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101

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay

« on: October 12, 2021, 10:16:42 am »

I hope this qualifies:

+$2
Discard any number of cards for +1 Coffers each.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it with Coffers.  For each Coffers you overpaid, +1 Card at the start of your next turn.

Rules clarification: Strongroom breaks the rule about having to spend your Coffers at the start of your Buy phase.  So for example if you have Merchant Guild(s) in play and bought cards before buying Strongroom, any Coffers gained from the previous buys can be used to overpay for Strongroom.  However, you cannot spend Coffers for anything other than overpaying (so for instance, if you only have $3 left, you cannot spend a Coffer to be able to afford Strongroom).

The idea here is to be able to convert Coffers into draw using the overpay ability.  The card itself is a terminal Silver that can be useful for hitting certain price points early in the game, since you are likely to collide it with your starting Estates.  Strongroom is a stop card, so you probably don't want to buy it too often or else you could clog up your engine.  Stocking up on Coffers to get the most use out of the overpay ability might be wise (or just spend those Coffers on buying good draw cards).  There are good synergies with other cards that give you +Coffers, and especially with Swashbuckler.

This doesn't really need overpay wording, and would be shorter if it just said "when you buy this, return any number of Coffers for +1 card each at the start of your next turn". It also has tracking issues, as there's nothing to remind you of the card draw, so it should either draw at the end of the turn you bought it, or gain Horses.

Finally, the on-play ability is too strong, being able to gain 4 Coffers per play. Imagine a Strongroom-only play:
T1/T2: Open Strongroom/Silve.
T3/T4: Buy another Strongroom, use Strongroom to gain 4 Coffers.
T5-T7: Use both Strongrooms to now have 12 Coffers.
From here on out, discard 4 if you have Strongroom in hand, otherwise buy Province. You should have 4 Provinces by turn 12-13.

Submission withdrawn

You're right about this not needing the overpay mechanic.  As for the other points you've raised, do you think this would sufficiently address them?

102

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay

« on: October 12, 2021, 09:06:06 am »

Submission withdrawn

I hope this qualifies:

+$2
Discard any number of cards for +1 Coffers each.
-
When you buy this, you may overpay for it with Coffers.  For each Coffers you overpaid, +1 Card at the start of your next turn.

Rules clarification: Strongroom breaks the rule about having to spend your Coffers at the start of your Buy phase.  So for example if you have Merchant Guild(s) in play and bought cards before buying Strongroom, any Coffers gained from the previous buys can be used to overpay for Strongroom.  However, you cannot spend Coffers for anything other than overpaying (so for instance, if you only have $3 left, you cannot spend a Coffer to be able to afford Strongroom).

The idea here is to be able to convert Coffers into draw using the overpay ability.  The card itself is a terminal Silver that can be useful for hitting certain price points early in the game, since you are likely to collide it with your starting Estates.  Strongroom is a stop card, so you probably don't want to buy it too often or else you could clog up your engine.  Stocking up on Coffers to get the most use out of the overpay ability might be wise (or just spend those Coffers on buying good draw cards).  There are good synergies with other cards that give you +Coffers, and especially with Swashbuckler. 

103

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 21: Curse you!

« on: October 11, 2021, 07:47:59 am »

Cursed Cargo $4
Action - Duration
Take an amount of R , gain a card costing exactly $1 per R token taken.
-
While you have R , at the start of each of your turns, -1R. If you could not, then gain a curse.
(R is the Raven/Curse Tokens)

I like the way crypt works, wanted to riff on that wording. If you end up with multiple of these at the start of your turns they remove the R tokens faster, but if it one of them is unable to remove a Raven Token then it gives you a curse.

I don’t think it’s clear how long this stays in play.  Is the intent that it stays in play until you run out of Curse tokens, when the Curse pile empties, or both?

104

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #131: Novel Ways to Overpay

« on: October 11, 2021, 07:32:33 am »

Uproar
Action ($4)

+1 Card
+1 Action
You may discard 2 cards for +2 Cards.
-----
When you buy this you may overpay for it. If you overpaid at least:
$1: Each other player Exiles a Curse.
$2: Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand puts a card from their hand onto their deck.

The on play is a weaker version of forum, as you only get to draw 1 card before having to decide what to discard (it is optional at least). The main idea of the card however, is the overpay. I wanted to try making an on-gain "attack" that was dependent on overpaying. Because players could potentially gain a few of these in a turn, I wanted to keep the attacks fairly on the light side, since the card itself is a cantrip and won't junk you up like IGG might.

