Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Weekly Design Contest => Variants and Fan Cards => Mini-Set Design Contest => Topic started by: rinkworks on July 02, 2012, 04:02:19 pm
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While we're waiting for any last-minute entries for Part 1 to trickle in, here are the next two Challenges! Like last week, I decided to go with one wide-open challenge and one narrow challenge.
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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. This applies to cards previously posted, however -- if your submissions aren't already posted on his board, please refrain from doing so until after the results have been announced.
* 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
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The deadline for this week's challenges is Monday, July 9, at 8am EDT.
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Challenge #3 - Victory Card
Objective: Design a Victory card. The card cannot be a dual-type card -- that is, its one and only type must be "Victory."
Official Examples: Estate, Duchy, Province, Colony, Gardens, Duke, Vineyard, Fairgrounds, Silk Road, Farmland.
Official Non-Examples: Curse, because Curses are of type "Curse" not "Victory." Great Hall, Nobles, Harem, Island, and Tunnel, because these are dual-type Victory cards. Monument, Bishop, and Goons, because although they award VPs they are not Victory cards.
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Challenge #4 - Terminal Drawer
Objective: Design a card that adds cards to your hand and does not provide +Actions. Each play of the card must add a minimum number of cards to your hand, based on the following:
(1) If the card gives you no control over what cards you add to your hand (e.g., "+3 Cards") then the card must add at least 3 cards to your hand (e.g., Smithy) or up to a total of 7 cards in hand.
(2) If the card gives you the ability to selectively add cards to your hand somehow, then the card must add at least 2 cards to your hand (e.g., Oracle) or up to a total of 6 cards in hand.
(3) If the card gives your opponents the ability to selectively add cards to your hand somehow, then the card must add at least 4 cards to your hand (e.g., Envoy) or up to a total of 8 cards in hand.
(4) In the case of Duration cards, cards drawn on the next turn (or on any turn other than the one where the card is played) do NOT count, as these cards are never drawn dead.
Note: If a card also removes cards from your hand, you must subtract how many are removed from how many are added. Thus, for the purposes of this challenge, Embassy only adds 2 cards to your hand, not 5. However, the draw-then-discard mechanic can be considered selective drawing, and so it qualifies for this challenge under item (2) above.
Note 2: Cards that only add cards to your hand conditionally are ineligible unless they can guarantee the required minimum. But there is an exception here, too, which is that you may assume the player's deck is large enough to draw the required number of cards. After all, even a Smithy will fail to draw 3 cards if there are no cards left in the player's deck!
Official Examples: (1) Smithy, Council Room, Torturer, Rabble, Margrave. (2) Adventurer, Library, Courtyard, Embassy, Oracle. (3) Envoy.
Official Non-Examples: Moat, because with no selectivity it needs to draw at least 3 cards. Watchtower, because without selectivity "draw up to" cards must draw up to at least 7 cards in hand. Jack of All Trades, because even drawing selectively it does not "draw up to" enough cards. Hunting Party, because it awards +1 Action. Wharf, because it only draws 2 Cards on the turn it is played. Golem, because although it selectively pulls two cards from your deck, it puts them directly into play rather than into your hand. Nobles, because it may be used for +Actions instead of the +3 Cards and therefore does not add cards to your hand every time it is played.
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Ballots
Challenge #3 Entries (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3248.msg62329#msg62329)
Challenge #4 Entries (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3248.msg63888#msg63888)
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Results
Challenge #3 Results (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3248.msg67461#msg67461)
Challenge #4 Results (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3248.msg67676#msg67676)
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What about cards like Library for Challenge #4? (draw up to 7 cards in hand)
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What about cards like Library for Challenge #4? (draw up to 7 cards in hand)
Good question. I'll add allowances for "up to" cards now....
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What about cards like Library for Challenge #4? (draw up to 7 cards in hand)
Good question. I'll add allowances for "up to" cards now....
As currently constituted, the 'Cards that only add cards to your hand conditionally are ineligible unless they can guarantee the required minimum.' seems to pretty explicitly disclude them. I am glad you are making the change - I feel there's a lot of room for these.
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Wow, these challenges are giving me GREAT ideas for my fan-expansion!
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Submitted a VP card idea! Had one for a long time. I actually sent a variation on it that would play very differently... wish I could submit both.
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I'd like to request this is slowed to one challenge per week. With the amount of entries this is getting it's going to take me all week just to choose who I'm voting for for the last two challenges... and then on top of that I've got to create two more cards... and if we carry on at two challenges per week then from next week onwards we're getting discussion of previous winners on top of all that.
If other people disagree, I'm happy to be a bit wreckless with my voting, but there's no way I can give this all the attention it needs to do it properly with 2 challenges per week.
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I'd like to request this is slowed to one challenge per week. With the amount of entries this is getting it's going to take me all week just to choose who I'm voting for for the last two challenges... and then on top of that I've got to create two more cards... and if we carry on at two challenges per week then from next week onwards we're getting discussion of previous winners on top of all that.
If other people disagree, I'm happy to be a bit wreckless with my voting, but there's no way I can give this all the attention it needs to do it properly with 2 challenges per week.
I'm open to that idea. What do people think?
Another way to slow the pace down would be to issue two challenges at a time but not issue the NEXT two challenges until the voting period for the previous challenges is over. That is, we'd alternate "submit cards" and "submit votes" weeks instead of having them overlap.
Anyway, chime in and let me know what you all want. I'm happy to adjust the schedule if there is a rough consensus.
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I'm open to that idea. What do people think?
Another way to slow the pace down would be to issue two challenges at a time but not issue the NEXT two challenges until the voting period for the previous challenges is over. That is, we'd alternate "submit cards" and "submit votes" weeks instead of having them overlap.
Anyway, chime in and let me know what you all want. I'm happy to adjust the schedule if there is a rough consensus.
I'm happy with however fast it goes, as long as it's no faster than it currently is. I'm just grateful that you're putting in so much time to organize this. It is a lot of fun and helps develop and exhibit a lot of good ideas!
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I'd like to request this is slowed to one challenge per week. With the amount of entries this is getting it's going to take me all week just to choose who I'm voting for for the last two challenges... and then on top of that I've got to create two more cards... and if we carry on at two challenges per week then from next week onwards we're getting discussion of previous winners on top of all that.
If other people disagree, I'm happy to be a bit wreckless with my voting, but there's no way I can give this all the attention it needs to do it properly with 2 challenges per week.
I'm open to that idea. What do people think?
Another way to slow the pace down would be to issue two challenges at a time but not issue the NEXT two challenges until the voting period for the previous challenges is over. That is, we'd alternate "submit cards" and "submit votes" weeks instead of having them overlap.
Anyway, chime in and let me know what you all want. I'm happy to adjust the schedule if there is a rough consensus.
I like this best. 1 week to submit, another week to vote. Though it may be a good idea to let everyone know the challenges during the voting week, but give us an extra week to submit the cards after voting is over. So you can choose to split your time up over those two weeks as you like. Plus, I think it might lessen the burden on you, rinkworks, as it'll give you more time to organize everything from week to week.
Whatever you decide, though, I'm happy with and will keep my eye on!
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I actually prefer the current system, which already seems slow to me. But if people want more time, I can't really begrudge them that. More time for thought should lead to better cards, after all!
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I'd prefer a week of entries and then the following week be voting/results, so that entries and voting are not overlapping. The contest as presented now seems a bit rushed and is something that would certainly still hold my interest if it was slowed down a bit.
Actually I think I'd prefer if instead of two new contests each week, there was just one. So the first week we would have just had one contest, then the 2nd week we'd have the voting/results for the first contest and opportunity to enter the 2nd contest. Essentially it cuts the work in half for all involved but each week there is still a new contest.
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I sort of like the current pace. Taking a full 2 weeks per 2 cards seems like a long time to me. It'll be like 2 months before we have the makings of a set. Maybe we could do non-overlapping but shorten the timeframe to like 4-5 days for creating/voting? Or maybe keep the full week but have 3 challenges at once instead? That seems like a lot though.
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I'm also happy with the current pace.
I sort of like the current pace. Taking a full 2 weeks per 2 cards seems like a long time to me. It'll be like 2 months before we have the makings of a set. Maybe we could do non-overlapping but shorten the timeframe to like 4-5 days for creating/voting? Or maybe keep the full week but have 3 challenges at once instead? That seems like a lot though.
IMO, this is the best solution proposed so far.
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I sort of like the current pace. Taking a full 2 weeks per 2 cards seems like a long time to me. It'll be like 2 months before we have the makings of a set. Maybe we could do non-overlapping but shorten the timeframe to like 4-5 days for creating/voting? Or maybe keep the full week but have 3 challenges at once instead? That seems like a lot though.
If you have overlap, it's actually only 1 week for 2 cards, since each week 2 new cards will be voted in. I like at least a week for creation / voting no matter what, since any shorter may make it difficult for some people to enter, especially with summer vacations, etc.
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Maybe rinkworks could set up a poll? In the end, it's his choice of what to do, but a poll will give him a sense of what the community thinks.
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well everything seems to have slowed down in the two threads so I guess the pace was not overly fast.
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And it's going to get crazy come tomorrow again. What about if the weeks were still full weeks but sort of offset from each other. Contest A runs sunday to sunday and Contest B runs thursday to thursday?
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What will the cards be judged by? Creativity? Balance?
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What will the cards be judged by? Creativity? Balance?
I think it was whatever criteria the public wants to use.
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I like the current pace.
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And it's going to get crazy come tomorrow again. What about if the weeks were still full weeks but sort of offset from each other. Contest A runs sunday to sunday and Contest B runs thursday to thursday?
This is actually exactly what I had decided to do. The split between people who wanted to keep the pace and people who wanted to slow down was pretty even, so I figured I'd break the tie by slowing down half a week instead of a full week. There is also the realization of how much work it'll be for me to tabulate results AND make new ballots on the same day.
Which is what I'm about to start doing right now. I'll work on the results for the first week first, then post the ballots for Part 2 here a while after that.
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could you work with theory or someone to set up a form for all these votes? might be easier to figure out how to do that now. saves you the time of hand tabulating votes from dozens of PM's, especially if this is going to be happening a few more times.
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could you work with theory or someone to set up a form for all these votes? might be easier to do figure out how to do that now. saves you the time of hand tabulating votes from dozens of PM's, especially if this is going to be happening a few more times.
It'll be easier after today, because I'm writing a script to tally them automatically. Easier and less error-prone than trying to do it all by hand, especially when checking for self-votes and making sure people get their free point for voting.
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Here is the ballot for Challenge #3!
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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 16, 2012, 10am EDT in the following format:
Challenge 1
3 CardName
1 AnotherCardName
1 StillAnotherCardName
1 AnotherCardNameGoesHereToo
Challenge 2
2 CardName
2 AnotherCardName
1 StillAnotherCardName
Please use the above format! One card per line, with the number of votes given before it, and no extra punctuation or anything. This will make it easy for me to copy-and-paste your votes into the format my vote-counting script needs it to be in.
Do not submit votes for your own cards. (If you do, my script will catch you anyway.)
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. (My script does this automatically, so don't worry that I'll forget to do this.)
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.
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.
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Challenge #3 - Ballot
Gadwall
$6 - Victory
4 VP
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When you gain this, trash a card from your hand. If you trashed a Curse this way, gain a Gold.
Loon
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP per territory token on [This Card]'s supply pile.
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Whenever a player buys a Province, put a territory token on [This Card]'s supply pile.
Whenever a player buys a [This Card], remove a territory token from [This Card]'s supply pile.
Grebe
$9* - Victory
Worth 1 VP per [This Card] token you have.
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This costs $1 less per [This Card] token you have (but not less than $0).
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When you gain this, gain a [This Card] token.
Flamingo
$2 - Victory
Worth 2 VP if you have more Estates than [This Card]s.
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When you buy this, +$1, +1 Buy.
Petrel
$5 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each card you have 5 or more copies of.
Shearwater
$4 - Victory
2 VP
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When you buy this, place a card that is in play on top of your deck.
Guillemot
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every 2 Estates in your deck (round down).
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When you gain this, trash a Treasure from the play area. If you trash a Treasure, gain an Estate.
Cormorant
$6 - Victory
1 VP
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When you buy this, gain 3 VP tokens.
Pipit
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each Masterpiece card in your deck.
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Setup: Add an extra Kingdom card pile to the Supply. Cards from that pile cost $1 more and are Masterpiece cards.
Gannet
$6* - Victory
When the game ends, if the Province or Colony supply pile is empty (if it was available), then this is worth 4 VP. Otherwise, this is worth 2 VP.
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During your Buy phase, if two supply piles are empty, then this costs $3.
Tanager
$6 - Victory
2 VP
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The turn you buy this, only draw 3 cards (instead of 5) in this turn's Clean-up phase. Take an extra turn after this one. This can't cause you to take more than two consecutive turns.
Egret
$3* - Victory
2 VP
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When you buy [This Card], pay any amount greater than or equal to its cost. Then, gain a victory card costing at most $2 less than that amount.
Heron
$8 - Victory
1 VP
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During your buy phase, this card costs $2 less per action in play, but not less than $0.
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When you buy this, you may set it aside. If you do, return it to your deck at the end of the game.
Bittern
$4 - Victory
This card is worth 1 VP for each [This Card] left in the supply at the end of the game.
Ibis
$3 - Victory
1 VP
Worth another 1 VP for every 3 tokens on your [This Card] mat.
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Setup: Each player has his own [This Card] mat. At the start of a player's Clean-up, he gains a token on his [This Card] mat for each unused Buy.
Spoonbill
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every two differently named cards in the trash, rounding down.
Osprey
$5 - Victory
Worth 1 VP per [This Card] in your deck.
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Can only be bought if you have at least 1 Action Card in play.
Harrier
$4* - Victory
2 VP
During your Buy phase, this costs whatever you want, as long as it costs at least $4.
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When you buy this, gain a card costing less than this.
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(Rules clarification: [This Card]'s cost can change in the middle of the Buy phase. E.g., with $11 and 2 buys, buy [This Card] for $5 and for $6. When cost reduction like Bridge is out, [This Card] must still cost at least $4.)
Kestrel
$6 - Victory
8 VP
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When you gain this, trash all treasures you have in play and gain a Curse. If you do not gain a Curse, place [This Card] on top of your deck.
Plover
$5 - Victory
This card is worth 1 VP for every 5*P cards in the trash (round down).
(P = number of players)
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When you gain this, trash up to 4 cards from your hand.
Oystercatcher
$6 - Victory
Worth 10 VP, minus 2 VP for every 5 non-Victory cards in your deck (rounded down).
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When you buy this, you may trash a card from your hand.
Yellowlegs
$7 - Victory
2 VP
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When you gain this, gain a card costing less than this.
Sandpiper
$2* - Victory
When you gain this card, place a VP token on this card's supply pile.
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For each VP token on the pile, the cost of this card increases by 1.
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At the end of the game, this card is worth victory points equal to the number of VP tokens on the pile.
Tern
$3 - Victory
2 VP
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If you gain this during your action phase:
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Puffin
$9 - Victory
4 VP
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When you gain this, gain a Duchy and an Estate.
Macaw
$6 - Victory
2 VP
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When you gain this, you may trash a card from your hand. If you do, gain 2 Silvers; if you don't, gain 1 Silver. Put the gained Silver(s) on top of your deck.
Hummingbird
$6 - Victory
2 VP
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When you gain this: +1 VP. You may trash a card from your hand. If you do, get +VP equal to half its cost in coins, rounded down.
Kingfisher
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every 2 cards in the supply pile with the [This Card] token on it (rounded down).
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When you gain this, you may move the [This Card] token to a Kingdom supply pile of your choice.
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Setup: Place the [This Card] token on the [This Card] supply pile.
Pelican
$6* - Victory
4 VP
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When you buy this card, you may pay an additional $3 ($6). If you do, gain another (2) [This Card].
Waxwing
$6 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every Province in the supply at the end of the game.
Woodpecker
$4 - Victory
Worth 5 VP minus 1 for every three treasures in your deck (round up), but not less than 0.
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When you buy this, you may trash a treasure card from play and from your hand.
Flycatcher
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every three [This Card] tokens you have.
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In games using this, you may gain a [This Card] token at the end of any turn in which you shuffled your deck.
Bluebird
$10 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every differently costed card in your deck.
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Rules: In games using this, add Platinum to the Basic cards in the Supply.
Vireo
$6 - Victory
3 VP
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When you gain this, gain a Victory card costing less than this.
Bunting
$6 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each special card in your deck.
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Setup: Before the first turn each player selects a special card from among the kingdom cards and these are announced simultaneously.
Lark
$4 - Victory
2 VP
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When you gain this card, you may gain a copy of a card costing $4 or less that does not have the name [This Card].
Nuthatch
$4 - Victory
2 VP
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When you gain this, you may gain a Curse. If you do, gain a card costing up to $6 that is not a Victory card.
Warbler
$5 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each set of Copper, Silver, and Gold in your deck.
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Important news about the Terminal Drawer challenge:
I said I was going to post the results for Challenge #4, but I (unintentionally) lied. It turned out I had to disqualify 5 separate cards due to eligibility technicalities. Since I'd told some people about eligibility problems and not others -- largely due to me not reading the cards as they came in or just plain misreading them -- it's not fair to disqualify them and not fair to let them in, either.
So the upshot is this: The deadline for entering the Terminal Drawer challenge is postponed to Thursday, July 12, at 10am EDT.
This extension applies to everyone. So if your card was disqualified, you can submit a revision or another card entirely. If your card did make it in, you can still submit a revision or a replacement. And if you never submitted anything at all, you still can.
The reason for (I think) all the disqualifications had to do with the card giving the player a choice to NOT meeting the minimum drawing criteria. Note, for example, that Nobles is listed among those official cards that would NOT qualify, because the player is free to choose not to meet the minimum drawing criteria (i.e., by choosing +Actions instead of +Cards). Also note that discards matter! For example, Courtyard and Embassy only offer a net +2 Cards, not +3 and +5. I don't want to go into further detail about specific card issues here, lest I make card design ideas public that should be private until the qualifying cards are announced. But if you send me a message (remind me what your card was when you do), I'd be happy to go into more detail.
At present, the following people have qualified entries: A Drowned Kernel, Adrienaline, andwilk, Archetype, Celestial Chameleon, ChocophileBenj, DWetzel, Graystripe77, greatexpectations, Grujah, iangoth, jonts26, Nicrosil, NoMoreFun, One Armed Man, Polk5440, Powerman, qmech, Qvist, RobertJ, Robz888, Schneau, senseless, Tables, Tejayes. If your name isn't listed, I do not have a qualifying entry from you.
Sorry about the delay. For future challenges, I'm going to have to figure out a better system for adjudicating eligibility.
In the meantime, voting for Challenge #3 is underway! The ballot is here. (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3248.msg62329#msg62329)
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I'm mostly ignoring the cards that seem to have effects heavily influenced by (or exactly the same as) existing non-Victory cards. There are others that I won't be voting for because I perceive potential game-breaking issues, or possibly less rational reasons. :P Out of respect to the submitters, I'll only post comments on the cards I like the most. I may post the criticisms after winners are announced. There are a lot that I find interesting.
Loon is a loony card. If your opponent is playing a Province game, rushing them early is a good idea (when there are no tokens to remove). If there is other alt VP, Loon is probably a bad buy because Provinces can be avoided entirely. Even without alt VP, Duchy rush and 3-pile would look Loon out. If the Loon pile isn't emptied early, the Province player can buy Loon as well to even things out. Very interesting dynamic. One issue is that it is usually useless in Colony games. Or maybe it just causes more mind games, hmm.
The more Grebe cards you gain, the more they are worth and the less they cost. Rushing them is thus easier, if you can hit the high initial cost. Not sure if the starting price is too high. It does mean that a Province player probably doesn't want to buy a single Grebe, as it would be expensive for little payout. If it is split 4/4 in a 2-player game, they are worth 4 VP each to each player but would have been quite expensive to get. Might be better with a slightly lower price point. Not sure. The problem is exacerbated in games with more than 2 players. But hey, TFB works well in that case, I think?
Petrel is simple but good. Has a pretty fun mechanic with opponents. In 2 players, if you buy 6 of a card, that is a set of 5 that your opponent cannot get. This mechanic might break down a bit with more than 2 players, in that it's possible for nobody to be able to get a set of 5 of anything.
Gannet is neat. It is an alt VP that does not like other alt VP.
Bittern is another nice, simple mechanic. The math is a bit funky. If you buy too many, they actually end up worth less. If you buy the optimal amount, your opponent could actually buy some to screw that up. Weird, but in a good way.
Oystercatcher is funky. Not sure of average deck composition -- how much will it usually end up being worth?
Sandpiper is like Grebe in reverse. I think it would be more interesting if everyone had their own collection of tokens (as in Grebe); as it is, I think you really have to rush it.
Kingfisher is so incredibly dangerous to buy, but I think it adds some neat mind games to the match. You want to gain the last Kingfisher, so that you can control where the token is at game end. If you aren't contested for Kingfisher, you have to be wary of your opponent gaining the last one and putting the token on Kingfisher itself (which will be empty at that point). If your opponent puts it on a certain pile and they have won the Kingfisher split, you can opt to drain that pile to make Kingfisher worth less. That makes Curse a good pile for the token, so long as there isn't a curser around. Very neat.
Hmm... reading it over, I'm not sure how the scoring actually works. Does it count the number of token'd cards remaining in the supply, or that you have in your deck? I think the former, though the latter would be interesting in a different way.
Bluebird is simple but feels very classic.
Warbler is a really nice way to make counting Treasures work.
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Here are some thoughts on the first half or so of the cards. There are some really cool ideas here, but I don't like that so many of them are designed so that you can't hope to win without buying a few. Don't be surprised if I edit this pretty soon--there's a good chance I misread/misinterpreted a few.
Gadwall: Very strong, probably too strong. 4vp for $6 is a good buy by itself, better than fairgrounds on a lot of boards and equivalent on most others. The curse-for-gold bit gives you a net effect similar to "buy a gold, gain +5 vp." Except it's even better than that, since a high cost vp card is more useful than a curse.
Loon: Interesting concept, but you'd be practically forced to buy it in most province games (it won't take long before they're better than duchies, and if you put off buying them, they become half price provinces), and you'd almost never want it in colony/alt vp games.
Grebe: I don't think you could afford to pass these up in a province game. If you buy 6, all but the first two were discount provinces. And you'll get to 6 if your opponent doesn't dip into the Grebes, too. They're easier and easier to buy as you go.
Flamingo: Very easy to pile out. An $8 hand empties these in a single turn with no help. Would give engines some comeback opportunities if they can pile out the estates, too. I think I like it.
Petrel: I'd expect this to be pretty strong. Could be dominant on many boards. Get 5 or more coppers, silvers, and estates, and they're already duchies. Add in one type of action card and the petrels themselves and you're at 5vp. Add curses to the game and they're cheap provinces.
Shearwater: Seems balanced. I like it.
Guillemot: Tailor-made for rush strategies. Ironworks-guillemot would put ironworks-gardens to shame. Each guillemot should be worth 5vp in two-player if you rush them uncontested, and the card helps you run out the estates, so you only have to deplete one more pile.
Cormorant: Clearly designed to be trashed. But 4vp for $6 is already good. Like Gadwall, I think it's too close to strictly better than fairgrounds on most boards.
Pipit: Should be fun, I think. The strength of pipit itself is largely dependent on what's in the Pipit pile.
Gannet: Should work. Not totally game-warping, but it would create some interesting dynamics when a 3-pile ending is possible but not the most direct route to victory.
Tanager: I think I like it. Probably more useful than outpost on average. Even without an outpost-style combo on the board, you can probably get enough out of the extra turn to justify buying this over a duchy in most situations.
Egret: Pretty balanced, I think. Creates a virtual +buy which ought to slightly tip the balance in the favor of engines.
Heron: On boards that support it, it effectively converts extra buys into vp and make 3-piling easier. Mostly worthless on boards that don't support it, though.
Bittern: You'd be pretty much forced to buy this. You can't let your opponent have a 7vp card for $4 uncontested.
Ibis: Useless on boards without +buy available, potentially overpowered when lots of +buy are available.
Spoonbill: Useless when there are no trashers
Osprey: Another card which I don't think you can afford to pass up. If you don't contest them, your opponent will get 8 cards worth 8 vp each for very little effort.
Harrier: A stronger version of egret, I think. To pay $9 for this and take a province is a no-brainer, late-game. You probably wouldn't use it to gain action cards a whole lot. Maybe a gold, now in then.
