challenge #1 and specifying that you don't have to have the exact text of "+1 Card", etc, on the card, so long as the card results in the same ultimate effect. But then I figured that would be too many nitty, confusing rules and would go unsaid anyway. Was I wrong, or is the sticking point that "+$1" and "prices are reduced by $1" are actually different effects, even if they have the same practical consequences? I can see the argument that this is not the same as "+1 Card" and "Put the top card of your deck into your hand" being different ways of saying the same thing.
Fortunately, there haven't been any submissions that have blurred this line yet.
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Rinkworks, it's your competition, and you can do it whatever way you like. I think it's perfectly fine for Highway to be a Peddler variant, but for ease of rules comprehension in your competition, Highway is NOT considered a Peddler, and all submitted Peddlers must include + $1.
Or you could change the official challenge to include +$1 or "something equivalent to +$1" and use your discretion as to whether a given card qualifies.
I'm keeping the card I submitted, either way :)
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I think that what's more comparable to the highway case would be a Peddler which drew you up to 5 cards. It would have the same effect as +1 card in certain situations, but it could draw you more cards in other cases.
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I think that what's more comparable to the highway case would be a Peddler which drew you up to 5 cards. It would have the same effect as +1 card in certain situations, but it could draw you more cards in other cases.
I think that card is definitely disqualified, right? The rules of the challenge state that the card may not draw more than +1 card.
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Highway isn't really a Peddler variant at all. It's strictly worse than Treasury if you don't have +buy or gain. It exists purely for the cases where it is +1 card +1 Action +2$ or better.
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I think that what's more comparable to the highway case would be a Peddler which drew you up to 5 cards. It would have the same effect as +1 card in certain situations, but it could draw you more cards in other cases.
I think that card is definitely disqualified, right? The rules of the challenge state that the card may not draw more than +1 card.
And by that logic, I think that Highway or similar cannot be a Peddler Variant. Without +buy or gain, Highway provides only +$1. However, it's most useful in situations where you can effectively get more than +$1 by getting +$1 per buy or by raising the ceiling for gaining cards. Similarly, my Peddler drawing up to 5 would be more useful with handsize decreasing cards, even attacks.
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Just to be clear, we need to include any rules clarifications that are not addressed within the card text itself in the PM, correct?
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Just to be clear, we need to include any rules clarifications that are not addressed within the card text itself in the PM, correct?
Yeah, that's definitely fine. If I think the card is clear without them, I might opt not to reveal some or all of those clarifications on the ballot. But they'd still potentially be useful to have in case questions arise.
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@ the deadline in the OP: I assume you actually mean EDT, not EST.
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@ the deadline in the OP: I assume you actually mean EDT, not EST.
I actually did mean EST, but no matter -- both deadlines are past now. Working on posting the ballot....
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@ the deadline in the OP: I assume you actually mean EDT, not EST.
I actually did mean EST, but no matter -- both deadlines are past now. Working on posting the ballot....
Just as a curiosity, why would you reference a time zone that roughly no one is currently using?
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@ the deadline in the OP: I assume you actually mean EDT, not EST.
I actually did mean EST, but no matter -- both deadlines are past now. Working on posting the ballot....
Just as a curiosity, why would you reference a time zone that roughly no one is currently using?
Um, wait. EDT. Yeah, I meant that.
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I was planning on submitting my entry yesterday, but since the forum was down I didn't get to do it until this morning around 11 or so, technically a couple hours after the deadline. I hope you accept it anyway!
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Same here. I wanted to post it too, but the forums were down the whole day. I will send you mine now and hope you will accept them too.
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Sure, since the forum was down, might as well allow a little more time. Let's say by 5pm EDT today, which is another 2+ hours.
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But that means I have to wait 2+ more hours to see the entries :'(
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Here is the ballot for Challenges #1 and #2!
--
Voting Rules:
Each person may cast votes as follows: For each Challenge, you may fill your ballot out in one of two ways:
(1) Award 3 points to one entry. Award 1 point to any number of other entries.
(2) Award 2 points to each of two entries. Award 1 point to any number of other entries.
Submit your votes via PM to me by Monday, July 9, 2012, 8am EDT in the following format:
Challenge 1
3 CardName
1 AnotherCardName
1 StillAnotherCardName
1 AnotherCardNameGoesHereToo
Challenge 2
2 CardName
2 AnotherCardName
1 StillAnotherCardName
Do not submit votes for your own cards.
By submitting vote(s) for a challenge, you will automatically earn 1 point for your entry in that challenge. This is to incentivize contestants to submit votes.
Note that the supplied card names are for discussion/identification only -- they are not the card names that were submitted to me. The proper card names will be revealed when the results are announced. Whenever card text says "[This Card]" it means the submitted text says the card's own name there.
Inclusion on the ballot means that the card was deemed eligible for the contest. You therefore do not need to consider eligibility when voting. In some cases, this may mean a pretty loose interpretation of the eligibility requirements. I tried to be fair but also forgiving when a submission came in that twisted the rules in a way I hadn't foreseen. In at least one case, different submissions interpreted the eligibility requirements in contradictory ways.
As a voter, you may use whatever criteria you wish in determining what your votes will be. Be as forgiving or particular as you like concerning conformance to standard Dominion terminology. For all winning cards, there will be a chance to tweak the wording as a community, if necessary, before they are canonized.
--
Challenge #1 - Ballot
Sirius
$2 Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
If this is in your hand during your Buy phase, +$1, +1 Buy.
Canopus
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
You may trash a card from your hand.
Arcturus
$0 - Action-Reaction
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
At the end of your turn, return this card to the supply.
--
When another player plays [This Card], you may set this aside from your hand. If you do, gain a copy of [This Card], and return this to your hand at the start of your next turn.
Vega
$4 - Action
+1 Action
+$1
You may trash a card. If you do, +1 Card.
Rigel
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Gain a copper in hand.
Procyon
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
You may discard a Treasure card. If you do +Buy for each $ the card generates.
Betelgeuse
$2 - Action
Look at the top 4 cards of your deck. Reveal and discard up to 3 of them. Put the rest back in any order.
If you revealed an Action card, +1 Card.
If you revealed a Treasure card, +1 Action.
If you revealed a Victory card, +$1.
Achernar
$3 - Action
Reveal your hand.
If you reveal a Victory card, +1 Action.
If you reveal an Action card, +$1.
If you reveal a Curse, +1 VP.
If you reveal a Treasure card, +1 Card.
Hadar
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
You may gain a card costing up to $4 that is not a [This Card] or a Victory card.
Capella
$3 - Action
+1 Action
+1 Buy
If there are 1 or fewer empty piles in the supply, +1 Card. If there are no empty piles in the supply, +$1.
Altair
$3 - Action
+1 Card
+$1
--
If you have no actions left during your action phase, you may reveal and discard this. If you do, +1 Action.
Aldebaran
$5 - Action-Reaction
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
You may set aside an action card from your hand face down on your [This Card] mat; or take a card from your [This Card] mat and place it in your hand. You may look at the cards on your mat at any time; return them to your deck at the end of the game.
When another player plays an attack card, you may reveal this card. If you do, set aside an action card from your hand face down on your [This Card] mat.
Spica
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Each other player may discard a Treasure card from his or her hand. If nobody does, +1 Buy and +$1.
Antares
$3 - Action
+1 Buy
Reveal your hand. If you reveal
any victory cards, +1 Card
any action cards, +1 Action
any treasure cards, +$1
Pollux
$6 - Action-Attack
Upon playing this card, you may reveal and discard a Province from your hand. If you do, each other player must discard a Treasure or reveal a hand with no Treasure.
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Fomalhaut
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Each other player may trash a treasure card from their hand. If no player trashes a card, +$1.
You may trash a card from your hand.
Deneb
Action - $4
When there is at least one [This Card] card in the supply:
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
When there are no more [This Card] cards in the supply:
+1 Action
+1 VP
Mimosa
$5 - Action
Take a card from your discard pile and place it on the bottom of your deck.
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Regulus
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Gain a card costing $4 or less.
--
While this is in play, Treasure cards cost $1 more.
Acrux
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
The player to your right draws 1 card.
--
When you buy this card, the player to your left gains it in his hand.
Adara
$2 - Action
+1 Action
+1 Card
+$1
--
When you buy this, gain another [This Card].
While this is in play, you may not buy cards costing more than $6.
Shaula
$5 - Action
+1 Action
Reveal the top three cards of your deck. You may put one into your hand. You may trash one; if you do, +$1. Discard the remainder.
Gacrux
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Trash a card from your hand.
Bellatrix
$1 - Action
+1 Action
+1 Card
+$1
--
When you buy this card, +1 Buy.
If you played this card on your turn, during clean up, return it to the supply.
Miaplacidus
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
When you play this, if you have gained no cards this turn, you may gain a card costing up to 1 coin for each action card you have in play, counting this. If its a victory card, trash this.
Alioth
$2 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
You may gain a Copper, putting it into your hand.
Mirfak
$6 Action-Attack
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Each other player may reveal a Gold from their hand. If no one does, gain a Gold, placing it on your deck, and each other player gains a copper, placing it on their deck.
Wezen
$3 - Action
Reveal your hand. If you revealed any...
Action cards, +1 Action
Treasure cards, +$1
Victory cards, +1 Card
Sargas
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Gain a card costing no more than $1 for every action you have played this turn (counting this). If that card costs more than this, then trash this.
Alhena
$5 - Action
+1 Action
+$1
Discard 2 cards, if you do look through your discard pile and draw a card from it.
Peacock
$6 - Treasure
Worth $1
+1 Buy
--
Immediately begin a new action phase.
+1 Card
+1 Action
--
(Rules clarifications: This card interrupts your buy phase; you begin a new action phase before purchasing anything. This new action phase does not have an inherent action, nor do any remaining actions from the previous action phase carry over to the new action phase. After completing this action phase, the player re-enters their buy phase.)
Castor
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
At the start of your clean-up phase, you may trash any number of action cards you have in play, including this. Then you may gain a card costing up to $1 per the number of trashed cards other than this, plus $2 if you trashed this.
Polaris
$4 - Action
+1 card
+1 action
+$1
You may trash a treasure card from your hand.
If you don't, trash this card.
Murzim
$4* - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
--
This costs $1 more per Action card you have in play.
Alphard
$4 - Action
Look at the top card of your deck and discard it or put it back.
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Hamal
$5 - Action
Look at the top 2 cards of your deck. Put one into your hand, discard the other card.
+1 Action
+$1
--
Challenge #2 entrants in the next post.
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Challenge #2 - Ballot
Ganymede
$4 - Action-Duration
+2 Cards
If another player reshuffles his deck before the start of your next turn, he gains a Curse on top of his deck.
--
(Rules clarification: This is a typical duration card in that it gets cleaned up at the end of the player's next turn.)
Titan
$5 - Action
+$2
Each other player may gain a curse, if they do not they gain two coppers.
Callisto
$5 - Action
+1 Action
Reveal the top 5 cards of your deck. Return all revealed Curses to the supply; discard the other revealed cards. If at least one Curse was revealed, each other player gains a Curse card, placing it in their hand. If no Curses were revealed, +1 Card.
Io
$4 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Each other player gains a Curse and draws a card.
Europa
$4 - Action-Attack
The player to your left may choose to have each of your opponents gain a curse. If no curses were gained this way, +4 Cards.
Otherwise, +1 Action.
Triton
$5 - Action-Attack
+1 Card
+1 Buy
+$1
Every player (including you) gains a curse.
Reveal your hand. Until the end of your turn, cards cost $1 less for every curse you revealed.
Titania
$5 - Action
+$3
Put two cards from the your hand on top of your deck.
Each other player gains a curse.
Rhea
$4 - Action-Attack
Choose 1: trash any number of cards from your hand and gain a Curse, putting it in your hand; or trash up to one Curse from your hand, and each other player gains a Curse card, putting it in his hand.
Oberon
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Discard a card. Each other player draws a card and then gains a curse.
Iapetus
$4 - Action-Reaction
Gain a card costing up to $4.
--
When another player would gain a non-victory card from a pile without a [This Card] Token on it, you may reveal this card from your hand. If you do, he gains a curse instead and a [This Card] Token is placed on the pile.
Charon
$4 - Action
+$2
Trash this card. Place a [This Card] token on The supply pile of an action card. When a player plays a copy of that card, each other player gains a curse.
Umbriel
$4 - Action-Attack
+$2
You may choose to have each other player gain a Curse. If you do, gain a [This Card] token. If you have 2 or more [This Card] tokens, lose 2 [This Card] tokens and trash this card.
Ariel
$6 - Action-Attack-Duration
Choose one: +$2 or +1 VP
Each other player may discard two treasure cards. If he doesn't, he gains a Curse.
--
At the start of your next turn, you may discard up to 3 cards from your hand. Each other player must discard the same number of cards.
Dione
$4 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Choose a card from your hand and put it on the bottom of the [This Card] deck. Reveal the top card of the [This Card] deck and return it to the supply. Each other player gains a copy of the revealed card.
--
Setup: Shuffle a [This Card] deck containing 1 copper, 1 estate, 1 silver and 1 curse. (From the supply).
Tethys
$4 - Attack
+2 Actions
Each other player gains a curse.
If another player reveals a curse from hand: +2 Actions, discard down to three cards in hand.
Enceladus
$2 - Action-Attack
Each other player gains a Curse card.
--
When you gain this card: gain a Curse card.
Miranda
$3 - Action-Attack
+$1
Each other player gains a Curse.
--
When you gain this card, gain a Curse.
Proteus
$4 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Each other player puts a Curse from the Supply on his [This Card] mat.
--
In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you don't, gain all the cards on your [This Card] mat.
Mimas
$4 - Action-Attack
Each other player reveals a treasure card from his hand or reveals a hand without treasures. For each player who revealed a treasure card, you choose one: he gains a curse, or he trashes the revealed treasure card and you gain it.
Dysnomia
$3 - Action-Attack
+$1
Name a card other than Copper or Estate. Each other player reveals his hand. If he reveals the card you named, he gains a Curse. If no other player gains a Curse this way, you do.
Nereid
$5 - Action-Attack
+$2
Discard any number of Curses, +1$ per Curse discarded.
If there's at least 1 Curse left per player in the Curse pile, all other players gain a Curse.
Hyperion
$3 - Action/Attack
+$2
You may trash a card from your hand costing at least $3. If you don't, trash this. Each other player gains a Curse.
Phoebe
$4 - Action-Duration-Attack
+$2
Each other player gains a curse.
--
At the start of your next turn, choose one: Gain a curse, or discard 2 cards
Larissa
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Name a type of card. Each other player reveals the top card of their deck. If it's the named type, they gain a curse, and discard the revealed card. If it isn't the named type, they put it back on top.
Janus
$5 - Action-Attack
+1 Card
Choose 1 - All other players gain a curse OR you may play curse cards as if they were silvers for the rest of this turn.
Galatea
$4 - Action-Attack
+$2
You may trash 1 Treasure card from your hand. Gain a [This Card] token. If you now have an even number of [This Card] tokens, every other player gains a Curse.
Himalia
$3 Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Each other player may reveal an Estate or Curse from their hand. If he doesn't, he gains a Curse and an Estate.