The way I read this is that if I overpay by $2, my opponents would both Exile a Curse and suffer the mini Ghost Ship attack (since I’ve fulfilled both overpay conditions).  Is that the correct interpretation?

105

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #130: Sidekicks

« on: October 08, 2021, 11:34:10 pm »

Vanishing Coin | Treasure | $3
$1
Trash a card you have in play.
-
When you trash this, +1 Card +1 Buy and gain a Vanishing Coin.

Adventurer isn't good. We all know that. But if you could clear out your coppers, it would be a lot better. Still not too strong, but hey. I wanted to add a card that made you happy to see Adventurer and its split pile on the board.

This card isn't nearly enough to redeem Adventurer. Adventurer is so weak that it needs a card that directly interacts with Adventurer to power it up, like the topt card I've proposed above (which isn't my entry for this contest, because I like my entry better than that idea, so feel free to copy any or all of it).

Adventuring Village
$4
Action
+1 Card and +2 Actions.
You may trash a Copper from your hand; or, you may play an Adventurer from your hand, for +1 Card and +1 Buy.

IMO, Capitalism is the card that redeems Adventurer, provided you have good Copper trashing. 

106

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #130: Sidekicks

« on: October 02, 2021, 05:21:29 pm »

I don’t know if it’s necessary to reveal cards in your discard pile and hand rather than looking through it (a la Hermit).  I don’t think accountability would be an issue since it should be clear where the trashed Coppers are coming from (but if it’s a concern, it could be done sequentially from the hand then the discard pile).

The revealing is necessary because the Copper trashing is mandatory. Your opponents don't get to look through your discard pile and hand to make sure there aren't any Coppers you're lying about not being there to trash.

You're absolutely right...I wasn't thinking about the fact that the trashing is mandatory and players have an incentive to be dishonest about not being able to trash Coppers.  Revealing your whole discard pile just seemed a tad awkward, but it is necessary.

107

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #130: Sidekicks

« on: October 02, 2021, 12:45:57 pm »

I don’t know if it’s necessary to reveal cards in your discard pile and hand rather than looking through it (a la Hermit).  I don’t think accountability would be an issue since it should be clear where the trashed Coppers are coming from (but if it’s a concern, it could be done sequentially from the hand then the discard pile).

108

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #130: Sidekicks

« on: September 30, 2021, 05:16:44 pm »

Nice card, but the contest specified that the bottom of the split pile should cost $5 or $6. I assume that LibraryAdventurer considered this and had a reason for not specifying $5 or more. Is lobbying permitted? :-)

Goons could use a sidekick. Create a split pile using an official card that costs $5 or $6 as the bottom card.

Oops...I glossed over that requirement.  I’ll try to come up with a different submission (or will think about whether Cupbearer would work well on top of a $5 or $6 cost card  ).

109

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #130: Sidekicks

« on: September 30, 2021, 03:07:08 pm »

Cupbearer is meant to be at the top of a split pile with Prince.

The card is fairly cheap and pretty nice for engines.  It helps to draw your Action cards, so there is some synergy with Prince (and is itself a good target for Prince).   

110

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 21: Curse you!

« on: September 30, 2021, 08:44:43 am »

Why is it "Once per turn: You may buy a card" instead of just "+1 Buy. At the end of your Buy phase... " or any other timing (start of clean-up, end of turn, etc.)? To me "You may buy a card" is for letting you buy cards outside the buy phase, but on an event that's not relevant since you're always by default in the buy phase. Otherwise, you have to be careful to buy the event just before your last buy every turn.

Also this doesn't need the "You may take". The choice is already implicit in buying the event or not, if you move the choice to within the event, then there's no reason why one wouldn't just buy the event every single turn, and then at that point it can just be a pure Landmark (which is also a valid direction to take, and maybe preferable to avoid the awkward double typed landscape). The only counterpoint is maybe you'd change your mind in the time between buying the event and just after buying the card (maybe some on-buy trigger changed things), but that's a very edge case.

I didn't think +1 Buy would work, since I thought you would need to resolve the rest of the card first before you actually get to use that +1 Buy.

However, you're right that this could easily just be a pure Landmark, and could say, "At the end of your Buy phase [or the start of Clean-up], you may take +1 Curse token....".

111

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 21: Curse you!

« on: September 29, 2021, 10:05:31 am »

If you've played the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion of Lords of Waterdeep, you'll be familiar with Corruption tokens.  Players gain Corruption tokens when they do certain actions that are more powerful than normal.  At the end of the game, each Corruption token is worth a certain amount of negative VP based on the number of Corruption tokens that all players have taken.