Kestrel: Most of the time, I guess you'd buy this when you don't expect to reshuffle again. Could be interesting as a pseudo-mint if the opportunity arises.
Plover: I expect the creator added the on-gain trash ability to guarantee there can be something in the trash with no other trashers, but that ability is too slow to make this card a worthwhile strategy in those games. Early, you'll be lucky to trash more than an estate. Late, you can hold back some coppers to trash, but at that point you're passing up buying a gold at minimum.
Oystercatcher: I like the basic concept, but I think the numbers might need tweaking. You can to a lot with 14 non-victory cards, which makes these cheap provinces. Even if you just buy seven treasures, you can pick up a lot of these pretty quickly (I tested with fairgrounds as a stand-in. Got 6 by like turn 13-14). Of course, you stall out pretty quickly, but you get the idea. With good trashing, Oystercatcher could be ridiculously strong.
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Gadwall
$6 - Victory
4 VP
--
When you gain this, trash a card from your hand. If you trashed a Curse this way, gain a Gold.
Poorly designed mechanic. You already want to trash curses. And it just hoses cursers too much, just having this on the board makes them as useful in hand as copper at the least.
Loon
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP per territory token on [This Card]'s supply pile.
--
Whenever a player buys a Province, put a territory token on [This Card]'s supply pile.
Whenever a player buys a [This Card], remove a territory token from [This Card]'s supply pile.
Me gusta. Game changer on every board
Grebe
$9* - Victory
Worth 1 VP per [This Card] token you have.
--
This costs $1 less per [This Card] token you have (but not less than $0).
--
When you gain this, gain a [This Card] token.
Too good. Both players want as many of these as they can get, every Province game.
Flamingo
$2 - Victory
Worth 2 VP if you have more Estates than [This Card]s.
--
When you buy this, +$1, +1 Buy.
I don't know what to think of this. It probably accomodates some rush strategies, which I think are interesting so long as they're balanced.
Petrel
$5 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each card you have 5 or more copies of.
A little on the weak side. Which is the side you want alt VP on but it.
Oh wait, if you pick up two estates and don't trash your starters this enables more easily. This could be cool.
Shearwater
$4 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you buy this, place a card that is in play on top of your deck.
I like the idea but I think it's too easy to decide to buy it a little too often. I think it'd be better at 3$, 1 vp.
Guillemot
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every 2 Estates in your deck (round down).
--
When you gain this, trash a Treasure from the play area. If you trash a Treasure, gain an Estate.
This is too strong
Pipit
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each Masterpiece card in your deck.
--
Setup: Add an extra Kingdom card pile to the Supply. Cards from that pile cost $1 more and are Masterpiece cards.
There are so many cards that work just fine at 1$ more, I think this could too frequently lead to degenerate games.
Bittern
$4 - Victory
This card is worth 1 VP for each [This Card] left in the supply at the end of the game.
You never don't want this. The first one is worth seven VP, then the next one your opponent buys is worth seven VP, then the next is worth 5, then the next is worth 5.. and that's 4 at least that will be bought every game, and that's too mandatory. The ability to pick up an unanswered one of these with 12$+buy exacerbates first player advantage.
Spoonbill
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every two differently named cards in the trash, rounding down.
Too kingdom dependent.
Harrier
$4* - Victory
2 VP
During your Buy phase, this costs whatever you want, as long as it costs at least $4.
--
When you buy this, gain a card costing less than this.
--
(Rules clarification: [This Card]'s cost can change in the middle of the Buy phase. E.g., with $11 and 2 buys, buy [This Card] for $5 and for $6. When cost reduction like Bridge is out, [This Card] must still cost at least $4.)
Donald said he didn't let Haggler gain cheaper cards unrestricted due to 8$ Province-Duchy pairings. 9$ Province-Tunnel pairings are a bit weaker, but I think it it's still problematic.
Also, Dat Farmlands interaction 0.0
Plover
$5 - Victory
This card is worth 1 VP for every 5*P cards in the trash (round down).
(P = number of players)
--
When you gain this, trash up to 4 cards from your hand.
Unfortunately it's probably not strong enough when it works on its own with no other trashers.
Oystercatcher
$6 - Victory
Worth 10 VP, minus 2 VP for every 5 non-Victory cards in your deck (rounded down).
--
When you buy this, you may trash a card from your hand.
I'm so bad at thindeck, but this is really good thindeck design. The price seems right.
Yellowlegs
$7 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this, gain a card costing less than this.
Doesn't this compare poorly to Harem when it gains gold?
Sandpiper
$2* - Victory
When you gain this card, place a VP token on this card's supply pile.
--
For each VP token on the pile, the cost of this card increases by 1.
--
At the end of the game, this card is worth victory points equal to the number of VP tokens on the pile.
Degenerate purchase choice.
Tern
$3 - Victory
2 VP
--
If you gain this during your action phase:
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Not enough enablers to be worth existence imo.
Puffin
$9 - Victory
4 VP
--
When you gain this, gain a Duchy and an Estate.
The difference here is that it doesn't drain the estate pile, making this ok.
Macaw
$6 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this, you may trash a card from your hand. If you do, gain 2 Silvers; if you don't, gain 1 Silver. Put the gained Silver(s) on top of your deck.
Too duhish in greening phase. As a Mandarin fan I might be biased about moves on his turf.. but this does seem pretty strong.
Kingfisher
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every 2 cards in the supply pile with the [This Card] token on it (rounded down).
--
When you gain this, you may move the [This Card] token to a Kingdom supply pile of your choice.
--
Setup: Place the [This Card] token on the [This Card] supply pile.
Swingy swingy swingy swingy. I see this being very random when both players are obeying the Penultimate Kingfisher rule, and one or the other manages the +buy double purchase first.
Waxwing
$6 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every Province in the supply at the end of the game.
Very overpriced.
Flycatcher
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every three [This Card] tokens you have.
--
In games using this, you may gain a [This Card] token at the end of any turn in which you shuffled your deck.
Seems fun. I'll just have to trust the balance, I have no idea how often I shuffle.
Vireo
$6 - Victory
3 VP
--
When you gain this, gain a Victory card costing less than this.
I sorta dig it actually.
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Uhh, rinkworks, there are two cards named bluebird.
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Tern
$3 - Victory
2 VP
--
If you gain this during your action phase:
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Not enough enablers to be worth existence imo.
This becomes ridiculous with Ironworks, though. 2VP for $3 is already almost worthwhile (the effect on Tunnel is sometimes huge, but it's hard to trigger). This turns your Ironworks into a Lab +2VP +$1 for the cost of a dead card.
Yellowlegs
$7 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this, gain a card costing less than this.
Doesn't this compare poorly to Harem when it gains gold?
I think the intent is to let you get Yellowlegs + Duchy instead of Duchy + Estate in greening phase when you hit $7. That said, it does seem kinda marginal to me, too.
I don't see my card here. But I also don't see a copy in my outbox... I have this sneaking suspicion that I wrote up a message to submit entries, and then somehow failed to actually submit it >____<
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The things that make an alt VP card bad can be obvious, but the things that make it good can be really subtle. On some of these I have a definite opinion, but on a lot of them I'll just be speculating on how the card will be used, without concluding immediately whether that's good or bad for gameplay.
Gadwall
$6 - Victory
4 VP
--
When you gain this, trash a card from your hand. If you trashed a Curse this way, gain a Gold.
So you could buy this card along with Provinces, as a much better Duchy. Or you could use it for a come-from-behind win if you got cursed a lot. Perhaps, with sufficiently careful play, you could use it to get early VP while conserving the number of crap cards in an engine deck.
Loon
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP per territory token on [This Card]'s supply pile.
--
Whenever a player buys a Province, put a territory token on [This Card]'s supply pile.
Whenever a player buys a [This Card], remove a territory token from [This Card]'s supply pile.
eHalcyon described the plan to buy it early when there are no tokens to remove. If your opponent doesn't interfere, then, an early Loon a super-Duke for Provinces, even in a Colony game. (Kind of. You have to buy the "Dukes" first, but then you don't care who gets the provinces.) And if your opponent *does* interfere, which he probably should instead of letting you grab 8 VP for $4, then he has to spend buys on a card that he's deliberately decreasing the value of. But he's doing it later, while you stalled your deck early, so that might work out in his favor. Mind games!
Grebe
$9* - Victory
Worth 1 VP per [This Card] token you have.
--
This costs $1 less per [This Card] token you have (but not less than $0).
--
When you gain this, gain a [This Card] token.
You pretty much want almost all of these, or none of them, but then you can't get away with none of them if the other player is trying to get all of them.
Two problems. It's a rich-get-richer thing (or actually more like "now that I'm rich, I get free coffee" --Ben Folds), and I think that would be pretty swingy. And with 3 or more players, it turns into the failure card mechanic of Kill Doctor Lucky. ("I thought you were going to stop him!" "Why would I do that when you should stop him?")
Flamingo
$2 - Victory
Worth 2 VP if you have more Estates than [This Card]s.
--
When you buy this, +$1, +1 Buy.
+$1 and +1 buy? That means you only need $9 to buy this whole pile. I know you don't get the VP that way, but if you can buy the whole pile in one turn, it doesn't matter what the card says on it, someone just turned their temporary lead into a victory on piles.
Petrel
$5 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each card you have 5 or more copies of.
That would be 5 VP for Petrel, Copper, Estate, Silver, and whichever third pile you drain besides Petrel and Estate for the easy Petrel rush. I don't like easy rushes.
Shearwater
$4 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you buy this, place a card that is in play on top of your deck.
It's a one-shot improved Scheme (in that it can also put treasure back on your deck). Diluting your deck might mean you have to use it carefully. But its benefit and 2 VP might mean you just want it a lot. Not sure.
Guillemot
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every 2 Estates in your deck (round down).
--
When you gain this, trash a Treasure from the play area. If you trash a Treasure, gain an Estate.
The player who wins the split gets 4 VP each for $4 while running out two piles. I agree with pops that this is too good.
Cormorant
$6 - Victory
1 VP
--
When you buy this, gain 3 VP tokens.
At worst this card is going to be straight-up 4 VP for $6, nothing to sneeze at. At best you remodel it into 9 VP, or bishop it for 7 VP. I'm not necessarily saying it's too good, but it's a little better than Fairgrounds, which is worth 2 if you screw up and realistically up to 8.
Pipit
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each Masterpiece card in your deck.
--
Setup: Add an extra Kingdom card pile to the Supply. Cards from that pile cost $1 more and are Masterpiece cards.
If the Masterpiece is a cantrip, then two piles (Pipit and the Masterpiece) are going to be gone in a flash. Contrast to Duke where you have to be willing to bog down your deck with two kinds of unplayable cards.
Gannet
$6* - Victory
When the game ends, if the Province or Colony supply pile is empty (if it was available), then this is worth 4 VP. Otherwise, this is worth 2 VP.
--
During your Buy phase, if two supply piles are empty, then this costs $3.
So it's $6 for 4VP in many cases, but if you rush it it gets cut down to $3 for 2 VP. With occasional cases where you get to buy 4 VP for $3 and end the game on provinces anyway.
Tanager
$6 - Victory
2 VP
--
The turn you buy this, only draw 3 cards (instead of 5) in this turn's Clean-up phase. Take an extra turn after this one. This can't cause you to take more than two consecutive turns.
From the "I wish Outpost was good" department.
Egret
$3* - Victory
2 VP
--
When you buy [This Card], pay any amount greater than or equal to its cost. Then, gain a victory card costing at most $2 less than that amount.
There are a bunch of cards similar to this. A bonus for high-variance money, like Bank, because you can turn a VP card into a bigger one (yes, it takes up two slots in your hand, but you may very well not care).
On a similar note, I was thinking it would have been amusing if someone had just submitted
Continent
$14 - Victory
15 VP
Heron
$8 - Victory
1 VP
--
During your buy phase, this card costs $2 less per action in play, but not less than $0.
--
When you buy this, you may set it aside. If you do, return it to your deck at the end of the game.
A bonus of up to 8 out-of-deck VP for whoever gets their engine going faster. Or, for that matter, you can keep it around in your deck to trash it for benefit like Peddler.
Bittern
$4 - Victory
This card is worth 1 VP for each [This Card] left in the supply at the end of the game.
Buy two to cooperate, three to defect, and four if you're playing solitaire.
...now I'll stop here and post before I collide with too many other posts.
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Thoughts on the cards, continued (Now with 75% more formatting!):
Yellowlegs
$7 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this, gain a card costing less than this.
Presumably the designer priced it at $7 to be a consolation prize for when you miss the province. I imagine you'd mainly buy it for Yellowlegs->duchy lategame or for trash-for-benefit fuel midgame, which is fine, if a little dull.
Sandpiper
$2* - Victory
When you gain this card, place a VP token on this card's supply pile.
--
For each VP token on the pile, the cost of this card increases by 1.
--
At the end of the game, this card is worth victory points equal to the number of VP tokens on the pile.
Another card you're essentially forced to buy, since it's a better deal than provinces and worth more by the time the pile runs out. What's more, they're cheaper if you're the first to start buying, so everyone has to rush to get them.
Tern
$3 - Victory
2 VP
--
If you gain this during your action phase:
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Ridiculous with ironworks/workshop, slightly less ridiculous with remodelers, but simply a consolation prize without enablers. There really aren't enough enablers to make this consistently interesting, even if it turns out to be balanced.
Puffin
$9 - Victory
4 VP
--
When you gain this, gain a Duchy and an Estate.
Really only something you'd buy on your last run through the deck to get in as many points as you can. Could increase the endgame slog effect because the player who is not too far behind can buy this to gain a small lead without taking the second-to-last province. Now the other guy can't take that province, so he buys a puffin, too. But now both players' decks are so green they'll have a tough time even getting to $8.
Macaw
$6 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this, you may trash a card from your hand. If you do, gain 2 Silvers; if you don't, gain 1 Silver. Put the gained Silver(s) on top of your deck.
Quite strong, I think. I'd take it over a duchy almost every time. Two silvers on top of your deck gives you high odds of purchasing a province next turn.
Hummingbird
$6 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this: +1 VP. You may trash a card from your hand. If you do, get +VP equal to half its cost in coins, rounded down.
I think I like it. Trashing gold or hummingbird nets you fewer points than a farmland remodelling a gold or farmland, but you have one less green card floating around, and hummingbird can get vp out of more things. I'd make the trashing mandatory, though, like farmland. Relatively minor change, but it feels better to me.
Kingfisher
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every 2 cards in the supply pile with the [This Card] token on it (rounded down).
--
When you gain this, you may move the [This Card] token to a Kingdom supply pile of your choice.
--
Setup: Place the [This Card] token on the [This Card] supply pile.
As others have said, very swingy. Unless you split the kingfishers evenly, you can't afford to let your opponent buy the last one. If you have more kingfishers, he puts the token on an empty pile. If you have less, he puts it on, say, the curses.
Pelican
$6* - Victory
4 VP
--
When you buy this card, you may pay an additional $3 ($6). If you do, gain another (2) [This Card].
I like that it supports engines without +buys on the board (gives you a reason to work up to $12 turns). Much stronger than puffin, which is also $9 for 8vp, but split between 3 cards.
Waxwing
$6 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every Province in the supply at the end of the game.
In other words, 0, on many boards. In games where you can ensure a 3-pile ending, this would be fun, but I don't know if you can realistically do that before these become worth $3 or less on enough boards.
Woodpecker
$4 - Victory
Worth 5 VP minus 1 for every three treasures in your deck (round up), but not less than 0.
--
When you buy this, you may trash a treasure card from play and from your hand.
Without trashing, this card isn't going to be worth it at all. If I understand the wording ("round up" is confusing terminology at best, but I won't get into that here), it's worth $2 vp with your 7 initial coppers, and it's all downhill from there. Even with strong trashing, there are very few engines that run on so few treasures that you'd want this card.
Flycatcher
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every three [This Card] tokens you have.
--
In games using this, you may gain a [This Card] token at the end of any turn in which you shuffled your deck.
This card opens some very unique strategies, in my opinion. It should open up engine possibilities that wouldn't otherwise exist on weak boards where you emphasize cycling over money, aiming to shuffle your deck every turn. If the game runs 20-ish turns and you shuffle every turn after a certain point, flycatchers would be worth enough to be a strategy on their own. In a conventional engine, flycatchers would also build value quickly, but the game would tend to end sooner, limiting their value. In a big money game, I'd guess they would tend to be worth 2-3vp, sort of like gardens, but I could be off base there. Edit: Also, I like that it could combo with chancellor. Anything that combos with combos with chancellor is cool in my book.
Bluebird
$10 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every differently costed card in your deck.
--
Rules: In games using this, add Platinum to the Basic cards in the Supply.
I like it. 0 for copper, 2 for estate, 3 for silver, 4 for some action, 5 for duchy, 6 for gold, 8 for province, 9 for platinum, 10 for bluebird. That's 9 vp for $10, which is pretty good. If potion cards are in play, this could be better than colonies. Needs some clarification in a few cases, eg peddler and tournament prizes, though.
Vireo
$6 - Victory
3 VP
--
When you gain this, gain a Victory card costing less than this.
Another one you'd buy late to squeeze out as much vp as possible. Pretty reasonable, but not terribly exciting.
Bunting
$6 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each special card in your deck.
--
Setup: Before the first turn each player selects a special card from among the kingdom cards and these are announced simultaneously.
This card would be totally dominant in any 2 player game with a decent, spammable card in the kingdom. If you and your opponent pick the same pile, it's a race to win the split--the winner of the split wins the game. If you pick different piles or your opponent goes for provinces, your buntings could be super cheap colonies by the end of the game. Bunting should be a little balanced in multiplayer, though. Any card you'd want a ton of copies of is a card everyone else is going to buy, too. Buying up all the chancellors to make your Buntings worth 10 vp just isn't going to work out, but you might get away with 5 or so with some planning.
Lark
$4 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this card, you may gain a copy of a card costing $4 or less that does not have the name [This Card].
Lets you run out the piles super fast. I expect this to be too strong.
Nuthatch
$4 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this, you may gain a Curse. If you do, gain a card costing up to $6 that is not a Victory card.
Too weak. Two junk cards and a gold for $4 is a deal I'd almost never take.
Warbler
$5 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each set of Copper, Silver, and Gold in your deck.
I think this could be a bit strong, but I like the idea. In a standard big money game, it's no trouble to pick up at least 6 golds if you're not racing for provinces. The silver and copper take care of themselves.
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On a similar note, I was thinking it would have been amusing if someone had just submitted
Continent
$14 - Victory
15 VP
I came this close to submitting this card.
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There are two cards named Bluebird in the list. It may cause a problem when it comes time to tally the votes!
Bluebird
$5 - Victory
Worth 1 VP per [This Card] in your deck.
--
Can only be bought if you have at least 1 Action Card in play.
Bluebird
$10 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every differently costed card in your deck.
--
Rules: In games using this, add Platinum to the Basic cards in the Supply.
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Uhh, rinkworks, there are two cards named bluebird.
Gah. It's because those two cards had the same real name, so my script screwed up the substitution. I'll add in a check for that.
One of the Bluebird cards is now named Osprey. If you posted about one of them already, can you please edit your posts to prevent further confusion? Sorry about this.
I will send a PM to those who have voted and get clarification.
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For what it's worth, my thoughts are below. For me, it helps to group the cards into categories when thinking about them.
Interaction
I am liking the cards that allow your opponents to more directly affect your victory point count by buying certain cards. I also like the cards that interact with Provinces or Estates and how the game ends. For instance: Gannet, Guillemot, Bittern, Waxwing, and Loon. Although, some are better than others.
Alt VP, Straight Up
I guess there is still space for straight-up alternate VPs counting certain types of cards and getting VP tokens. For instance: Petrel, Cormorant, Bluebird, Warbler, Woodpecker, Osprey, and Spoonbill. Some of these are better than others, but there are a couple I would definitely like to play.
VP+Action-like ability
Some of these cards wish they were actions (or from engine-builders who don't like buying boring green cards and would rather just buy actions?). While some of these cards are interesting, I wish some of these cards had been billed as Victory-Action dual types instead, or just were an improved action card submitted for a different category. They might be even more interesting that way.
Flamingo: If I'd only played a Pawn, then I wouldn't need to buy this.
Shearwater: If I'd only played a Scheme or an Herbalist...
Tanager: If I'd only played an Outpost...
Heron: I like the Peddler influence, but is it going to be an ignorable card in too many kingdoms?
Harrier: I wish I'd played a Haggler and purchased a Duchy, then I wouldn't need to buy this.
Plover: I wish I'd played a Chapel,...
Oystercatcher: I wish I'd played an Upgrade to get rid of those curses and coppers,...
Tern: If only I were a better Dominion player, I wouldn't need this to make Ironworks work.
Hummingbird: I wish I'd played a Bishop, then I wouldn't need to buy this.
Lark: If I'd only played a Workshop...
Nuthatch: If I'd only gained a Lark....jk [edit: b/c it's actually better and leads to a game breaking cycle with Border Villages -- see nopawnsintended post below].
With these cards plus all the trash and gain on gain/on buy cards (Gadwall, Egret, Kestrel, Yellowlegs, Puffin, Macaw, Woodpecker, Pelican, and Vireo), and I'm beginning to think a lot of submitted cards are vying for the upcoming expansion of the Hinterlands expansion! I love that expansion and its on buy/on gain theme, and evidently lots of designers do, too. But how much of it do we really need?
Tokens, Mats, and Accounting, Oh My!
For me Dominion has reached a saturation point with regards to new mats and token types. When playing in person, it's time consuming to set up and do all the token accounting needed during the game when you have more than one type of special set-up card in play and are switching them in and out each game. Online there is not that constraint, but with so many cards that require detailed accounting (which is fun only when done really well), some of the following entries should come with a warning: "card counter required."
Loon: Serious accounting ("Did I put territory token on when I bought my last Province?" "Yes." "No." ...). One thing that wasn't mentioned above is the ability to Ironworks, Remodel, Upgrade, etc. into Loons without affecting its worth, which adds (too much?) power to the card.
Grebe: Concerns about stength
Pipit: I like that this is a riff on the Young Witch set up. Does require you to remember the cost of the card is one more than printed, though.
Ibis: Accounting every time you don't use a buy ("Did I...?")
Sandpiper: Uses existing tokens, which I like. Seems to have the potential to be more balanced than Grebe, if the starting price was a little higher.
Kingfisher: Another token! And introduces politics in a way that isn't normally present in a game of Dominion.
Flycatcher: Another token!
Bunting: More special decks! (and not as streamlined as Pipit)
I think this Challenge shows that coming up with a good, balanced Victory Card is more difficult than it first appeared.
[Disclaimer: one of the cards mentioned in the post is mine.]
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My submission doesn't seem to be on the list :/ I sent the message to submit the card I designed, but it isn't appearing in my Sent Items folder. I was really happy with the cards I'd made, too.. :(
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Card Cost Buys Gains % Gained Win Rate With/Without
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Vineyard $0P .83 .01 28.3 1.01/1.00
Duke $5 .71 .08 28.4 .95/1.02
Curse $0 .01 1.21 28.5 .91/1.04
Fairgrounds $6 .86 .07 39.9 .99/1.01
Silk Road $4 1.23 .04 50.4 1.00/1.00
Gardens $4 1.35 .28 52.3 1.00/1.00
Farmland $6 1.3 .11 56.3 .99/1.02
Duchy $5 1.26 .17 59.6 .99/1.01
Harem $6 1.58 .13 61.8 1.00/.99
Tunnel $3 2.1 .18 71.8 .98/1.04
Colony $11 2.63 .12 78.2 1.09/.66
Great Hall $3 2.13 .39 78.9 .98/1.06
Island $4 2.3 .38 82.6 1.01/.97
Province $8 2.91 .16 85.8 1.03/.82
Nobles $6 2.78 .14 87.2 1.02/.92
-
Gadwall
Too much benefit from trashing a curse; Awkward/Easy Choice with Fairgrounds.
Loon
So if you buy 2 of these, then 4 Provinces are bought, then 2 more of these are bought, they are worth 2VP each? The race seems to be get as many before Provinces are bought. I think that those buys should be gains.
Grebe
A Victory card that only works well if you get lots of it. If this is split 5/3, then it is 5^2-3^2 or 16 points in your favor. That is 8 points each, which is excessive.
Flamingo
I always thought this was cute. If you have $3 to spend, buying this and an estate is 3VP. That is like spending $5 on Duchy except you also get a blank card.