Namaka
$4 - Action-Attack
Trash up to four cards from your hand. If the combined value of the trashed cards exceeds $5, +$3 and each other player gains a curse on top of their deck.
Amalthea
$5 - Treasure-Reaction
Worth $1
+1 Buy
--
When you buy a card costing up to $2, you may discard this from your hand. If you do, each other player gains a Curse card.
Puck
$5 - Action
+$2
+3 Cards
Discard 3 cards. If you discarded 3 differently named cards, every other player gains a curse.
Despina
$4 - Treasure
Worth $0
Trash a treasure card from your hand. If you do, each other player gains a curse to their hand.
Portia
$6 - Action-Duration
+$3
While this is in play, any time you would buy costing $4 or more, you may instead force every other player to gain a curse.
If, at the start of any of your turns, there are no curses in the supply, you may return any number of curses from your hand to the supply.
--
This card remains in play.
--
(Rules clarifications: This is an action-duration, but it is not cleaned up at the end of any turn. The +$3 bonus takes place only on the turn the card is played, not every turn. If the player chooses to give a curse instead, the card is not gained but is returned to the supply and the player forfeits that buy and any treasure or virtual money that would have been used to purchase it.)
Epimetheus
$5 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Put one card from your hand on top of your deck.
Each opponent chooses one: they gain a curse card and put it in their hand, or put a curse from their hand on top on their deck.
If one choice is impossible, they must take the other one. If both choices are impossible, they reveal their hand.
Hydra
$7 - Action-Attack-Duration
Now and at the start of your next turn: Each other player takes a curse or reveals a hand with no curse cards.
Thebe
$3 - Action-Attack
+1 Action
You may gain a Curse card.
If you gained a Curse card this turn, each other player gains a Curse card.
Juliet
$4 - Action-Attack
+2 Actions
Each other player gains a Curse.
Nix
$3 - Action-Attack
+1 Action
Reveal and discard up to four cards from your hand.
+1 Card for each Victory and Treasure card you discard.
+$2 for each Curse you discard.
If you discard at least one Action, each other player gains a Curse.
Elara
$5 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Reveal a card from your hand.
Each other player chooses one:
he discards a copy of that card;
or he reveals a hand with no copy of that card and discards one card;
or he gains a Curse card, putting it in his hand.
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Not finished reading yet, but I think Hadar needs editting.
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*cough*
Nothing here,
just letting you know ill be submitting by PM shortly...
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You are supposed to submit your votes by PM, I believe.
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Does anyone else here think Juliet's a little too good for 4? Even 5?
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There's a lot of good ideas here! Crossing my fingers for my submissions, but I was definitely able to find others to vote for.
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Does anyone else here think Juliet's a little too good for 4? Even 5?
It's a tough one to price. At $5, compare it to Witch. The general scheme of dominion pricing is that +Cards > +Actions. So at 5$, I would almost always purchase Witch over this card. At 4, you compare to sea hag where you yourself get no benefit for cursing your opponent. This card gives you a whopping +2 actions. That's just my opinion, feel free to take it for what it's worth.
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Point Taken, but with +2 Actions it becomes a lot easier to chain
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Holy smokes. Thanks for putting in the work on this - that's a ton of cards to sort through.
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I think the peddler cards could've done a lot better. But the cursers, they're pretty well designed!
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AHHHHHH
too many cards to judge
AHHHHHH
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Man, I hope we get enough submissions for this thing.
Oh look rinkworks posted something..
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Wow, that's a lot of cards. I count 36 peddlers and 38 cursers. Any chance we could do a second round of voting? Take, say, the top ten from each category?
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To start off discussion, here's a list of peddler cards I think are too strong or too weak to get an approval point.
Canopus,
Vega,
Procyon(weak),
Archernar(weak),
Hadar,
Capella(weak),
Altair(weak),
Antares,
Formalhaut(weak),
Deneb,
Regulus,
Adara(altVP-strong,Provweak),
Shaula,
Mirfak,
Wezen(weak),
Alhena(weak),
Murzim,
Alphard,
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To start off discussion, here's a list of peddler cards I think are too strong or too weak to get an approval point.
Canopus,
Vega,
Procyon(weak),
Archernar(weak),
Hadar,
Capella(weak),
Altair(weak),
Antares,
Formalhaut(weak),
Deneb,
Regulus,
Adara(altVP-strong,Provweak),
Shaula,
Mirfak,
Wezen(weak),
Alhena(weak),
Murzim,
Alphard,
Of the cards on your list, I gave approval votes to Regulus and Wezen. I agree that Regulus is a bit strong, but I think Wezen is perfect at $3.
Also, what makes you think Murzim is too strong? $4 is a balanced cost for a vanilla +1 Card/+1 Action/+$1. The cost-increase makes it too weak, in my opinion.
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Wait, you think Altair is too weak? It looks pretty balanced to me.
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I also think Regulus/Hadar is too strong. Imagine playing this card with caravan, or conspirator, or alt vp (not Hadar, here), or pretty much any cheap cantrip. Heck, even using to fill your deck with silver would be strong. Unlike other card gainers, like ironworks, this card improves your current hand in addition to improving your deck, and there's no disadvantage to spamming it.
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Wait, you think Altair is too weak? It looks pretty balanced to me.
Because I was looking at it wrong. The discard ability is really "You may play this as a nerfed Native Village, even if you draw it dead". It's like a mini Nobles. This makes me think this exercise was a good idea! Has me re-examine things.
I expect Wezen to fizzle too much to be worth it. As you say, 4$ is about on the nose for +1 action +1 card +1$. 3$ is a roughly equivalent price point though, and I see this fizzling from less that +1 card +1 action +1$ at least like 15% of the time, which is enough to make you just want a Silver. It also dead draws into actions.
It's not that you'd never ever buy the card, I think a strong indication for cantrip moneymakers like Scrying Pool or Vineyards is of course going to encourage it. It just relies heavily enough on co-ercing you into wanting it that I don't think it is worth having. I think it creates lots of 9 card boards.
By "too strong" I mean that the first copy of Morzim seems like an overly simplified opening decision. If there's a powerful terminal Silver, I'm going to open that with a Peddler every time. Peddler is almost strictly better than Silver, it replaces its action and in place of 1 of the $'s gives you a card instead, which starts at a worth around 1$ and just increases from there as the game goes on. In more games than not, it will simplify the process of choosing an opening buy.
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To start off discussion, here's a list of peddler cards I think are too strong or too weak to get an approval point.
Canopus,
Vega,
Procyon(weak),
Archernar(weak),
Hadar,
Capella(weak),
Altair(weak),
Antares,
Formalhaut(weak),
Deneb,
Regulus,
Adara(altVP-strong,Provweak),
Shaula,
Mirfak,
Wezen(weak),
Alhena(weak),
Murzim,
Alphard,
Of the cards on your list, I gave approval votes to Regulus and Wezen. I agree that Regulus is a bit strong, but I think Wezen is perfect at $3.
Also, what makes you think Murzim is too strong? $4 is a balanced cost for a vanilla +1 Card/+1 Action/+$1. The cost-increase makes it too weak, in my opinion.
The Wezen-style cards strike me as weak without an engine (Like pops said, it'd fizzle too often) but potentially strong with one. It's a little like conspirator in that regard, but the payoff is lower, so it's more likely to be a support card than the star of the show.
Murzim strikes me as a good opener, then too weak otherwise on most boards, but with remodelers it could be quite strong, since murzims could easily be converted to provinces or even colonies. I would guess it'd be too strong in those situations.
Edit: Don't know what I was thinking about Murzim. Remodeling it shouldn't be too strong.
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What? Page 3 and no Arrow's Impossibility Theorem?
f.ds, i am disappoint
OK, here's a mention of Arrow's Impossibility Theorem: there are voting systems to which it does not apply, and Approval Voting is one of them.
My personal choice would be Range Voting: each voter assigns each card a score between 0 and 9 inclusive, and the card with the highest total score wins.
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I don't see how Altair meets the requirements? You can't discard and play the same copy of the card... Also, it seems like Elara is strictly worse than Witch?
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This time I edited rinkworks post to discuss the too strong or weak cursers I don't plan to approve. Not with this one and the last one that there may be other cards I don't approve for a different reason.
Challenge #2 - Ballot
Titan
Too strong
Callisto
Weak
Titania
Weak
Rhea
Strong in an ambassadorish way. If I deny it an approval vote, it can't really be for power. I think.
Iapetus
Strong
Ariel
Strong
Dysnomia
Weak
Hyperion
Too strong (compare to igg)
Namaka
Too strong
Puck
$5 - Action
Too strong. Compare to YW
Despina
This produces 2$ less than Loan. Loan is weak. This compares really poorly to Loan and Sea Hag.
Too weak.
Hydra
Too weak
Thebe
Too weak.
Juliet
Too strong. Compare to village, do I want to draw a card or hand out curses? Hand out curses, by a lot.
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Elara is strictly worse than Witch. Donald avoids strictly worse because it annoys some people (I think I read that in the secret histories?). But in a game with an ever changing card pool strictly better is okay, the cards may not show up together.
Of course, if you are strictly worse than a borderline card like Loan, then there is concern that maybe the card is too weak to even be purchased with enough frequency.
Edge case: Elara is stronger against Library!
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Something I see a lot of which I really don't like for the curse cards is when the best defense against the curser is to buy the curser yourself. I mean, as it is you likely already want to get a witch just to dish out curses faster, so do we really need to further incentivize that?
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Comments on the Peddler-style cards that get my attention:
I see Betelgeuse wasn't on pops's strong list. It seems rather strong at $2. Isn't it nearly a cartographer?
The fact that Achernar does the opposite card-type permutation of Betelgeuse is amusing. The Curse bonus is interesting. It's definitely an "assist" card rather than the star of either a money deck or an engine, but I can see it being worth the price in big-card-draw engines or in games that are slowed down by cursing cards. Right?
Aldebaran: I think like it. That's the first $5 reaction, right? I wish there wasn't such a proliferation of mats in the game, though, and if I had this card I'd be tempted to make a house rule that the Aldebaran mat and the NV mat are the same. Which could make some fun combos. But I digress because that's not the card we're voting on.
Acrux: *political head-explody*
It's great in a two-player game. In 3P, isn't the end result basically going to be to enable collusion against the guy to your left?
Peacock: Wow. That really takes the weird effect of Black Market and milks it for all it's worth. Is the fact that I really want to play Peacock/Tactician a good thing or a bad thing?
We haven't seen many nonterminal trashers before. The only reason Gacrux isn't strong as hell, I think, is that it will quickly run out of fuel (cards to trash). As a nonterminal trasher/gainer, isn't Castor really really strong? Not just $5 strong?
Murzim: Too strong, you say? I see that it can be remodeled into Provinces or Colonies, but then Peddlers can be remodeled into Provinces or expanded into Colonies and they're not broken. Unless you can abuse the heck out of that, I don't think it's too strong: when you're not doing remodeling shenanigans it's an average-cost to expensive Peddler.
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I don't think the idea is to incentivize it. Strong cursers are mandatory anyway. Given that, providing the other mechanics makes the games have a unique quality so the game feels different from a Witch game, and you buy your other cards differently because of it.
That said, it's a bad thing if the do-cool-stuff-with-curses effect is so strong that you can just stack the power curser to curse super fast, then not even suffer from having too many of them later. Then it becomes kinda like IGG in that all your 5$ purchases are getting dictated and it's boring.
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Pollux
$6 - Action-Attack
Upon playing this card, you may reveal and discard a Province from your hand. If you do, each other player must discard a Treasure or reveal a hand with no Treasure.
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
This card is like a cantripped Cutpurse that gives $1 not $2 and rarely attacks, or an ever-so-slightly improved Peddler. The attack just seems too weak, and the cost $1 or even $2 too steep. The attack will mostly happen during the endgame, where it probably won't matter much, especially against playing an engine or no trashing (still has Copper).
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ninja'ed - Bertelguese (however you spell it) isn't a cartographer because to get the best bonus, +card, you have to discard an action, something you definitely want to leave on top. For instance, if the action is Lab, you can discard it for +1 card this turn, -1 card next turn, which is nothing at all. If it's a cheaper action, you get some benefit out of it because you split the difference.
It otherwise plays as a copper with a deck inspection utility if you choose not to superspy yourself by chunking an action.
It also fizzles sometimes.
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Hydra
$7 - Action-Attack-Duration
Now and at the start of your next turn: Each other player takes a curse or reveals a hand with no curse cards.
Am I reading this wrong or does this card not ever give out curses by itself? You only get a curse if you already have a curse?
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You're reading it right. I'm guessing the writer wasn't "writing it right"
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I don't think the idea is to incentivize it. Strong cursers are mandatory anyway. Given that, providing the other mechanics makes the games have a unique quality so the game feels different from a Witch game, and you buy your other cards differently because of it.
That said, it's a bad thing if the do-cool-stuff-with-curses effect is so strong that you can just stack the power curser to curse super fast, then not even suffer from having too many of them later. Then it becomes kinda like IGG in that all your 5$ purchases are getting dictated and it's boring.
No, I know the point isn't to incentive it, that's just the result. And it's more like, by having a card be the best defense to curses while still giving them out, well why would you ever buy another curser. As of now, say you have both witch and mountebank on the board, well you have interesting decisions to make about what to get.
And yeah, I agree that any curse givers which are easily stackable are even worse.
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Edge case: Elara is stronger against Library!
How?
Edits to avoid multiple posts...
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Bellatrix seems way too strong; it basically lets you carry forward up to $10 of unused money to future turns for free (not to mention TR/KC), and gives the player in the lead a much easier time ending the game on piles.
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Despina
This produces 2$ less than Loan. Loan is weak. This compares really poorly to Loan and Sea Hag.
Too weak.
I'm not so sure. It does a bit of what Loan does *and* it curses. And you surely remember how underrated JoaT was initially... on a board with a lot of engine potential, being able to get rid of your Copper and slow opponents down at the same time seems pretty valuable. I could see an argument that it should give $1 though.
(But I don't know what you mean about producing $2 less than Loan. Loan only produces $1 if I'm thinking straight.)
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With Nix, would you get +2 cards by discarding a Harem?
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I feel disincentivized to vote since it disadvantages me. I will anyway since I don't think mine are the very best.
My curser is in the top half. Opinions:
Enceladus: With a 5/2, this seems too powerful, otherwise weak. It only makes sense as an opener or if there are no other good terminals or trashers. It takes 3 uses to make it a worthwhile addition to your deck.
Miranda: I like this more, though it is very powerful. A Miranda/Miranda opening leads to an extremely cursed game, though that means there are few curses to dish out. Seems okay.
Proteus: It gives players the choice to discard a card for the rest of their lives to save themselves from the many curses. Doesn't work amazingly well in multiples, and I am fine with that. This one seems dynamic and interesting; the key is that it is okay to take the curses after each reshuffle. Seems fun.
Mimas: Nearly always weaker at cursing than Sea Hag, but you can catch someone off guard and steal a Silver from their hand. You can steal a key Copper from a player about to buy a useful card. Seems time consuming and too strong for multiplayer.
Dysnomia: What about naming Curse?! That seems cruel that the Cursing gets worse over time or if the opponent messes up.
