The judging is in! I've posted my comments below about each of your cards, in submission order. The winner is the person who I thought had the best overall pile. Also sorry for not copying over pictures or descriptions, this is already a really long post lol.
CaptainReklawTailor: Too strong, especially compared to existing cards like Villain. Being part of a split pile does mean cards can be a bit stronger than normal, but this is the first card so that doesn’t really apply.
Bookbinders: Seems weakish in general but has some good synergy with its pile and other coffers cards. I like the design but it feels a bit too extreme (as in big highs and lows) as is.
Furriers: As others have said this card can very easily cause pins, especially with it also being a village. This card really needs a way to limit its attack or have others recover their hand afterwards.
Embroiderers: The amount of VP you can earn off of these scales way too quickly, especially considering you really only have to overpay once or twice, and then buy the rest at normal price. If this scored off some other condition the overpay effect would actually be kinda interesting (have a dead card in exchange for being able to store your excess money as coffers), but even that idea might need some reworks to it.
4estFarmhouse: Power level seems quite good, the first turn you get a slightly weaker Dungeon type effect, but the next turn you get to essentially perform a Crop Rotation. Solid card.
Chalet: I really like the simplicity of this one, it can be worth a fair amount of VP for its price but doesn’t push for rush strategies like other $4 Victory cards can. The on gain effect is pretty cool too, as it makes it harder for you to scoop up all the Chalets in one go.
Mountain Hall: This one I have mixed thoughts on. Being able to draw whatever you want from your discard pile is obviously really good… unless you don’t have a discard pile. Harbinger also has this problem, and Mountain Village addresses it by having a back up effect if you don’t have a discard pile. However with the discarding that Farmhouse does for you, this can likely still function as a pseudo-Lab often enough, although you’ll mostly be grabbing green cards (which Chateau can use to be fair). The bigger problem of this card for me is its reaction. If you manage to get it, the card acts as a double Lab and can still be played later on as well (and if it draws more MH’s they can do the same). The problem is that most of the time you can’t guarantee something to be in your starting hand, meaning a lot of games will result in this powerful reaction being triggered by pure chance. I would rework the card to have some other backup bonus instead of this reaction (even though you will lose the cool color scheme of the pile).
Chateau: Like Bank, but it scales off of a card you start with fewer of, and are harder to keep around in your deck. To compensate, it costs a bit less and also gives some unconditional money and a buy. It’s not a powerhouse, but it fits pretty well with the pile and I think it’s pretty good.
MajiponiTradesman: This is actually one of my favorite individual cards of this contest. Being able to spend your money midturn is something that few other cards in the game utilize (spoiler, I also think those cards are really cool) and this puts a simple twist on the idea. Gaining cards onto your deck is great for setting up your next turn, or even sometimes continuing your current one. At $2 and already providing a bit of bonuses, this card's drawback of requiring extra payload cards to be played is perfect.
Crafter: I think this compares far too well to other Workshop variants for only a $3 card. You are a bit limited in getting it due to it being in a split pile, but the gap between $4 and $5 is very significant (which is a big part of why Canal costs $7). The Action card restriction doesn’t do much to limit the card, as in most cases the $5 cards you’d want would be Actions anyway.
Farmer: I think this card is pretty good. A $4 junking attack would normally be a little too strong but this is limited by being under two other cards and also not drawing you anything. This isn’t a super important point, but I did find it very strange that the card called “Farmer” attacks people and the one called “Samurai” doesn’t.
Samurai: I think that this card will have too late of a start to be able to do much. Being the last card of the pile and only being able to dispose of green cards, as well as not drawing anything make this slow as a thinner, and the payload will only come in handy after you’re able to exile multiple green cards. I did notice that Farmer dispenses Estates instead of Curses, likely to make this card do a little bit more. However I still think that other forms of trashing will be prioritized the majority of the time as they will be easier to get going much sooner.
Augie279Laborer: Seems on the weak side to me, a $4 non terminal Woodcutter without the discarding would likely be only a mediocre card strength wise. It does help set up for DTX though, which is nice. I might just have a bias against Woodcutter style cards, but this doesn’t interest me a ton.