Petrel
If power level becomes a concern, a version could be made that cost 4 and has "1 VP for each non-Treasure card you have 5 or more copies of" That gives it 1 less VP for Copper (but you can trash your Copper) and has players get actions instead of Silver.
Shearwater
Like a Mandarin that gives Victory points near the last reshuffle. It needs rewording so you can't pick up opponent's Merchant Ships.
Guillemot
It is very easy to get 5 additional Estates in normal games so this becomes 4VP. The risk of it becoming 5VP is enough for opponents to pick this up to prevent you from getting the next to last one. Unless there is heavy trashing, in which this doesn't get bought.
Cormorant
The difference between this and Fairgrounds at 4VP is that this works with trash for benefit but not gainers. A little bland.
Pipit
Like Young Witch, varies in quality greatly based on what is a Masterpiece. Any cantrip/power card that doesn't normally cost 3 makes this pile run out.
Gannet
Gannet wants to not end on piles.
This is actually a fun meta-game when it fights you to end the game on provinces and then makes it easy for a player to end it on piles. I previously said
"A lot of text to say you want the piles ending. Great concept, but there has to be a simpler way of encouraging it."
Tanager
Outpost makes you plan your deck around getting extra turns. I don't see anything particularly wrong with this card.
Egret
This needs wording similar to the other adjustable price VP submission.
Heron
A VP instead of a peddler? This is essentially giving you a VP chip since you cannot interact with it in the same way you can peddler.
Bittern
Other posts describe the problem better than I can.
Ibis
Worthless without +Buy. 3 Markets played every turn increase 5 of this card's VP by 1 each. This creates a situation in which the player doesn't want to buy cards or end the game.
Spoonbill
Like Trade Route, when you are getting the most out of this, you have to do both parts (buy this card, trash random cards). Unlike Trade Route, it is easier to get in on the game because it is not a terminal action.
Osprey
Interesting restriction, but probably not sufficient. If this is split 5/3, then it is 5^2-3^2 or 16 points in your favor. That is 8 points each, which is excessive.
Harrier
This makes the a superprovince worth 8VP for $9. This also empowers alt-VP rushes. Seems ok.
Kestrel
An odd Mint, a virtual $ helper, or a last reshuffle tiebreaker. Seems ok
Plover
You can't trash the money you used to pay for it, so this is only useful in the late game or weird hands like (Smithy)SSCCEEE. I can't see there being more cards in the trash than cards in your deck without Remake, Apprentice or Bishop. This would always be weaker than Gardens.
Oystercatcher
Worthless without other trashing. Discourages you from buying cards to an extent, since you can't improve your deck's money density without hurting your VP. Like most on-buy, it can be "upgraded" or trash-for-benefited for greater benefit since you already get the chance to trash an estate.
Yellowlegs
Like an Egret, Vireo, and Harrier, but I can see the point to this. Has interesting reaction with Quarry/Forge, can be "upgraded" or trash-for-benefited for greater benefit, makes Haggler frightening, etc. Seems okay.
Sandpiper
You want to get these as soon as possible, since they become more difficult to get later on. Getting the first 2 (on $5 and 2 buys) makes it so no other player wants to try to compete for it. I don't think that is interesting gameplay.
Tern
Ironworks and Workshop are good comboes. Remake, Remodel, Expand, Upgrade, Governor, Border Village(?), Forge(?) have uses and also turn this card into something else later. This could be of significant use on the games it finds an interaction. Seems okay.
Puffin
Since people will often want this above Province, makes ending the game on Provinces more difficult. This might delay the game as it causes the game to end on piles, complicating a lot of strategies involving. After each player buys 2 of these, their engines grind to a halt (on 6 Victory cards) and it is a scramble to end on piles. Seems okay.
Macaw
If used to trash an estate or copper, is a better Farmlands for that purpose. If not used to trash a card, is a harem + blank card that the harem part goes to the top of your deck. Seems weak since both of those cards are weak.
Hummingbird
I forgot to talk about this one last time. It is too similar to bishop and farmland. It is always better than Duchy as well.
Kingfisher
Can be worth 5VP, 4VP if players remove cards from each pile. Each player has the opportunity to hop the value up and down if they have less Kingfishers than each other. This might barely make up for a 5/3 Province split (3 or more Kingfishers worth 4 or more points or vice versa). Seems fun.
Pelican
I always thought the parenthesis on Governor was unintuitive. This card can be a 12-cost 12 VP+2 blank cards. Any engine that makes that much might want to consider Province/Duchy so they have less blank cards. Similar to, and works well with, Farmland. Seems okay.
Waxwing
Very conditional, weird with Colony. The idea is that 2 players can get this and if you lose the split, you can make the cards worthless by buying Provinces. 5/3 Waxwing 0/3 Provinces, 6/2 Duchies would be 25+0+18=43 / 15+18+6=39. Each bought Province becomes 6+2XVP for however bad the split is. In 3 player, this could be worth 12VP each in a cursing/alt VP game. You need to get 6 Provinces to match the 2 other players who got 6 of these each.
Woodpecker
$4 - Victory
Worth 5 VP minus 1 for every three treasures in your deck (round up), but not less than 0.
--
When you buy this, you may trash a treasure card from play and from your hand.
Board dependent, which is good. If you can trash all your coin, like with a bishop, this can be a monster. Can be upgraded/ trash-for-benefited for good effect. Seems potentially high demand so the game ends on piles. Seems okay.
Flycatcher
Discourages ending the game, especially if you can shuffle every turn with Hunting Party, Golem, etc. Most egregious, you "should" gain the token in the paper version every time you shuffle even if no one wants this card.
Bluebird (10 cost)
0234568 10. 9 often, 7 sometimes. That makes this card 8 to 10 VP in all but the trimmest of decks, making an Bluebird game indistinguishable from a Colony game. Would this need a ruling to say that Potion cards count for their coin values?
Vireo
Too strong, makes a $6 Province really easily.
Bunting
Is the setup restriction before or after seeing your opening hand? If you have 5/2, you can win the split on a 5 cost power card and 4/3 can declare a 3 cost card they can start with 2 of. The choice is interesting, but gets degenerate in 4Player, where every other card gives a Bunting advantage.
Lark
A late game/workshop rush/trash for benefit helper. Can be a cheap Duchy+blank card. Much stronger than Farmland. Seems fine
Nuthatch
Really stuffs your deck. 3 cards for $4? If you are the only one being Cursed anyway, I could see this not hurting too bad. You can get Grand Market or Goons. Alt VP rushes and trasher helper. You can always use this for a $4 and 2VP. Seems fine
Warbler
Encourages Big Money too much.
-
Kingfisher
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every 2 cards in the supply pile with the [This Card] token on it (rounded down).
--
When you gain this, you may move the [This Card] token to a Kingdom supply pile of your choice.
--
Setup: Place the [This Card] token on the [This Card] supply pile.
Kingfisher. . . That makes Curse a good pile for the token, so long as there isn't a curser around. Very neat.
If you have more kingfishers, he puts the token on an empty pile. If you have less, he puts it on, say, the curses.
Quick note here: the base card piles couldn't get a Kingfisher token on it, since it's only allowed to go on "Kingdom" supply piles -- so just the ten (or eleven) piles that are different every game.
-
Kingfisher
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every 2 cards in the supply pile with the [This Card] token on it (rounded down).
--
When you gain this, you may move the [This Card] token to a Kingdom supply pile of your choice.
--
Setup: Place the [This Card] token on the [This Card] supply pile.
Kingfisher. . . That makes Curse a good pile for the token, so long as there isn't a curser around. Very neat.
If you have more kingfishers, he puts the token on an empty pile. If you have less, he puts it on, say, the curses.
Quick note here: the base card piles couldn't get a Kingfisher token on it, since it's only allowed to go on "Kingdom" supply piles -- so just the ten (or eleven) piles that are different every game.
Oh? I thought "Kingdom" referred to everything... but I supposed I mixed it up with "Supply".
-
Here are my comments.
Gadwall: It seems like there would be very special circumstances under which you would want to buy this. Trashing a curse is a benefit unto itself. Adding gold seems too generous in this case. Otherwise, you may not want to trash cards remaining in your hand (as in late game situations). This seems to be the norm, so I'm not sure about this one.
Loon: I like this one. An interesting early game buy choice. Also, this could have cool interactions with remodel-expand. If adopted, replace "territory" token with VP token. We don't need more types of tokens and mats, and VP tokens work fine as counters.
Grebe: On the fence. I think the card would be better if there were a communal token mat. Again, I don't like extra tokens, but that's my preference for simplicity.
Flamingo: I dislike the "when buy, +buy" effect. Seems like it would lead to ambiguities. I like the interaction with Estates. Estates are not often viewed as a resource, and this card makes you want to hang onto them -- an interesting tradeoff (though, not sure the two VP is enough to make this a strong desire).
Petrel: This is sort of interesting. To make it worth more than a duchy, you'd need to pick up a couple of extra estates, and have two card types where you have more than half the pile. This seems tricky to me, and it may be hard to make this work (unless others have a good idea here).
Shearwater: This is cool. I think this could work better at the $5 price point. The when buy ability could be very strong late game, and would definitely be worth giving up one VP for putting the best card back on the deck.
Guillemot: I like this. As I mentioned with Flamingo, I like the concept of making estates worth something (usually you want to trash). Rushing with Ironworks/Workshop is nice, but as worded, gaining them won't get you an estate because you don't trash the treasure. I haven't worked all of the rush details out in my mind, but I think impoverishing yourself of treasure might keep this in check. Rushing on gain with this feels like it would be like rushing Gardens, but without the coppers to help with the big green clog.
Cormorant: This seems like it needs a trash for benefit card, which is a little too kingdom dependent for my taste.
Pipit: Hmm... this complicates setup, but could be fun. Technical issue: I'm not sure how to deal with the added cost in casual play. The card as printed would still have its regular cost. Also, like Young Witch's bane, this may work better with some cost restriction. I'm not sure though... I could be swayed on this.
Gannet: Super interesting card. If you have a lot of Gannets, you want to empty the province pile. But, to get a lot of Gannets, you want two piles to be empty so they're cheap... but then, you don't want to empty the Gannet pile because then you have a pile of 2VP cards! Opponents could then play games with your VP by 3 piling before provinces or colonies are gone. This is an interesting knife edge case that you don't see with other cards.
Tanager: 2VP with a when gain outpost. Somewhat interesting tradeoff with Duchy (especially when a card like Alchemist or other fun durations are in the kingdom), but I don't really like the Outpost mechanic.
Egret: Hard to understand as written. If I understand what it does correctly, maybe reword to say "When you buy a victory card costing $5 or more, you may gain an Egret."
Heron: Peddler for victory points! Alternatively, an Estate that doesn't clog. Given my love for Estates, I like it.
Bittern: This looks interesting. Cool interaction with Trash for Benefit. A fun opportunity to mess with other players' VP.
Ibis: New tokens, new mats. On boards with no +Buy, this would be an expensive Estate. With lots of +Buy, could be cool, but I'm not sure it is worth the setup.
Spoonbill: Interesting in trash for benefit games, but not if there isn't trashing. Possibly too kingdom dependent.
Osprey: I'm not sure I like the increasing value. Seems like a card that cannot be ignored (lest your opponent gets all of them). In solitaire, the incentive gets stronger to buy this as you get more in your deck. In 2P games, you have the incentive to deny your opponent those huge gains (so you'd want to at least buy one or two to tamp down the value). The "Action in Play" restriction seems like a minor annoyance, but I'm pretty action heavy.
Harrier: The card is confusing to me, even with the rules clarification. Maybe it's the economist in me, but I don't like the freedom to name my own price.
Kestrel: On the fence. Seems like a great buy late game when you're not going to get to another shuffle. Also, could be an interesting way to want to run the curse pile out (for 3 piling). If curses are out, maybe 8 VP is too much for a $6 card you put on your deck?
Plover: An on gain chapel with a benefit from the trash. I like the digging through the trash aspect, but not so much when modified by number of players. For 4P games, you'd need 20 cards in the trash to make this worth one? If this card is the only way to trash, that's going to be hard to obtain (because the amount of trashing depends more on the # of cards than the number of players in that case).
Oystercatcher: This poses an interesting tradeoff, but I think I would have a hard time keeping track of the non-victory cards in my deck (not a PCE user here).
Yellowlegs: I'm mostly positive on this. Buy a Yellowlegs, gain a Border Village, gain a Duchy, gain a Duchess... could be fun. It is some consolation for being suck at 7.
Sandpiper: I like the concept, but not the cost.. At $2, it is an estate with HUGE option value. At $3, it is a tunnel with HUGE option value. At $4, it is a duchy with option value. At $5, it is a 10-diff-card fairgrounds with option value. At $6, 5 VP w/ option value. At $7, a province with option value (2 cards still available). I would buy it and keep buying it at the current price schedule. Maybe start it at $3 (or $4, might be too high)?
Tern: With Ironworks, you get a super lab with money. Seems too strong for $3.
Puffin: Seems overpriced given the amount of deck clog it will cause. This may be a good late game buy if estates and duchies aren't out.
Macaw: Fun card. In money deprived endgames, this could cure the logjam enough to hit three piles (possibly by repeatedly buying Macaw-MACaw-MACAW!!!). It could also do nice things to curse clog.
Hummingbird: Interesting. An on-gain Bishop. Buy a Hummingbird, trash a Hummingbird might be a fun play.
Kingfisher: I'm confused by this one. Is there one [This Card] token or many? Seems like you'd need many to make the accounting work. Again, more tokens == less enjoyment for me.
Pelican: Nonlinear pricing. One for $6, Two for $9, Three for $12. Without caring about deck clog, equivalent to Double Province on $12 if there are any of these left. Double province at -$4 seems like a no-brainer price to pay for one additional dead card in the deck. I sense that pelicans would run out quickly.
Waxwing: Really good in three pile games. IGG rush with these would be possibly more interesting. Of the Province dependent VPs, I like Gannet better.
Woodpecker: Seems expensive. I don't see this being worth more than three, and often will be worth very little.
Flycatcher: Points for cycling. That's interesting, but again, there's my disdain for tokens. Maybe use VP tokens for this?
Bluebird: Clarification on this one: Do you add a Colony as well? If no, it would be odd to see kingdoms without the platinum-colony combination. If yes, it seems like bluebird could be worth a lot of VP. Not sure if that's good or bad. I wouldn't ignore the card.
Vireo: This feels like it is worth too much VP. Possibly make it 2 VP and it would be better. Otherwise, $6 for 6 VP is a great deal if you don't have to do much deck manipulation for it. Maybe the clog makes this worth it.
Bunting: I announce lighthouse. My friend announces Hamlet. We both pile lighthouses and hamlets --> 5-5 split on each. So, Buntings are worth 10? In multiple player, this could get crazy, no?
Lark: An on-gain workshop. I wonder how it interacts with Bridge/Highway/Princess. Even so, I'm not too excited about gaining something less than $4. From this class of cards, I like Yellowlegs better.
Nuthatch: Endgame strategy upon getting $4 coin at the beginning the game. Requires Border Village. Buy Nuthatch, gain Curse, gain Border Village, gain Nuthatch. Repeat until nuthatches are out. Then, border village into curse. All you need is to get rid of one curse and two Border Villages before pulling the trick.
Warbler: Interesting way to get treasure to matter. I was thinking of something similar that just counted up treasure. I have less intuition about having sets of copper-silver-gold than I do about total coin, but maybe this card would get me to pay attention to that.
All in all, I think there are some interesting cards here.
-
I think VP cards are some of the hardest to balance properly. And pure VP cards offer even more challenges to overcome. If it's the kind of card you can build a strategy around, you'd like it to only be that way sometimes. But you'd also like it to have some utility in games where it's not the dominant point card. If it's the kind of card that won't ever dominate a game, then you want it to be useful support in most games you see it. Too many of these cards fail on those criteria for me. Either they they are just too weak to be considered in most games, or they are too strong half the time while being too weak the other half.
That said, balance is only one of the criteria I'll use to rank these. Creativity can overcome poor balance, since I figure if I ever play with these cards I can tweak them if I don't like the power level.
Anyway quick thoughts:
Gadwall
$6 - Victory
4 VP
--
When you gain this, trash a card from your hand. If you trashed a Curse this way, gain a Gold.
$6 for 4VP sounds about right to me. The trash a curse clause rarely triggers outside of curse games so it'll be often useless, and probably a touch too strong in them since you are basically netting 5 VP and a Gold for $6.
Loon
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP per territory token on [This Card]'s supply pile.
--
Whenever a player buys a Province, put a territory token on [This Card]'s supply pile.
Whenever a player buys a [This Card], remove a territory token from [This Card]'s supply pile.
Could create a decent metagame, but I suspect this is actually too strong as is. If one player rushed them early game, your opponent is basically stuck since he can't start gaining provinces without powering these up. So both players will end up rushing these early, and then the game will degenerate somewhat.
Grebe
$9* - Victory
Worth 1 VP per [This Card] token you have.
--
This costs $1 less per [This Card] token you have (but not less than $0).
--
When you gain this, gain a [This Card] token.
Too strong. Basically negates the need to ever buy provinces. Also creates a huge snowballing effect for the player who gets going faster.
Flamingo
$2 - Victory
Worth 2 VP if you have more Estates than [This Card]s.
--
When you buy this, +$1, +1 Buy.
The +$1/+buy clause I think kills this card. I get the idea is to buy one of these and then use the extra buy to nab an estate, but it's way too easy to just drain this pile for the leading player.
Petrel
$5 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each card you have 5 or more copies of.
I like this one, and I think it's balanced but I'm not positive. Pretty easy to get to 3 points with coppers, estates, and silvers maybe. Often gets up to 4 or 5, and with the right board 6+. So it sometimes acts just as support, and sometimes can work as it's own strategy.
Shearwater
$4 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you buy this, place a card that is in play on top of your deck.
On buy scheme effect. Probably balanced as is, but a little uninteresting to me. Likely you just use this to topdeck a Gold or strong action in the end game when you fail to hit a province.
Guillemot
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every 2 Estates in your deck (round down).
--
When you gain this, trash a Treasure from the play area. If you trash a Treasure, gain an Estate.
Probably a bit strong. Too easy to gain these and estates, leading to a very fast rush with no need for another card to support.
Cormorant
$6 - Victory
1 VP
--
When you buy this, gain 3 VP tokens.
I considered making a card which gave VP tokens, but really, in almost every game this card is just $6 for 4VP. OK you get to keep 3 of those points if you trash this for benefit, but I don't find that to be more interesting.
Pipit
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each Masterpiece card in your deck.
--
Setup: Add an extra Kingdom card pile to the Supply. Cards from that pile cost $1 more and are Masterpiece cards.
I suspect this will either brokenly strong or very weak, with little ground in the middle.
Gannet
$6* - Victory
When the game ends, if the Province or Colony supply pile is empty (if it was available), then this is worth 4 VP. Otherwise, this is worth 2 VP.
--
During your Buy phase, if two supply piles are empty, then this costs $3.
I think this will go unbought in too many games, though the games where it is relevant should be somewhat interesting.
EDIT: I think i read this wrong. Actually seems like a pretty interesting card all around. Most games it'll just act like a better duchy.
Tanager
$6 - Victory
2 VP
--
The turn you buy this, only draw 3 cards (instead of 5) in this turn's Clean-up phase. Take an extra turn after this one. This can't cause you to take more than two consecutive turns.
One shot outpost? Going to be pretty weak most of the time. Will likely end up just being a desperation ploy for the endgame.
Egret
$3* - Victory
2 VP
--
When you buy [This Card], pay any amount greater than or equal to its cost. Then, gain a victory card costing at most $2 less than that amount.
Seems balanced to me. $4 for 3VP, $5 for 4VP, $7 for 5VP spread out over 2 cards. Never going to be a power card, but will influence the end game dance a bit.
Heron
$8 - Victory
1 VP
--
During your buy phase, this card costs $2 less per action in play, but not less than $0.
--
When you buy this, you may set it aside. If you do, return it to your deck at the end of the game.
Probably going to be worthless on a number of boards, and will be drained pretty quickly on most engine boards with +buy. The option to set it aside is good, as it functions either as just a 1VP chip or lets me keep it to interact with trash for benefit cards. Also interacts with swindler.
Bittern
$4 - Victory
This card is worth 1 VP for each [This Card] left in the supply at the end of the game.
Not sure I like what this card does to the endgame. The first couple are obscenly strong but then your opponent needs to start buying them just to block you, and in the end we just end up with a bunch of lowish point extra green cards clogging our decks.
Ibis
$3 - Victory
1 VP
Worth another 1 VP for every 3 tokens on your [This Card] mat.
--
Setup: Each player has his own [This Card] mat. At the start of a player's Clean-up, he gains a token on his [This Card] mat for each unused Buy.
In any game with decent sources of +buy, this card is going to be obscenely powerful. And in a game with no +buy it will be completely ignorable. Needs a lot more middle ground.
Spoonbill
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every two differently named cards in the trash, rounding down.
Another card which is either worthless or very very strong with nothing in the middle. Needs trashing to be useful, but any decent trashing will get this up to 5-6 points easily enough. Also suffers from the trade route problem. You can't build a strategy around this by trashing everything cause it powers it up for your opponent as well. So only used in games where you're trashing a lot anyway.
Osprey
$5 - Victory
Worth 1 VP per [This Card] in your deck.
--
Can only be bought if you have at least 1 Action Card in play.
Exponential point growth might make this too strong. The buy restriction tempers that somewhat, but I'm not convinced this is too powerful, especially with any sort of engine where you can buy a bunch of these at once.
Harrier
$4* - Victory
2 VP
During your Buy phase, this costs whatever you want, as long as it costs at least $4.
--
When you buy this, gain a card costing less than this.
--
(Rules clarification: [This Card]'s cost can change in the middle of the Buy phase. E.g., with $11 and 2 buys, buy [This Card] for $5 and for $6. When cost reduction like Bridge is out, [This Card] must still cost at least $4.)
Wording is a bit clunky, but the intent is clear. Similar to egret, but much more powerful. Too strong I would think. Spending $6 for 5VP, or $9 for 8VP is very strong.
Kestrel
$6 - Victory
8 VP
--
When you gain this, trash all treasures you have in play and gain a Curse. If you do not gain a Curse, place [This Card] on top of your deck.
Just way too strong for engines where you don't want treasure. 8vp for $6! There is the curse, but in engines you can likely get rid of that easily enough. Also the second curse clause seems unnecessary since that will only matter in games where there is another curser.
Plover
$5 - Victory
This card is worth 1 VP for every 5*P cards in the trash (round down).
(P = number of players)
--
When you gain this, trash up to 4 cards from your hand.
Better than the other trash card since it has a trash mechanism built in. I think it might still be weak, especially in multiplayer without other trashing cards because you need a ton of these just to get up to even duchy points.
Oystercatcher
$6 - Victory
Worth 10 VP, minus 2 VP for every 5 non-Victory cards in your deck (rounded down).
--
When you buy this, you may trash a card from your hand.
Maybe balanced? Hard to tell. I would find it very hard to keep track of the value of this card during the game, moreso than other variable VP cards. Also with the current wording, this thing can go quite negative with a large deck.
Yellowlegs
$7 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this, gain a card costing less than this.
Another gain a cheaper card thing. Seems balanced. Will almost always be used to gain a Duchy I would think though, since you don't really want extra green cards outside of the end game. So maybe not the most interesting card, but sometimes plain and balanced is nice.
Sandpiper
$2* - Victory
When you gain this card, place a VP token on this card's supply pile.
--
For each VP token on the pile, the cost of this card increases by 1.
--
At the end of the game, this card is worth victory points equal to the number of VP tokens on the pile.
Too strong, I think. If I buy 6 of these, they are worth province points and yet I didn't have to pay as much as a province for any of them.
Tern
$3 - Victory
2 VP
--
If you gain this during your action phase:
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
Compare to tunnel. Even if you never use the 'reaction' part, still useful. Will be out of control with Ironworks, and still very strong with other gianers. Probably mostly balanced as is though.
Puffin
$9 - Victory
4 VP
--
When you gain this, gain a Duchy and an Estate.
Going to cause some massive clogging in the endgame since you are getting 8VP for $9. But you will have some interesting decisions on whether to go for this or Province.
Macaw
$6 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this, you may trash a card from your hand. If you do, gain 2 Silvers; if you don't, gain 1 Silver. Put the gained Silver(s) on top of your deck.
very strong, I think. I might consider taking this over Gold midgame or Duchy in the end game. So could offer some interesting choices at least.