Nereid: Seems okay.
Hyperion: An Embargo that hits a card that the opponent buys once seems like a big victory. This card could become a problem if nearly every 4/3 player gets one, but that happens often. Seems fun.
Phoebe: Too strong.
Larissa: Too random.
Janus: Playing Curses as Silvers is more complicated than saying you can discard Curses for 2 coin each. Seems okay.
Galatea: In cursing games, trashing Coppers is often weak. Thought about another way: half of these cards are +4 coin, the other half are weak Sea Hags. Too strong.
Himalia: Too random for my tastes, but seems like it can be controlled for.
Namaka: This starts out as a Chapel, but extremely lucky players can trash their starting Estates for a massive lead. Other than that case, seems okay.
Amalthea: Often weak, since it requires you to mass 2-cost cards. The reaction could be changed to on gain, since it would then protect against Cursers, but then it would protect against itself.
Puck: I play Puck. I have 7 cards in hand, 4 coppers, 2 estates, 1 terminal action. I can discard 1 of each, curse my opponent and get a card worth 5. I play Witch. I have 6 cards in hand, 4 coppers, 1 estate, 1 terminal action. I curse my opponent a get a card worth 4. Later in the game you can always discard 3 of the 4: terminal actions, Copper, Estates, Curses. Seems too strong with +$2.
Despina: Being a treasure doesn't seem interesting. It seems like the only difference between that and a non-terminal action is that this one can be used in Smithy+BM.
Portia: I don't want to have the game slow down because all of my opponent's buys that aren't good for him to turn into Curses.
Epimethus: Would be better worded as "Each other player reveals their hand. Each player that reveals a Curse places it on top of their deck. Each player that didn't reveal a Curse gains a curse, placing it in their hand."
Hydra: Likely has a typo.
Thebe: Seems weak, since it is a combo card that only works with itself and only a couple of times per game.
Juliet: Too strong.
Nix: Too strong, since it is at least a Cellar. Cursing or $2 is nearly always better than +1 card. It would have to cost at least 4.
Elara: Is much weaker than Witch.
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I've printed both lists in full and will be going over them at work. Since there're just too many cards to compare, my first move will be to immediately eliminate any cards worded incorrectly, with wrong typings, or with gaping rules issues (e.g. on my first read through I saw a number of cursers typed simply as "Attack").
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Sorry for a very long post, but I think discussing is a lot easier with the card description right there. Is there a collate-option?
Here's my reaction to the Peddlers. One of them is mine, but I just commented on that one too to not raise attention.
Sirius
$2 Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
If this is in your hand during your Buy phase, +$1, +1 Buy.
> It looks like an interesting take on Pawn, albeit a tad stronger (since not playing it effectively nets you an action, $1 and a buy). However, I would consistently not play it and use it for the second effect. In that case, it's just a copper with a buy. As card design goes, I'd rather have it that simple: a copper with a buy.
Canopus
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
You may trash a card from your hand.
>Very powerful card, maybe a tad boring. I think it should be $5. I would pick one up pretty much whenever I'd see it. I'm afraid it take some of the thunder from other trashers, which are usually more interesting.
Arcturus
$0 - Action-Reaction
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
At the end of your turn, return this card to the supply.
--
When another player plays [This Card], you may set this aside from your hand. If you do, gain a copy of [This Card], and return this to your hand at the start of your next turn.
>Interesting. Hard to say how this would play out. I think it combines well with remaking curses and coppers and such; also with Goons, of course. I don't know - I wouldn't deliberately go for them since playing them can help your opponents out a lot. But I would still pock them up if I had buys to spare. Not sure if that is a good thing.
Vega
$4 - Action
+1 Action
+$1
You may trash a card. If you do, +1 Card.
> I think this is the more interesting and better priced little brother of Canopus. It's still a little boring and effective though. Almost as if it was designed by a player, who just really wished he always had this power at his disposal ;) Pretty nice still.
Rigel
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Gain a copper in hand.
>I like this. It's not the strongest $5, and it's difficult to play well. I'd keep trying to make it work, even though it usually won't be the best choice.
Procyonc
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
You may discard a Treasure card. If you do +Buy for each $ the card generates.
>Fantastic in any Goons engine. Again, I think this card indulges the needy player a bit too much. Buys are a pretty rare commodity. If there ever comes a card that gives more than one, I don't think it should be a cantrip. As is, I would pick one up every time. Maybe the discard should be mandatory?
Betelgeuse
$2 - Action
Look at the top 4 cards of your deck. Reveal and discard up to 3 of them. Put the rest back in any order.
If you revealed an Action card, +1 Card.
If you revealed a Treasure card, +1 Action.
If you revealed a Victory card, +$1.
>Very nice in greening decks (alternate VP) and a bit of trap in engines and BM-likes (as said before: discarding your action cards for 1 card is not always a good deal). Kind of like crossroads, actually. I like it, and I think the price is fine.
Achernar
$3 - Action
Reveal your hand.
If you reveal a Victory card, +1 Action.
If you reveal an Action card, +$1.
If you reveal a Curse, +1 VP.
If you reveal a Treasure card, +1 Card.
>Fun. The VP-clause is interesting: do you want do curse someone, if it will net him some positive VP over time? I think you still do. Early game, curses cripple, and late game, they won't net as much VP. Nice. I think it should be $4 though. Getting a full peddler out of it shouldn't be hard, and it's a non-terminal VP-gainer!
Hadar
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
You may gain a card costing up to $4 that is not a [This Card] or a Victory card.
>Could be worded simpler by leaving out the [this card]-rule. I think it's fine, but it feels a bit too familiar.
Capella
$3 - Action
+1 Action
+1 Buy
If there are 1 or fewer empty piles in the supply, +1 Card. If there are no empty piles in the
supply, +$1.
> The variance hides it a little, but this card is weak. It's a copper with a buy first half of the game, then a cantrip with a buy after that. Again: I'd rather see a copper with a buy if that's what it effectively is. If it's the only source of +buy, I would probably pick one up.
Altair
$3 - Action
+1 Card
+$1
--
If you have no actions left during your action phase, you may reveal and discard this. If you do, +1 Action.
>As said before: not a peddler-variant. But Rinkworks said not to judge by that, so I won't :) Makes for a much smoother, easier Village/Smithy-type deck. I'd want some in my engine, yes. I think it's a little too easy and it removes some of the challenge of building an engine. A little.
Aldebaran
$5 - Action-Reaction
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
You may set aside an action card from your hand face down on your [This Card] mat; or take a card from your [This Card] mat and place it in your hand. You may look at the cards on your mat at any time; return them to your deck at the end of the game.
When another player plays an attack card, you may reveal this card. If you do, set aside an action card from your hand face down on your [This Card] mat.
>I don't think the Reaction part is necessary. That is only useful if you have this and at least two cards in your hand you'd like to set on your mat. Besides that, it might be too strong. It's a Haven/Island-Juggernaut. But I love Haven and Island and would buy the shit out of this. Make it $6, to prevent lucky first-round buys, and I'm in.
Spica
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Each other player may discard a Treasure card from his or her hand. If nobody does, +1 Buy and +$1.
>Nice. Simple. It'll be a cheap market up until players start having $7 and $9 in hand. Do the players discard in clockwise order? Not the strongest $4, but still the right price.
Antares
$3 - Action
+1 Buy
Reveal your hand. If you reveal
any victory cards, +1 Card
any action cards, +1 Action
any treasure cards, +$1
>The price fits better here than with Achernar, and it's a fine card. However, I'd like Achernar at $4 better than this. But Achernar isn't $4, so there's that...
Pollux
$6 - Action-Attack
Upon playing this card, you may reveal and discard a Province from your hand. If you do, each other player must discard a Treasure or reveal a hand with no Treasure.
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
>As said before: the attack is almost exactly Cutpurse, but you can't trigger it often. Your opponents will probably have a copper on hand. It's non-terminal, but the attack isn't, since you discard the Province. I'd say a very weak $5, and the effect isn't really interesting enough considering the buildup.
Fomalhaut
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Each other player may trash a treasure card from their hand. If no player trashes a card, +$1.
You may trash a card from your hand.
>I like it, but I like Vega better. The opponents' boon is huge early game, gimping this card for you while you're trying to build up your deck. Trash-not-for-benefit-cards are early game cards. I'd always pass this one up.
Deneb
Action - $4
When there is at least one [This Card] card in the supply:
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
When there are no more [This Card] cards in the supply:
+1 Action
+1 VP
>I like it. Hard to judge. I don't think it's too strong, because the two effects will never collide. If the second part also had +card, then it would be overpowered. I would want many, but a hand full of these (end game) is close to worthless, save the 5VP. You won't be able to influence the end game, just get tie-breaker points.
Mimosa
$5 - Action
Take a card from your discard pile and place it on the bottom of your deck.
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
>Nice and simple. It slows the game down, rummaging through your discard, but no more than Inn and Philosopher's Stone. I don't think it's too powerful, but would still love to have some.
Regulus
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Gain a card costing $4 or less.
--
While this is in play, Treasure cards cost $1 more.
>Very similar to Hadar, but I like its drawback better (don't gain green cards). I don't understand what the extra rule here accompishes. Now, if it were a Duration card and also effected your opponents, that I would get. And hate (in a cantrip) :)
Acrux
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
The player to your right draws 1 card.
--
When you buy this card, the player to your left gains it in his hand.
>So, a Peddler for him and a Caravan for you. Probably a fine deal, but you're both helping each other too much. It just wouldn't feel right and I would loath buying it and playing it. It's fun, but I don't think you can strike a balance that makes buying this worth your while. After all, your opponent can choose not to play it. In which case, it's kind of a 0VP curse you can deal out by buying it... Oh. That's actually pretty cool!
Adara
$2 - Action
+1 Action
+1 Card
+$1
--
When you buy this, gain another [This Card].
While this is in play, you may not buy cards costing more than $6.
>Yes, this card is great for me. I love Alternate VP αnd Bridge/Highway/Princess. I also like the on-gain effect, though I'm not sure it's necessary.
Shaula
$5 - Action
+1 Action
Reveal the top three cards of your deck. You may put one into your hand. You may trash one; if you do, +$1. Discard the remainder.
>Ok, so it's a super-Outlook. I like Outlook, but to be honest, I like it better than this. It's obviously weaker, but that makes it an interesting opener. Shaula just negates all its drawbacks. Kind of boring (and like Canopus, Vega, Procyonc, Altair and Aldebaran: it's a card every player would want to have. It's strong and easy (not the same as simple). Since when do people know what's good for them?)
Gacrux
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Trash a card from your hand.
>Very similar to Canopus(btw, that's a nasty name, Rinkworks!), but the trash being mandatory makes this definitely my favorite of the two. Not sure if this would beat Vega, which is also very similar.
Bellatrix
$1 - Action
+1 Action
+1 Card
+$1
--
When you buy this card, +1 Buy.
If you played this card on your turn, during clean up, return it to the supply.
>As said before: too strong for the leader, end game. Also incredible with Goons. I definitely prefer Arcturus.
Miaplacidus
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
When you play this, if you have gained no cards this turn, you may gain a card costing up to 1 coin for each action card you have in play, counting this. If its a victory card, trash this.
>I love to play with cards like these, but I think it is overpowered. You can just rake up de Miaplacides, Markets, Stables etc. and in time the Platinums. Horn of Plenty is weaker and much more interesting.
Alioth
$2 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
You may gain a Copper, putting it into your hand.
>It's a weaker Rigel, and I like both. If I have to choose, I'd go for Rigel because that card isn't worthless* when you choose not to gain.
Mirfak
$6 Action-Attack
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Each other player may reveal a Gold from their hand. If no one does, gain a Gold, placing it on your deck, and each other player gains a copper, placing it on their deck.
>What I like about this card, is that while it $6 and therefore competes with Gold, its presence also stimulates buying Golds. I think I would like this better if it was +2 cards or something, instead of a cantrip. This shouldn't be an engine card.
Wezen
$3 - Action
Reveal your hand. If you revealed any...
Action cards, +1 Action
Treasure cards, +$1
Victory cards, +1 Card
>wow, Tribute-inspired cards are hot this season! This is exactly Entares without the +buy. I don't believe the buy adds much. Both cards are fine, but I really like Achernar's VP-clause.
Sargas
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Gain a card costing no more than $1 for every action you have played this turn (counting this). If that card costs more than this, then trash this.
>This adresses my problem with Miaplacidus, making it much better. You can still pile up the Miaplacides, though. I'd like this to be $6 and say 'If that card costs at least the same as this...'. This way it still works for Dukes. Oh, I'd love that :)
Alhena
$5 - Action
+1 Action
+$1
Discard 2 cards, if you do look through your discard pile and draw a card from it.
>With this punctuation, the if/then is reversed, but I'll look past that. It's a nice card, but would be better at $4, I think. Lovely in decks that start greening at an early stage.
Peacock
$6 - Treasure
Worth $1
+1 Buy
--
Immediately begin a new action phase.
+1 Card
+1 Action
--
(Rules clarifications: This card interrupts your buy phase; you begin a new action phase before purchasing anything. This new action phase does not have an inherent action, nor do any remaining actions from the previous action phase carry over to the new action phase. After completing this action phase, the player re-enters their buy phase.)
>Don't know what to think of this. We already have a crazy card that allows you to play treasure cards 'during' the action phase, which is pretty much what this does. Since it doesn't cost an action to play but the new action phase starts without extra actions, Peacock nets a Market, as long as there are no crazy situations like Tactician or Quarry. I need to test this. I already think it needs a wordy 'no more than one extra action phase' rule.
Castor
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
At the start of your clean-up phase, you may trash any number of action cards you have in play, including this. Then you may gain a card costing up to $1 per the number of trashed cards other than this, plus $2 if you trashed this.
>I like that this happens in your Clean-up phase, because of the 'keeping track' problem Mining Village has. Almost exclusively relevant in the very last turns; it adds a little excitement to the PPR.
Polaris
$4 - Action
+1 card
+1 action
+$1
You may trash a treasure card from your hand.
If you don't, trash this card.
>Nice. A little more difficult than Vega, I like that.
Murzim
$4* - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
--
This costs $1 more per Action card you have in play.
>Too expensive. If this started out at $2, it would probably work (because playing Murzims would make buying Murzims more difficult). I think I already saw that card around here recently. Nice with trash for benefit, because it happens immediately (as opposed to Peddler).
Alphard
$4 - Action
Look at the top card of your deck and discard it or put it back.
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
>Self-Spy is weak enough to add to Peddler and still be a $4, I think. Strong card at its price. A tad boring.
Hamal
$5 - Action
Look at the top 2 cards of your deck. Put one into your hand, discard the other card.
+1 Action
+$1
>Marginally stronger than Alphard, this is correctly priced as a weak $5. Nothing earth-shattering, but I like both cards (though not both/together).
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I feel disincentivized to vote since it disadvantages me. I will anyway since I don't think mine are the very best.
A way to fix this would be to give any person who votes 1 vote on each of their own cards. That way, they won't be able to give 2 or 3 to their own card, but voting still helps them by making their vote equivalent to the approval level.
Either way, I plan on voting even if it hurts my chances. What's the fun in not voting!