This is partly inspired by Corruption tokens, although the amount of negative VP doesn't scale based on the number of Curse tokens (well, other than the -1VP each Curse token gives you):

EDIT: Changed this into a pure Landmark instead of a dual Event/Landmark and reduced the VP penalty from 10VP to 6VP:

EDIT: Tweaked the card to make it more relevant in Kingdoms without +Buy or gainers.

112

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #129: In Play

« on: September 28, 2021, 01:43:09 pm »

It would have cost $5, and been "+$2. You may trash a card you have in play. If you did, gain a card costing exactly$1 more."

I don't think that's a $5-cost card.  It's arguably better than Improve, but not unequivocally.

But I like the posted version better. I like that it sometimes whiffs, like throne room. And sometimes it's quite powerful.

I think it's fine for cards to whiff, as long as the upside is worthwhile.  In some Kingdoms, I think Recast in its current form will still be great.  But I think it can be quite awkward in others because of the restriction of gaining a card costing exactly $1 more.  That can really limit your options of what you are able to gain and play, especially since it is limited to trashing Actions that you have in play.   

113

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #129: In Play

« on: September 28, 2021, 03:08:43 am »

A Remodel variant that lets you upgrade an action card you already played this turn.  And if you don't match it with any cantrip, village, etc... you can always trash it to get a $6 card.  As a bonus, if you pick up a new action card, you even get to play it!

This could whiff quite easily if you draw it without any other Action cards (or your $5-cost Action cards that you wouldn’t want to trash if there aren’t any $6-cost Action cards in the Kingdom). I would change the restriction of the gained card costing exactly $1 more to up to $1 more.

That is quite possible that it will miss (so does Throne Room).  I was wondering if that would reduce the value of this card, or just make it a dud altogether.

However, I believe your suggestion will allow someone to empty the entire Recast pile the first time they play one... self-trash, gain a new one, it's an Action, so play it... repeat until you get the last one in the pile.

I do have an outtake on the card that I might bring back, changing its function a fair amount, but leaving the same general idea of trashing a played card.  I'll think about it for a bit.

True, it could autopile easily with my suggestion.  Specifying "differently named" would prevent that.

114

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 20: Season 2 Finale (One plus One)

« on: September 28, 2021, 03:05:35 am »

Thanks for the win, emtzalex!

I will be going out of town so won't be able to judge the next one.  I'd be grateful if one of the runners-up could take my place.

115

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #129: In Play

« on: September 27, 2021, 02:04:23 pm »

A Remodel variant that lets you upgrade an action card you already played this turn.  And if you don't match it with any cantrip, village, etc... you can always trash it to get a $6 card.  As a bonus, if you pick up a new action card, you even get to play it!

This could whiff quite easily if you draw it without any other Action cards (or your $5-cost Action cards that you wouldn’t want to trash if there aren’t any $6-cost Action cards in the Kingdom). I would change the restriction of the gained card costing exactly $1 more to up to $1 more.

116

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #129: In Play

« on: September 23, 2021, 11:59:06 pm »

A Night version of Armory that lets you set aside cards that you have in play and gain a card onto your deck depending on the number of cards you set aside.  Setting aside Coppers or Ruins with this will also be useful as long as you don't trigger a bad shuffle.  On the other hand, setting aside your good cards may not be optimal unless you can draw around to them.  You probably also don't want to be setting aside any cards that have boni when discarded from play (e.g. Travellers, Treasury, Hermit, etc). 

You cannot set aside Duration cards, so that not only avoids tracking issues, but also prevents an overpowered synergy with Village Green.  There is however a strong combo with Capital.

117

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 20: Season 2 Finale (One plus One)

« on: September 19, 2021, 08:29:04 pm »

Conscript/Displacement is missing from the list. 

118

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 20: Season 2 Finale (One plus One)

« on: September 15, 2021, 03:06:48 pm »

It might be helpful to list the Season 2 mechanics in the OP or link to the Hall of Fame that you've done a really good job of curating.

I think there haven't been a lot of submissions so far because it's hard enough to make one card that combines one or more fan mechanics, but here we have to design two independent ones that also work well together.  It's a pretty large design space, but there's a lot more to think about when designing them!

119

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #128: Look at the trash!

« on: September 15, 2021, 03:01:23 pm »

v2

I think the wording could be simplified a bit: "Choose one: Play a non-Command Action card in the trash twice; or trash a card from your hand and each other player discards a copy of it (or reveals they can't)."

I'm assuming it intentional that you do not leave the played card in the trash (you put it in play and then discard it normally during Clean-up, so would effectively gain it but without triggering any on-gain abilities).  If not, then you need to add "leaving it there" to the first option.

120

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #128: Look at the trash!