Hummingbird
$6 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this: +1 VP. You may trash a card from your hand. If you do, get +VP equal to half its cost in coins, rounded down.
So it's a bishop? I guess it could be interesting. You could do a weak golden deck of this and some money without much set up.
Kingfisher
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every 2 cards in the supply pile with the [This Card] token on it (rounded down).
--
When you gain this, you may move the [This Card] token to a Kingdom supply pile of your choice.
--
Setup: Place the [This Card] token on the [This Card] supply pile.
As a friend of mine said, he thinks this card could be renamed kingmaker. Does odd things in multiplayer and in 2p it's going to be a ton of jockeying for position, and I'm not sure in an interesting way.
Pelican
$6* - Victory
4 VP
--
When you buy this card, you may pay an additional $3 ($6). If you do, gain another (2) [This Card].
The wording confuses me. Is it saying i could pay either $6,$9 or $12 to gain 1,2 or 3 of these cards? If so, too strong. $9 for 8VP is really really good, even over 2 cards.
Waxwing
$6 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every Province in the supply at the end of the game.
Could be intersting in curse slogs or if my opponent goes alt VP. Will far too often go unbought though.
Woodpecker
$4 - Victory
Worth 5 VP minus 1 for every three treasures in your deck (round up), but not less than 0.
--
When you buy this, you may trash a treasure card from play and from your hand.
I kind of like this in concept. Will sometimes be worthless (money games), sometimes dominant (engines with good money giving actions and sometimes in the middle (weaker, or money based engines). I can get behind that. Might still need balancing, it's hard to tell. The round up wording confuses me. Am I rounding treasures up to nearest 3 or points up to nearest integer?
Flycatcher
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every three [This Card] tokens you have.
--
In games using this, you may gain a [This Card] token at the end of any turn in which you shuffled your deck.
So it's basically a VP card that rewards deck cycling or thin decks. It could be ok in theory, but likely this leads to some degenerate games where you just trash down to a very thin deck with a bunch of these and sit and do nothing forever.
Bluebird
$10 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every differently costed card in your deck.
--
Rules: In games using this, add Platinum to the Basic cards in the Supply.
So it's a colony replacement, more or less. Lets see, at most this will get up to 11 points or 15 with potions, . Realistically 8 or 9? I can see it being balanced, as you have to build around it much the same way you do Faigrounds. But unlike fairgrounds, this could often be fewer points than province for a lot more money, so you don't pick it up as a consolation prize, which hurts it's value somewhat.
Vireo
$6 - Victory
3 VP
--
When you gain this, gain a Victory card costing less than this.
Way too strong. 6 Points for $6? Even over 2 cards that breaks things.
Bunting
$6 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each special card in your deck.
--
Setup: Before the first turn each player selects a special card from among the kingdom cards and these are announced simultaneously.
Can the special card be any of the cards named or does it have to be your own? Can you name this card as the special card? Either way this is way too strong if there is any decent cantrip around.
Lark
$4 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this card, you may gain a copy of a card costing $4 or less that does not have the name [This Card].
Why a copy of the card? Why not just gain a card. Anyway this is going to be super super good with IW or Silk Roads or likely gardens as rush cards. Otherwise, probably not that interesting except as a consolation for not even getting duchy in the end game.
Nuthatch
$4 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this, you may gain a Curse. If you do, gain a card costing up to $6 that is not a Victory card.
Probably a bit too weak. Early game I do not want a green, and it's not worth it to take a green and a curse just to get a $6 card instead of a $4 card. Late game, it's not so bad to get 2VP for $4, but I don't see this card being impactful hardly ever.
Warbler
$5 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each set of Copper, Silver, and Gold in your deck.
I like it. Might be too strong. Might need some balancing. But it's the most interesting VP per treasure variant I've seen.
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Maybe it's the economist in me, but I don't like the freedom to name my own price.
So you are in favor of all prices being fixed prior to the game and not able to fluctuate based on the market? Communist.
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Maybe it's the economist in me, but I don't like the freedom to name my own price.
So you are in favor of all prices being fixed prior to the game and not able to fluctuate based on the market? Communist.
Prices fluctuating based on the market is one thing (of which I am in favor; see my comment on Gannet), but naming your own price and getting it is something entirely different.
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Fluctuating on the Market.
Cost 6
1VP for every 2 differently named actions in your deck.
In the Black Market deck, this card costs 2 more.
During your Buy step, this card costs 1 less for each Market you have in play.
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My thoughts:
Gadwall: Like others have said, trashing the curse should be benefit enough
Loon: Very interesting mechanic, but I don't know if I like it. It counters Provinces, but also itself by lowing the point output. I'd probably only by it to counter an opponent.
Grebe: Would be much better if a community mat. Seems hard to stop if it wasn't.
Flamingo: Reminds me of Surplus Goods. Really like interactions with Estates *cough* Baron *cough* Seems like once you get a mega turn you can pile drive these, then Estates. Don't know if it's strong enough though. Tunnel costs three and always gives the same VP, and an awesome reaction.
Petrel: Would be better if it costs 6
Shearwater: A nice Royal Seal on-buy ability, balanced, but I would usually buy Island over this, but it depends on the situation.
Guillemont: Would be better without it's on-buy ability
Cormorant: Nice ability. Good Remodel fuel too.
Pipit: I feel this card would be often ignorable if it didn't bring in a power card with it.
Gannet: I love this card! When it's cheaper, the more likely it's pile will run out, and thus make it worth less points.
Tanager: So it's an Outpost. Outpost is pretty meh, so I'm not digging this card
Egret: If you got the cash, can be used late game to get this and a Province.
Heron: Peddler in Victory form. The only thing is, with Peddler, it helps grab more Peddlers. This doesn't really do that. Seems on the weaker side.
Bittern: Original, but may be too good. Once it reaches the optimal price to point ratio, no more will be bought (hopefully).
Ibis: May be too hard to track.
Spoonbill: Too situational, I'm afraid
Osprey: Very interesting restriction, it counters a boring BM strategy to obtain this. Seems a little unbalanced though, needs to be tested.
Harrier: Wording needs some work, but seems balanced.
Kestrel: Trash all Treasure's AND a Curse? Seems a little harsh when you can just rush these end game for tons of points. Unbalanced.
Plover: If it's Point System was Spoonbill's, and kept it's ability, this should be fine, but still situational.
Oystercatcher: Too hard to tell if it's balanced or not. Just like Osprey, this needs to be tested.
Yellowlegs: Too similar to Border Village. I think there's a card similiar to this in the Secret History.
Sandpiper: Ehh, a little too unbalanced. The math works it out that it will never cost more more than a Province and give less points. Like the mechanic though.
Tern: Seems balanced. Pretty bland though.
Puffin: Ends up being worth 8 points. And for 9, not too bad. Like the Duchy and Estate snag too. Good Card.
Macaw: I think the Silver trash/not trash effects need to be flip-flopped.
Hummingbird: Bishop in Victory form.
Kingfisher: Adds an element of politics to the game. I like it! It may be because I like playing those kind of games with friends. But online with 3+ players, things could get ugly.
Pelican: I'm too stupid to understand the wording on this card.
Waxwing: A little overpriced. The game usually ends by the Provinces running out in 2p
Woodpecker: Good in engines, terrible in BM
Flycatcher: Seems like the strategy to buy up these + a shifter, and keep cycling till the game ends..if it ends.
Bluebird: Might be alright if not for the Platinum thing. It adds another price bracket, and makes obtaining Bluebird easier. Interesting concept though.
Vireo: So this gets you a duchy. 6VP for $6 Makes it much too unbalanced. I like Puffin better personally.
Bunting: Too unbalanced. Pipit's a better version of this idea.
Lark: In my mind, this is too weak. I'd almost always take Island over this.
Nuthatch: I'd probably buy this if the card you gained was an Estate instead of a Curse.
Warbler: Another card I'm in love with. A great solution to the "Treasure card Victory". Seems balanced.
To me, there are really only a few cards that really stand out, and are unique. The rest are either victory cards with an action card's effect slapped on or cards that are too unbalanced by being either too strong or too weak.
Hope my card wins though, it's unique, but a lot of these cards are so much better ;D
-
Ibis
$3 - Victory
1 VP
Worth another 1 VP for every 3 tokens on your [This Card] mat.
--
Setup: Each player has his own [This Card] mat. At the start of a player's Clean-up, he gains a token on his [This Card] mat for each unused Buy.
Introduces too much extra stuff to keep track of, and it's too good.
Spoonbill
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every two differently named cards in the trash, rounding down.
Useless on too many boards.
Osprey
$5 - Victory
Worth 1 VP per [This Card] in your deck.
--
Can only be bought if you have at least 1 Action Card in play.
I guess that's one way to say "don't just rush this with money". But it still doesn't actually want an engine. It seems the plan would be to buy a few random actions (Woodcutter, Militia, and so on would be nice), and rush those delicious quadratic victory points anyway.
Kestrel
$6 - Victory
8 VP
--
When you gain this, trash all treasures you have in play and gain a Curse. If you do not gain a Curse, place [This Card] on top of your deck.
This and a few other cards here seem to create a game of inverse chicken at the end of the game. You want to jump for Kestrels, because they're so good. But if you trash your treasures too early, you stall and let your opponent slowly get the rest of the provinces. Unless they jumped for Kestrels too.
Plover
$5 - Victory
This card is worth 1 VP for every 5*P cards in the trash (round down).
(P = number of players)
--
When you gain this, trash up to 4 cards from your hand.
Sounds too weak.
Yellowlegs
$7 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this, gain a card costing less than this.
More interesting than the ones that just gain more Victory cards.
Kingfisher
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every 2 cards in the supply pile with the [This Card] token on it (rounded down).
--
When you gain this, you may move the [This Card] token to a Kingdom supply pile of your choice.
--
Setup: Place the [This Card] token on the [This Card] supply pile.
Sounds too swingy, given that the decision of how much it is worth is entirely made by whoever gains the last one.
Woodpecker
$4 - Victory
Worth 5 VP minus 1 for every three treasures in your deck (round up), but not less than 0.
--
When you buy this, you may trash a treasure card from play and from your hand.
Seems like an easy way to get 5 VP for $4, even at the beginning of the game, unless I'm missing something.
Flycatcher
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every three [This Card] tokens you have.
--
In games using this, you may gain a [This Card] token at the end of any turn in which you shuffled your deck.
I don't like the extra tokens, but I do like VP for shuffling.
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Loon
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP per territory token on [This Card]'s supply pile.
--
Whenever a player buys a Province, put a territory token on [This Card]'s supply pile.
Whenever a player buys a [This Card], remove a territory token from [This Card]'s supply pile.
Could create a decent metagame, but I suspect this is actually too strong as is. If one player rushed them early game, your opponent is basically stuck since he can't start gaining provinces without powering these up. So both players will end up rushing these early, and then the game will degenerate somewhat.
[/quote]
No man, that's the best part! If one guy rushes them all or nearly all early on, you can buy Duchies and another pile to end the game on piles. If you bought a Province or two during the rush, switch to Duchies, you only need Loons, Duchies, and another pile to run out. I think that's balanced, albeit on a hairpin. Sometimes the super Loons rush will be correct like you say, but it will be something you have to determine, not a duh thing.
Flamingo
$2 - Victory
Worth 2 VP if you have more Estates than [This Card]s.
--
When you buy this, +$1, +1 Buy.
The +$1/+buy clause I think kills this card. I get the idea is to buy one of these and then use the extra buy to nab an estate, but it's way too easy to just drain this pile for the leading player.
The card counters that 3 piling at the same time though. The player who doesn't spend 7$ on not-vp, which is already tough in a game with VP tension, is further punished by 4 VP of disadvantage.
Spending 9$ on uselessness is at least more of a barrier to entry than IGG, where you empty an additional pile basically for free because you buy a card you wanted anyway, one that is worth some VP to boot.
Even without the mechanic's built in protection, I don't think "In games using this, you may spend 9$ when two piles are empty to immediately end the game" is a game ruining mechanic, it just recharacterizes the board the way many cards recharacterize a board and emphasizes pilesize management and maintaining VP parity.
Oystercatcher
$6 - Victory
Worth 10 VP, minus 2 VP for every 5 non-Victory cards in your deck (rounded down).
--
When you buy this, you may trash a card from your hand.
Maybe balanced? Hard to tell. I would find it very hard to keep track of the value of this card during the game, moreso than other variable VP cards. Also with the current wording, this thing can go quite negative with a large deck.
Should be the same as Gardens. You should know how many victory cards are in your deck, because presumably you count victory cards anyway. (If your plan is to count minion splits and what's left in your reshuffle instead, then you're leaving VP count to chance and don't care what Oystercatcher is worth anyway)
After a reshuffle, you can count the cards in your deck, subtract the victory cards that you should be remembering, and now you know what your Oystercatcher are worth.
It doesn't matter if it goes negative or not. If you bought 0 point Oystercatchers your odds of winning are very, very bad to start with, -2 point Oystercatchers just subtract VP from a deck that we already know was terribly mismanaged and poorly planned. That's not much difference. A "but not worth than 0 VP" clause would be unnecessary words on the card.
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Loon
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP per territory token on [This Card]'s supply pile.
--
Whenever a player buys a Province, put a territory token on [This Card]'s supply pile.
Whenever a player buys a [This Card], remove a territory token from [This Card]'s supply pile.
Could create a decent metagame, but I suspect this is actually too strong as is. If one player rushed them early game, your opponent is basically stuck since he can't start gaining provinces without powering these up. So both players will end up rushing these early, and then the game will degenerate somewhat.
No man, that's the best part! If one guy rushes them all or nearly all early on, you can buy Duchies and another pile to end the game on piles. If you bought a Province or two during the rush, switch to Duchies, you only need Loons, Duchies, and another pile to run out. I think that's balanced, albeit on a hairpin. Sometimes the super Loons rush will be correct like you say, but it will be something you have to determine, not a duh thing.
If one player rushes loons, he probably won't be able to buy many provinces, so the duchy rush would probably be the right counter for the other player. Rushing loons could be weak if you can't get them all, because the province player can steal points by buying one or two. If you have 6 loons worth 5vp, it's a 10vp swing when your opponent buys just one. Also, consider how hard it would be to get more than two or three loons before the other guy gets his first province, after which buying more loons will generally reduce your score. I suspect a loons rush is actually a weak strategy, most of the time. But whether or not a loons rush is a good idea, if both players go for provinces instead of loons, eventually the loons become so good that you can't afford not to buy them. This is likely to be their real strength, and they're too good in this situation--in "normal" games, they'll grow to become cheap provinces or better until someone buys one. Basically, the only game where no one buys a loon at some point is a game where no one buys more than two provinces.
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Here is the ballot for Challenge #4!
--
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 Thursday, July 19, 2012, 10am EDT in the following format:
Challenge 1
3 CardName
1 AnotherCardName
1 StillAnotherCardName
1 AnotherCardNameGoesHereToo
Challenge 2
2 CardName
2 AnotherCardName
1 StillAnotherCardName
Please use the above format! One card per line, with the number of votes given before it, and no extra punctuation or anything. This will make it easy for me to copy-and-paste your votes into the format my vote-counting script needs it to be in.
Do not submit votes for your own cards. (If you do, my script will catch you anyway.)
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. (My script does this automatically, so don't worry that I'll forget to do this.)
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.
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.
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Challenge #4 - Ballot
Cheetah
$4 - Action
+3 Cards
Discard a card.
Reveal your hand. If you have no Silver in hand, choose one: gain a Gold and a Copper, or gain a Silver.
--
If you have any Gold in play, this card cannot be bought.
If you have any Silver in play, this card costs $6.
Elephant
$4 - Action
+4 Cards
Each other player gains an Action card costing at most $4.
Hippopotamus
$3 - Action
Draw until you have 7 cards in hand.
--
While this is in play, you cannot buy Treasure cards.
Rhinoceros
$3 - Action
+3 Cards
During your clean-up phase, draw only 3 cards.
--
When you gain this, you may place it on top of your deck.
Lion
$5 - Action-Attack
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
Each other player with 0 or 1 curse on his [This Card] mat gains a curse on their [This Card] mat. If they do not gain a curse, they put all of the curses on their [This Card] mat into their discard pile.
---
At the end of the game, return all cards on your [This Card] mat to your deck.
Fossa
$5 - Action
+6 Cards
Lose your next turn.
Zebra
$6 - Action-Duration
Until the beginning of your next turn, for all other players, all cards (including in players' hands) cost $1 less.
Now and at the start of your next turn:
+3 Cards
Wildebeest
$2* - Action
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
--
This costs $1 more per Treasure card you have in play.
Leopard
$5 - Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. The player to your left chooses to discard them or return them to the top of your deck.
+4 Cards
Giraffe
$4 - Action
+4 Cards
Discard a card from your hand, then shuffle a card from your hand into your deck.
Okapi
$5 - Action
Name two cards. Reveal cards from your deck until you have revealed two cards that you did not name. Place those two cards into your hand and discard the rest.
Hartebeest
$5 - Action
+3 Cards
While this is in play, when you buy a card, if it is a Victory card, trash a copy of the card from the supply. Otherwise, trash two copies of the card from the supply.
Jackal
$6 - Action-Attack
Each player (including you) reveals the top 4 cards of their deck. Your opponents discard any card of your choice, and they place the remaining 3 on top of their deck in the order of their choice. You may discard any number of cards from your own deck. Place the remaining cards on top of your deck in the order of your choice.
+3 Cards
Aardwolf
$3 - Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Victory card. Put the Victory card and one other revealed card of your choice into your hand and discard the rest.
If the first card you reveal is a Victory card, put it into your hand, then +2 Cards.
Impala
$6 - Action
Discard any number of cards, then draw up to 7 cards in hand. You may trash a card from your hand; if you do, +1 Card.
Eland
$3 - Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal 3 cards costing $4 or less.
Put all revealed cards costing $4 or less into your hand and discard the other revealed cards.
Lemur
$4 - Action-Attack
+3 Cards
Put one card from your hand on the bottom of your deck.
Each other player draws a card, then puts cards from his hand on the bottom of his deck until he has 3 cards in his hand.
Mandrill
$4 - Action
Reveal the top four cards of your deck. Put two into your hand and discard the others.
Oryx
$5 - Action
Draw 3 cards from the bottom of your deck. You may put a card from your hand on top of your deck.
Bonobo
$5 - Action
+3 Cards
You may draw up to three additional cards. For each card drawn this way, discard a card at the end of your clean-up phase.
Hyena
$6 - Action
Reveal the top 7 cards of you deck. Put 2 of them into your hand and discard the rest.
Camel
$5 - Action
Gain a card costing up to $5, putting it on top of your deck.
+2 Cards
Duiker
$5 - Action
+1 Buy
Draw until you have 7 cards in hand. You may set aside up to 3 cards drawn this way, as you draw them. Each other player draws a card for each card you set aside. Discard the set aside cards after you finish drawing.
Kudu
$5 - Action
Draw until you have 7 cards in hand. You may nominate a card name, that, as you draw them, may be set aside; discard the set aside cards after you finish drawing.
Meerkat
$4 - Action
Discard a card.
Choose a card from your discard pile and put it on top of your deck.
If there's no card in your discard pile +4 Cards; otherwise +3 Cards.
Baboon
$5* - Action
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
--
When you buy this card, place it and one other card you have currently in play on top of your deck.
--
When you buy this card, you may pay $3+P instead of $5.
Gorilla
$2 - Action
Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal 4 Victory cards. Put those Victory cards into your hand and put the other cards back on top in a random order.
Badger
$5 - Action
+4 Cards
Put 1 or 2 cards from your hand on top of your deck.
Pangolin
$6 - Action
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
Choose one: +1 Card; or +$1.
Waterbuck
$3 - Action
+2 Cards
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an Action card. Put the Action card in your hand and discard the other revealed cards.
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I seriously think Lion's someone's idea of changing Soothsayer so it works in this Challenge.
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I dig Wildebeest. Any card that makes Chancellor good.. ;)
I don't like the Library variants, they tend not to feel different enough from other draw until X's.
The Ghost Ship variant is way OP, it's a 4$ Ghost Ship with the drawback (?) of putting the cards on bottom of deck instead of top. Not enough of a drawback to jump the 4-5$ gap.
Elephant seems interesting. On some boards, it's a curser o.0
I literally almost submitted Meerkat exactly.
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Elephant seems interesting. On some boards, it's a curser o.0
Erm, no. If there are no actions <= $4, you just don't gain anything (Curse isn't an Action card) -- like if Witch gets played and there aren't any curses left.
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Elephant seems interesting. On some boards, it's a curser o.0
Erm, no. If there are no actions <= $4, you just don't gain anything (Curse isn't an Action card) -- like if Witch gets played and there aren't any curses left.
I think he means to say that if there are actions which you really don't want, and you get stuck with a bunch of them, they just clog your deck as much as a curse would.
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Elephant seems interesting. On some boards, it's a curser o.0
Erm, no. If there are no actions <= $4, you just don't gain anything (Curse isn't an Action card) -- like if Witch gets played and there aren't any curses left.
I think he means to say that if there are actions which you really don't want, and you get stuck with a bunch of them, they just clog your deck as much as a curse would.
The card doesn't specifier who chooses what card is gained.
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Yup. If all the 4$ and less cards are terminal, you get flooded.
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Elephant seems interesting. On some boards, it's a curser o.0
Erm, no. If there are no actions <= $4, you just don't gain anything (Curse isn't an Action card) -- like if Witch gets played and there aren't any curses left.
I think he means to say that if there are actions which you really don't want, and you get stuck with a bunch of them, they just clog your deck as much as a curse would.
The card doesn't specifier who chooses what card is gained.
Neither does Saboteur
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Isn't Meerkat way too strong early game? Buy a goons or gold, top deck it with meerkat, then draw it? I like the idea, but surely it can't be with a drawing action.
The wording on Fossa needs changing, but otherwise it's a solid concept. Like Tactitian, but worse/better depending on the board. Encourages Big Money heaps, but I suppose these sorts of cards usually do.
I'm not sure what to make of Wildebeest, considering how many terminal silvers and remodel like cards are out there (this could make develop good!) it seems too easy to get for the asking price. But then, often you won't be able to buy another card. Encouraging of early greening maybe?
I like Aardwolf a lot, though it could be very swingy, hitting your only green card as the second card vs not at all, for example.
Oryx I see as tricky to play with when using real cards. Couldn't you say from the top and then discard one to the bottom?
Kudu with a 5:2 split... Nominate Estate. Gold, then Gold, then Gold, Nominate Copper then Provinces. It would make for a very short game. Needs to be priced higher.
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Neither does Saboteur
So it is usually more beneficial to opponents, hm? Unless all action cards <= $4 are terrible.
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Elephant seems interesting. On some boards, it's a curser o.0
Erm, no. If there are no actions <= $4, you just don't gain anything (Curse isn't an Action card) -- like if Witch gets played and there aren't any curses left.
I think he means to say that if there are actions which you really don't want, and you get stuck with a bunch of them, they just clog your deck as much as a curse would.
Ah, yes, there is that.
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Neither does Saboteur
So it is usually more beneficial to opponents, hm? Unless all action cards <= $4 are terrible.
Correct. Rarely are all the 4$ action cards terminal
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Here are my comments/impressions. Disclaimer: None of the cards are mine. :)
Cheetah
$4 - Action
+3 Cards
Discard a card.
Reveal your hand. If you have no Silver in hand, choose one: gain a Gold and a Copper, or gain a Silver.
--
If you have any Gold in play, this card cannot be bought.
If you have any Silver in play, this card costs $6.
Could be crazy good with Watchtower. Open Cheetah/Watchtower on 3/4, and load up on Watchtowers. Then, always choose Gold and Copper --> topdeck Gold, trash Copper.
Elephant
$4 - Action
+4 Cards
Each other player gains an Action card costing at most $4.
Agree with previous comments that this is a "curser" on some boards. It could also help the game end on piles early. Though, I like the strategic interaction that if your opponent plays an Elephant, you can always gain an Elephant.
Hippopotamus
$3 - Action
Draw until you have 7 cards in hand.
--
While this is in play, you cannot buy Treasure cards.
Not really excited about this one, but I don't like library-type cards that much unless they have extra abilities (like Watchtower).
Rhinoceros
$3 - Action
+3 Cards
During your clean-up phase, draw only 3 cards.
--
When you gain this, you may place it on top of your deck.
On its face, this looks interesting, but it feels like it needs to net a card to be worth the cost on most boards. As it is now, you get a 7-card hand followed by a 3-card hand so it is like playing two Havens in reverse without foresight. This could be good if under assault by hand reducers --> give a 5-card hand now (after attack) and render an attack next turn moot.