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I agree with Schneau. Giving an auto-approval vote to my own cards makes sense to me.
We all are misreading Capella! It's not a City, it's a Tournament!
What's the deadline for voting? I think it's important to discuss the cards before voting. I misread one for crying out loud! I'm suprised anyone's voted already.
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You're right! I misread Capella, too. The text isn't at all ambiguous, but the phrasing feels backwards, somehow. I would've understood it more easily if the wording had been more like this:
Capella
$3 - Action
+1 Action
+1 Buy
If there are no empty piles in the supply, +1 card, +$1. If there is exactly one empty pile in the supply, +1 Card.
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I feel disincentivized to vote since it disadvantages me. I will anyway since I don't think mine are the very best.
A way to fix this would be to give any person who votes 1 vote on each of their own cards.
This is an excellent idea. I'll modify the voting rules post accordingly, but just to make it clear: By submitting votes for a challenge, you will earn 1 point for your entry in that challenge.
I don't see how Altair meets the requirements? You can't discard and play the same copy of the card...
Yes, that was me screwing up. I somehow missed that this card was technically ineligible until the deadline had passed. Since I'd been telling people whenever they submitted an ineligible card -- so they'd have a chance to submit something else instead -- I didn't think it was fair to disqualify it at that point.
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More comments. Again, my card is in the top half.
Bellatrix: I would buy this card with any of my excess coin. I already do a similar thing with Border Village, but I cannot just buy 4 of them whenever I can't get the 5 cost I want. This card would get silly and run out too quickly.
Alioth: Seems fun, however weak it turns out to be, it ends you up with a larger hand which is useful sometimes.
Mirfak: Seems very punishing for not revealing Gold. If it was a Silver on top of the deck instead, I would like it more.
Wezen: Getting an action from revealing an action card is almost the same as always getting one.
Sargas: Gains you an estate or copper way more often than you would like, likely weak.
Alhena: Seems fun.
Peacock: Needlessly complex, but a good implementation of the Blind Draw is OK mechanic. Would a version that just let you put Action cards from your hand to your deck for extra coins be simpler?
Castor: Complex but seems fun.
Polaris: Mostly like a Spice Merchant with a "middle" option. Seems okay.
Murzim: Great for trash for benefit/ upgrading, otherwise just a consolation prize for BM. It seems likely this forum already talked about a similar card.
Alphard: Since $4 is the value agreed to be right for a Peddler, tacking on a nearly always ability makes me think it is too strong.
Hamal: Seems fun.
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I've printed both lists in full and will be going over them at work. Since there're just too many cards to compare, my first move will be to immediately eliminate any cards worded incorrectly, with wrong typings, or with gaping rules issues (e.g. on my first read through I saw a number of cursers typed simply as "Attack").
I think it's unfortunate if the community ends up rejecting what they (unknowingly) agree is a superior concept over a technicality. I don't have a good solution, however.
Adara
$2 - Action
+1 Action
+1 Card
+$1
--
When you buy this, gain another [This Card].
While this is in play, you may not buy cards costing more than $6.
>Yes, this card is great for me. I love Alternate VP αnd Bridge/Highway/Princess. I also like the on-gain effect, though I'm not sure it's necessary.
With the on-gain effect, I'm not really sure you need alt-VP/etc. for it to be strong. I'm picturing a City-Adara-Duchy rush.
Alioth
$2 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
You may gain a Copper, putting it into your hand.
>It's a weaker Rigel, and I like both. If I have to choose, I'd go for Rigel because that card isn't worthless* when you choose not to gain.
... but the gain on Rigel is mandatory. I didn't like Rigel. My gut feeling is it's too weak with a mandatory gain, and would be too strong with an optional gain. Based on my experiences with IGG games, "you may gain a copper in hand" is almost as good as an extra $1, especially if there is any kind of copper trashing available at all (since you only take it when you need it to buy whatever it is you're planning to buy - typically, the rest of the stack of that card).
>wow, Tribute-inspired cards are hot this season!
I think "reveal your hand and match stuff for goodies" plays a lot differently from "reveal an opponent's deck and match stuff for goodies", though. For the same reason that Menagerie is an interesting card.
Alhena
$5 - Action
+1 Action
+$1
Discard 2 cards, if you do look through your discard pile and draw a card from it.
>With this punctuation, the if/then is reversed, but I'll look past that.
Ha, I suppose it is. Gotta love English. :) I'm not sure I agree it'd be better at $4. Being able to choose your card from the discards is pretty powerful, since you'll have basically half your deck there on average and thus a good chance of picking out a rather nice card. Also, it gets better over time and is pretty weak to start, so why give it a price point that guarantees first-shuffle access?
I'm envisioning this having some synergy with Counting House. Although that seems like a trap.
Castor
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
At the start of your clean-up phase, you may trash any number of action cards you have in play, including this. Then you may gain a card costing up to $1 per the number of trashed cards other than this, plus $2 if you trashed this.
>I like that this happens in your Clean-up phase, because of the 'keeping track' problem Mining Village has. Almost exclusively relevant in the very last turns; it adds a little excitement to the PPR.
I don't think I approved this one, but now I kinda wish I had. Hmm. The effect would be more interesting with +Buy, but then it would be strictly superior to Market.
Murzim
$4* - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
--
This costs $1 more per Action card you have in play.
>Too expensive. If this started out at $2, it would probably work (because playing Murzims would make buying Murzims more difficult).
I'd say $3. Otherwise it'd be too good to pick up a Murzim on 5/2 openings and then ignore them after that.
Hamal
$5 - Action
Look at the top 2 cards of your deck. Put one into your hand, discard the other card.
+1 Action
+$1
>Marginally stronger than Alphard, this is correctly priced as a weak $5. Nothing earth-shattering, but I like both cards (though not both/together).
I thought this was really weak (it didn't help that it was listed right next to Alphard). But maybe selecting from the top two cards - explicitly and with full information - is worth more than I think.
Oh, forgot one:
Capella
$3 - Action
+1 Action
+1 Buy
If there are 1 or fewer empty piles in the supply, +1 Card. If there are no empty piles in the
supply, +$1.
> The variance hides it a little, but this card is weak. It's a copper with a buy first half of the game, then a cantrip with a buy after that. Again: I'd rather see a copper with a buy if that's what it effectively is. If it's the only source of +buy, I would probably pick one up.
Uhh? No, it's a Market in the first half of the game. "No empty piles" qualifies for "1 or fewer empty piles" as well. It's actually ridiculously powerful, except for the part where everyone wants them, but nobody wants for them to run out. (Ignoring them initially and then buying the last one probably isn't a viable strategy, since the damage is done by that point.)
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Capella
$3 - Action
+1 Action
+1 Buy
If there are 1 or fewer empty piles in the supply, +1 Card. If there are no empty piles in the
supply, +$1.
> The variance hides it a little, but this card is weak. It's a copper with a buy first half of the game, then a cantrip with a buy after that. Again: I'd rather see a copper with a buy if that's what it effectively is. If it's the only source of +buy, I would probably pick one up.
Uhh? No, it's a Market in the first half of the game. "No empty piles" qualifies for "1 or fewer empty piles" as well. It's actually ridiculously powerful, except for the part where everyone wants them, but nobody wants for them to run out. (Ignoring them initially and then buying the last one probably isn't a viable strategy, since the damage is done by that point.)
You're right, I misread this card. Ignore my comment on it.
I think you're right about Murzim on $3. Still not crazy about it, though.
I hate to admit I didn't realize Rigel's copper gain was mandatory. Still like it, though. Even if you count the copper gain as +$1, it is an activated Conspirator. Is that too strong for a $5, considering the (usual) downside of an extra copper?
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The more I think about Capella the more interesting it gets. Definitely a game-changer, making the game much more likely to end on piles. Probably disadvantages 5/2 openings; everyone else will want to open Capella/Capella without a really compelling reason otherwise since it's clearly better for initial money density than Silver/Silver. Basically there's just so much pressure for everyone to run out the Capella pile cooperatively, and then if there are decent $2 cards on the board the +buy will still be good, but otherwise idk how much a cantrip buy is really worth.
I think you're right about Murzim on $3. Still not crazy about it, though.
On further reflection, maybe $4 is fine. Opening Murzim/Murzim is still strong, and as others noted you can get cool Remodel/etc. effects if you do manage to acquire a whole bunch.
I hate to admit I didn't realize Rigel's copper gain was mandatory. Still like it, though. Even if you count the copper gain as +$1, it is an activated Conspirator. Is that too strong for a $5, considering the (usual) downside of an extra copper?
"an activated Conspirator", AKA a GM without the +buy. That's a lot, but adding copper hurts. IDK, maybe $5 is fine.
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Rigel is like Cache in that it works out balanced for alt-vp because alt VP strategies don't typically go after 5$ cards.
Of course, Rigel is stronger than a 5$ Gold. But alt-VP also gets less value out of a cantrip with the lower money density. I think it works out fine.
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I think I need a couple of clarifications:
For Procyon, how are cards like Bank treated? Is it 1 (because it generates 1 by itself)? Or reveal your hand and calculate what it would be worth in your buy phase in which case it could be worth a lot?
For Tethys, does the if-then trigger mean an additional 2 actions, for 4 actions total and the person who played the card discards (not anyone else)? This was clarified for me: +2 actions either way. You either give out curses if no one reveals a curse, or you discard down to three if someone does.
For reference:
Procyon
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
You may discard a Treasure card. If you do +Buy for each $ the card generates.
Tethys
$4 - Attack
+2 Actions
Each other player gains a curse.
If another player reveals a curse from hand: +2 Actions, discard down to three cards in hand.
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I didn't need clarification on Procyon because it was a novote for me either way.
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I wonder, was it a good sign or a bad sign that my curser wasn't mentioned in any of the discussion?
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Probably good, since most of the discussion has centered around whether a given card is too weak or too strong.
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Probably good, since most of the discussion has centered around whether a given card is too weak or too strong.
Particularly given the curser category. It's going to rock the game no matter what, the question is whether it does so healthily
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The results for the Peddler contest are in! As a reminder, these were the submission criteria:
Design a card that offers +1 Card, +1 Action, and +$1 (e.g., Peddler). It may offer other benefits or penalties, but it must offer at least +1 Card, +1 Action, and +$1, and it may not offer more cards than +1 Card, more actions than +1 Action, or more $ than +$1. Receipt of these bonuses may, however, be conditional upon meeting some requirement (e.g., Tournament), as long as sometimes you may receive all three required bonuses.
As I'm running the contest, I didn't submit. But I'm too interested in fan cards not to share my own creations, so I'll be listing a card of my own for each contest when the results are announced. My Peddler variant looks a lot like a couple of the other entries:
Hunter
$5 - Action
+1 Action
+$1
Look at the top card of your deck and choose one: Put it into your hand and discard the top card of your deck; or discard it and +1 Card.
The inspiration for this came from 2-player Spades. I loved the way the hands are dealt and wanted to replicate this in a Dominion card. You draw one of the next two cards, but the information you have to make your choice is imperfect. The reason you discard the next card even if you take the first card is largely for fun: it gives you a chance to say, "Awww! I should have picked THAT one!" or glory in a correct decision. I've playtested it, and it's a bit stronger than it probably looks: usually you cycle out the correct card, and that can be a big deal.
Ok, enough of me blathering. What you really want to know is which contest entry will be the first card inaugurated into our set. It is...(drum roll)....
#1 - Almoner by Schneau with 27 points (Alioth)
$2 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
You may gain a Copper, putting it into your hand.
Congratulations to Schneau, who managed to pack some interesting strategy into a very simple card! And now, the rest of the results....
#2 - Bursar by Qvist with 22 points (Hamal)
$5 - Action
Look at the top 2 cards of your deck. Put one into your hand, discard the other card.
+1 Action
+$1
#3 - Chariot by WanderingWinder with 20 points (Rigel)
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Gain a copper in hand.
#4 - Magician by Polk5440 with 16 points (Mimosa)
$5 - Action
Take a card from your discard pile and place it on the bottom of your deck.
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
#5 - Judge by zahlman with 14 points (Shaula)
$5 - Action
+1 Action
Reveal the top three cards of your deck. You may put one into your hand. You may trash one; if you do, +$1. Discard the remainder.
#6 (tie) - Smelter by Titandrake with 12 points (Vega)
$4 - Action
+1 Action
+$1
You may trash a card. If you do, +1 Card.
#6 (tie) - Miser by Michaelf7777777 with 12 points (Miaplacidus)
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
When you play this, if you have gained no cards this turn, you may gain a card costing up to 1 coin for each action card you have in play, counting this. If its a victory card, trash this.
#8 (tie) - Park by Dubdubdubdub with 11 points (Deneb)
Action - $4
When there is at least one Park card in the supply:
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
When there are no more Park cards in the supply:
+1 Action
+1 VP
#8 (tie) - Informant by senseless with 11 points (Acrux)
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
The player to your right draws 1 card.
--
When you buy this card, the player to your left gains it in his hand.
#10 (tie) - Lucky Coin by Dsell with 10 points (Peacock)
$6 - Treasure
Worth $1
+1 Buy
--
Immediately begin a new action phase.
+1 Card
+1 Action
--
Rules clarifications: This card interrupts your buy phase; you begin a new action phase before purchasing anything. This new action phase does not have an inherent action, nor do any remaining actions from the previous action phase carry over to the new action phase. After completing this action phase, the player re-enters their buy phase.
#10 (tie) - Herald by One Armed Man with 10 points (Achernar)
$3 - Action
Reveal your hand.
If you reveal a Victory card, +1 Action.
If you reveal an Action card, +$1.
If you reveal a Curse, +1 VP.
If you reveal a Treasure card, +1 Card.
#12 (tie) - Locusts by Jorbles with 9 points (Fomalhaut)
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Each other player may trash a treasure card from their hand. If no player trashes a card, +$1.
You may trash a card from your hand.
#12 (tie) - Boomtown by A Drowned Kernel with 9 points (Capella)
$3 - Action
+1 Action
+1 Buy
If there are 1 or fewer empty piles in the supply, +1 Card. If there are no empty piles in the supply, +$1.
#12 (tie) - Surplus Goods by Archetype with 9 points (Bellatrix)
$1 - Action
+1 Action
+1 Card
+$1
--
When you buy this card, +1 Buy.
If you played this card on your turn, during clean up, return it to the supply.
#12 (tie) - Unnamed by Graystripe77 with 9 points (Altair)
$3 - Action
+1 Card
+$1
--
If you have no actions left during your action phase, you may reveal and discard this. If you do, +1 Action.
#12 (tie) - Grave Digger by Boldot with 9 points (Alhena)
$5 - Action
+1 Action
+$1
Discard 2 cards, if you do look through your discard pile and draw a card from it.
#17 - Count by nopawnsintended with 8 points (Pollux)
$6 - Action-Attack
Upon playing this card, you may reveal and discard a Province from your hand. If you do, each other player must discard a Treasure or reveal a hand with no Treasure.
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
#18 (tie) - Jumble Sale by Thisisnotasmile with 7 points (Wezen)
$3 - Action
Reveal your hand. If you revealed any...
