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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 92: Time To Cool Down!
« on: May 30, 2024, 11:03:40 am »
Contest Results
Thanks to everyone participating! You've come up with nice cards, some very chill and some interesting ice breakers!
I will keep my judging as concise as possible. I've playtested each card in 2-3 different kingdoms.
Here are my thoughts:
===
Tiago's Frozen Lands (not an actual entry)
As said by Jonatan Djurachkovitch, this is a better Duchy. You usually buy Duchies in the late game and that's where Frozen Land's shines and even surpasses them.
The idea of a reverse Distant Lands was very nice!
In general, it's fun to play with, too. But it wouldn't make an official set I suppose.
===
BryGuys' Ice Smithy
"+4 Cards"-cards aren't easy to balance, but that's where the of Ice Tokens come into play and safe the day.
The card is very good with big money or, of course, if you have enough Villages. Felt almost too good for $3.
It picks up the theme of discarding for benefits and reactions in general.
It's overall nicely balanced, has decent versatility, and most importantly made great (balance) use of ice tokens.
I wholeheartedly agree that the wording "Freeze-2" was and is confusing. Also, everyone seemed to publish their own take on the Ice Token wording.
===
Tiago's Avalanche
Given enough Buys, it was very decent in the late game, too, locking away your Provinces and thus securing you cleaner hands for the final turns.
As with most Events, it didn't come into action too often. I took it as sign of the card being well balanced.
It cleans up your turns (turns become more fun), helps you recover in scenarios like when you've been Cursed to the northpole and back (as long as you buys it early enough, you still need $4 after all), and this Event was always worth a thought to buy, though never the obvious answer.
===
grep's Ice House
v1 (leaves play on second turn): Felt weird, the "put it into your hand" effect barely triggered, unless you had a lot of Ice Houses. (Maybe you were supposed to build a village of Ice Houses?) With more of these it became fun, once the effect actually hit. So let's talk about...
v2 (see my suggested wording below): This was better. Nice effect. Stow away bad cards to line up with your trasher, stow Actions you couldn't/wouldn't be able to play this turn, or send the surplus Treasure you had into another turn where you'd make better use of it. I'd thus rate this full stars for versatility. Fun was okay, it slowed the game down; having to set aside, place Ice Tokens, remove Ice Tokens from previous cards, and putting cards back into your hand, especially once you got 3 or so going – which was amazing if you had!
The shifting cards around is still okay I suppose. Overall, the card itself felt a bit too slow. After 3 games I felt like a simple "+1 Card" might fix that.
New suggested wording (including +1 Card):
Note: This opens up interaction with other potential Ice Token effects, like putting Ice Tokens on cards that already have some on them, essentially prolonging Ice Houses effects. I think this "loophole" would make Ice House only more interesting.
===
segura's Migrants
The card was fun, always gave you choices (Favors? Or strong card? Or just one for $3 now, so it hits my shuffle?), and interacts with the other players.
This is just a nice card, and testing showed that all card prices were viable and balanced. Only gaining Golds with this wasn't the best choice.
At first it looked too wordy/complicated with the $'s. But it's proven easier than expected.
As always with Favors, it heavily depended on the Ally in play. You'd have to play this 3 times and gain 3 almost junks cards, just to activate Allies like Circle of Witches just once. Use 3 actions to play, gain 3 Razes into your deck, just so you can curse everyone once? When you could instead have gotten 3 Golds? Hm.
If you could've gotten Estates + Favor with this, it'd have been nice, especially late-game.
Overall, very good and fun card! If I had to improve it, I'd change the wording, to make it less daunting and the effect nicer:
More thoughts: Bump it up, have it cost $5, and maybe able to gain Victory cards? Then limited to gaining cards costing up to $5?
===
fika monster's Snow Golem
First choice: Whatever is frozen has a benefit to you. Junk stays out 2(-3) turns, good cards will be played for free afterwards. It's basically +3 Cards, and then most often +1-2 Actions. Awesome when there isn't much +Action on the board.
Second choice: Freezing a good hand (like Plan) is nice, i.a. as just described, freezing a bad hand is also. Have your pick.
Fun card, versatile card, brings the Night type nicely to the table, and uses Ice Tokens nicely. Well-balanced, too.
===
emtzalex's Arctic Adventure
In playtesting, you could spam this whenever you hit $4, of course. But it also set you back substantially, as you only profit in 5-6 turns from it. In that time, others can trash, junk, and advance their deck in other regards.
Not much too say, this is also a nice Event, that's not always the answer. You can gain Loot early, which is awesome. It's still worth buying later, as you might have Action cards left and can make use of them this way. So this Event never seemed redundant!
===
Results
All entries were awesome and fun to play with. Picking a winner is difficult.
But the ceremony calls for its established routine, thus – considering all criteria for this contest – I give you...
Runner-ups: Tiago's Avalanche, BryGuys' Ice Smithy, emtzalex's Arctic Adventure, fika monster's Snow Golem, grep's Ice House (yes, all of you
)
Winner: segura's Migrants
Congrats!
And once again, thanks for participating!
Thanks to everyone participating! You've come up with nice cards, some very chill and some interesting ice breakers!
I will keep my judging as concise as possible. I've playtested each card in 2-3 different kingdoms.
Here are my thoughts:
===
Tiago's Frozen Lands (not an actual entry)
I've played this card before it's been removed as an entry, so why I might as well share my thoughts about it too:
As said by Jonatan Djurachkovitch, this is a better Duchy. You usually buy Duchies in the late game and that's where Frozen Land's shines and even surpasses them.
The idea of a reverse Distant Lands was very nice!
In general, it's fun to play with, too. But it wouldn't make an official set I suppose.
===
BryGuys' Ice Smithy
Due to the reaction, they synergize with each other. That's nice, especially when you've run out of actions.