Lion
$5 - Action-Attack
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
Each other player with 0 or 1 curse on his [This Card] mat gains a curse on their [This Card] mat. If they do not gain a curse, they put all of the curses on their [This Card] mat into their discard pile.
---
At the end of the game, return all cards on your [This Card] mat to your deck.
Interesting use of a mat (though I don't like mats). So, this would go curse-curse-clog as the attacks roll in. Seems stronger than Margrave. Repeated Lions compound by cursing and clogging more, while Margraves sift.
Fossa
$5 - Action
+6 Cards
Lose your next turn.
Has the feel of a reverse Tactician. Maybe needs to be an action-duration. "At the beginning of next turn, discard 5 cards.
Zebra
$6 - Action-Duration
Until the beginning of your next turn, for all other players, all cards (including in players' hands) cost $1 less.
Now and at the start of your next turn:
+3 Cards
Super-Wharf! But, to keep the super-Wharfing in check, other players get a Bridge-like benefit. With Villages, chaining these could be interesting. I like it.
Wildebeest
$2* - Action
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
--
This costs $1 more per Treasure card you have in play.
Can't open by buying Wildebeast, but with a Nomad Camp opening, you could get it on your second turn. Is it worth it? I suppose with lots of Villages, this could lead to a Margrave-like chain. If there's synthetic money or trash for benefit, it could be quite easy to pick these up.
Leopard
$5 - Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. The player to your left chooses to discard them or return them to the top of your deck.
+4 Cards
So your above-average 4 card draws get thrown out, but at least you get to draw 4 cards. This feels like it could be worse than Envoy on some boards. Maybe overpriced, but I don't know.
Giraffe
$4 - Action
+4 Cards
Discard a card from your hand, then shuffle a card from your hand into your deck.
Maybe too much shuffling when this is being used. I don't really enjoy shuffling.
Okapi
$5 - Action
Name two cards. Reveal cards from your deck until you have revealed two cards that you did not name. Place those two cards into your hand and discard the rest.
Interesting. This could be really good in homogeneous decks. One tactic I'd try: Load up on Silver (buy on 3 and 4), Okapi and Gold. Name Copper and Estate, draw from my mix of Silver, Gold and Okapi. There's be some risk of a clash-o-Okapis, but it might be worth it given enough Silver and Gold. Might relieve tension with Villages...
Hartebeest
$5 - Action
+3 Cards
While this is in play, when you buy a card, if it is a Victory card, trash a copy of the card from the supply. Otherwise, trash two copies of the card from the supply.
Super game accelerator. It might make games end too quickly. At least it is a "when buy" ability rather than "when gain"... so Talisman would only hit for the extra copies if in play.
Jackal
$6 - Action-Attack
Each player (including you) reveals the top 4 cards of their deck. Your opponents discard any card of your choice, and they place the remaining 3 on top of their deck in the order of their choice. You may discard any number of cards from your own deck. Place the remaining cards on top of your deck in the order of your choice.
+3 Cards
In some ways, much stronger than Oracle (drawing more cards, get to pick the strongest/weakest to discard), but also weaker in that opponents get to reorder the top 3 of their deck (not so much weaker, but it's an ability for your opponent). It's interesting.
Aardwolf
$3 - Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Victory card. Put the Victory card and one other revealed card of your choice into your hand and discard the rest.
If the first card you reveal is a Victory card, put it into your hand, then +2 Cards.
A soft counter to Fortune Teller and Rabble. Reasonably cheap. I would give this card a test drive.
Impala
$6 - Action
Discard any number of cards, then draw up to 7 cards in hand. You may trash a card from your hand; if you do, +1 Card.
This is like an instant Hamlet-Watchtower combo in one card, but better. It is strong, but feels like it might be too strong. Maybe its right for $6. I don't have the intuition for that.
Eland
$3 - Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal 3 cards costing $4 or less.
Put all revealed cards costing $4 or less into your hand and discard the other revealed cards.
I would be afraid to play this for fear of passing over my $5 power actions. I don't think I would buy this until someone beat me handily using this.
Lemur
$4 - Action-Attack
+3 Cards
Put one card from your hand on the bottom of your deck.
Each other player draws a card, then puts cards from his hand on the bottom of his deck until he has 3 cards in his hand.
This is what I imagine would happen if Margrave and Ghost Ship had a baby that cost $4, and I'm not sure $4 is enough.
Mandrill
$4 - Action
Reveal the top four cards of your deck. Put two into your hand and discard the others.
Seems ok. A little too simple for my taste.
Oryx
$5 - Action
Draw 3 cards from the bottom of your deck. You may put a card from your hand on top of your deck.
Interesting. It's a Courtyard with optional top decking. The option could be valuable. Seems like a decent card.
Bonobo
$5 - Action
+3 Cards
You may draw up to three additional cards. For each card drawn this way, discard a card at the end of your clean-up phase.
Neat card. Could be really good in the face of discard attacks when you would have to discard anyway.
Hyena
$6 - Action
Reveal the top 7 cards of you deck. Put 2 of them into your hand and discard the rest.
Fast cycling. This would be ridiculous with Tunnel.
Camel
$5 - Action
Gain a card costing up to $5, putting it on top of your deck.
+2 Cards
Could be great with $5 treasures like Venture. Also, it's like a workshop that works on Duchy-Duke without Highway assistance (with the cost being drawing a card dead in the hand). With Villages, this could enable some powerful action chains. Seems like a multifaceted card. The more I think about it, the more I like it.
Duiker
$5 - Action
+1 Buy
Draw until you have 7 cards in hand. You may set aside up to 3 cards drawn this way, as you draw them. Each other player draws a card for each card you set aside. Discard the set aside cards after you finish drawing.
The externality seems too powerful for a $5 cost, which would prevent me from wanting to sift (basically, +1 Card for me and everyone else if I don't like a card).
Kudu
$5 - Action
Draw until you have 7 cards in hand. You may nominate a card name, that, as you draw them, may be set aside; discard the set aside cards after you finish drawing.
I don't know how much the naming of a card is helpful. It helps a little, but I'm not excited about it.
Meerkat
$4 - Action
Discard a card.
Choose a card from your discard pile and put it on top of your deck.
If there's no card in your discard pile +4 Cards; otherwise +3 Cards.
I like the idea of sifting through the discard pile. Interesting idea. This could be strong with big variance in treasure value (maybe too strong for $4?)
Baboon
$5* - Action
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
--
When you buy this card, place it and one other card you have currently in play on top of your deck.
--
When you buy this card, you may pay $3+P instead of $5.
Buy this with a village in play, and next turn could be the start of a nice chain. Interesting dual cost option on the card.
Gorilla
$2 - Action
Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal 4 Victory cards. Put those Victory cards into your hand and put the other cards back on top in a random order.
A better Scout that costs $2 and gives no action. Suitably tricky to pair with Crossroads because you need Villages before, and to play the Crossroads after.
Badger
$5 - Action
+4 Cards
Put 1 or 2 cards from your hand on top of your deck.
I like the option to put 1 or 2 cards back on the deck. This could be really valuable.
Pangolin
$6 - Action
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
Choose one: +1 Card; or +$1.
Like a Council Room without the externality (with the option to take money instead of one more draw). Seems OK. Stronger than Council Room, but to my eye, it resembles Council Room too much.
Waterbuck
$3 - Action
+2 Cards
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an Action card. Put the Action card in your hand and discard the other revealed cards.
This could be great with villages. Without villages, it would guarantee drawing an action dead. That's an interesting tension.
Overall, this is a cool set of cards.
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I was recently thinking about something that is relevant here. First, note that I'm not thinking about any particular cards here. But it occurred to me that the value of having a +Buy is more valuable on a terminal drawer than it is on any of several other cards. Because if you're adding 3-4 cards in your hand with a terminal drawer, that implies two things: (1) You're probably playing with a big money deck. Certainly you MIGHT have some kind of +Actions/+Cards engine going on, but Smithy-type cards tend to be about money. (2) You might very well have a LOT of money to spend this turn, because you just drew a lot of cards.
Thus, having a +Buy is more likely to come in handy than it would on a card that's not necessarily as lucrative in and of itself. Trade Route is interesting in this way. If all you've got for Victory cards are Estates, Duchies, and Provinces, then that +Buy probably isn't all that important. If there are Colonies, Islands, and Great Halls as well, you're more likely to want to use it.
You can notice a similar thing with Market. Market is a sturdy $5 card but not earthshattering. A stack of Markets gives you WAY more +Buys than you'll ever use, which means that they might as well be Peddlers for you. On the other hand, if you have a whole pile of Peddlers, Bazaars, Treasuries, and Conspirators, then slipping a Market into the mix can be amazing -- worth skipping a Colony over, because maybe it means you can buy two per turn thereafter. Point is, Market's +Buy needs help to be worthwhile; on its own, it might not even matter.
But combine +Buy with a card that also helps extra Buys matter, and that's something to reckon with. (This is probably why Adventurer and Bank don't have +Buy on them: too strong otherwise!) Anyway, I've made my point: having +Buy on a Smithy variant might be a somewhat big deal.
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I was recently thinking about something that is relevant here. First, note that I'm not thinking about any particular cards here. But it occurred to me that the value of having a +Buy is more valuable on a terminal drawer than it is on any of several other cards. Because if you're adding 3-4 cards in your hand with a terminal drawer, that implies two things: (1) You're probably playing with a big money deck. Certainly you MIGHT have some kind of +Actions/+Cards engine going on, but Smithy-type cards tend to be about money. (2) You might very well have a LOT of money to spend this turn, because you just drew a lot of cards.
Thus, having a +Buy is more likely to come in handy than it would on a card that's not necessarily as lucrative in and of itself. Trade Route is interesting in this way. If all you've got for Victory cards are Estates, Duchies, and Provinces, then that +Buy probably isn't all that important. If there are Colonies, Islands, and Great Halls as well, you're more likely to want to use it.
You can notice a similar thing with Market. Market is a sturdy $5 card but not earthshattering. A stack of Markets gives you WAY more +Buys than you'll ever use, which means that they might as well be Peddlers for you. On the other hand, if you have a whole pile of Peddlers, Bazaars, Treasuries, and Conspirators, then slipping a Market into the mix can be amazing -- worth skipping a Colony over, because maybe it means you can buy two per turn thereafter. Point is, Market's +Buy needs help to be worthwhile; on its own, it might not even matter.
But combine +Buy with a card that also helps extra Buys matter, and that's something to reckon with. (This is probably why Adventurer and Bank don't have +Buy on them: too strong otherwise!) Anyway, I've made my point: having +Buy on a Smithy variant might be a somewhat big deal.
I'm reminded of the arguments against the Village Idiot. Just as your +Actions are as good as the terminals you play, your +Buys are as good as the amount of extra money you have to spend.
To me, +Buy is a way to push towards building an engine. A Smithy or Envoy powered engine needs +Actions and +Buy to work well, whereas a Wharf or Margrave engine just needs +Actions. I also think it's interesting that asides from Envoy, all cards that draw 4 cards give +Buy.
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I really like this crop of cards. Great work, EVERYONE.
Cheetah- too many parts. The idea is that isn't for Big Money even though it has all parts that support big money?
Elephant- Sets up other players for non-BM strategies.
Hippo- This is one of the only cards here that doesn't work well with BM. It is simple version of a draw up to card which is kind of boring. There hasn't been a simple draw up to X card yet.
Rhinoceros - Only drawing 3 cards your next turn is a huge penalty. It is far worse than a Militia on yourself effect. That makes this card very weak.
Lion- Didn't Soothsayer win earlier?
Fossa- You have one turn in which to end the game, after that you lose! Ha! but really, this is a reverse Tactician. In exchange for an action and a buy, you get the 5 cards you would get next turn now. A little weaker overall, but that seems fine.
Zebra- A wharf with a +1 coin to your opponents. As much as I usually don't like 6 cost terminals because they are lucky to get with silver openings, I can see the appeal.
Wildebeast- A card only bought with 2 silvers, 1 gold, or virtual $. It can be gained easily, but gainers don't usually like terminal draw. Interesting
Leopard- I like so many of these. This gives an interesting choice, a tad on the weak side (not all cards need to be victims of power creep), but it is funny that in small decks it almost doesn't change the outcome.
Giraffe- Unnecessary shuffling effects on cards is not Dominion.
Okapi- Seems like you can always get Gold-Silver by naming Estate-Copper. A properly manecured deck doesn't really need this because its parts (trashers, villagers) are likely drawn into your hand and a regular drawer would get as much useful stuff.
Hartebeest- weak. Trashing cards from the supply, especially in 4 player, might get silly.
Jackal-Too many moving parts, especially for paper Dominion. A 5 cost version: Each player reveals the top 4 and you discard one, and they place the remaining 3 on top of their deck in the order of their choice. +3 cards. I can see the reasoning for that version, but the simple version might be more printable.
Aardwolf- If you have no Victory cards, it is "Search deck and discards for any card, draw it, and discard them all". This is a faster version of Scheme (with deck cleaning instead of +1 action) unless the Victory card is particularly needed or dual-type. I like this.
Impala- This card makes its own strategy too much. The fun part about Library is discarding the cards yourself or letting your opponent do it.
Eland- I tried to dislike this card, but I failed. It is a terminal, so it skips over $5+ actions, Duchies and Provinces at the cost of skipping Gold. A drawer that shines in the greening stage. In a strong engine, it is usually weaker if the best components cost too much.
Lemur- It feels too much like a Margrave/Ghost ship. Also, it is too strong.
Mandrill- I feel like this is fine, but it isn't terribly interesting.
Oryx- Gimmicky. I rarely get anything special from the bottom.
Bonobo- This often gives +5 cards the first time it is played in a turn. The point seems to be that it protects you from discard attacks later. very strong.
Hyena- An upgraded Mandrill, but I like Mandrill better. The revealing seems unnecessary.
Camel- There was a reason University was a potion cost. The problem is that "Gain a Duchy" is not something that is often allowed from one card. It is hard to handle gaining 5 costs, but this is a valient attempt, since it is best used to pick up a terminal after a village. Oddly enough, its even best-er use is Venture. Its bestest use is to get a load of +Actions then gain this card over and over again, racking up cards in hand in the process.
Duiker - I feel like players will not often set aside cards for this unless there is a discard attack on the board.
Kudu -Only slightly different than Library. The interesting idea is that it lets you aside a type of Victory card if you happen to have +Actions.
Meerkat- Wouldn't there nearly always be a card in the discards since you just discarded one? Feels too similar to smithy.
Baboon- Odd. You keep one +Actions card or treasure card when you buy it. With a Gold, this improves your next hand significantly. The potion topping power is pretty cool as well.
Gorilla- Situational, but I can't find myself disliking its existence. I like that the other cards aren't discarded so I have to reshuffle them into my deck.
Badger- It is just a better courtyard, so it is too good in BM.
Pangolin- I usually don't like 6 cost terminals because they are lucky to get with silver openings. Goons is acceptable because it demands to be played multiple times.
Waterbuck- It forces the unlucky terminal player to be stuck with an action they couldn't use. That feeling is so bad it squashes the feelings of chaining this with villages.
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First reactions (I didn't submit a card this time - I had an idea but somehow didn't get a submission PM written up, apparently):
Cheetah - too complicated for me.
Elephant
$4 - Action
+4 Cards
Each other player gains an Action card costing at most $4.
I think I like it. Taking the Council Room idea a bit further. If there are villages on board, opponents are likely to choose to gain Elephant, so this will run out quickly.
Hippopotamus
$3 - Action
Draw until you have 7 cards in hand.
--
While this is in play, you cannot buy Treasure cards.
I don't think the restriction is enough to justify the price point.
Rhinoceros
$3 - Action
+3 Cards
During your clean-up phase, draw only 3 cards.
--
When you gain this, you may place it on top of your deck.
Like some kind of borrowing Smithy. Village + Outpost makes the restriction irrelevant, but that takes work to set up and anyway I'm in favour of making Outpost good.
Lion - what Archetype said.
Fossa
$5 - Action
+6 Cards
Lose your next turn.
Seems intended as a kind of backwards Tactician. This is a new mechanic, and while it seems well-defined and obvious on the surface, I'm nervous. What happens with KC/TR? With Possession? With Outpost?
Zebra
$6 - Action-Duration
Until the beginning of your next turn, for all other players, all cards (including in players' hands) cost $1 less.
Now and at the start of your next turn:
+3 Cards
But not less than $0, right? RIGHT?
Wildebeest
$2* - Action
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
--
This costs $1 more per Treasure card you have in play.
Interesting idea. I'll reserve judgment, though. Seems like the kind of thing that's hard to balance just right.
Leopard
$5 - Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. The player to your left chooses to discard them or return them to the top of your deck.
+4 Cards
Might be a bit too strong. Not sure.
Giraffe - The shuffling thing seems like an unnecessary complication, and otherwise the idea is pretty vanilla. I'm not impressed.
Okapi
$5 - Action
Name two cards. Reveal cards from your deck until you have revealed two cards that you did not name. Place those two cards into your hand and discard the rest.
Strikes me as clearly too weak for $5. In a village-type engine, you're eventually hoping to draw your deck anyway so the filtering isn't worth that much, and in a Lab-type engine it probably doesn't help enough towards the chances of getting big Treasure draws.
Hartebeest
$5 - Action
+3 Cards
While this is in play, when you buy a card, if it is a Victory card, trash a copy of the card from the supply. Otherwise, trash two copies of the card from the supply.
This is a new mechanic again and it strikes me as game-destroying. Far too easy to pile out this way. Especially since the effect will stack multiplicatively with Talisman. Someone else pointed out that this won't happen due to the effect being on buy. But still.
Jackal
$6 - Action-Attack
Each player (including you) reveals the top 4 cards of their deck. Your opponents discard any card of your choice, and they place the remaining 3 on top of their deck in the order of their choice. You may discard any number of cards from your own deck. Place the remaining cards on top of your deck in the order of your choice.
+3 Cards
This is supposed to be something like "you may discard any of the cards you revealed", yes? I think it might still be too strong. You're getting a combination Smithy + sifting + what is probably a fairly powerful attack (I actually like the concept of the attack). Maybe if you also have to discard exactly 1 card, and draw the other 3.
Aardwolf - meant to combo with Nobles/Harem/GH? Just seems tricky overall. I don't like it.
Impala
$6 - Action
Discard any number of cards, then draw up to 7 cards in hand. You may trash a card from your hand; if you do, +1 Card.
This could be a lot of fun. $6 seems reasonable.
Eland
$3 - Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal 3 cards costing $4 or less.
Put all revealed cards costing $4 or less into your hand and discard the other revealed cards.
A limited Smithy. Conveniently avoids activating Tunnel despite doing a deck-search. I like the concept. It might actually be too expensive in many situations. OTOH, with sufficient trashing, it becomes virtually guaranteed to draw three Silvers - although if there are good $4s on board, you could end up drawing them dead... interesting.
Lemur
$4 - Action-Attack
+3 Cards
Put one card from your hand on the bottom of your deck.
Each other player draws a card, then puts cards from his hand on the bottom of his deck until he has 3 cards in his hand.
This has got to be too strong. It's closer to Margrave than to Smithy (you almost always have one card in hand that you don't mind sacrificing, after drawing 3). Putting things on the bottom of your deck strikes me as gimmicky, like a desperate attempt to make Pearl Diver good - except Pearl Diver probably won't really counter the attack effectively.
Mandrill - very basic. Probably balanced, though.
Oryx - again with the "bottom of your deck" business. Seems like it's meant as a defense to Sea Hag or something like that, in decks where you can't get an engine going. An optional Courtyard effect is a nice plus as well. This is probably balanced, but I just don't like it.
Bonobo
$5 - Action
+3 Cards
You may draw up to three additional cards. For each card drawn this way, discard a card at the end of your clean-up phase.
The penalty is limited as it can only stack with itself so far; but then if you're building an engine with Villages with the intent of drawing your deck, is it worthwhile having a card that can reliably draw your deck on even turns while you pass on 0-card odd turns? Another card with obvious parallels to Tactician.
Hyena
$6 - Action
Reveal the top 7 cards of you deck. Put 2 of them into your hand and discard the rest.
A godsend in late-game for BM decks. Probably far too weak to be worth considering for anything else. Unless maybe a village and KC are both out and you hit $6 once before $7 and you're trying to get things in motion with your first KC... ?
Camel
$5 - Action
Gain a card costing up to $5, putting it on top of your deck.
+2 Cards
Crazy synergy with City. I'm also picturing Highway->Border Village->Camel, gaining a Border Village, gaining a Camel.
Duiker
$5 - Action
+1 Buy
Draw until you have 7 cards in hand. You may set aside up to 3 cards drawn this way, as you draw them. Each other player draws a card for each card you set aside. Discard the set aside cards after you finish drawing.
Some strange sort of hybrid Library/Council Room. But the draw is weaker than Council Room in typical cases, and while the filtering is more general than Library's, it has a count limitation, and incurs the CR's penalty (possibly 3 times). I suspect this is too weak.
Kudu
$5 - Action
Draw until you have 7 cards in hand. You may nominate a card name, that, as you draw them, may be set aside; discard the set aside cards after you finish drawing.
A much better Library variant than above IMHO. Trading strength of the filtering (all actions vs. one card type) for flexibility.
Meerkat - I don't even know what's going on here, really.
Baboon - kind of an Alchemy variant of Smithy. I like it.
Gorilla - Scout without the +Action. zzzzz. Also, wtf is a random order? Am I supposed to "shuffle" 4 (or 2) cards?
Badger
$5 - Action
+4 Cards
Put 1 or 2 cards from your hand on top of your deck.
Neat concept. I like it.
Pangolin - Council Room without the opponent draw, or Smithy + coin + buy. $6 seems right. I like cards that have this little bit of flexibility to them.
Waterbuck
$3 - Action
+2 Cards
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an Action card. Put the Action card in your hand and discard the other revealed cards.
Tunnel etc. notwithstanding, this seems actually worse than Moat in a Lab-style engine since you remove one of your Labs from your deck - oh, but you discard the non-actions before that point, which probably is a wash. In a Village-powered engine this becomes stronger than Smithy. In any event, it seems flawed.
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Man, I had so much trouble coming up with a good terminal action idea, and after seeing these submission, I am surprised how many good ideas there are for such a restrictive category! These are some of the ones I like, by sub-category.
Positive Externalities
It looks like only Elephant, Zebra, Leopard, and Duiker offset benefits to you by giving benefits to your opponents. I like this type of interaction, and of the submitted cards, I like Elephant (as mentioned, this could clog the other players' deck and function as an attack, as well!) and Zebra (gives a Bridge-like bonus to your opponents; King's Court at your own risk!).
Borrow from the Future
I also really like the cards that kind of have a "reverse Tactician" feel -- moving cards from the future to the present -- but I feel like all three would benefit from a +1 Action (even though it violates the terminal draw challenge rules).
Rhinoceros: I really like this idea, but it seems a little weak at $3.
Fossa: I really like this idea, too, but it is worded in an ambiguous way: do I get to resolve Durations (e.g. Fishing Village) next turn but not get to buy? Or do durations wait to resolve until you get a turn? I think I would have liked better: "+6 Cards, +1 Action, Do not draw any cards during your clean-up phase." This way you are taking 5 cards from the future to the present, but again, this would kill the terminal action condition... Maybe I am missing the main idea of the card?
Bonobo: Again, I really like it and the choice aspect, but I wish there could be a +1 Action, too.
$$$
Cheetah, Hippopotamus, and Wildebeest all seem to rely on nifty interactions with Treasures. Cheetah seems to have a lot of moving pieces, but I like the idea. Hippopotamus looks like a nice, cheap, restricted Library (and I think I like this one the best of the Library-style cards). I like Wildebeest a lot, but don't have a good feel for its power. I think it's okay since the only way you can get it on turn two is if you open Nomad Camp, and if you can get it on turn 2 or 3, it means you risk action clash, so the +1 Buy looks like it's needed, but I'm not sure. It certainly would be amazing in engines later in the game. Rinkwork's point about the power of plus buy is well taken, too.
Other Slick Ideas
I really like Baboon's implementation of an exchange rate for potions. I wish it would apply to all cards bought instead of just it!
Okapi, one of my favorite animals, has a neat take on one of my favorite cards. To me, this is the Un-Wishing Well.
I didn't think there would be so many good Hunting Party-style abilities (where you get something specific by hunting through your deck), but of those style cards, I like Aardwolf and Kudu, but as with Wildebeest, don't really know how to think about their power.