Action cards, +1 Action
Treasure cards, +$1
Victory cards, +1 Card
#18 (tie) - Hustler by qmech with 7 points (Murzim)
$4* - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
--
This costs $1 more per Action card you have in play.
#18 (tie) - Cathedral by Powerman with 7 points (Mirfak)
$6 Action-Attack
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Each other player may reveal a Gold from their hand. If no one does, gain a Gold, placing it on your deck, and each other player gains a copper, placing it on their deck.
#21 (tie) - Auctioneer by Nicrosil with 6 points (Spica)
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Each other player may discard a Treasure card from his or her hand. If nobody does, +1 Buy and +$1.
#21 (tie) - Flea Market by Grujah with 6 points (Polaris)
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
You may trash a treasure card from your hand.
If you don't, trash this card.
#21 (tie) - Beggar by jamuspsi with 6 points (Arcturus)
$0 - Action-Reaction
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
At the end of your turn, return this card to the supply.
--
When another player plays Beggar, you may set this aside from your hand. If you do, gain a copy of Beggar, and return this to your hand at the start of your next turn.
#24 (tie) - Drone by thirtyseven with 5 points (Sirius)
$2 Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
If this is in your hand during your Buy phase, +$1, +1 Buy.
#24 (tie) - Broker by greatexpectations with 5 points (Hadar)
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
You may gain a card costing up to $4 that is not a Broker or a Victory card.
#24 (tie) - Squire by jonts26 with 5 points (Gacrux)
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Trash a card from your hand.
#24 (tie) - Artist by popsofctown with 5 points (Betelgeuse)
$2 - Action
Look at the top 4 cards of your deck. Reveal and discard up to 3 of them. Put the rest back in any order.
If you revealed an Action card, +1 Card.
If you revealed a Treasure card, +1 Action.
If you revealed a Victory card, +$1.
#28 - Fledgling Market by andwilk with 4 points (Antares)
$3 - Action
+1 Buy
Reveal your hand. If you reveal
any victory cards, +1 Card
any action cards, +1 Action
any treasure cards, +$1
#29 (tie) - Factory by Robz888 with 3 points (Regulus)
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Gain a card costing $4 or less.
--
While this is in play, Treasure cards cost $1 more.
#29 (tie) - Assault by ChocophileBenj with 3 points (Castor)
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
At the start of your clean-up phase, you may trash any number of action cards you have in play, including this. Then you may gain a card costing up to $1 per the number of trashed cards other than this, plus $2 if you trashed this.
#29 (tie) - Hideout by iangoth with 3 points (Aldebaran)
$5 - Action-Reaction
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
You may set aside an action card from your hand face down on your Hideout mat; or take a card from your Hideout mat and place it in your hand. You may look at the cards on your mat at any time; return them to your deck at the end of the game.
When another player plays an attack card, you may reveal this card. If you do, set aside an action card from your hand face down on your Hideout mat.
#29 (tie) - Rabbit by theory with 3 points (Adara)
$2 - Action
+1 Action
+1 Card
+$1
--
When you buy this, gain another Rabbit.
While this is in play, you may not buy cards costing more than $6.
#33 (tie) - Flea Market by chester with 2 points (Sargas)
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Gain a card costing no more than $1 for every action you have played this turn (counting this). If that card costs more than this, then trash this.
#33 (tie) - Wainwright by chwhite with 2 points (Alphard)
$4 - Action
Look at the top card of your deck and discard it or put it back.
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
#35 (tie) - Emporium by CaptainNevada with 1 point (Procyon)
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
You may discard a Treasure card. If you do +Buy for each $ the card generates.
#35 (tie) - Re-Sale by Ozle with 1 point (Canopus)
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
You may trash a card from your hand.
--
And that's it! It's interesting to me how some of the voting panned out. Because the field was so crowded, I think a lot of cards were penalized over fixable details like pricing issues. It just goes to show how delicate an art card creation is, and how the difference between a great card and a broken card might be extremely tiny.
Thanks to all who participated! Results for Contest #2 coming momentarily.
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The results for the Curser contest are in! As a reminder, these were the submission criteria:
Design a card that may cause other players to gain Curses. It need not always dispense Curses, so long as it does so at least some of the time it is used. The card text must specifically mention Curses (thus disqualifying Ambassador, which would otherwise qualify).
As I'm running the contest, I didn't submit. But this would have been my entry. It's been playtested many times, including since I posted it in this forum before. It's undergone a few tweaks, but I'm happy with this version now:
Sorceress
$5 - Action
Each other player gains a Curse.
If there is at least 1 empty supply pile, +1 Card, +1 Action.
If there are at least 2 empty supply piles, +1 Card.
It uses the City mechanic but plays very differently since by draining Curses it speeds your way to that first pile. Then you can rush these to drain the second, and suddenly what started out as a cursing attack becomes a Laboratory. Gameplay is very different depending on whether it's the Curses that empty first, because in the middle stage you might have a bunch of harmless cantrips, or you might have a pack of Familiars.
But now let's get to the moment you've all been waiting for. The winner of the Cursing contest is...(drum roll)....
#1 - Soothsayer by LastFootnote with 21 points (Proteus)
$4 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Each other player puts a Curse from the Supply on his Soothsayer mat.
--
In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you don't, gain all the cards on your Soothsayer mat.
Unlike the Peddler contest, this contest's winner is a bit exotic. It's nice for me to see that simple and exotic cards each have a shot at winning with this voting system. Here, LastFootnote creates an attack that puts the victim in a situation where he must choose between Cutpursing himself (or worse, when lacking Coppers) and clogging up his deck. As we know from Torturer, the choice makes the attack weaker despite seeming stronger psychologically, and that justifies the cheaper-than-Witch price. Great job, LastFootnote!
And now, the remaining scores:
#2 - Sorry Witch by Titandrake with 20 points (Io)
$4 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Each other player gains a Curse and draws a card.
#3 - Diplomat by gman314 (with inspiration from Archetype) with 18 points (Dione)
$4 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Choose a card from your hand and put it on the bottom of the Diplomat deck. Reveal the top card of the Diplomat deck and return it to the supply. Each other player gains a copy of the revealed card.
--
Setup: Shuffle a Diplomat deck containing 1 Copper, 1 Estate, 1 Silver and 1 Curse. (From the supply).
#4 - Tool of the Devil by Michaelf7777777 with 14 points (Janus)
$5 - Action-Attack
+1 Card
Choose 1 - All other players gain a Curse OR you may play Curse cards as if they were silvers for the rest of this turn.
#5 (tie) - Warlock by CaptainNevada with 13 points (Titania)
$5 - Action
+$3
Put two cards from your hand on top of your deck.
Each other player gains a Curse.
#5 (tie) - Small Mercy by Ozle with 13 points (Titan)
$5 - Action
+$2
Each other player may gain a Curse, if they do not they gain two Coppers.
#5 (tie) - Witchucopia by chester with 13 points (Puck)
$5 - Action
+$2
+3 Cards
Discard 3 cards. If you discarded 3 differently named cards, every other player gains a Curse.
#8 - Taboo by iangoth with 11 points (Charon)
$4 - Action
+$2
Trash this card. Place a Taboo token on the supply pile of an action card. When a player plays a copy of that card, each other player gains a Curse.
#9 - Hedge Witch by Jorbles with 10 points (Miranda)
$3 - Action-Attack
+$1
Each other player gains a Curse.
--
When you gain this card, gain a Curse.
#10 (tie) - Wave of Sorrow by ChocophileBenj with 9 points (Epimetheus)
$5 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Put one card from your hand on top of your deck.
Each opponent chooses one: they gain a Curse card and put it in their hand, or put a Curse from their hand on top on their deck.
If one choice is impossible, they must take the other one. If both choices are impossible, they reveal their hand.
#10 (tie) - Knight by Qvist with 9 points (Elara)
$5 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Reveal a card from your hand.
Each other player chooses one:
he discards a copy of that card;
or he reveals a hand with no copy of that card and discards one card;
or he gains a Curse card, putting it in his hand.
#10 (tie) - Witch Hunt by Robz888 with 9 points (Dysnomia)
$3 - Action-Attack
+$1
Name a card other than Copper or Estate. Each other player reveals his hand. If he reveals the card you named, he gains a Curse. If no other player gains a Curse this way, you do.
#13 (tie) - Gargoyle by Dsell with 8 points (Portia)
$6 - Action-Duration
+$3
While this is in play, any time you would buy costing $4 or more, you may instead force every other player to gain a Curse.
If, at the start of any of your turns, there are no Curses in the supply, you may return any number of Curses from your hand to the supply.
--
This card remains in play.
--
(Rules clarifications: This is an action-duration, but it is not cleaned up at the end of any turn. The +$3 bonus takes place only on the turn the card is played, not every turn. If the player chooses to give a Curse instead, the card is not gained but is returned to the supply and the player forfeits that buy and any treasure or virtual money that would have been used to purchase it. If multiple Gargoyles are in play, the player may choose to forfeit a single buy in order to give Curses to other players equal to the number of Gargoyles in play. I.e. they stack.)
#13 (tie) - Tribunal by Archetype with 8 points (Larissa)
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Name a type of card. Each other player reveals the top card of their deck. If it's the named type, they gain a Curse, and discard the revealed card. If it isn't the named type, they put it back on top.
#15 (tie) - Berserker by WanderingWinder with 7 points (Triton)
$5 - Action-Attack
+1 Card
+1 Buy
+$1
Every player (including you) gains a Curse.
Reveal your hand. Until the end of your turn, cards cost $1 less for every Curse you revealed.
#15 (tie) - Rat Catcher by One Armed Man with 7 points (Rhea)
$4 - Action-Attack
Choose 1: trash any number of cards from your hand and gain a Curse, putting it in your hand; or trash up to one Curse from your hand, and each other player gains a Curse card, putting it in his hand.
#15 (tie) - Poltergeist by greatexpectations with 7 points (Oberon)
$5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Discard a card. Each other player draws a card and then gains a Curse.
#15 (tie) - Blight by Dubdubdubdub with 7 points (Enceladus)
$2 - Action-Attack
Each other player gains a Curse card.
--
When you gain this card: gain a Curse card.
#15 (tie) - Poisoned Chalice by Thisisnotasmile with 7 points (Amalthea)
$5 - Treasure-Reaction
Worth $1
+1 Buy
--
When you buy a card costing up to $2, you may discard this from your hand. If you do, each other player gains a Curse card.
#20 (tie) - Ordeal by zahlman with 6 points (Hyperion)
$3 - Action/Attack
+$2
You may trash a card from your hand costing at least $3. If you don't, trash this. Each other player gains a Curse.
#20 (tie) - King by Powerman with 6 points (Himalia)
$3 Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Each other player may reveal an Estate or Curse from their hand. If he doesn't, he gains a Curse and an Estate.
#22 (tie) - Remorseful Witch by Nicrosil with 5 points (Umbriel)
$4 - Action-Attack
+$2
You may choose to have each other player gain a Curse. If you do, gain a Remorseful Witch token. If you have 2 or more Remorseful Witch tokens, lose 2 Remorseful Witch tokens and trash this card.
#22 (tie) - Maegi by jonts26 with 5 points (Phoebe)
$4 - Action-Duration-Attack
+$2
Each other player gains a Curse.
--
At the start of your next turn, choose one: Gain a Curse, or discard 2 cards
#22 (tie) - Catacombs by chwhite with 5 points (Nix)
$3 - Action-Attack
+1 Action
Reveal and discard up to four cards from your hand.
+1 Card for each Victory and Treasure card you discard.
+$2 for each Curse you discard.
If you discard at least one Action, each other player gains a Curse.
#22 (tie) - Snake Charmer by Schneau with 5 points (Galatea)
$4 - Action-Attack
+$2
You may trash 1 Treasure card from your hand. Gain a Snake Charmer token. If you now have an even number of Snake Charmer tokens, every other player gains a Curse.
#26 (tie) - Witch's Guild by zxcvbn2 with 4 points (Tethys)
$4 - Attack
+2 Actions
Each other player gains a Curse.
If another player reveals a Curse from hand: +2 Actions, discard down to three cards in hand.
#26 (tie) - Offertory by Polk5440 with 4 points (Mimas)
$4 - Action-Attack
Each other player reveals a treasure card from his hand or reveals a hand without treasures. For each player who revealed a treasure card, you choose one: he gains a Curse, or he trashes the revealed treasure card and you gain it.
#26 (tie) - Luddites by A Drowned Kernel with 4 points (Iapetus)
$4 - Action-Reaction
Gain a card costing up to $4.
--
When another player would gain a non-victory card from a pile without a Luddites Token on it, you may reveal this card from your hand. If you do, he gains a Curse instead and a Luddites Token is placed on the pile.
#26 (tie) - Old Hag by thirtyseven with 4 points (Ganymede)
$4 - Action-Duration
+2 Cards
If another player reshuffles his deck before the start of your next turn, he gains a Curse on top of his deck.
--
(Rules clarification: This is a typical duration card in that it gets cleaned up at the end of the player's next turn.)
#26 (tie) - Conqueror by andwilk with 4 points (Ariel)
$6 - Action-Attack-Duration
Choose one: +$2 or +1 VP
Each other player may discard two treasure cards. If he doesn't, he gains a Curse.
--
At the start of your next turn, you may discard up to 3 cards from your hand. Each other player must discard the same number of cards.
#31 (tie) - Infernal Altar by DoctorO with 3 points (Namaka)
$4 - Action-Attack
Trash up to four cards from your hand. If the combined value of the trashed cards exceeds $5, +$3 and each other player gains a Curse on top of their deck.
#31 (tie) - Imp by qmech with 3 points (Juliet)
$4 - Action-Attack
+2 Actions
Each other player gains a Curse.
#31 (tie) - Riddling Witch by popsofctown with 3 points (Europa)
$4 - Action-Attack
The player to your left may choose to have each of your opponents gain a Curse. If no Curses were gained this way, +4 Cards.
Otherwise, +1 Action.
#31 (tie) - Shrunken Head by Boldot with 3 points (Despina)
$4 - Treasure
Worth $0
Trash a treasure card from your hand. If you do, each other player gains a Curse to their hand.
#31 (tie) - Gossip by jamuspsi with 3 points (Callisto)
$5 - Action
+1 Action
Reveal the top 5 cards of your deck. Return all revealed Curses to the supply; discard the other revealed cards. If at least one Curse was revealed, each other player gains a Curse card, placing it in their hand. If no Curses were revealed, +1 Card.
#36 - Poisoner by senseless with 2 points (Nereid)
$5 - Action-Attack
+$2
Discard any number of Curses, +1$ per Curse discarded.
If there's at least 1 Curse left per player in the Curse pile, all other players gain a Curse.
#37 - Stable Witch by rbruba with 1 point (Hydra)
$7 - Action-Attack-Duration
Now and at the start of your next turn: Each other player takes a Curse or reveals a hand with no Curse cards.
#38 - Plague Rat by Grujah with 0 points (Thebe)
$3 - Action-Attack
+1 Action
You may gain a Curse card.
If you gained a Curse card this turn, each other player gains a Curse card.
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Congrats to Schneau and LastFootnote, I voted for both of you AFAIR.
I really wanted to make a simple Peddler variant and I like cards with choices, so this was the easiest choice for me. Great that you all liked it too, it was second.