"+4 Cards"-cards aren't easy to balance, but that's where the of Ice Tokens come into play and safe the day.
The card is very good with big money or, of course, if you have enough Villages. Felt almost too good for $3.
It picks up the theme of discarding for benefits and reactions in general.
It's overall nicely balanced, has decent versatility, and most importantly made great (balance) use of ice tokens.
I wholeheartedly agree that the wording "Freeze-2" was and is confusing. Also, everyone seemed to publish their own take on the Ice Token wording.
===
Tiago's Avalanche
This was good! Even in the early turns, getting rid of 2 Estates for 5 (!) turns was great.
Given enough Buys, it was very decent in the late game, too, locking away your Provinces and thus securing you cleaner hands for the final turns.
As with most Events, it didn't come into action too often. I took it as sign of the card being well balanced.
It cleans up your turns (turns become more fun), helps you recover in scenarios like when you've been Cursed to the northpole and back (as long as you buys it early enough, you still need $4 after all), and this Event was always worth a thought to buy, though never the obvious answer.
===
grep's Ice House
At first, the wording wasn't clear. "Your card" being understood as "any of your cards", as in "if any ever thaws while this in play this and next turn". I believe this needs the a different wording to work as (possibly) intended. Anyhow, I playtested both versions, once it became apparent that it's not good:
v1 (leaves play on second turn): Felt weird, the "put it into your hand" effect barely triggered, unless you had a lot of Ice Houses. (Maybe you were supposed to build a village of Ice Houses?) With more of these it became fun, once the effect actually hit. So let's talk about...
v2 (see my suggested wording below): This was better. Nice effect. Stow away bad cards to line up with your trasher, stow Actions you couldn't/wouldn't be able to play this turn, or send the surplus Treasure you had into another turn where you'd make better use of it. I'd thus rate this full stars for versatility. Fun was okay, it slowed the game down; having to set aside, place Ice Tokens, remove Ice Tokens from previous cards, and putting cards back into your hand, especially once you got 3 or so going – which was amazing if you had!
The shifting cards around is still okay I suppose. Overall, the card itself felt a bit too slow. After 3 games I felt like a simple "+1 Card" might fix that.
New suggested wording (including +1 Card):
Quote
+1 Card
Now and at the start of your next turn: Freeze a card from your hand with 3 Ice Tokens (on this).
Until any remain, when you remove the last Ice Token from a card you have in play, you may put it into your hand.
Note: This opens up interaction with other potential Ice Token effects, like putting Ice Tokens on cards that already have some on them, essentially prolonging Ice Houses effects. I think this "loophole" would make Ice House only more interesting.
===
segura's Migrants
This was way better than expected. It's a gainer with benefits, thus costing $4. The price seemed nicely balanced with the effect. Gain something strong? Sure, but with a delay. Gain something cheap? Have this compensation.
The card was fun, always gave you choices (Favors? Or strong card? Or just one for $3 now, so it hits my shuffle?), and interacts with the other players.
This is just a nice card, and testing showed that all card prices were viable and balanced. Only gaining Golds with this wasn't the best choice.
At first it looked too wordy/complicated with the $'s. But it's proven easier than expected.
As always with Favors, it heavily depended on the Ally in play. You'd have to play this 3 times and gain 3 almost junks cards, just to activate Allies like Circle of Witches just once. Use 3 actions to play, gain 3 Razes into your deck, just so you can curse everyone once? When you could instead have gotten 3 Golds? Hm.
If you could've gotten Estates + Favor with this, it'd have been nice, especially late-game.
Overall, very good and fun card! If I had to improve it, I'd change the wording, to make it less daunting and the effect nicer:
Quote
Gain a non-Victory card costing up to $6.
If it costs $3 or less: +1 Favor.
Otherwise, Freeze it once per $1 it costs more than $3.
More thoughts: Bump it up, have it cost $5, and maybe able to gain Victory cards? Then limited to gaining cards costing up to $5?
===
fika monster's Snow Golem
Snow golemThis was plain nice.
Night
5 cost
Choose 1: Freeze the top 3 cards of your deck 2 times; or freeze your hand 2 times.
-
In games using this, when you remove the last freeze token from a card, if it’s an action or treasure card, play it.
First choice: Whatever is frozen has a benefit to you. Junk stays out 2(-3) turns, good cards will be played for free afterwards. It's basically +3 Cards, and then most often +1-2 Actions. Awesome when there isn't much +Action on the board.
Second choice: Freezing a good hand (like Plan) is nice, i.a. as just described, freezing a bad hand is also. Have your pick.
Fun card, versatile card, brings the Night type nicely to the table, and uses Ice Tokens nicely. Well-balanced, too.
===
emtzalex's Arctic Adventure
Another great and final entry to this contest. Loots are not only priced at $7, but can usually gained for this price tag also. Though hard to calculate (as with official cards), this looks like its fitting the bill. Gain a Loot for $4, if you have too many Actions left in your hand, you make use of them now.
In playtesting, you could spam this whenever you hit $4, of course. But it also set you back substantially, as you only profit in 5-6 turns from it. In that time, others can trash, junk, and advance their deck in other regards.
Not much too say, this is also a nice Event, that's not always the answer. You can gain Loot early, which is awesome. It's still worth buying later, as you might have Action cards left and can make use of them this way. So this Event never seemed redundant!
===
Results
All entries were awesome and fun to play with. Picking a winner is difficult.
But the ceremony calls for its established routine, thus – considering all criteria for this contest – I give you...
Runner-ups: Tiago's Avalanche, BryGuys' Ice Smithy, emtzalex's Arctic Adventure, fika monster's Snow Golem, grep's Ice House (yes, all of you
)Winner: segura's Migrants
Congrats!
And once again, thanks for participating!