Last, but not least, I like Pangolin for its simplicity and its choice. Having more cards at the $6 level would be nice.
[Disclaimer: One of the cards mentioned in this post is mine.]
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Meerkat- Wouldn't there nearly always be a card in the discards since you just discarded one? Feels too similar to smithy.
No, because although you just discarded a card, you also just pulled a card from the discard to the top of your deck. If your discard pile was initially empty, it will still be empty after you do those two steps.
On the other hand, if your discard pile had stuff in it, then one of the cards you get to draw subsequently will be one you've cherry-picked out of the discard pile. So the two possible final effects are (1) +3 cards drawn blind; (2) 1 card swapped out for a card chosen from the discard pile and 2 additional cards drawn blind for a net total of +2 cards with selectivity.
I have this thought out because I had to think through all the different possibilities to decide it was eligible or not. (It is.)
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Cheetah
$4 - Action
+3 Cards
Discard a card.
Reveal your hand. If you have no Silver in hand, choose one: gain a Gold and a Copper, or gain a Silver.
--
If you have any Gold in play, this card cannot be bought.
If you have any Silver in play, this card costs $6.
This should be too strong, especially as an opener. Discarding a single card out of 7 isn't a big deal most of the time, so basically it's a smithy that gains money. The buy restrictions shouldn't get in the way very often in big money games, so they probably add needless complexity.
Elephant
$4 - Action
+4 Cards
Each other player gains an Action card costing at most $4.
Should be changed to "Each other player may gain an action card costing at most $4." +4 cards is much too strong for this to become a junking attack, too. When there aren't any cheap actions you'd want more than one or two of, this card is basically strictly better than smithy, and also stronger than council room. When there's a village on the board, you'd probably prefer most other terminal draw cards, so you don't build an engine for your opponent. When there's a village and this is the only terminal draw, I don't really know. Probably a super fast-paced game.
Hippopotamus
$3 - Action
Draw until you have 7 cards in hand.
--
While this is in play, you cannot buy Treasure cards.
Probably mainly good for fishing village/hippo style engines, but bad for big money. You probably wouldn't want to buy this often enough.
Rhinoceros
$3 - Action
+3 Cards
During your clean-up phase, draw only 3 cards.
--
When you gain this, you may place it on top of your deck.
Too weak. Drawing only three cards hurts way, way more than getting militia'd.
Lion
$5 - Action-Attack
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
Each other player with 0 or 1 curse on his [This Card] mat gains a curse on their [This Card] mat. If they do not gain a curse, they put all of the curses on their [This Card] mat into their discard pile.
---
At the end of the game, return all cards on your [This Card] mat to your deck.
Every three times you play it, it curses you twice. That's more often than torturer, on average. Plus, you don't have to chain it. Plus, it gives you a +buy. This card is probably too good.
Fossa
$5 - Action
+6 Cards
Lose your next turn.
Looks like a tactician reverse on the face of it, but I suspect it would play very differently. Really, this is only potentially viable if you can use it to draw your deck and you also have a source of +buy available. Of course, in many of those situations, you just use a smithy instead and not give up every other turn. Strictly worse than Bonobo (not that this is necessarily a problem).
Zebra
$6 - Action-Duration
Until the beginning of your next turn, for all other players, all cards (including in players' hands) cost $1 less.
Now and at the start of your next turn:
+3 Cards
Very strong. I'm tempted to say I like it. Maybe it ought to cost $7--think how often you pay $6 for wharf. Might give too big an advantage to the player who hits $6 first. With +buys, this would create very fast-paced games. In multiplayer games, cards will get stupidly cheap very quickly-- if the three players play two zebras each on their turns, the fourth can buy provinces for $2. Not sure if this would be fun or degenerate.
Wildebeest
$2* - Action
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
--
This costs $1 more per Treasure card you have in play.
Weak for big money because the buy restriction means you can't realistically pick this up before the first few reshuffles. I imagine it could be ridiculously good with fishing village, since it gives you the non-treasure coins to buy tons of these.
Leopard
$5 - Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. The player to your left chooses to discard them or return them to the top of your deck.
+4 Cards
The most obvious comparison is envoy. I'd guess this card is stronger on average, so the $5 price point is correct. Probably balanced.
Giraffe
$4 - Action
+4 Cards
Discard a card from your hand, then shuffle a card from your hand into your deck.
As others have noted, the shuffling would be a huge pain in a real-life game. Otherwise, this looks a lot like a mini-embassy without the benefit to your opponents. Very strong.
Okapi
$5 - Action
Name two cards. Reveal cards from your deck until you have revealed two cards that you did not name. Place those two cards into your hand and discard the rest.
I think I like it. Should be better in big money than in engines. If all you have in your deck is silver, estates, copper, and two of these, name copper and estates and it'll draw you $4 most of the time. Or you could buy several of these, name okapis, and never draw them dead.
Hartebeest
$5 - Action
+3 Cards
While this is in play, when you buy a card, if it is a Victory card, trash a copy of the card from the supply. Otherwise, trash two copies of the card from the supply.
Designed to help end the game on piles. In general, that should increase player 1 advantage or advantage to the player who is already ahead. Could get stupid in multiplayer.
Jackal
$6 - Action-Attack
Each player (including you) reveals the top 4 cards of their deck. Your opponents discard any card of your choice, and they place the remaining 3 on top of their deck in the order of their choice. You may discard any number of cards from your own deck. Place the remaining cards on top of your deck in the order of your choice.
+3 Cards
Too good. The attack could be brutal when played in multiples (especially in multiplayer). You could easily have your turn nuked. The sifting effect is very strong, too.
Aardwolf
$3 - Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Victory card. Put the Victory card and one other revealed card of your choice into your hand and discard the rest.
If the first card you reveal is a Victory card, put it into your hand, then +2 Cards.
Should be very weak in a big money game. Most of the time, you'll reveal a few coppers, maybe a silver, then hit an estate. It only gets weaker as you green, too. In an engine, well, it'll be a support card. You probably need to be swimming in +actions to make it viable.
Impala
$6 - Action
Discard any number of cards, then draw up to 7 cards in hand. You may trash a card from your hand; if you do, +1 Card.
Sort of like a superjack. So resilient to handsize attacks and cursers that you might choose not to buy either, although the pricetag ensures you'll get at least a few hits in before your attack can be countered. Not totally sure this is too good, but it probably swings the balance in favor of big money.
Eland
$3 - Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal 3 cards costing $4 or less.
Put all revealed cards costing $4 or less into your hand and discard the other revealed cards.
Sifts your high-value vp cards for you, although it doesn't like gold. You could put together a very good engine using this card if the components are cheap. In big money, it might actually be better than smithy. $4 is probably the right cost, but I like it otherwise.
Lemur
$4 - Action-Attack
+3 Cards
Put one card from your hand on the bottom of your deck.
Each other player draws a card, then puts cards from his hand on the bottom of his deck until he has 3 cards in his hand.
Far too good, and too much like ghost ship.
Mandrill
$4 - Action
Reveal the top four cards of your deck. Put two into your hand and discard the others.
Pretty good but not too exciting.
Oryx
$5 - Action
Draw 3 cards from the bottom of your deck. You may put a card from your hand on top of your deck.
At first I thought drawing from the bottom of the deck was a pointless gimmick, but then I realized drawing from the bottom lets you topdeck several cards to set up your next hand if you chain these. That actually sounds really cool if you can pull it off. I think I like this.
Bonobo
$5 - Action
+3 Cards
You may draw up to three additional cards. For each card drawn this way, discard a card at the end of your clean-up phase.
Should be satisfying to play. If you fail to draw what you needed with the first 3 cards, you can try again for a price. As others have noted, this would be strong against handsize attacks. Not stronger than library in that regard, though. In engines, you could use this to draw 6 cards each time, effectively sacrificing your next turn. Bonobo/haven would be a fun and very powerful combo, now that I think of it. This card is strictly better than Fossa (again, not necessarily a problem).
Hyena
$6 - Action
Reveal the top 7 cards of you deck. Put 2 of them into your hand and discard the rest.
Probably would work better at $5. I'd almost always rather have an embassy.
Camel
$5 - Action
Gain a card costing up to $5, putting it on top of your deck.
+2 Cards
Too good. One Armed Man said it pretty well.
Duiker
$5 - Action
+1 Buy
Draw until you have 7 cards in hand. You may set aside up to 3 cards drawn this way, as you draw them. Each other player draws a card for each card you set aside. Discard the set aside cards after you finish drawing.
Too good for your opponents. Maybe if you changed it to "Each other player draws a card and discards a card for each card you set aside."
Kudu
$5 - Action
Draw until you have 7 cards in hand. You may nominate a card name, that, as you draw them, may be set aside; discard the set aside cards after you finish drawing.
My favorite of the library variants. Pretty solid.
Meerkat
$4 - Action
Discard a card.
Choose a card from your discard pile and put it on top of your deck.
If there's no card in your discard pile +4 Cards; otherwise +3 Cards.
Much too good. Topdeck gold, draw it, repeat with the next meerkat.
Baboon
$5* - Action
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
--
When you buy this card, place it and one other card you have currently in play on top of your deck.
--
When you buy this card, you may pay $3+P instead of $5.
Very strong, I think. The alternate cost is interesting, but it feels like it ought to go with a potion-related set. Not that that's a big deal for fan cards.
Gorilla
$2 - Action
Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal 4 Victory cards. Put those Victory cards into your hand and put the other cards back on top in a random order.
I guess it's technically a terminal draw, but in practice it would feel like a "deck improver." Combos pretty well with harem, but it's probably not fantastic otherwise. In real life games, the shuffling the card requires would be a problem.
Badger
$5 - Action
+4 Cards
Put 1 or 2 cards from your hand on top of your deck.
Super courtyard. Very strong for big money, probably too strong.
Pangolin
$6 - Action
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
Choose one: +1 Card; or +$1.
Pretty reasonable, I think, but not terribly exciting.
Waterbuck
$3 - Action
+2 Cards
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an Action card. Put the Action card in your hand and discard the other revealed cards.
Weak for big money, but ought to be better than a smithy for a lot of engines. Could be ridiculous with tunnel.
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I agree with everybody who says the 4th challenge has really given good ideas of cards (I've submitted for all 4 firsts)
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No one be afraid to comment on the 3rd challenge just because the 4th is out. I still haven't voted on either and enjoy and value hearing others' thoughts.
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Am I the only one who now is expecting challenge 3's card to be a bird?
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Warning: These results are incorrect. See here (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3248.msg67461#msg67461) for the corrected results!
--
The results for the Victory Card contest are in! As a reminder, these were the submission criteria:
Design a Victory card. The card cannot be a dual-type card -- that is, its one and only type must be "Victory."
As I'm running the contest, I didn't submit. If I had been able to, I probably would have submitted this, which is another card based on the empty supply piles idea that City uses. But in this case, as with my Curser, the implications are again different:
Pasture
$6 - Victory
Worth 2 VP for each empty supply pile.
You could have some fun with this in games where you can end on a megaturn, emptying multiple piles at once. Unlike most of my cards, though, this one has yet to see play in a real game.
And there's my moment in the sun. Back to you all. For the Victory Card challenge, we have a bit of drama -- a tie for first place! I thought about how I should resolve the tie -- for example, with a separate run-off election, or by counting again without the approval votes -- until I realized that The Dominion Way would be for both contestants to rejoice in mutual victory. Therefore, I present to you the two new additions to our fan set:
#1 (tie) - Museum by Captain Frisk with 21 points (Warbler)
$5 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each set of Copper, Silver, and Gold in your deck.
#1 (tie) - Herald by shark bait with 21 points (Shearwater)
$4 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you buy this, place a card that is in play on top of your deck.
Congratulations to the winners! With Museum, we have a Treasure-counting Victory card that requires more calculation than simply picking up as many Coppers as you can with extra buys. And with Herald, we have a green card that counteracts the effects of greening.
The next entries were right behind in the vote totals. Here are the rest of the results. Remember that votes for Challenge #4 are due Thursday.
#3 - Canal by Polk5440 with 20 points (Gannet)
$6* - Victory
When the game ends, if the Province or Colony supply pile is empty (if it was available), then this is worth 4 VP. Otherwise, this is worth 2 VP.
--
During your Buy phase, if two supply piles are empty, then this costs $3.
#4 - Patron of the Arts by senseless with 19 points (Pipit)
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each Masterpiece card in your deck.
--
Setup: Add an extra Kingdom card pile to the Supply. Cards from that pile cost $1 more and are Masterpiece cards.
#5 - Plantation (2) by qmech with 17 points (Bluebird)
$10 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every differently costed card in your deck.
--
Rules: In games using this, add Platinum to the Basic cards in the Supply.
#6 - Base Camp by DWetzel with 15 points (Cormorant)
$6 - Victory
1 VP
--
When you buy this, gain 3 VP tokens.
#7 (tie) - District by One Armed Man with 11 points (Petrel)
$5 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each card you have 5 or more copies of.
#7 (tie) - Woodland by rspeer with 11 points (Oystercatcher)
$6 - Victory
Worth 10 VP, minus 2 VP for every 5 non-Victory cards in your deck (rounded down).
--
When you buy this, you may trash a card from your hand.
#9 (tie) - Borderland by Qvist with 10 points (Yellowlegs)
$7 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this, gain a card costing less than this.
#9 (tie) - Satrapy by Celestial Chameleon with 10 points (Puffin)
$9 - Victory
4 VP
--
When you gain this, gain a Duchy and an Estate.
#9 (tie) - Unnamed 2 by greatexpectations with 10 points (Heron)
$8 - Victory
1 VP
--
During your buy phase, this card costs $2 less per action in play, but not less than $0.
--
When you buy this, you may set it aside. If you do, return it to your deck at the end of the game.
#9 (tie) - Woodlands by iangoth with 10 points (Flycatcher)
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every three Woodlands tokens you have.
--
In games using this, you may gain a Woodlands token at the end of any turn in which you shuffled your deck.
#13 (tie) - Mountain by Schneau with 9 points (Tanager)
$6 - Victory
2 VP
--
The turn you buy this, only draw 3 cards (instead of 5) in this turn's Clean-up phase. Take an extra turn after this one. This can't cause you to take more than two consecutive turns.
#13 (tie) - Mountain Lake by ChocophileBenj with 9 points (Macaw)
$6 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this, you may trash a card from your hand. If you do, gain 2 Silvers; if you don't, gain 1 Silver. Put the gained Silver(s) on top of your deck.
#13 (tie) - Frontier by Nicrosil with 9 points (Loon)
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP per territory token on Frontier's supply pile.
--
Whenever a player buys a Province, put a territory token on Frontier's supply pile.
Whenever a player buys a Frontier, remove a territory token from Frontier's supply pile.
#13 (tie) - Fiefdom (1) by jonts26 with 9 points (Egret)
$3* - Victory
2 VP
--
When you buy Fiefdom (1), pay any amount greater than or equal to its cost. Then, gain a victory card costing at most $2 less than that amount.
#17 (tie) - Fiefdom (2) by Dsell with 8 points (Woodpecker)
$4 - Victory
Worth 5 VP minus 1 for every three treasures in your deck (round up), but not less than 0.
--
When you buy this, you may trash a treasure card from play and from your hand.
#17 (tie) - Sprawl by play2draw with 8 points (Sandpiper)
$2* - Victory
When you gain this card, place a VP token on this card's supply pile.
--
For each VP token on the pile, the cost of this card increases by 1.
--
At the end of the game, this card is worth victory points equal to the number of VP tokens on the pile.
#19 (tie) - Mobile Home by Titandrake with 7 points (Harrier)
$4* - Victory
2 VP
During your Buy phase, this costs whatever you want, as long as it costs at least $4.
--
When you buy this, gain a card costing less than this.
--
(Rules clarification: Mobile Home's cost can change in the middle of the Buy phase. E.g., with $11 and 2 buys, buy Mobile Home for $5 and for $6. When cost reduction like Bridge is out, Mobile Home must still cost at least $4.)
#19 (tie) - Landlord by nopawnsintended with 7 points (Guillemot)
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every 2 Estates in your deck (round down).
--
When you gain this, trash a Treasure from the play area. If you trash a Treasure, gain an Estate.
#21 (tie) - Plantation (1) by Archetype with 6 points (Osprey)
$5 - Victory
Worth 1 VP per Plantation (1) in your deck.
--
Can only be bought if you have at least 1 Action Card in play
#21 (tie) - Tower by NoMoreFun with 6 points (Kingfisher)
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every 2 cards in the supply pile with the Tower token on it (rounded down).
--
When you gain this, you may move the Tower token to a Kingdom supply pile of your choice.
--
Setup: Place the Tower token on the Tower supply pile.
#23 (tie) - Diked Marsh by Dubdubdubdub with 5 points (Tern)
$3 - Victory
2 VP
--
If you gain this during your action phase:
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
#23 (tie) - Gallery by Robz888 with 5 points (Ibis)
$3 - Victory
1 VP
Worth another 1 VP for every 3 tokens on your Gallery mat.
--
Setup: Each player has his own Gallery mat. At the start of a player's Clean-up, he gains a token on his Gallery mat for each unused Buy.
#23 (tie) - Land Prospector by andwilk with 5 points (Bittern)
$4 - Victory
This card is worth 1 VP for each Land Prospector left in the supply at the end of the game.
#26 (tie) - Sewage Lord by zxcvbn2 with 3 points (Spoonbill)
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every two differently named cards in the trash, rounding down.
#26 (tie) - Scorched Earth by Tejayes with 3 points (Plover)
$5 - Victory
This card is worth 1 VP for every 5*P cards in the trash (round down).
(P = number of players)
--
When you gain this, trash up to 4 cards from your hand.
#26 (tie) - Enchanted Forest by eHalcyon with 3 points (Grebe)
$9* - Victory
Worth 1 VP per Enchanted Forest token you have.
--
This costs $1 less per Enchanted Forest token you have (but not less than $0).
--
When you gain this, gain a Enchanted Forest token.
#26 (tie) - Enclosure by popsofctown with 3 points (Flamingo)
$2 - Victory
Worth 2 VP if you have more Estates than Enclosures.
--
When you buy this, +$1, +1 Buy.
#26 (tie) - Specialist by RobertJ with 3 points (Bunting)
$6 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each special card in your deck.
--
Setup: Before the first turn each player selects a special card from among the kingdom cards and these are announced simultaneously.
#31 (tie) - Untamed Wilderness by A Drowned Kernel with 2 points (Waxwing)
$6 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every Province in the supply at the end of the game.
#31 (tie) - Dowry by Fragasnap with 2 points (Nuthatch)
$4 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this, you may gain a Curse. If you do, gain a card costing up to $6 that is not a Victory card.
#31 (tie) - Blacksmith by Adrienaline with 2 points (Lark)
$4 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this card, you may gain a copy of a card costing $4 or less that does not have the name Blacksmith.
#31 (tie) - Sandbox by Powerman with 2 points (Kestrel)
$6 - Victory
8 VP
--
When you gain this, trash all treasures you have in play and gain a Curse. If you do not gain a Curse, place Sandbox on top of your deck.
#31 (tie) - Cathedral by gman314 with 2 points (Hummingbird)
$6 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this: +1 VP
You may trash a card from your hand. If you do, get +VP equal to half its cost in coins, rounded down.
#31 (tie) - Unnamed 1 by Graystripe77 with 2 points (Gadwall)
$6 - Victory
4 VP
--
When you gain this, trash a card from your hand. If you trashed a Curse this way, gain a Gold.
#37 - Botanical Gardens by Saucery with 1 point (Pelican)
$6* - Victory
4 VP
--
When you buy this card, you may pay an additional $3 ($6). If you do, gain another (2) Botanical Gardens.
#38 - Grassland by Grujah with 0 points (Vireo)
$6 - Victory
3 VP
--
When you gain this, gain a Victory card costing less than this.
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Aw, near the bottom. Cheers to the winners!
My original idea for Enchanted Forest was to have the price start low and INCREASE. Then I thought it would be good if it was the opposite. Now I think increase is better again. ::)
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There was an observation that my card allowed you to steal someone elses duration card. A simple fix of the wording is to reword to say, "When you buy this, return a card that you have in play on top of your deck"
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It's nice that we have both a winner that assists Provinces and a winner that can be an alternative to Provinces.
Again, my favorites had a tendency not to rank well, and my unfavorites scored high (my own card's failure is not a surprise or disappointment because it is not tuned quite right).
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I didn't vote for Museum, but I voted for Herald and Canal so all in all I'm okay with this. They're all pretty solid.
As soon as I realized Mobile Home gave you 5 VP for $6, I knew I wasn't going to do well. The issue with the whole "when buy gain less" mechanic is that when you put it on a Victory card, you only use it in the endgame to sneak in some VP anyways. Maybe you use it when you pick up a Gold to force the other player to buy an extra Victory card in the endgame. The card I should have made was:
Some Name
$4*
Victory
1 VP
------
Has whatever cost as long as it's >= 4
When you buy this, gain a non-Victory card costing exactly $1 more than this.
So now you have an incentive to pick up a Victory card, instead of only using it for an endgame VP boost. Opening 5/3 or 6/2 on turn 1/2 is probably broken, so it needs to be fiddled with a bit. But whatever. What's done is done.
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I gave 2 to Frontier and Kingfisher, which both ranked fairly low... heh. :P
I gave 1 to District, Canal, Land Prospector, Woodland, Sprawl, Plantation (2) and Museum. So... not bad overall? :)
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Here's my reasoning behind my card.
My first decision was to pick the price. I decided to not due $6 due to Harem/Nobles/Farmland/Fairground. I really didn't feel like designing a more expensive card and just decided that I enjoy games where there are VP cards at costs other than standard VP cards. This left $3 and $4 for me to pick between. The mechanic came to me in some of my numerous games where I've drawn KC/TR dead numerous times. I thought, what if there was a card, that allowed me to get that KC back on my deck without needing to have purchased such card earlier. Naturally, a buy/gain mechanic allowing top decking was required. I decided to include both action and treasure to make the effect occur regardless of whether an action, treasure or both had been played. Midgame, you can buy it to align action cards with careful deck control. There is also the option to buy it multiple times with attack cards in play such as Goons/Witch in order to play them as much as possible. And finally, end game, they provide a unique contrast to Duchy. With $5+, you need to decide whether the extra VP from Duchy is more important or if the ability to put one of your good cards on top is more important.
EDIT: Forgot to say why $4! I kinda touch on it, but I wanted the card to be more of an alternative to Duchy rather than an alternative to Estate
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Congrats to the winners. Museum is really a great card.
And @Petrel: I had exactly the same idea as your "District". Very good idea ;) But I didn't choose to submit it.
Again my card was in the Top 10. Nice.
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Well, interesting. I only gave an approval vote to one of the winners, and the two I gave two points - one was near the top (Patron of the Arts) and the other right near the bottom.
Also, Rinkworks, I believe there was at least one approval point for Woodcutter :P?
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Congratulations to the winners! Good decision to have them Rejoice in Their Shared Victory! Especially since they are very different Victory cards. (Although, come to think of it, I also would have approved of a decision to cross them off the list and declare the third place card the winner. ;))
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I'm pretty happy with a 6th place finish! Base Camp/Cormorant wasn't the most dynamic card compared to some of the others, but it was designed with a couple purposes in mind.
First and most obviously was the synergy with Remodel/Expand/Farmland/Bishop/etcetera cards, wherein you can get quite a few VP from a single card. Less obviously but more amusingly was the interaction with Masquerade and Ambassador. I think Masquerade loses a lot of its flavor in the middle to late game in most decks, and a card which gives you bankable VP but acts like an Estate as far as sending it to your opponents would add a lot.
On big money boards with no trashing/passing, it obviously isn't the most exciting card, but it does add another level between Duchy and Province, which spices up the endgame a bit, a good thing IMO, and makes it at least as useful as Gardens on a board without Gardens support.
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Congrats to the winners and thanks to all submitters.
I was wondering what people thought of my submission: District (7th place, 11points). (Hi Qvist!)
Cost 5. 1 VP for each card you have 5 or more copies of.
The idea is that it can create a race to get a 5th copy (to improve your Districts) or a 6th copy (to block your opponents) of power cards and green cards.
Would you have liked the alternate versions where it costs 6, or one that cost 4 but said "non-Treasure" better or is it fine as-is? The discussion seemed to be over how often it would be used and how strong a rush would be.
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Congrats to the winners and thanks to all submitters.
I was wondering what people thought of my submission: District (7th place, 11points). (Hi Qvist!)