And in my Curser submission, I really made a big mistake. It should read +3 cards, not +2 cards, because this is an homage to Torturer. As you all pointed out this is strictly worse than Witch, you're right. But still it got 10th, not that bad for such a big mistake. I really like to hear if you would have voted for it, if it would say +3 cards...
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Congratulations to Schneau and Lastfootnote! I also voted for both of you, and I didn't give out many votes.
I'm pleased with both winning submissions, but I'm a little disappointed at how few votes some of the most interesting peddler variants got. I thought Castor, err, Assault would get more votes, for example. And hey, my card, too.
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I really like the results! I'm glad I got in the top 10 for the Peddler, at least :)
The winning cards really give me confidence that this community-made set will be good!
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Great Job Schneau and LastFootnote!
I got 13th and 12th..not too shabby
I really Tooth of the Devil was going to win, it seemed really unique.
But I'm glad Almoner won, that's the one I voted for.
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Good Job to all the top people. I voted for each top 2, so I feel good about my decent ranks (card judging ability over card making in this case). I have more confidence for myself in the next round. Watching these is so addictive.
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Congratulations to the winners!
There were a lot of good choices, but I was really pulling for Diplomat! I am a little bummed it didn't win. I think it introduces an interesting new mechanic without having to introduce new pieces, tokens, or mats (my I.R.L. Dominion box is getting too heavy!).
[Of course, I'm happy my Peddler-variant was liked and disappointed my curser didn't do better, but I understand some thought Offertory was too weak. Maybe it would have been better if it allowed you to put one of the gained treasure cards into your hand? I really think the game would benefit from a better Thief.]
Onwards to the next week! I have high hopes for my submissions there!
Thanks again, rinkworks for organizing. It's fun!
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When barely anybody was talking about my cards, I got kinda worried, but turns out I did okay anyways.
In retrospect, Smelter/Vega might be a bit strong, but I have trouble figuring out the power level. It trashes Coppers better than Upgrade for a lower cost. Smelting Estates is a bit worse than Upgrade; +$1 now compared to a Silver later. For any other card, it's a lot worse. All in all, I think it's a pretty strong opener, and it stays very useful for pretty much the whole game. It's strong, but the card just wouldn't work at $5.
Sorry Witch/Io, I just like the card. I've posted it before, it parallels Sea Hag very nicely, that's that.
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Congrats to the winners!
Glad to see that my Diplomat card got some good support and that the idea was credited properly. Maybe with all the card ideas I have, I'll put it in some sort of fan expansion eventually....
Also, good to see some solid cards winning, AFAIR, I was quite keen on Almoner. With the cursers, glad to see that Tool of the Devil and Small Mercy did well.
Thanks Rinkworks for organizing this!
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Sorry Witch/Io, I just like the card. I've posted it before, it parallels Sea Hag very nicely, that's that.
I like it, too! I like cards with positive externalities. It presents another dimension of tradeoffs to think about: it's not just helping yourself and hurting your opponent, but also helping them in some different way, as well. And it is all sorts of fun when your opponents draw lots of cards via multiple Council Rooms, then you Militia them.
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In retrospect, Smelter/Vega might be a bit strong, but I have trouble figuring out the power level. It trashes Coppers better than Upgrade for a lower cost. Smelting Estates is a bit worse than Upgrade; +$1 now compared to a Silver later. For any other card, it's a lot worse. All in all, I think it's a pretty strong opener, and it stays very useful for pretty much the whole game. It's strong, but the card just wouldn't work at $5.
I've played with this card quite a lot:
Auction House
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+1 Buy
Trash a card from your hand.
It seems balanced enough there. It's interesting that you mention Upgrade as a card to compare against for determining power/pricing, because I did the same with this card. I think it's at its most interesting in the absence of other sources of +Buy, because you HAVE to trash to get it. (Trade Route has this same dilemma, but it has a little different feel on a terminal.)
Smelter and Squire are both similar, swapping out the +1 Buy for +$1, which I think made both overpowered at $4. At $5, it's probably balanced but harder to put to work early, when you need it.
Anyway, I thought it was interesting that two separate entries for this challenge reminded me of my Auction House card, which wouldn't have even qualified.
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Congrats to both the winners, really like both the cards. Almoner more so than Soothsayer, but Almoner is a hard card to compete against.
On another side nitpicky note, shouldn't it technically be impossible for both Chariot and Almoner to both be accepted as valid? If the +1 coin from the copper counts for Almoner, shouldn't it count for the (mandatory) copper from Chariot?
Not that it changes things, or bothers me, just thought it was interesting.
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On another side nitpicky note, shouldn't it technically be impossible for both Chariot and Almoner to both be accepted as valid? If the +1 coin from the copper counts for Almoner, shouldn't it count for the (mandatory) copper from Chariot?
Not that it changes things, or bothers me, just thought it was interesting.
Yes, these two cards were in fact the reason why I said, in the voting instructions, "I tried to be fair but also forgiving when a submission came in that twisted the rules in a way I hadn't foreseen. In at least one case, different submissions interpreted the eligibility requirements in contradictory ways."
The Terminal Drawer challenge -- ballot to be posted soon -- has a card or two on the edge like this, although none that contradict each other, I don't think.
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On another side nitpicky note, shouldn't it technically be impossible for both Chariot and Almoner to both be accepted as valid? If the +1 coin from the copper counts for Almoner, shouldn't it count for the (mandatory) copper from Chariot?
Not that it changes things, or bothers me, just thought it was interesting.
Yes, these two cards were in fact the reason why I said, in the voting instructions, "I tried to be fair but also forgiving when a submission came in that twisted the rules in a way I hadn't foreseen. In at least one case, different submissions interpreted the eligibility requirements in contradictory ways."
The Terminal Drawer challenge -- ballot to be posted soon -- has a card or two on the edge like this, although none that contradict each other, I don't think.
Ahhh, missed that part. Reading comprehension go!
Looking forward to the next set (and the one after, and the one after...)
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My voting was very different from the top scoring. Since my cards scored low, it might mean I just disagree with everyone about what constitutes a good card. I'm concerned about the voting system though, and if rinkworks is going to automate it anyway I think the alternative vote system might not be much more work. The very low scores towards the bottom suggested some people did not use their 1 point "approval vote" at all. This makes their voice louder in declaring the winners, they push their favorites 3 points ahead of the pack instead of 2. All's fair in love and war and all, but I feel like people who put less effort into how they voted exerted more influence over the winners, which irks me.
On a more positive note, I do like the number one winners
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I have a question about Soothsayer. Do the cards on your mat count for scoring purposes? And how would it interact with Trader and Watchtower?
#1 - Soothsayer by LastFootnote with 21 points (Proteus)
$4 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Each other player puts a Curse from the Supply on his Soothsayer mat.
--
In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you don't, gain all the cards on your Soothsayer mat.
The way I understand it, you don't immediately gain the curses, so they don't count towards your score until you choose to gain them. And, since they're in limbo on the mat, you can wait until you have Trader or Watchtower in hand to take the curses, but can't reveal either when Soothsayer is played. (But you can still play other reactions).
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I have a question about Soothsayer. Do the cards on your mat count for scoring purposes? And how would it interact with Trader and Watchtower?
#1 - Soothsayer by LastFootnote with 21 points (Proteus)
$4 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Each other player puts a Curse from the Supply on his Soothsayer mat.
--
In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you don't, gain all the cards on your Soothsayer mat.
The way I understand it, you don't immediately gain the curses, so they don't count towards your score until you choose to gain them. And, since they're in limbo on the mat, you can wait until you have Trader or Watchtower in hand to take the curses, but can't reveal either when Soothsayer is played. (But you can still play other reactions).
I agree with this interpretation.
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I have a question about Soothsayer. Do the cards on your mat count for scoring purposes? And how would it interact with Trader and Watchtower?
#1 - Soothsayer by LastFootnote with 21 points (Proteus)
$4 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Each other player puts a Curse from the Supply on his Soothsayer mat.
--
In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you don't, gain all the cards on your Soothsayer mat.
The way I understand it, you don't immediately gain the curses, so they don't count towards your score until you choose to gain them. And, since they're in limbo on the mat, you can wait until you have Trader or Watchtower in hand to take the curses, but can't reveal either when Soothsayer is played. (But you can still play other reactions).
I think both trader and watchtower become super good counters to this card, but that's fine by me. I would think there should be a small edit to the card with 'At the end of the game, place all ungained curses into your deck' or something like that under a line.
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I have a question about Soothsayer. Do the cards on your mat count for scoring purposes? And how would it interact with Trader and Watchtower?
#1 - Soothsayer by LastFootnote with 21 points (Proteus)
$4 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Each other player puts a Curse from the Supply on his Soothsayer mat.
--
In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you don't, gain all the cards on your Soothsayer mat.
The way I understand it, you don't immediately gain the curses, so they don't count towards your score until you choose to gain them. And, since they're in limbo on the mat, you can wait until you have Trader or Watchtower in hand to take the curses, but can't reveal either when Soothsayer is played. (But you can still play other reactions).
The Watchtower/Trader interaction you mentioned is correct, but I just realized that once you have Curses on your mat, you can reveal a Trader to gain a Silver for each one, and they all stay on your mat. I guess that's not the end of the world. Just don't buy Soothsayer when Trader is available, like you wouldn't buy Masquerade in a Possession game.
As for if they count toward scoring, I hadn't decided and when I submitted the card, I forgot to specify one or the other. I'll leave it up to the community to decide that when these cards get tweaked.
EDIT: I lean toward not gaining the Curses at game-end, but I'd like to test it both ways.
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I have a question about Soothsayer. Do the cards on your mat count for scoring purposes? And how would it interact with Trader and Watchtower?
#1 - Soothsayer by LastFootnote with 21 points (Proteus)
$4 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Each other player puts a Curse from the Supply on his Soothsayer mat.
--
In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you don't, gain all the cards on your Soothsayer mat.
The way I understand it, you don't immediately gain the curses, so they don't count towards your score until you choose to gain them. And, since they're in limbo on the mat, you can wait until you have Trader or Watchtower in hand to take the curses, but can't reveal either when Soothsayer is played. (But you can still play other reactions).
The Watchtower/Trader interaction you mentioned is correct, but I just realized that once you have Curses on your mat, you can reveal a Trader to gain a Silver for each one, and they all stay on your mat. I guess that's not the end of the world. Just don't buy Soothsayer when Trader is available, like you wouldn't buy Masquerade in a Possession game.
As for if they count toward scoring, I hadn't decided and when I submitted the card, I forgot to specify one or the other. I'll leave it up to the community to decide that when these cards get tweaked.
EDIT: I lean toward not gaining the Curses at game-end, but I'd like to test it both ways.
Actually now that I think about it, the Trader interaction might be broken with the wording on the card. Do I keep trying to gain curses from my mat? If so I would just end up draining the silver pile. And then I could still keep revealing trader to try to gain silver ad infinitum until I just decided to gain the curses into my deck anyway.
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I have a question about Soothsayer. Do the cards on your mat count for scoring purposes? And how would it interact with Trader and Watchtower?
#1 - Soothsayer by LastFootnote with 21 points (Proteus)
$4 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Each other player puts a Curse from the Supply on his Soothsayer mat.
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In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you don't, gain all the cards on your Soothsayer mat.
The way I understand it, you don't immediately gain the curses, so they don't count towards your score until you choose to gain them. And, since they're in limbo on the mat, you can wait until you have Trader or Watchtower in hand to take the curses, but can't reveal either when Soothsayer is played. (But you can still play other reactions).
The Watchtower/Trader interaction you mentioned is correct, but I just realized that once you have Curses on your mat, you can reveal a Trader to gain a Silver for each one, and they all stay on your mat. I guess that's not the end of the world. Just don't buy Soothsayer when Trader is available, like you wouldn't buy Masquerade in a Possession game.
As for if they count toward scoring, I hadn't decided and when I submitted the card, I forgot to specify one or the other. I'll leave it up to the community to decide that when these cards get tweaked.
Why would you be able to reveal the Trader to get Silver on the mat? Your wording says that you put a curse on the mat. I would be inclined to say that on the mat they're in Limbo. You haven't yet gained them, so you can't reveal a Trader yet.
Basically, you can only gain a given card one time, so either you gain them when they move from the supply to the mat or you gain them when they move from the mat to your deck. The latter case is the one I'm inclined to support and only allows Watchtower/Trader to be revealed when they move to your deck. This would also imply that they don't count for score.
However, the first idea is also valid. That would mean that you could reveal Trader/Watchtower when the curses move from the supply to the mat, but not when they move to your deck. And that way, they would immediately count for score.
EDIT: Just understood the interaction with Trader more fully. It now makes sense. The curses would just stay on the mat and then the Trader could keep on getting you Silver every time you had a Trader at the start of your turn.
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I have a question about Soothsayer. Do the cards on your mat count for scoring purposes? And how would it interact with Trader and Watchtower?
#1 - Soothsayer by LastFootnote with 21 points (Proteus)
$4 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Each other player puts a Curse from the Supply on his Soothsayer mat.
--
In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you don't, gain all the cards on your Soothsayer mat.
The way I understand it, you don't immediately gain the curses, so they don't count towards your score until you choose to gain them. And, since they're in limbo on the mat, you can wait until you have Trader or Watchtower in hand to take the curses, but can't reveal either when Soothsayer is played. (But you can still play other reactions).
The Watchtower/Trader interaction you mentioned is correct, but I just realized that once you have Curses on your mat, you can reveal a Trader to gain a Silver for each one, and they all stay on your mat. I guess that's not the end of the world. Just don't buy Soothsayer when Trader is available, like you wouldn't buy Masquerade in a Possession game.
As for if they count toward scoring, I hadn't decided and when I submitted the card, I forgot to specify one or the other. I'll leave it up to the community to decide that when these cards get tweaked.
Why would you be able to reveal the Trader to get Silver on the mat? Your wording says that you put a curse on the mat. I would be inclined to say that on the mat they're in Limbo. You haven't yet gained them, so you can't reveal a Trader yet.
Basically, you can only gain a given card one time, so either you gain them when they move from the supply to the mat or you gain them when they move from the mat to your deck. The latter case is the one I'm inclined to support and only allows Watchtower/Trader to be revealed when they move to your deck. This would also imply that they don't count for score.
However, the first idea is also valid. That would mean that you could reveal Trader/Watchtower when the curses move from the supply to the mat, but not when they move to your deck. And that way, they would immediately count for score.
Yeah I think we need to be really really careful about the wording on the card though otherwise trader will break the game. I would be in favor of wording it like: Each other players gains a curse card, putting it on the mat. --- If you don't discard a treasure place cards on mat in discard.
I think that avoids the trader issues.
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Yeah I think we need to be really really careful about the wording on the card though otherwise trader will break the game. I would be in favor of wording it like: Each other players gains a curse card, putting it on the mat. --- If you don't discard a treasure place cards on mat in discard.
I think that avoids the trader issues.
I'm getting sick of nested quotes! :D
That makes sense to me. Since you would gain the curses when they move from the supply to the mat, Trader wouldn't break the game.