« on: September 15, 2021, 11:53:06 am »

It's probably not that easy to pull off, but you could pin your opponents with this.  Also, the way I'm reading it, this would force your opponent to discard all copies of the trashed card, right?  That makes this too strong, especially early in the game where you trash a Copper and basically kill your opponent's next turn.

EDIT: If you limit it to discarding only one copy of the trashed card, I would also recommend that players only need to reveal their hand if they don't discard a copy of the trashed card.

121

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Card Mechanics Week 20: Season 2 Finale (One plus One)

« on: September 15, 2021, 10:38:50 am »

Mechanics used by Kingdom card: Queue, Level, Routes
Mechanics used by Landscape: Edict, Queue



I liked Aquila's Commissioner from last week's contest, so this is my twist on that.  Instead of Queuing cards on gain, you do so from your hand during Clean-up.  The Route tokens that you gain from Conscript would allow you to put cards that you gain in your buy phase into your hand.

In games with good trashing and Displacement, you should be able to get some good draw (albeit temporary) out of Conscript if you level it up sufficiently.

122

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #128: Look at the trash!

« on: September 14, 2021, 10:40:27 am »

Having Chalice in hand on Turn 1 could be quite advantageous if your opponent only has it on Turn 2, since you’ll have an extra Coffer that you can spend on Turn 2 while your opponent won’t.

Well i hope that each player can make use of the coffers differently. So your example is a bad turn 1 then great turn 2. The other option is ok turn 1 bad turn 2 then a great turn 3. The turn 3 card misses the shuffle but can be even more effective when a player has combines the coffers with whatever they gain earlier.

Having a Coffer to spend before the first shuffle is better than only having it to spend after the first shuffle.  Most games with Chalice will not have any Potion-cost cards other than Ritual Tithe in the Kingdom, so you're looking at opening splits of 4/2, 2/4, or 3/3.  However, a player with Chalice in hand on Turn 1 will effectively have a more "normal" split of 4/3, 2/5, or 3/4 if they choose to spend the Coffer on Turn 2; whereas the player who only sees it on Turn 2 will likely have a worse opening.  This isn't necessarily a game-deciding advantage, but I think it's still an issue and it only gets worse if there are no worthwhile $2-cost cards in the Kingdom.

and uh the turn 1 chalice effective split of 1/6, which is Not Ideal

Oh right - I missed the 5/1 or 1/5 splits!

123

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #128: Look at the trash!

« on: September 14, 2021, 10:13:23 am »

Having Chalice in hand on Turn 1 could be quite advantageous if your opponent only has it on Turn 2, since you’ll have an extra Coffer that you can spend on Turn 2 while your opponent won’t.

Well i hope that each player can make use of the coffers differently. So your example is a bad turn 1 then great turn 2. The other option is ok turn 1 bad turn 2 then a great turn 3. The turn 3 card misses the shuffle but can be even more effective when a player has combines the coffers with whatever they gain earlier.

Having a Coffer to spend before the first shuffle is better than only having it to spend after the first shuffle.  Most games with Chalice will not have any Potion-cost cards other than Ritual Tithe in the Kingdom, so you're looking at opening splits of 4/2, 2/4, or 3/3 [EDIT: or 5/1 or 1/5].  However, a player with Chalice in hand on Turn 1 will effectively have a more "normal" split of 4/3, 2/5, or 3/4 [EDIT: or 5/2 or the less normal 1/6] if they choose to spend the Coffer on Turn 2; whereas the player who only sees it on Turn 2 will likely have a worse opening.  This isn't necessarily a game-deciding advantage, but I think it's still an issue and it only gets worse if there are no worthwhile $2-cost cards in the Kingdom.   

124

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #128: Look at the trash!

« on: September 14, 2021, 12:34:04 am »

My weird idea of the week:




Yep. A strange trash traveller type line with crazy and explosive combos. Trumpet as draw, violin as gains, harp to really kick things off and grand piano as payload. FAQ: Cards under Grand Piano are not part of your deck: they do not count for end of game scoring. There are 4 of each Instrument in the trash.

Harp and Fortress is an insane combo if you have a $5-cost Kingdom card in the trash (which you most likely will if you used Orchestra to gain Harp rather than Lurker, Rogue or Graverobber).  You could empty its Supply pile with a single Harp with Fortress in hand.  And while you're at it, you even get to draw your entire deck!

125

Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #128: Look at the trash!

« on: September 13, 2021, 02:02:20 pm »

Landfill
Project - $4
When you play an Action, if there are no other copies in play and at least one in the trash, play it twice instead.

Do you mean only cards that you have in play or would your opponents’ Duration cards in play count?