Cost 5. 1 VP for each card you have 5 or more copies of.
The idea is that it can create a race to get a 5th copy (to improve your Districts) or a 6th copy (to block your opponents) of power cards and green cards.
Would you have liked the alternate versions where it costs 6, or one that cost 4 but said "non-Treasure" better or is it fine as-is? The discussion seemed to be over how often it would be used and how strong a rush would be.
One of my main worries is that it's very weak in 3+ player games. It's fine for 2 player, but would rarely, if ever, be worth buying with more players.
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To me it was a good card but not a great card. Since the card had you doing something you were going to do anyway, like, stacking Fishing Villages, that was a bit of a turn off when Fairgrounds is a cool card doing the opposite, forcing you to be hipster and pick up a Fortune Teller.
But that doesn't mean it's a bad card, it introduces new dynamics and deciding whether to get 5 Wishing Wells or something could be cool. It just wasn't as good as many other strong submissions because of that.
I think Gardens is cooler than Vineyards because Vineyards largely has you doing things you would have done anyway. But I'm glad both are a part of Dominion.
Preview edit: I disagree with Schneau. i think it's viable with more players.
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i was the guy who submitted Heron (the peddler-type card) which finished 9th. while i did not expect a first place finish, i was a little disappointed with some of the comments on the card. true, it will not be useful on every board, but it shouldn't have to be. it is what prompted my post (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3248.msg62564#msg62564) listing buy rates for all of the victory cards. if you compare those to peddler's buy rates i think it will be worthwhile on plenty of boards.
i think that there is a tendency, which jonts26 sort of hit on in his post (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3248.msg62700#msg62700), for people to think cards need to be really powerful or influential on every board. i am a big fan of the two cards that won, as they are both nice ideas which are not going to be obvious must-buys.
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I didn't bash it, did I? I thought it was ok.
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didn't mean to pick on you (or anyone) pops! its no big deal, just some commentary on the design contests at large which might have affected how my card did in this go and why i was a fan of the cards that did win.
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I didn't comment on the card at all, it appears. Which is generally a form of approval.
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In retrospect, I should have saved this particular Challenge for later on. Because, as jonts26 points out in that post, it's very difficult to judge the power of Victory cards and envision how they will play. I certainly had a harder time gauging these cards than the entries for the other four contests. And based on the cards trickling in for Challenges #5 and #6, I think those will be easier to gauge as well.
I guess it's because a new VP card necessarily changes the game more than any new Peddler or Smithy variant is likely to.
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I don't think Rhinoceros is that weak at all; I really like it! Do realize you can play more than one in a turn, and get the penalty only once. It's not my card, by the way :)
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I'm just happy not to get last place. I do think that if zxcvbn2's Sewage Lord got my Scorched Earth's on-gain ability (and maybe price) with it, it might have done better.
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I can't believe I won. Rinkworks - after this expansion is done you might want to rethink your voting system.
I think my card is fine (it's simple, and it explores a currently unexplored space (VP For treasure) - but it's far from flashy. I think it got votes primarily because it's unoffensive.
To those who see it as a legit province alternative - With no buys, it would take 20 turns to buy all 8 of these and have them be worth 6. That's probably slightly faster than emptying all provinces, but not substantially so.
My thinking basically was:
We have VP for green cards. We have VP for actions. We don't have VP for coins.
VP for copper is boring. VP for number of coins is effectively the same thing. VP for silver is pretty simple. VP for gold is rich getting richer. VP for total coin power in deck is probably the same as VP for number of coins - and has problems with things like Bank.
VP For the set is still simple from a dominion language perspective - but still offers up some interesting side effects:
1. Punishes engine players who overtrash their copper.
2. Creates a reward for tracking your own deck state
3. Changes the math on when to buy duchies (if you already have enough silver, buying an extra gold might make sense)
I considered making it 6 - but thought it would be too weak - because getting it to be worth more than a duchy is trivial. I think you'll find that in most of the games you play, this card is worth 2VP if you weren't paying attention.
Finally - getting it to be worth more than a province starts to get really hard.
Ultimately, it felt like basically playing with an extra duchy stack (frankly - an alternate VP card worth 3VP that cost $5 and was called "Not Duchy") would be a perfectly playable card), with a slight reward for paying attention to your deck.
I'm still concerned that its too boring. I only submitted it because I was already submitting Scholars (rejected!)
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Oh - and I voted 3 points for Shearwater / Herald. That is a clever card.
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Oh - and I voted 3 points for Shearwater / Herald. That is a clever card.
Thx! :D
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CF, I gave your card 2 points because:
- it is simple but effective
- it makes you think about new things (the balance of copper, silver and gold) that other cards do not
- it is a Treasure-counting VP that isn't obviously broken
I think it would change strategy around other boards too. Silver gainers would make it so that Gold was the only real restriction on points. Thief might be more useful for stealing away even Copper.
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I don't think Rhinoceros is that weak at all; I really like it! Do realize you can play more than one in a turn, and get the penalty only once. It's not my card, by the way :)
That's true, but drawing only three cards next turn is a huge penalty--worse than getting ghost shipped--and its cost makes it only slightly easier to buy than smithy. To put it in perspective, a single rhino nets you +0 cards, possibly doing more harm than good since it converts non-terminal draw (from the clean-up phase) to terminal draw. This means big money + rhino will suck. Probably worse than pure big money. But it's also bad for engines since you're likely to have a dead turn after every rhino play.
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I don't think Rhinoceros is that weak at all; I really like it! Do realize you can play more than one in a turn, and get the penalty only once. It's not my card, by the way :)
That's true, but drawing only three cards next turn is a huge penalty--worse than getting ghost shipped--and its cost makes it only slightly easier to buy than smithy. To put it in perspective, a single rhino nets you +0 cards, possibly doing more harm than good since it converts non-terminal draw (from the clean-up phase) to terminal draw. This means big money + rhino will suck. Probably worse than pure big money. But it's also bad for engines since you're likely to have a dead turn after every rhino play.
On the other other hand, you get the 7 card turn before the 3 card turn (unlike, say, Tactician), and immediately after you buy it (because of the "put on deck when you get it" ability) -- and what if that 3 card turn never comes, either because you keep playing this every turn in a BM setup, or because the game ends?
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Well, then at best it's a smithy.
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I love the canal / Gannet idea. But museum and Herald are nice too... congrats to the winners.
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I can't believe I won. Rinkworks - after this expansion is done you might want to rethink your voting system.
I think my card is fine (it's simple, and it explores a currently unexplored space (VP For treasure) - but it's far from flashy. I think it got votes primarily because it's unoffensive.
Hehe. Well, being a broadly-approved card isn't a bad thing. But you got passion votes too, or you wouldn't have wound up on top, even in a tie. You sell yourself short -- the rest of this post shows the work that went into devising and balancing the card, and I think that work shows. It probably also helps that a lot of Treasure-counting Victory fan cards exist, most or all of them with problems you found a way to address.
As for how much flashiness counts, it's worthwhile for truly great ideas, but it's easy to overdo them. I think it's great that a card like Soothsayer won -- and, more generally, that a card like that can win. But a whole set of similarly complex cards wouldn't be a very good set. You need cards like Almoner and Herald, too, cards even simpler than yours, and fortunately those are winning too.
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I love the canal / Gannet idea. But museum and Herald are nice too... congrats to the winners.
I liked Canal better than my own empty-pile-based card. It seems like there is more strategic potential there, as the Canal player wants to get close to three-piling while still ending on Provinces. But if someone is too heavily invested in Canals, it's an incentive to the opponents to foil that plan. Very tricky balance. The only thing I'm not sure of is if it would play as great in practice as it does in theory. But I'm very tempted to experiment with it in my own live games.
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I love the canal / Gannet idea. But museum and Herald are nice too... congrats to the winners.
I liked Canal better than my own empty-pile-based card. It seems like there is more strategic potential there, as the Canal player wants to get close to three-piling while still ending on Provinces. But if someone is too heavily invested in Canals, it's an incentive to the opponents to foil that plan. Very tricky balance. The only thing I'm not sure of is if it would play as great in practice as it does in theory. But I'm very tempted to experiment with it in my own live games.
I am glad you (and others) liked it!
I really wanted a card whose strategic purpose changes based on the style of game being played and focusing on Provinces/Colonies vs piles was an easy way to do that. I also like cards that create interesting interaction and wanted more ways of being able to directly affect your opponents' VP count without actually "attacking" them yet remain balanced with different numbers of players. I think Canal meets these criteria.
I know Gannet/Canal got a couple of comments that it might not be playable or interesting often enough, but I think there are a lot of end game situations where it could shine even if there are not any piles out -- for instance, sometimes you just want a clean VP option at $6 that is worth more than a Duchy. This gives it a leg up over other alt VPs -- too often for my tastes in the endgame when you are trying to green, alt VPs STILL aren't worth buying (over say, Duchy).
The only way to know for sure is to play with it, I guess!
FYI, I chose the name "Canal" because canals are more beneficial the more land you have, and games that end with the Province of Colony pile out means players have acquired a lot of large tracts of land! If it ends on piles, you probably don't have as much land in your Dominion, and building canals is not going to be as beneficial.
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...means players have acquired a lot of large tracts of land!
How could you resist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3YiPC91QUk&t=1m18s
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There was an observation that my card allowed you to steal someone elses duration card. A simple fix of the wording is to reword to say, "When you buy this, return a card that you have in play on top of your deck"
How about this wording, templated from Herbalist?
"When you buy this, you may put one of your cards from play on top of your deck."
Also, is there any reason this can't be on-gain rather than on-buy? I'm not thinking of any problem with that right now, but sometimes on-gain quandaries can be very tricky to root out.
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There was an observation that my card allowed you to steal someone elses duration card. A simple fix of the wording is to reword to say, "When you buy this, return a card that you have in play on top of your deck"
How about this wording, templated from Herbalist?
"When you buy this, you may put one of your cards from play on top of your deck."
Also, is there any reason this can't be on-gain rather than on-buy? I'm not thinking of any problem with that right now, but sometimes on-gain quandaries can be very tricky to root out.
It gets weird if you gain it off turn - like swindler?
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There was an observation that my card allowed you to steal someone elses duration card. A simple fix of the wording is to reword to say, "When you buy this, return a card that you have in play on top of your deck"
How about this wording, templated from Herbalist?
"When you buy this, you may put one of your cards from play on top of your deck."
Also, is there any reason this can't be on-gain rather than on-buy? I'm not thinking of any problem with that right now, but sometimes on-gain quandaries can be very tricky to root out.
It gets weird if you gain it off turn - like swindler?
Put a Haven back and trap that Copper... FOREVER!
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Now I just have to wait for my terminal drawer to end up with one point (because I voted) :D.
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I considered gain/buy for a little while. My consensus was that on buy forced a strategic decision of buying the card as opposed to something else. Gaining the card meant that you could just KC or TR something like WS or IW and then put back multiple actions of your choice. I wanted to make this a card that you had to strategically purchase. The on gain clause would also have forced a weird wording in regards to other players forcing you to gain it with the likes of Swindler/Ambassador.
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There was an observation that my card allowed you to steal someone elses duration card. A simple fix of the wording is to reword to say, "When you buy this, return a card that you have in play on top of your deck"
How about this wording, templated from Herbalist?
"When you buy this, you may put one of your cards from play on top of your deck."
Also, is there any reason this can't be on-gain rather than on-buy? I'm not thinking of any problem with that right now, but sometimes on-gain quandaries can be very tricky to root out.
It gets weird if you gain it off turn - like swindler?
Put a Haven back and trap that Copper... FOREVER!
Eek! Yeah, what happens in that case? Or, indeed, in the case of any Duration card? Technically, the effects of the Duration card should still be active, despite that the card itself isn't out any more. (Exception: Lighthouse's defensive power only lasts while the card is physically in play.) So if you play Fishing Village, then buy a Herald, if you then returned Fishing Village to your deck, you'd still get the extra coin and action next turn, but you wouldn't have the card out to remind you.
This is actually something of a big deal, because I'm not sure how to fix it. We could change the card to specifically exclude Duration cards (thereby axing the possibility of returning a next-turn Fishing Village too), but what about Throne Rooms and King's Courts that get left out because they modify a Duration card?
Another way would be to mimic the way Scheme does it, waiting for clean-up, but that's a lot messier with a on-buy effect, because the bought card isn't "in play" anymore and able to serve as an active agent in making stuff happen. I'm open to suggestions.
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What? There's no reason you can't mimic Scheme. When you Throne Room Scheme the first use of it isn't in play, but the effect sticks around and you topdeck two actions.
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What? There's no reason you can't mimic Scheme. When you Throne Room Scheme the first use of it isn't in play, but the effect sticks around and you topdeck two actions.
Yes, but this is an on-buy effect. You buy Herald at some point in your turn (might even be your Action Phase, via Black Market), and then it goes into your discard pile. At the end of your turn, you have to remember that you can top-deck something from play, even though there is no visual reminder anywhere that you can do it. Since actually buying the Herald, you might have played and resolved any number of Action cards (following Black Market) or special Treasures that take time to resolve. I guess this happens a minority of the time, since all Treasures are normally played before any purchases, but it's still a situation you have to take into account.
I'm not saying that there is any logical or functional reason Scheme's wording can't be used as an on-buy effect, but it is, shall we say, inelegant and demanding of mental bookkeeping in an unDominionlike way.
Unfortunately, the only alternative I can think of off-hand is to restrict it to Treasures, like Herbalist, which would be unfortunate. We already have Mint and Mandarin as precedents for removing Treasures from play before the cleanup phase, so that's probably safe enough.
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You'll usually buy it right before you topdeck something. That's pretty reasonable memorywise. Black market is a pain, but it's an edge case. "From the supply" could knock it out.
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So if you play Fishing Village, then buy a Herald, if you then returned Fishing Village to your deck, you'd still get the extra coin and action next turn, but you wouldn't have the card out to remind you.
That's how I would read it.
Mining Village asks you to trash it immediately, but you have to remember you still have 2 actions to play and get $2 later. In person for our group this usually amounts to turning the card on its side to remind ourselves that we still get two actions, $2, and need to trash the card. So we don't put it in the trash immediately like it's supposed to and usually wait until cleanup since it's much easier to remember what is going on. You can't pull this same trick as easily with top-decking a duration card, though, because it should be in your hand (usually) by the time you resolve its effect, unless you turn it on its side to remind you to put it there after it resolves? I, too, am a little confused on how the card would be practically implemented, but I don't think there are any explicit rules clashes as worded.
Also, pops is right: strategically there usually won't be any problem because you'll buy the card when you want to top-deck something (that's resolved). edit: hmmm. As rinkworks mentions below, I guess putting an unresolved Duration on top of your deck is a good way of doubling the benefit (play it again the same turn it resolves)...
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Based on the wording for Scheme: When you buy this card, at the start of Clean-up this turn, you may choose a card you have in play. If you discard it from play this turn put it on your deck.
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I think that's considerably more confusing than Scheme, and just unpleasantly convoluted wording to make a relatively simple thing happen. I like the solution of just adding "non-Duration".
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Doesn't adding "non-Duration" change the functionality?
Honestly, I don't see the problem with "return a card that you have in play".
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Too bad I missed the two first contests… when will be the 3rd ?
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Too bad I missed the two first contests… when will be the 3rd ?
The third is already running, in the tread 'Mini-Set Design Contest, Part 3!' Deadline is thursday, so get in on it while you can!
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Someone voted for Blacksmith/Lark? Not my best work, but I'm cool with that :)
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Too bad I missed the two first contests… when will be the 3rd ?
The third is already running, in the tread 'Mini-Set Design Contest, Part 3!' Deadline is thursday, so get in on it while you can!
Oh, thanks ! :-[ :)
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Doesn't adding "non-Duration" change the functionality?
Honestly, I don't see the problem with "return a card that you have in play".
Play Fishing Village, Wharf, Wharf, buy three Heralds, return Fishing Village, Wharf, Wharf. Next turn, play Fishing Village, Wharf, Wharf, and receive first-turn AND next-turn benefits from the exact same three Duration cards. It's just weird. And quite difficult to track, especially if your opponent(s) take long turns in between.
rspeer: What about Throne Room and King's Court that had been played on a Duration?
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I'm confused about why you would get the benefit from duration twice. When you play sceme and top deck a duration card played that turn, it goes on top of your deck and you don't get the bonus the next turn. I don't see how the mechanics of this card are so different.
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I'm confused about why you would get the benefit from duration twice. When you play sceme and top deck a duration card played that turn, it goes on top of your deck and you don't get the bonus the next turn. I don't see how the mechanics of this card are so different.
Scheme does not top deck a duration card played that turn, since it reads "At the start of Clean-up this turn, you may choose an Action card you have in play. If you discard it from play this turn, put it on your deck."
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I'm confused about why you would get the benefit from duration twice. When you play sceme and top deck a duration card played that turn, it goes on top of your deck and you don't get the bonus the next turn. I don't see how the mechanics of this card are so different.
Scheme does not top deck a duration card played that turn, since it reads "At the start of Clean-up this turn, you may choose an Action card you have in play. If you discard it from play this turn, put it on your deck."
Is this a bug on isotropic then, b/c you can top deck either new or old duration cards.
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I'm confused about why you would get the benefit from duration twice. When you play sceme and top deck a duration card played that turn, it goes on top of your deck and you don't get the bonus the next turn. I don't see how the mechanics of this card are so different.
Scheme does not top deck a duration card played that turn, since it reads "At the start of Clean-up this turn, you may choose an Action card you have in play. If you discard it from play this turn, put it on your deck."
No - I think this is DougZ being literal with the card instructions. The card lets you target anything, it just has no effect if you choose a duration card that isn't discarded during cleanup.
Is this a bug on isotropic then, b/c you can top deck either new or old duration cards.
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I'm confused about why you would get the benefit from duration twice. When you play sceme and top deck a duration card played that turn, it goes on top of your deck and you don't get the bonus the next turn. I don't see how the mechanics of this card are so different.
Scheme does not top deck a duration card played that turn, since it reads "At the start of Clean-up this turn, you may choose an Action card you have in play. If you discard it from play this turn, put it on your deck."
So why not: "At the start of Clean-up on the turn you buy this card, you may choose a card you have in play. If you discard it from play this turn, put it on your deck."
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I'm confused about why you would get the benefit from duration twice. When you play sceme and top deck a duration card played that turn, it goes on top of your deck and you don't get the bonus the next turn. I don't see how the mechanics of this card are so different.
Scheme does not top deck a duration card played that turn, since it reads "At the start of Clean-up this turn, you may choose an Action card you have in play. If you discard it from play this turn, put it on your deck."
So why not: "At the start of Clean-up on the turn you buy this card, you may choose a card you have in play. If you discard it from play this turn, put it on your deck."
That's roughly what One Armed Man suggested. After some thinking, I think maybe this is fine after all. The only other idea I even remotely like is restricting it to Treasures, and that's probably less fun.
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I tested Herald yesterday, in three games. It's a mild card that doesn't really stand out, and I really liked it.
I don't know much about the first game anymore. I know it had Torturer and Trading Post and Bazaar. I bought a Torturer with my first $6, my opponent started of with Trading Post (and a bit early shuffle luck) and wasted me. I bought a very early Herald to top-deck my Torturer after the first play. Now, if this had been a Witch or something, that might've been worth it. A single torturer didn't wreck his deck half as much as the Herald did mine. A typical case of 'ooh new card'. :)
Game 2. Cards I remember: Lighthouse, Masquerade, Herald, City, Highway, Rabble, Goons, Forge, Platinum, Colony.
Somehow, with all quite some drawing power here, we didn't get our engines going. I bought 1 Rabble, my opponent none. Not sure how that happened - it also means we never really used Forge effectively. We never even got 2 Goons together until the very last turn.
Anyway, that means we didn't have much buys to spare. I was totally planning on top-decking some Platinums, but there usually were some better choices around. We really liked playing around with it though. In this game, my opponent started with the first Herald and I won. Starting to see a pattern? You might be wrong.
Game 3. I actually remember all cards: Fool's Gold, Native Village, University, Herald, Bishop, Mandarin, Embassy, Saboteur, Laboratory, Fairgrounds.
I started off with Potion to go for Embassies - mistake; with no +Buys, it was never worth it. My opponent got big into Bishops, supported by Laboratories. Several times, he trashed a Herald for 3VP and bought a Herald, to top-deck his Bishop. If he had much more to spend, of course he would buy other stuff, but this trick really worked. It's like a temporary baby Golden Deck. He got a huge lead, but started to stall because he never really built something up. I got a nice comeback using 6VP Fairgrounds, but it wasn't enough.
All-in-all: not a powerhouse, but a very nice card. Would work fine at $3 on most boards, I think, but $4 was not a problem and a bit less risky.
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Have I mentioned I don't like the name? It sounds like an action card, all victory cards are either places or nobility.
"Archive" or "Archives" seems like a good name to me.
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Well. This is embarrassing. In scouring through my pile of PM's for votes for Challenge #4 (if you haven't voted yet, you've got a couple hours left!), I chanced upon an old message (submitted well before the deadline) with votes for Challenge #3 that I neglected to count! I know I didn't count them, because I store votes from each person in a separate file. My vote-tallying script looks at them all and adds them up.
So I added the missing #3 votes and reran my script. By and large, the rankings did not change much. And I am happy and relieved to say that our two tied winners are still tied winners rejoicing in mutual victory. But a very important change happened: the third place card got the one more vote it needed to join the other two in the winners' circle. I guess that means the community set gets three victory cards out of this one.
Sorry about the erroneous results earlier (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3248.msg65604#msg65604). For contest #4 (and beyond, since it seems to be working well), I've been storing away the votes as I get them, rather than in bulk at the end, and I would expect that process to be less error-prone.
The revised results:
#1 (tie) - Museum by Captain Frisk with 21 points (Warbler)
$5 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each set of Copper, Silver, and Gold in your deck.
#1 (tie) - Herald by shark bait with 21 points (Shearwater)
$4 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you buy this, place a card that is in play on top of your deck.
#1 (tie) - Canal by Polk5440 with 21 points (Gannet)
$6* - Victory
When the game ends, if the Province or Colony supply pile is empty (if it was available), then this is worth 4 VP. Otherwise, this is worth 2 VP.
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During your Buy phase, if two supply piles are empty, then this costs $3.
#4 - Patron of the Arts by senseless with 19 points (Pipit)
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each Masterpiece card in your deck.
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Setup: Add an extra Kingdom card pile to the Supply. Cards from that pile cost $1 more and are Masterpiece cards.
#5 - Plantation (2) by qmech with 17 points (Bluebird)
$10 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every differently costed card in your deck.
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Rules: In games using this, add Platinum to the Basic cards in the Supply.
#6 - Base Camp by DWetzel with 15 points (Cormorant)
$6 - Victory
1 VP
--
When you buy this, gain 3 VP tokens.
#7 - District by One Armed Man with 12 points (Petrel)
$5 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each card you have 5 or more copies of.
#8 (tie) - Satrapy by Celestial Chameleon with 11 points (Puffin)
$9 - Victory
4 VP
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When you gain this, gain a Duchy and an Estate.
#8 (tie) - Woodland by rspeer with 11 points (Oystercatcher)
$6 - Victory
Worth 10 VP, minus 2 VP for every 5 non-Victory cards in your deck (rounded down).
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When you buy this, you may trash a card from your hand.
#10 (tie) - Borderland by Qvist with 10 points (Yellowlegs)
$7 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this, gain a card costing less than this.
#10 (tie) - Unnamed 2 by greatexpectations with 10 points (Heron)
$8 - Victory
1 VP
--
During your buy phase, this card costs $2 less per action in play, but not less than $0.
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When you buy this, you may set it aside. If you do, return it to your deck at the end of the game.
#10 (tie) - Woodlands by iangoth with 10 points (Flycatcher)
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every three Woodlands tokens you have.
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In games using this, you may gain a Woodlands token at the end of any turn in which you shuffled your deck.
#13 (tie) - Mountain by Schneau with 9 points (Tanager)
$6 - Victory
2 VP
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The turn you buy this, only draw 3 cards (instead of 5) in this turn's Clean-up phase. Take an extra turn after this one. This can't cause you to take more than two consecutive turns.
#13 (tie) - Mountain Lake by ChocophileBenj with 9 points (Macaw)
$6 - Victory
2 VP
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When you gain this, you may trash a card from your hand. If you do, gain 2 Silvers; if you don't, gain 1 Silver. Put the gained Silver(s) on top of your deck.
#13 (tie) - Frontier by Nicrosil with 9 points (Loon)
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP per territory token on Frontier's supply pile.