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Yeah I think we need to be really really careful about the wording on the card though otherwise trader will break the game. I would be in favor of wording it like: Each other players gains a curse card, putting it on the mat. --- If you don't discard a treasure place cards on mat in discard.
I think that avoids the trader issues.
I'm getting sick of nested quotes! :D
That makes sense to me. Since you would gain the curses when they move from the supply to the mat, Trader wouldn't break the game.
And just for clarity sake and to preempt the blue dog comments, with that wording, when you reveal trader, the silver goes into your discard, and not on the mat.
And I love nested quotes.
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And just for clarity sake and to preempt the blue dog comments, with that wording, when you reveal trader, the silver goes into your discard, and not on the mat.
And I love nested quotes.
I was thinking about making the same discard pile comment!
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The very low scores towards the bottom suggested some people did not use their 1 point "approval vote" at all.
Yes, but only a very few. For Contest #1, a total of 208 votes were cast (counting 3-point and 2-point votes as a single vote), and 34 people voted, so that means people voted for an average of 6.12 cards apiece, over a range of 2-20. (So nobody voted for just one card, although one person did vote for only one card in Contest #2.)
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Six seems low to me.
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Thanks everyone! I just found the results, and haven't read all the comments yet, but I can't wait to do so! Also, congrats to LastFootnote - I believe I gave you a big vote, so I'm happy to see you won the Curser contest!
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Six seems low to me.
I made a point of not voting for more than 5 cards in each contest.
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I'll do my best to shut up
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You don't have to shut up, but I'm not worried about the system based on the voting so far. Not using the approval votes should be a valid option. Yes, it would tend to increase the relative weight of your vote; on the other hand, it puts all your eggs in one basket, because if that one card doesn't make it, you have no further say whatsoever. I think people are recognizing the downside there and are choosing to shore up their ballots with multiple choices.
Some further stats: Between Challenges 1 and 2, a total of 68 sets of votes were received. Just 4 of them, or a little under 6%, lacked an approval vote. Furthermore, nobody submitted approval-vote-less ballots for both challenges.
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Congrats to the two winners! I'm am really happy that my pick for the Curser won! It's a very unique card and would be interested to try that one out in a game sometime. Although I like the concept of the Peddler-variant winner, I did not vote for it because I did not feel it met the criteria for entry. Gaining a copper is in no way the same as +$1 on a card. In fact, it's a mistake I've seen some beginner Dominion players make (i.e. gaining a copper when they play a Market).
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Disappointed by the low placement of Lucky Coin. For me it was the Peddler-variant suggestion which would most dramatically impact how we approach the kingdom, and it's just a really fascinating card generally.
Also, apparently I gave Luddites 3 of its 4 points. I just really love the sense of paranoia it would cause: do you buy from the untouched pile risking getting a curse in the process? The psychological effect sounds really interesting.
That said, I'm happy with the two winners. Congrats to those that designed them! :)
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Yeah I think we need to be really really careful about the wording on the card though otherwise trader will break the game. I would be in favor of wording it like: Each other players gains a curse card, putting it on the mat. --- If you don't discard a treasure place cards on mat in discard.
I think that avoids the trader issues.
I'm in favor of this idea, too. Plus, if cards on the Soothsayer mat weren't added back into your deck at the end of the game, it would be the only such mat to do that, which seems weird.
I suggest this wording:
Soothsayer
$4 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Each other player gains a Curse, putting it onto his Soothsayer mat.
--
In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you don't, place all of the cards on your Soothsayer mat into your discard pile.
Ramifications:
* The -1 point happens immediately, but the more problematic deck-clogging is postponed.
* If you want to reveal Trader, you must do so when the opponent plays Soothsayer, not on whatever buy phase of your own would cause you to put the mat cards into your discard pile. If you do reveal Trader, you get a Silver in your discard pile instead of a Curse on your Soothsayer mat. I like this timing better, because it requires you to have Trader at the right times, rather than purposely timing the mat-to-discard move to whenever you have your Trader in hand.
Should we add a clause saying "At the end of the game, put the cards on your Soothsayer mat into your deck," similar to Native Village and Island? Seems like we should, but I didn't quite know where to put it.
Anyway, that's my vote, but I'm open to whatever people want.
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Yeah I think we need to be really really careful about the wording on the card though otherwise trader will break the game. I would be in favor of wording it like: Each other players gains a curse card, putting it on the mat. --- If you don't discard a treasure place cards on mat in discard.
I think that avoids the trader issues.
I'm in favor of this idea, too. Plus, if cards on the Soothsayer mat weren't added back into your deck at the end of the game, it would be the only such mat to do that, which seems weird.
I suggest this wording:
Soothsayer
$4 - Action-Attack
+2 Cards
Each other player gains a Curse, putting it onto his Soothsayer mat.
--
In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you don't, place all of the cards on your Soothsayer mat into your discard pile.
+1 for this. I think it fixes all weird interactions, since the gaining is when Soothsayer is played, and not when you don't discard a Treasure.
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If that's the route people want to go with the card, that's fine. I suggest this wording:
Soothsayer
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $4
+2 Cards. Each other player gains a Curse, setting it aside on his Soothsayer mat.
In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you don't, discard all cards on your mat. Return all set aside cards to your deck at the end of the game.
It's more concise, keeps the set-aside wording of Island and Native Village, and includes the clause to return the cards to your deck at end-game.
Also, thanks to everybody who voted for my card! I'm really glad so many people liked it.
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If that's the route people want to go with the card, that's fine. I suggest this wording:
Soothsayer
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $4
+2 Cards. Each other player gains a Curse, setting it aside on his Soothsayer mat.
In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you don't, discard all cards on your mat. Return all set aside cards to your deck at the end of the game.
It's more concise, keeps the set-aside wording of Island and Native Village, and includes the clause to return the cards to your deck at end-game.
Also, thanks to everybody who voted for my card! I'm really glad so many people liked it.
I like this too. I'm more interested in the mechanic than the exact wording, so either of these are good to me.
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If that's the route people want to go with the card, that's fine. I suggest this wording:
Soothsayer
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $4
+2 Cards. Each other player gains a Curse, setting it aside on his Soothsayer mat.
In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you don't, discard all cards on your mat. Return all set aside cards to your deck at the end of the game.
It's more concise, keeps the set-aside wording of Island and Native Village, and includes the clause to return the cards to your deck at end-game.
Also, thanks to everybody who voted for my card! I'm really glad so many people liked it.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the mechanic, but isn't this now like 99% as good as a regular witch, but it costs 4$? The handed-out curses might miss a shuffle, but I can't imagine it's often a good idea to keep the curses on the mat for any appreciable length of time.
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If that's the route people want to go with the card, that's fine. I suggest this wording:
Soothsayer
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $4
+2 Cards. Each other player gains a Curse, setting it aside on his Soothsayer mat.
In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you don't, discard all cards on your mat. Return all set aside cards to your deck at the end of the game.
It's more concise, keeps the set-aside wording of Island and Native Village, and includes the clause to return the cards to your deck at end-game.
Also, thanks to everybody who voted for my card! I'm really glad so many people liked it.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the mechanic, but isn't this now like 99% as good as a regular witch, but it costs 4$? The handed-out curses might miss a shuffle, but I can't imagine it's often a good idea to keep the curses on the mat for any appreciable length of time.
Deck clogging is much worse than the -1VP. If you are able to keep curses on the mat, that's huge.
Might be neat if instead of going into your discard, they went into your hand at the start if your turn. Then you could try to wait until you line up the curses with a trasher,
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If that's the route people want to go with the card, that's fine. I suggest this wording:
Soothsayer
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $4
+2 Cards. Each other player gains a Curse, setting it aside on his Soothsayer mat.
In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you don't, discard all cards on your mat. Return all set aside cards to your deck at the end of the game.
It's more concise, keeps the set-aside wording of Island and Native Village, and includes the clause to return the cards to your deck at end-game.
Also, thanks to everybody who voted for my card! I'm really glad so many people liked it.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the mechanic, but isn't this now like 99% as good as a regular witch, but it costs 4$? The handed-out curses might miss a shuffle, but I can't imagine it's often a good idea to keep the curses on the mat for any appreciable length of time.
Well, it depends. If you can build a strategy with one treasure's worth of redundancy in it, you can keep yourself discarding that one treasure at the start of every buy phase and keep the curses from getting to you. If you hit $7 or $9, discard a copper and you can still buy a Gold or Province. And if you build an engine, just keep one copper sitting around. Assuming that this doesn't stop you from drawing your deck every turn, you'll be able to discard that copper to avoid the curses.
So, it's actually quite easy to build a deck which can cutpurse itself at the start of every buy phase while still hitting the magic numbers required.
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Deck clogging is much worse than the -1VP. If you are able to keep curses on the mat, that's huge.
Might be neat if instead of going into your discard, they went into your hand at the start if your turn. Then you could try to wait until you line up the curses with a trasher,
...but there is still that pseudo-cutpurse effect. being forced to discard a card every turn is not too effectively different from having a curse in the deck, arguably worse.
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Is the +2 Cards a main reason the card won? To me it seems like the curse-on-mat mechanic is, rather than being the "witch with choice," so could the draw bonus be modified slightly to better justify the $4 cost? Say, +1 Card +$1 or +$2 instead?
I agree, as is, this card is almost Witch and Witch is strong...
Or maybe, discard a card rather than discard a treasure?
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Deck clogging is much worse than the -1VP. If you are able to keep curses on the mat, that's huge.
Might be neat if instead of going into your discard, they went into your hand at the start if your turn. Then you could try to wait until you line up the curses with a trasher,
...but there is still that pseudo-cutpurse effect. being forced to discard a card every turn is not too effectively different from having a curse in the deck, arguably worse.
Hmm, good point. Although it might be 1 treasure to keep 5 Curses at bay. And you can choose not to give up the treasure. It also doesn't hurt cycling, and it would only be the treasure that is affected.
With that in mind, maybe something like, "before your action phase ends, you may either put all cards on the mat into your hand or discard a treasure card from your hand." That way, you have a chance to draw your deck to find your trasher, or to draw an extra treasure to discard.
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Deck clogging is much worse than the -1VP. If you are able to keep curses on the mat, that's huge.
Might be neat if instead of going into your discard, they went into your hand at the start if your turn. Then you could try to wait until you line up the curses with a trasher,
...but there is still that pseudo-cutpurse effect. being forced to discard a card every turn is not too effectively different from having a curse in the deck, arguably worse.
Hmm, good point. Although it might be 1 treasure to keep 5 Curses at bay. And you can choose not to give up the treasure. It also doesn't hurt cycling, and it would only be the treasure that is affected.
I guess it's a function of deck size, then. If your deck has 25 cards in it, then in the absence of drawing, having to discard a treasure every turn -- meaning you're effectively playing with a 4-card hand -- is no different from having five Curses in your deck. The question is what would be usual? An engine deck drawing itself every turn benefits from the Soothsayer mat as soon as there are two Curses on it. A Philosopher's Stone deck is probably better off taking all the Curses as they come in.
What about requiring the discard at the start of your turn (like the next-turn effects of Durations) and having the Curses go in hand if you don't Cutpurse yourself? It's still just as strong on boards with no trashing, but quite a bit weaker otherwise. I'd also be fine changing the vanilla bonus.
A simpler fix might be just to trash Curses on the mat at the end of the game. I was initially arguing that they should return to the deck, but I think a good point has been made about how the treasure-discard requirement will hurt in a similar way as the deck clogging does.
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Deck clogging is much worse than the -1VP. If you are able to keep curses on the mat, that's huge.
Might be neat if instead of going into your discard, they went into your hand at the start if your turn. Then you could try to wait until you line up the curses with a trasher,
...but there is still that pseudo-cutpurse effect. being forced to discard a card every turn is not too effectively different from having a curse in the deck, arguably worse.
Hmm, good point. Although it might be 1 treasure to keep 5 Curses at bay. And you can choose not to give up the treasure. It also doesn't hurt cycling, and it would only be the treasure that is affected.
I guess it's a function of deck size, then. If your deck has 25 cards in it, then in the absence of drawing, having to discard a treasure every turn -- meaning you're effectively playing with a 4-card hand -- is no different from having five Curses in your deck. The question is what would be usual? An engine deck drawing itself every turn benefits from the Soothsayer mat as soon as there are two Curses on it. A Philosopher's Stone deck is probably better off taking all the Curses as they come in.
What about requiring the discard at the start of your turn (like the next-turn effects of Durations) and having the Curses go in hand if you don't Cutpurse yourself? It's still just as strong on boards with no trashing, but quite a bit weaker otherwise. I'd also be fine changing the vanilla bonus.
A simpler fix might be just to trash Curses on the mat at the end of the game. I was initially arguing that they should return to the deck, but I think a good point has been made about how the treasure-discard requirement will hurt in a similar way as the deck clogging does.
I suggested "start of turn, gain in hand" above. :)
I've changed the suggestion to "during action phase, gain in hand" which makes the curser even weaker. It gives the player a chance to draw to his trasher, or find an extra treasure, rather than needing the treasure in hand or hoping to be able to get to the trasher.
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One other idea: Curses only come off the mat one at a time. So you can control the deck-bloating a little more, and not be completely screwed over if you really need that extra coin on a single turn later in the game. And you can still keep them all on the mat on an engine game.
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One other idea: Curses only come off the mat one at a time. So you can control the deck-bloating a little more, and not be completely screwed over if you really need that extra coin on a single turn later in the game. And you can still keep them all on the mat on an engine game.
I think the cool part of the card is that the Curses slowly build up, and the need to discard a Treasure becomes greater as more Curses pile up.
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If you dont already have an image picked out for Soothsayer, here are a couple ideas:
Soothsayer - A person who professes to foretell events.
The Crystal Ball by John William Waterhouse (1902)
Hi-res version - http://www.femme-classic-art.com/John-William-Waterhouse-03/The-Crystal-Ball-John-William-Waterhouse-large.jpg (http://www.femme-classic-art.com/John-William-Waterhouse-03/The-Crystal-Ball-John-William-Waterhouse-large.jpg)
A possibly better hi-res version is here (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://img610.ph.126.net/B47yYWWE2W601zyHQ1dvkw%3D%3D/1684627735614912411.jpg&imgrefurl=http://xunyueyue.blog.163.com/blog/static/782002462010112793350262/&usg=__Qn2Q4gwvJG30xnMfhuk303h1Erc=&h=1238&w=800&sz=275&hl=en&start=1&zoom=1&tbnid=DEep0gstM6-cFM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=87&ei=ZEX-T_HELM-H0QGS0pHABg&prev=/search%3Fq%3Djohn%2Bwilliam%2Bwaterhouse%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D1071%26bih%3D644%26tbs%3Dsimg:CAQSZRpjCxCo1NgEGgIICAwLELCMpwgaPAo6CAESFMgE6gTDBMkEvATGBOkE6AT9AboEGiDBf1mbWICFV-eKCXeYjKt4Qks_17_1QzZryWOcuPeYlIfAwLEI6u_1ggaCgoICAESBBENaaAM%26tbm%3Disch&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=114&vpy=137&dur=2770&hovh=279&hovw=180&tx=78&ty=153&sig=117069395887260009047&page=1&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:56)
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/John_William_Waterhouse_-_The_Crystal_Ball.JPG/387px-John_William_Waterhouse_-_The_Crystal_Ball.JPG)
Svetlana by Aleksandr Novoskoltsev (1889)
Hi-res version http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Svetlana_by_Aleksandr_Novoskoltsev.jpg (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Svetlana_by_Aleksandr_Novoskoltsev.jpg)
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/Svetlana_by_Aleksandr_Novoskoltsev.jpg/442px-Svetlana_by_Aleksandr_Novoskoltsev.jpg)
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I suggested "start of turn, gain in hand" above. :)
Sorry, yeah, my intention was to support your idea, but it looks like I was calling it mine.
But after further thought, I think I have to recant. If it's at the start of your turn, you (1) might not have your trasher in hand yet, and more importantly (2) you likely don't know if you can spare a Treasure card yet -- or, worse, don't have one in hand yet and thus CAN'T make that decision.
I also think "any time within your action phase" is too loose and could lead to all kinds of crazy, unforeseen interactions that are either confusing or broken, given that that includes being able to do so during the resolution of some other card. Even without that wrinkle, it just doesn't feel structured enough a mechanic to be a good gameplay element.
So I'm back to supporting my original draft a few posts back, with the one change: "At the end of the game, trash the cards on your Soothsayer mat." How's that?
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So I'm back to supporting my original draft a few posts back, with the one change: "At the end of the game, trash the cards on your Soothsayer mat." How's that?
I'm not a big fan of trashing the Soothsayer mat cards at the end of the game. I think that this would really encourage people to keep their Cursers there, especially nearer the end of the game. Plus, after all the Curses have been distributed, you get a weird interaction where playing Soothsayers doesn't hurt others, but there are still cards on the mat you are trying to keep around.
I think if you want to have it trash Curses from the mat, it might be better to have that option every turn. Two options are:
- "In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand and trash all cards on your mat. If you don't, discard all cards on your mat. Return all set aside cards to your deck at the end of the game."
- "In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard any number of Treasures from your hand. For each discarded Treasure, trash a card from your mat. Then, discard all cards on your mat. Return all set aside cards to your deck at the end of the game."
The first of these options lets you discard a treasure to avoid all the curses. This seems pretty similar in power to Cutpurse. The second allows you to trash 1 Curse per Treasure discarded, so it's a bit stronger of a card, but still probably reasonable at $4. I think either of these would avoid the many-turn-discards, if we decide that's the direction we want to go (which it might not be).
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So I'm back to supporting my original draft a few posts back, with the one change: "At the end of the game, trash the cards on your Soothsayer mat." How's that?
I'm not a big fan of trashing the Soothsayer mat cards at the end of the game. I think that this would really encourage people to keep their Cursers there, especially nearer the end of the game.
Don't we want that though? Because if people just pull Curses into their deck, the card is not really any different from Witch, and an undercosted one at that. The reason Soothsayer would be weaker would be if it's practical to keep your Curses there if it is possible and practical to do so.
But I don't think there is. If we accept the premise that deck clog hurts worse than -1 VP (except at the end of the game), then I think there is ample encouragement to keep Curses on the mat. But keeping Curses on the mat requires a pretty stiff penalty of Cutpursing yourself every turn, effectively turning one card of every hand into a dead card -- in other words, simulating the very deck clog penalty that keeping Curses on the mat is supposed to spare you. So you might as well take the Curses off the mat every turn, and now we're back to the situation where we have an undercosted Witch.
By allowing cards kept on the mat to be trashed at the end of the game, sparing the victim from the VP penalty, the scales tip a little bit more in favor of keeping the Curses on the mat. Probably not greatly -- because the simulated deck clog you will incur keeping those Curses on the mat is still going to be worse on average than the actual point penalty. But at least then there's a trade-off there that you can strategize around.
It's also worth pointing out that this would more accurately replicate the original function of the card people voted upon. The original draft had cards on the mat NOT counting against you in the scores until they were added into your deck. The timing of when the Curses were "gained" had to be tweaked to avoid broken interactions with Trader and Watchtower, but if we trash mat cards at the end of the game, we can undo one of the side-effects of fixing that "gain" timing.
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For what it's worth, I'm with rinkworks on this. That would also make the card wording slightly shorter, which is good.
Soothsayer
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $4
+2 Cards. Each other player gains a Curse, setting it aside on his Soothsayer mat.
In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you don't, discard all cards on your mat. Trash the set aside cards at the end of the game.
I'll mock up a card to see if it's concise enough.
EDIT: It's not concise enough, at least for the normal font sizes. I'll mess with some alternatives.
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For what it's worth, I'm with rinkworks on this. That would also make the card wording slightly shorter, which is good.
Soothsayer
Types: Action Attack
Cost: $4
+2 Cards. Each other player gains a Curse, setting it aside on his Soothsayer mat.
In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase you may discard a Treasure from your hand. If you don't, discard all cards on your mat. Trash the set aside cards at the end of the game.
I'll mock up a card to see if it's concise enough.
I would change the wording of the last sentence to: "Trash all cards on your Soothsayer mat at the end of the game."
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I would change the wording of the last sentence to: "Trash all cards on your Soothsayer mat at the end of the game."
I wouldn't. It's clear to anybody that it only means the cards set aside by Soothsayer, and the FAQ can clarify. On a card like this, you need to economize words as much as possible.
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I guess your right. But the wording could be manipulated if, say Native Village is out and which cards are trashed. But if the FAQ would clarify, then yeah, it's fine
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You could probably drop "in games using this", and instead say "at the start of every buy phase". The "every" should imply that it occurs even when the card isn't in play; the FAQ can clarify.
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I thought you might like to know I playtested Almoner in a real, live game last week. It plays very well -- this is a cooler card than I initially thought it would be. The on-play decisions resemble those of IGG very much, but since buying them out only depletes one pile, not two -- and doesn't slow down your opponents, either -- the viability of a Duchy rush is a lot more situational.
Nonetheless, I actually came quite close attempting this against my opponent, who was doing something else entirely. I can't remember the full kingdom, but I know that it was a slow board with lots of okay cards but no obvious power combos. Woodcutter and Monument were on the table. I opened with Monument, because although that wasn't part of my strategy I didn't want to fall behind on VP chips. And my other opener was Woodcutter, the only cheap source of +Buy. I figured the +Buy was critical, and a terminal Silver not so bad when I would only be targeting Duchies and $2 cards.
I bought a single Silver and then dove into the Almoner pile, picking up two at a time when possible. I won the Almoner split 9-1 (as I say, my opponent was doing something else) and then hit Duchies as hard as I could. As with IGG, I gained a Copper to hand whenever I needed one to hit $5 but not otherwise. However, this is harder than with IGG! Almoner giving you +1 Card instead of +$1 makes playing a hand a lot more speculative. True, with a single Almoner, you're fine -- because you draw the card before deciding if you'll take the Copper. But with a hand of multiple Almoners, it's not clear what the maximum $ amount you can hit is.
In fact, I missed an opportunity to pick up a Province this way. I had a hand full of mostly Almoners, drawing more with some of them. I was so concerned about ensuring I hit at least $5 that I never picked up on the fact that I could have reached $8 had I gained more Coppers from Almoners that turn. I did reach $5 and bought a Duchy, but the next turn I was alert to the possibility of reaching $8, did so, and snagged a Province. It was the only one I managed that game.
Anyway, once I figured out the strategy for playing a stack of Almoners, it was pretty cool. I figured out that I had to figure out what the maximum and minimum possible $ amounts I could hit, given the Almoners left in my hand, and go from there. It was a different kind of strategizing than you get with IGG or, indeed, any other Dominion card, so that was a delightful discovery.
As my opponent started snagging Provinces, I rushed the Duchy pile, picking one up each turn. My opponent eventually started helping me and took the last 2-3 from me. Meanwhile, I'm picking up Estates whenever I come up short. The Woodcutter helps me pick up multiple Estates at a time sometimes. The game ends when the Estates are gone -- there were three or so Provinces left in the pile.
I lost by 6. Had I snagged a Province on that turn I could have had one, possibly I'd have only lost by 3, but it's hard to say since the extra Coppers would have changed the dynamics of my deck. My Monument was worth 6, which certainly helped close the gap a little, but my opponent didn't buy a Monument at all, so likely there was room to optimize his play as well.
Now here is the clincher: Although it was a 2-player game, we played with 12 Provinces, 12 Duchies, and 12 Estates, which is wrong, but it's how we play. Had we played with 8 of each, like you're supposed to, the Duchies would have been gone 4 turns earlier, and the Estates gone sooner still, almost certainly ending the game with fewer Provinces in my opponent's deck.
So while I lost, I think I've proven to myself that an Almoner/Duchy rush can be a viable strategy on a slow board. I don't believe it would outrace a good engine, but it's probably something you should consider every time Almoner shows up. As for pricing, I have no doubt whatsoever that $2 is exactly where it should be.
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I thought you might like to know I playtested Almoner in a real, live game last week. It plays very well -- this is a cooler card than I initially thought it would be. The on-play decisions resemble those of IGG very much, but since buying them out only depletes one pile, not two -- and doesn't slow down your opponents, either -- the viability of a Duchy rush is a lot more situational.
Nonetheless, I actually came quite close attempting this against my opponent, who was doing something else entirely. I can't remember the full kingdom, but I know that it was a slow board with lots of okay cards but no obvious power combos. Woodcutter and Monument were on the table. I opened with Monument, because although that wasn't part of my strategy I didn't want to fall behind on VP chips. And my other opener was Woodcutter, the only cheap source of +Buy. I figured the +Buy was critical, and a terminal Silver not so bad when I would only be targeting Duchies and $2 cards.
I bought a single Silver and then dove into the Almoner pile, picking up two at a time when possible. I won the Almoner split 9-1 (as I say, my opponent was doing something else) and then hit Duchies as hard as I could. As with IGG, I gained a Copper to hand whenever I needed one to hit $5 but not otherwise. However, this is harder than with IGG! Almoner giving you +1 Card instead of +$1 makes playing a hand a lot more speculative. True, with a single Almoner, you're fine -- because you draw the card before deciding if you'll take the Copper. But with a hand of multiple Almoners, it's not clear what the maximum $ amount you can hit is.
In fact, I missed an opportunity to pick up a Province this way. I had a hand full of mostly Almoners, drawing more with some of them. I was so concerned about ensuring I hit at least $5 that I never picked up on the fact that I could have reached $8 had I gained more Coppers from Almoners that turn. I did reach $5 and bought a Duchy, but the next turn I was alert to the possibility of reaching $8, did so, and snagged a Province. It was the only one I managed that game.
Anyway, once I figured out the strategy for playing a stack of Almoners, it was pretty cool. I figured out that I had to figure out what the maximum and minimum possible $ amounts I could hit, given the Almoners left in my hand, and go from there. It was a different kind of strategizing than you get with IGG or, indeed, any other Dominion card, so that was a delightful discovery.
As my opponent started snagging Provinces, I rushed the Duchy pile, picking one up each turn. My opponent eventually started helping me and took the last 2-3 from me. Meanwhile, I'm picking up Estates whenever I come up short. The Woodcutter helps me pick up multiple Estates at a time sometimes. The game ends when the Estates are gone -- there were three or so Provinces left in the pile.
I lost by 6. Had I snagged a Province on that turn I could have had one, possibly I'd have only lost by 3, but it's hard to say since the extra Coppers would have changed the dynamics of my deck. My Monument was worth 6, which certainly helped close the gap a little, but my opponent didn't buy a Monument at all, so likely there was room to optimize his play as well.
Now here is the clincher: Although it was a 2-player game, we played with 12 Provinces, 12 Duchies, and 12 Estates, which is wrong, but it's how we play. Had we played with 8 of each, like you're supposed to, the Duchies would have been gone 4 turns earlier, and the Estates gone sooner still, almost certainly ending the game with fewer Provinces in my opponent's deck.
So while I lost, I think I've proven to myself that an Almoner/Duchy rush can be a viable strategy on a slow board. I don't believe it would outrace a good engine, but it's probably something you should consider every time Almoner shows up. As for pricing, I have no doubt whatsoever that $2 is exactly where it should be.
Awesome, glad to hear you tried it out! Now I need to find people to play it with me :)
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I playtested Soothsayer yesterday. I was kind of excited about it too, but to be honest it didn't really live up to the expectations.
I played two games with it, I'm afraid I forgot with what kingdoms (it was a long night).
In game 1, Soothsayer was the only curser. Chapel and Fool's Gold were there, which made Soothsayer much stronger (he wrongly trashed almost all his coppers).
I actually had a quite some fun with it as I was attacking; he quickly got 4 curses on his mat, which was exciting for me. I was trying to remember the current score and we very pretty close, meaning that 4VP-swing really mattered. He, on the other hand, didn't have a good time. For one, he had to make a negative choice every single game, without any hope of some forgiveness. You can at least not play a Torturer one turn; the Soothsayer mat will always be there - he called it a 'nagging' feeling. The other problem he had, was that the choice wasn't interesting. He was never going to let those curses in, ever. He'd rather discard his only Gold, unless he could buy the last province and gain a 2VP lead.
In game 2, I was the victim, and the feeling was quite different. There were 2 more curses in the Kingdom (Young Witch and Mountebank). I went for Mountebank, he went for Mountebank and Soothsayer. There was also fishing village, so there were plenty plays of these cards.
With Mountebank dealing out most of the curses, I only got 2 curses on my Soothsayer mat. I didn't really feel the 'nagging' so badly. Probably because FV and Mountebank were giving me at least $5 in most turns.
I definitely agreed with him on the second problem, though: the choice is too 'easy'. It was too obviously the right choice not to let the curses in. Of course, you could accept that and say that Soothsayer just means your opponent has to discard a treasure card every turn. But that's not what I expected.
I didn't dislike the card like my opponent, though I did expect a bit more. He agreed later on that he might have been a bit frustrated in the first game (he had some bad luck, not sure what). I really think we should playtest this more and see what other people's experiences are. After all, this was just 2 games. And I have hated Swindler in many more than that.
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I playtested Soothsayer yesterday. I was kind of excited about it too, but to be honest it didn't really live up to the expectations.
Thanks for testing it! It's quite possible that it needs tweaking or even scrapping. Although I'm not yet convinced that discarding the Treasure is the "obvious" choice. If neither of you ever took the Curses, how do you know that the other choice was better? I've seen opponents that refuse to ever take a Curse from Torturer, too. They generally lose.
One possible tweak would be that if the player doesn't discard, they discard a single card from their mat, rather than all of them. Do you think that would help?
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Canopus
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
You may trash a card from your hand.
Vega
$4 - Action
+1 Action
+$1
You may trash a card. If you do, +1 Card.
Gacrux
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Trash a card from your hand.
Polaris
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
You may trash a treasure card from your hand.
If you don't, trash this card.
So close to making up Dark Ages' Junk Dealer. Gacrux came closest with its mandatory trashing but was off $1 on the price. Well done, all.
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It's the mandatory trasher peddler we always knew Donald would make.
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Also, Ironmonger is the Ironworks/ Tribute version of Peddler a few people submitted variants on, including myself. I like the Ironmonger card quite a bit.