--
Whenever a player buys a Province, put a territory token on Frontier's supply pile.
Whenever a player buys a Frontier, remove a territory token from Frontier's supply pile.
#13 (tie) - Fiefdom (1) by jonts26 with 9 points (Egret)
$3* - Victory
2 VP
--
When you buy Fiefdom (1), pay any amount greater than or equal to its cost. Then, gain a victory card costing at most $2 less than that amount.
#17 (tie) - Fiefdom (2) by Dsell with 8 points (Woodpecker)
$4 - Victory
Worth 5 VP minus 1 for every three treasures in your deck (round up), but not less than 0.
--
When you buy this, you may trash a treasure card from play and from your hand.
#17 (tie) - Sprawl by play2draw with 8 points (Sandpiper)
$2* - Victory
When you gain this card, place a VP token on this card's supply pile.
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For each VP token on the pile, the cost of this card increases by 1.
--
At the end of the game, this card is worth victory points equal to the number of VP tokens on the pile.
#17 (tie) - Tower by NoMoreFun with 8 points (Kingfisher)
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every 2 cards in the supply pile with the Tower token on it (rounded down).
--
When you gain this, you may move the Tower token to a Kingdom supply pile of your choice.
--
Setup: Place the Tower token on the Tower supply pile.
#20 (tie) - Mobile Home by Titandrake with 7 points (Harrier)
$4* - Victory
2 VP
During your Buy phase, this costs whatever you want, as long as it costs at least $4.
--
When you buy this, gain a card costing less than this.
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(Rules clarification: Mobile Home's cost can change in the middle of the Buy phase. E.g., with $11 and 2 buys, buy Mobile Home for $5 and for $6. When cost reduction like Bridge is out, Mobile Home must still cost at least $4.)
#20 (tie) - Landlord by nopawnsintended with 7 points (Guillemot)
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every 2 Estates in your deck (round down).
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When you gain this, trash a Treasure from the play area. If you trash a Treasure, gain an Estate.
#22 - Plantation (1) by Archetype with 6 points (Osprey)
$5 - Victory
Worth 1 VP per Plantation (1) in your deck.
--
Can only be bought if you have at least 1 Action Card in play
#23 (tie) - Diked Marsh by Dubdubdubdub with 5 points (Tern)
$3 - Victory
2 VP
--
If you gain this during your action phase:
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
#23 (tie) - Gallery by Robz888 with 5 points (Ibis)
$3 - Victory
1 VP
Worth another 1 VP for every 3 tokens on your Gallery mat.
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Setup: Each player has his own Gallery mat. At the start of a player's Clean-up, he gains a token on his Gallery mat for each unused Buy.
#23 (tie) - Enclosure by popsofctown with 5 points (Flamingo)
$2 - Victory
Worth 2 VP if you have more Estates than Enclosures.
--
When you buy this, +$1, +1 Buy.
#23 (tie) - Land Prospector by andwilk with 5 points (Bittern)
$4 - Victory
This card is worth 1 VP for each Land Prospector left in the supply at the end of the game.
#27 (tie) - Sewage Lord by zxcvbn2 with 3 points (Spoonbill)
$4 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every two differently named cards in the trash, rounding down.
#27 (tie) - Scorched Earth by Tejayes with 3 points (Plover)
$5 - Victory
This card is worth 1 VP for every 5*P cards in the trash (round down).
(P = number of players)
--
When you gain this, trash up to 4 cards from your hand.
#27 (tie) - Dowry by Fragasnap with 3 points (Nuthatch)
$4 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this, you may gain a Curse. If you do, gain a card costing up to $6 that is not a Victory card.
#27 (tie) - Sandbox by Powerman with 3 points (Kestrel)
$6 - Victory
8 VP
--
When you gain this, trash all treasures you have in play and gain a Curse. If you do not gain a Curse, place Sandbox on top of your deck.
#27 (tie) - Enchanted Forest by eHalcyon with 3 points (Grebe)
$9* - Victory
Worth 1 VP per Enchanted Forest token you have.
--
This costs $1 less per Enchanted Forest token you have (but not less than $0).
--
When you gain this, gain a Enchanted Forest token.
#27 (tie) - Specialist by RobertJ with 3 points (Bunting)
$6 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for each special card in your deck.
--
Setup: Before the first turn each player selects a special card from among the kingdom cards and these are announced simultaneously.
#33 (tie) - Untamed Wilderness by A Drowned Kernel with 2 points (Waxwing)
$6 - Victory
Worth 1 VP for every Province in the supply at the end of the game.
#33 (tie) - Blacksmith by Adrienaline with 2 points (Lark)
$4 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this card, you may gain a copy of a card costing $4 or less that does not have the name Blacksmith.
#33 (tie) - Cathedral by gman314 with 2 points (Hummingbird)
$6 - Victory
2 VP
--
When you gain this: +1 VP
You may trash a card from your hand. If you do, get +VP equal to half its cost in coins, rounded down.
#33 (tie) - Unnamed 1 by Graystripe77 with 2 points (Gadwall)
$6 - Victory
4 VP
--
When you gain this, trash a card from your hand. If you trashed a Curse this way, gain a Gold.
#37 - Botanical Gardens by Saucery with 1 point (Pelican)
$6* - Victory
4 VP
--
When you buy this card, you may pay an additional $3 ($6). If you do, gain another (2) Botanical Gardens.
#38 - Grassland by Grujah with 0 points (Vireo)
$6 - Victory
3 VP
--
When you gain this, gain a Victory card costing less than this.
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What a surprise!
Thanks to everyone who voted!
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Very glad for Canal, it really deserve the win too ! :D Congrats Polk !
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Yay for all the winners, and congrats Polk! I think it's great to share the victory instead of having a vote-off, very Dominion-like.
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For Herald, how about a name that is somewhat Asian, to match Mandarin? Maybe Tea House? Rock Garden?
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I guess that means the community set gets three victory cards out of this one.
To be honest, alternate Victory cards are awesome.
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For Herald, how about a name that is somewhat Asian, to match Mandarin? Maybe Tea House? Rock Garden?
I really like both of those names. Evocative, thematic, and VP-card-appropriate.
We should probably leave the naming decision up to shark_bait, and leave it as it is if he's undecided or doesn't chime in, but I'm all for having the discussion and throwing some alternate names around.
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Last design contest - make a theme and name all the cards accordingly. :D
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For Herald, how about a name that is somewhat Asian, to match Mandarin? Maybe Tea House? Rock Garden?
I really like both of those names. Evocative, thematic, and VP-card-appropriate.
We should probably leave the naming decision up to shark_bait, and leave it as it is if he's undecided or doesn't chime in, but I'm all for having the discussion and throwing some alternate names around.
I like Tea House more than Rock Garden now that I think about it, because "Rock Garden" sounds quite similar to "Gardens" but they are both very different.
Temple? Bamboo Forest?
But I agree, shark_bait should decide.
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Cherry Fields?
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The results for the Terminal Drawer contest are in! As a reminder, these were the submission criteria:
Objective: Design a card that adds cards to your hand and does not provide +Actions. Each play of the card must add a minimum number of cards to your hand, based on the following:
(1) If the card gives you no control over what cards you add to your hand (e.g., "+3 Cards") then the card must add at least 3 cards to your hand (e.g., Smithy) or up to a total of 7 cards in hand.
(2) If the card gives you the ability to selectively add cards to your hand somehow, then the card must add at least 2 cards to your hand (e.g., Oracle) or up to a total of 6 cards in hand.
(3) If the card gives your opponents the ability to selectively add cards to your hand somehow, then the card must add at least 4 cards to your hand (e.g., Envoy) or up to a total of 8 cards in hand.
(4) In the case of Duration cards, cards drawn on the next turn (or on any turn other than the one where the card is played) do NOT count, as these cards are never drawn dead.
Note: If a card also removes cards from your hand, you must subtract how many are removed from how many are added. Thus, for the purposes of this challenge, Embassy only adds 2 cards to your hand, not 5. However, the draw-then-discard mechanic can be considered selective drawing, and so it qualifies for this challenge under item (2) above.
Note 2: Cards that only add cards to your hand conditionally are ineligible unless they can guarantee the required minimum. But there is an exception here, too, which is that you may assume the player's deck is large enough to draw the required number of cards. After all, even a Smithy will fail to draw 3 cards if there are no cards left in the player's deck!
These were pretty restrictive criteria, and I wound up being unable to accept a number of interesting cards due to rule infractions around the edges. I'll probably word most future challenges more loosely, but in this case I was after a very specific kind of card to fulfill a very specific function.
My own entry in this contest would have been this:
Highwayman
$5 - Action-Attack
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
Each other player chooses one: he discards down to 3 cards in hand; or he discards his hand and draws 4 cards.
I made this up pre-Hinterlands and felt like Margrave affirmed this card worked and was balanced, as it shared the then-unused "+3 Cards, +1 Buy" combo of vanilla bonuses, coupled with a weak, possibly even helpful discard attack, all on a $5 card. Anyway, this has been a fun card in many live games I've played to date.
Now on to the winners. Rather than tallying up all the votes at the last minute, this time I watched the totals as votes came in. There were four cards trading places at the top, and at one point there was a 3-way tie for first place, and I thought maybe we'd wind up with more rejoicing in mutual victory. But at the last moment one card broke from the pack and claimed a clear win:
#1 - Gatherer by andwilk with 21 points (Okapi)
$5 - Action
Name two cards. Reveal cards from your deck until you have revealed two cards that you did not name. Place those two cards into your hand and discard the rest.
It just draws two cards, but the ability to skip over Coppers and Estates early, and perhaps Curses later on, lets you zero in on the ones you really care about. You need Village support to make extra use of your key action cards this way, but it sings in Big Money games. Terminal drawers tend to work like that. Congratulations to andwilk!
This was a highly competitive race with several others that would also have made good winners. The rest:
#2 - Plaza by Celestial Chameleon with 18 points (Eland)
$3 - Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal 3 cards costing $4 or less.
Put all revealed cards costing $4 or less into your hand and discard the other revealed cards.
#3 (tie) - Watchmaker by A Drowned Kernel with 16 points (Mandrill)
$4 - Action
Reveal the top four cards of your deck. Put two into your hand and discard the others.
#3 (tie) - Caretaker by jonts26 with 16 points (Leopard)
$5 - Action
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. The player to your left chooses to discard them or return them to the top of your deck.
+4 Cards
#5 (tie) - Harbor by Polk5440 with 14 points (Zebra)
$6 - Action-Duration
Until the beginning of your next turn, for all other players, all cards (including in players' hands) cost $1 less.
Now and at the start of your next turn:
+3 Cards
#5 (tie) - Magistrate by Schneau with 14 points (Wildebeest)
$2* - Action
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
--
This costs $1 more per Treasure card you have in play.
#7 - Dowser by Tejayes with 13 points (Aardwolf)
$3 - Action
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal a Victory card. Put the Victory card and one other revealed card of your choice into your hand and discard the rest.
If the first card you reveal is a Victory card, put it into your hand, then +2 Cards.
#8 - Captain by iangoth with 12 points (Bonobo)
$5 - Action
+3 Cards
You may draw up to three additional cards. For each card drawn this way, discard a card at the end of your clean-up phase.
#9 - Trophy Room by popsofctown with 11 points (Gorilla)
$2 - Action
Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal 4 Victory cards. Put those Victory cards into your hand and put the other cards back on top in a random order.
#10 (tie) - Lord by Powerman with 9 points (Jackal)
$6 - Action-Attack
Each player (including you) reveals the top 4 cards of their deck. Your opponents discard any card of your choice, and they place the remaining 3 on top of their deck in the order of their choice. You may discard any number of cards from your own deck. Place the remaining cards on top of your deck in the order of your choice.
+3 Cards
#10 (tie) - Surveyor by One Armed Man with 9 points (Hippopotamus)
$3 - Action
Draw until you have 7 cards in hand.
--
While this is in play, you cannot buy Treasure cards.
#10 (tie) - Unnamed 2 by greatexpectations with 9 points (Giraffe)
$4 - Action
+4 Cards
Discard a card from your hand, then shuffle a card from your hand into your deck.
#10 (tie) - Printing Press by Nicrosil with 9 points (Elephant)
$4 - Action
+4 Cards
Each other player gains an Action card costing at most $4.
#14 (tie) - Premonition by DWetzel with 8 points (Rhinoceros)
$3 - Action
+3 Cards
During your clean-up phase, draw only 3 cards.
--
When you gain this, you may place it on top of your deck.
#14 (tie) - Town Hall by Archetype with 8 points (Oryx)
$5 - Action
Draw 3 cards from the bottom of your deck. You may put a card from your hand on top of your deck.
#14 (tie) - Labyrinth by ChocophileBenj with 8 points (Impala)
$6 - Action
Discard any number of cards, then draw up to 7 cards in hand. You may trash a card from your hand; if you do, +1 Card.
#17 (tie) - Master by Titandrake with 7 points (Pangolin)
$6 - Action
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
Choose one: +1 Card; or +$1.
#17 (tie) - Lady by Adrienaline with 7 points (Kudu)
$5 - Action
Draw until you have 7 cards in hand. You may nominate a card name, that, as you draw them, may be set aside; discard the set aside cards after you finish drawing.
#17 (tie) - Forum by Dubdubdubdub with 7 points (Badger)
$5 - Action
+4 Cards
Put 1 or 2 cards from your hand on top of your deck.
#20 (tie) - Wheelwright by rspeer with 6 points (Waterbuck)
$3 - Action
+2 Cards
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an Action card. Put the Action card in your hand and discard the other revealed cards.
#20 (tie) - Raiders by qmech with 6 points (Hyena)
$6 - Action
Reveal the top 7 cards of you deck. Put 2 of them into your hand and discard the rest.
#20 (tie) - Dispensary by Saucery with 6 points (Baboon)
$5* - Action
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
--
When you buy this card, place it and one other card you have currently in play on top of your deck.
--
When you buy this card, you may pay $3+P instead of $5.
#23 (tie) - Plague by Robz888 with 4 points (Hartebeest)
$5 - Action
+3 Cards
While this is in play, when you buy a card, if it is a Victory card, trash a copy of the card from the supply. Otherwise, trash two copies of the card from the supply.
#23 (tie) - Kennel by senseless with 4 points (Fossa)
$5 - Action
+6 Cards
Lose your next turn.
#25 (tie) - Rear Admiral by NoMoreFun with 3 points (Lemur)
$4 - Action-Attack
+3 Cards
Put one card from your hand on the bottom of your deck.
Each other player draws a card, then puts cards from his hand on the bottom of his deck until he has 3 cards in his hand.
#25 (tie) - Public Library by RobertJ with 3 points (Duiker)
$5 - Action
+1 Buy
Draw until you have 7 cards in hand. You may set aside up to 3 cards drawn this way, as you draw them. Each other player draws a card for each card you set aside. Discard the set aside cards after you finish drawing.
#25 (tie) - Workosmithy by Grujah with 3 points (Camel)
$5 - Action
Gain a card costing up to $5, putting it on top of your deck.
+2 Cards
#28 (tie) - Manufactory by Qvist with 2 points (Meerkat)
$4 - Action
Discard a card.
Choose a card from your discard pile and put it on top of your deck.
If there's no card in your discard pile +4 Cards; otherwise +3 Cards.
#28 (tie) - Mystic by Tables with 2 points (Lion)
$5 - Action-Attack
+3 Cards
+1 Buy
Each other player with 0 or 1 curse on his Mystic mat gains a curse on their Mystic mat. If they do not gain a curse, they put all of the curses on their Mystic mat into their discard pile.
---
At the end of the game, return all cards on your Mystic mat to your deck.
#30 - Unnamed 1 by Graystripe77 with 1 point (Cheetah)
$4 - Action
+3 Cards
Discard a card.
Reveal your hand. If you have no Silver in hand, choose one: gain a Gold and a Copper, or gain a Silver.
--
If you have any Gold in play, this card cannot be bought.
If you have any Silver in play, this card costs $6.
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Yay, 7th place! Glad to know my idea didn't completely suck.
Anyway, congratulations to andwilk and Gatherer (Okapi) on a well-deserved win!
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Hey, I finally placed respectably.
Also I voted for the winning submission, so that's good. I like the concept but I'm not 100% on the balance of the card. Likely it should play well enough I think, but some playtesting may be in order.
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Hey, I finally placed respectably.
Also I voted for the winning submission, so that's good. I like the concept but I'm not 100% on the balance of the card. Likely it should play well enough I think, but some playtesting may be in order.
I'm a little curious about that myself. If you only buy money, it's strictly superior to Adventurer, right? Because you just always name Estate and Copper, take in your terminal $4-$6 and move on? But unlike Adventurer, you only get that guarantee if you do stick to a strict money game. You can't even pick up a second Gatherer. Still, the potential makes me wonder if a price bump to $6 is in order. Benchmarking a Gatherer-BM algorithm might help. How many turns does it take to get to 4 Provinces? (If anybody actually does this, let's start a playtesting thread for the card.)
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I think I would rather have this as an overpowered $5 than a properly priced $6 card. $5 is already a bit rough for engine potential and $6 just favors big money too much for my taste. I'd rather tweak the card a bit before bumping up the price. But it might work fine at $5 so that could be moot.
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Congratulations to the winners!
My thought behind Master was to recreate the play I really like from Pawn. You can either go for guaranteed +$1, or you can hope to draw a good card. So I stuck it onto a terminal draw card. 4 cards/3 cards +$1 seemed too good at $5, so I bumped it up to $6 and added +Buy accordingly. I still like it for it's simplicity, but it might be a bit too simple.
There weren't really any other attempts to merge +Cards and +$, but most of the versions of those cards have already been done to death in other threads, so it's understandable.
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Adventurer greens more easily.
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Adventurer greens more easily.
Not really. Once you get a handful of provinces, just start naming estate and province. And if you have even weak trashing you can get rid of estates so you can still skip over coppers.
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Just saw the discussion about my card.
http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=3510.new#new
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I gave +2 to Harbor and Forum. But still congrats to the winners.
Now this challenge is over, I would say I kinda regret the trashing option, maybe would it make it too strong when comparing to library, yeah because I think even without, the discard+draw part is above library ? Risk of drawing dead actions still exists, of course !
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So, it's time I started talking about Mystic (Lion). It got a point from someone that wasn't me!
It was ultimately, submitted in the wrong contest. I should have submitted it in the curser contest, but I missed it and was past deadline when I saw it. I wanted to submit another card here, but too often it doesn't actually increase your handsize by three. Hopefully I've have a contest that one fits in later. So here, I submitted the only other card from my fan set that fit here.
So a few things. Firstly, I designed this card months ago. And I've played it. And it's much weaker than the other cursing attacks currently at $5, but with the somewhat recent addition of +buy, it's still a power $5. Probably a bit weaker than Torturer. It wasn't supposed to be a copy of the cursing contest winner, it doesn't even seem like it'd play anything like it, just, it has a mat and gives out curses. But somehow people thought it was a copy ???. I guess the similarity and the fact it looks like it's primarily a curser put people off, most likely.
It's a fun card, I find, one of my favourite cursers, because it's difficult to actually run as a curser. It takes three plays to throw curses into your opponents decks. Well after three plays of a $5 card, even if you pick up multiples and don't collide, you're comfortably into the midgame, and by that point sure, your opponent has two curses, but they've built their deck up pretty well before that (well, they've had the chance). And that I feel makes it very interesting to play.
I voted for Okapi, and I'm glad to see it win. It seems like generally a very interesting card. Congratulations to andwilk for it.
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I think Mystic Lion is an excellent name for a cursing attack.
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Congratulations to the winners!
My thought behind Master was to recreate the play I really like from Pawn. You can either go for guaranteed +$1, or you can hope to draw a good card. So I stuck it onto a terminal draw card. 4 cards/3 cards +$1 seemed too good at $5, so I bumped it up to $6 and added +Buy accordingly. I still like it for it's simplicity, but it might be a bit too simple.
There weren't really any other attempts to merge +Cards and +$, but most of the versions of those cards have already been done to death in other threads, so it's understandable.
I really liked it and gave it +2, but I was afraid others would see it as "too simple." I was hoping it would place better, too. I think that there is still some space left for interesting simple cards. But, I haven't read many older forum threads, so I have not been over-exposed to these types of cards, yet.
I gave +2 to Harbor...
Thanks!
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Congrats andwilk - I gave you a vote and am happy to see you won!
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By the way, now that there's a subforum for this, I think it would be great if each challenge's cards had their own thread. This way, once the cards are revealed and voting commences, there's a thread for discussions about the cards, etc.
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I'm surprised mine did so well compared to Raiders/Hyena, since they're so similar.
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By the way, now that there's a subforum for this, I think it would be great if each challenge's cards had their own thread. This way, once the cards are revealed and voting commences, there's a thread for discussions about the cards, etc.
That's a good idea. I'll do this starting with the next pair of Challenges, which I'll announce Monday.
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By the way, now that there's a subforum for this, I think it would be great if each challenge's cards had their own thread. This way, once the cards are revealed and voting commences, there's a thread for discussions about the cards, etc.
That's a good idea. I'll do this starting with the next pair of Challenges, which I'll announce Monday.
Still not too late for the voting for challenges 5 and 6!
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Thank you to everyone who voted for Rear Admiral/Lemur. I was surprised it got any votes considering its $4 cost (which I very quickly realised was too low). The "bottom of the deck" mechanic is definitely not a gimmick though; it's a mechanic that changes in nature as the game progresses. Early game it's quite similar to top decking. In the last reshuffle it's going to be the same as discarding. The most interesting is in the middle, when it will be like discarding but with an eerie sense of deja vu (for the opponent) and a bizarre slowness (for you). I guess this card will generate a lot of AP, since you don't want to fill the bottom of your deck with junk and have a dead hand (or do you?). Would it need to be buffed to be competitive with other $5 attacks?
I hope to use more bottom of the deck mechanics in the future (eg sinking treasures, seemingly overpowered cards that miss reshuffles, semi reliable gainers, a pseudo "mat"). I think there's a whole expansions worth.
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Wow, I thought Lady/Kudu was overpowered compared with library, because of the innate ability to skip past the Estates and always have at least a 7 value hand. Go figure I'd mess up on the mechanics for my own card...
I guess I was completely wrong. Quite happy with 7 points for a vanilla library variant.
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If you only buy money, it's strictly superior to Adventurer, right? Because you just always name Estate and Copper, take in your terminal $4-$6 and move on?
(The above quote is about the winner, Gatherer.)
I went through the same thought process pricing Raiders/Hyena. At $5 it's a better Adventurer and an easy pick in BM games when you can't afford Gold. Unfortunately, at $6 it's too expensive to easily pick up if you're building an engine. Increasing the number of cards you can look at helps a bit, but people seem to prefer the cheaper variants on the theme.
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Not really. Once you get a handful of provinces, just start naming estate and province. And if you have even weak trashing you can get rid of estates so you can still skip over coppers.
If you have weak trashing, you have cards that enabled the weak trashing that also need to be skipped over (since even if they have +actions, you'd generally be drawing them dead).
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I hope to use more bottom of the deck mechanics in the future (eg sinking treasures, seemingly overpowered cards that miss reshuffles, semi reliable gainers, a pseudo "mat"). I think there's a whole expansions worth.
I'm also intrigued by manipulation of the bottom of the deck, mostly because sticking a bad card there will often cause it to miss the shuffle. But that's a pretty subtle thing, so it's probably hard to make a card that uses it in a way that feels significant. Pearl Diver is, after all, a pretty notoriously weak card, even for being a cantrip. But I think it's cool to experiment with ideas like that; good job.
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Wow! I was hoping to perform better in round 4 since my first 3 cards were duds (all ranked in the 20s), but was surprised and happy to see my card place first. I'm really enjoying this contest so far and wanted to give a big thanks to rinkworks for running it. Congrats to the winners so far and good luck to everyone the rest of the way!! ;D
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Does Tea House only take effect when bought, not when gained? That's how the text appears, just wanted to make sure it's correct.
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Does Tea House only take effect when bought, not when gained? That's how the text appears, just wanted to make sure it's correct.
Yes. I can't remember now if there was a particular reason, though.
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Looking back at the fan cards threads, my submission District was already posted elsewhere by jimjam as Stockpile in his Battlegrounds fan expansion. Sorry jimjam, I hadn't read your thread before now.
Edit: the same thing applies to Base Camp by DWetzel. It was posted by jimjam as Strategic Position.
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Nor had I. I should go look at it, it sounds brilliant! 8)