Woodworker: This card is pretty cool. I really like multi gainers, and this card also lets you do some other unique stuff (like straight up gaining a Vineyard). It also helps out its own pile by letting you gain any of its cards, which puts some consistency on an otherwise very board dependent effect.
Librarian: Discarding before drawing (twice even!) makes this card stand out enough from the other DTX cards in the game. I don’t have much else to say about it, a simple effect that is unique and synergizes well with the other cards.
Dealmaker: This card is a weird one. The debt cost is definitely appropriate here as repeated trashing for the rest of the game would make this wildly swingy with a coin cost (kinda like how Donate is). With that being said, having a trasher at the bottom of a split pile makes the DTX portion of it more awkward to get going. This card does help out the problem most DTX decks have with Victory cards though, by letting you trash your Provinces and then repurchase them with help of the +Buy on Laborer. Overall I think this card is okay?
SeguraCup Bearer: Type synergies are really fun in my opinion. This card being useful for different things at different game stages makes it looks decently strong. It also synergizes extremely well with its pile, as all cards in it will have multiple types for multiple bonuses, as well as Royal Guard wanting to be discarded to be played. Great work on this one.
Cook: This card manages to avoid being strictly better than Ironworks by being in a split pile and through the Victory card option (although often times it will be similar in strength). With that being said I still think this card is okay, as the tokens fit into the pile well. I do wish it was a bit more distinct from Ironworks though.
Royal Guard: I agree that this would be too strong as a Smithy+, and as it is the card makes for a nice spin on the +2 Cards, +$2 for $5 card concept. Like Cup Bearer, this card also fits extremely well into its pile by providing cost reduction for Cook and free Action plays off of Cup Bearer.
Queen: Token conversion is a unique idea and very well suited for a split pile (as it would be very board dependent otherwise). I think the rate of point scaling is just about right; pretty slow and not super substantial in a lot of boards, but with the right other combo cards these could be worth a ton (like Merchant Guild or Academy). This card is also missing the Liaison type, as it can gain you Favors independently of other token cards, but that’s just a simple typo and nothing much to be worried about.
Xen3kGoldfish Peddler: This is another one of my favorite individual cards from this contest. It acts as a village with an increased search space, but it has a couple of drawbacks. First, if it doesn’t reveal any Actions, you don’t get to cantrip it or get an extra action. This drawback can matter especially if you have drawn your deck but need extra actions to play some terminal payload. The second more situational drawback is that it might result in you playing some Actions in an undesirable order. For instance if this reveals only a Militia, but you had intended to play that Militia after drawing with Council Rooms. It’s definitely not going to come up often but it is something to keep in mind. And on top of that this card fits well into its pile by letting you rearrange the card order for the next 2 cards in line. All in all this is an amazing card, it’s very hard to design good village cards that don’t cost $4 and you succeeded greatly with this one.
Lantern Vendor: I’m very happy you adjusted the strength of this card, especially the strength of its “miss” case. Now when it does hit an Action you get that “woohoo” feeling more. If it misses you’re at least still able to search pretty deep into your deck for a specific card you might really need, and of course set things up for other Lantern Vendors or Noodle Cooks.
Noodle Cook: A cantrip that acts as either a Lab or a double Peddler, depending on what it hits on top. Being the third card in the split pile is very necessary to make this card work, otherwise it seems way too good on a 5/2 split on many boards. Even still, this card is very strong, as either effect is definitely worth the $5. I wouldn’t call it overpowered though, especially with the strength of some of the Renaissance and Menagerie cards. The only change I might suggest is to change the wording for it to not give +$2 when the deck is empty. I think that change would make deciding your play order very interesting, especially with Goldfish Peddler also in the mix.
Festival Square: Another card that serves very well as a bottom card in a rotating split pile, otherwise it would definitely compare too well to Hunting Grounds and maybe be too good of a money enabler? Not sure about that. Anyways, I think this card is alright. It doesn’t synergize with the rest of the pile much beyond removing your non-Action cards to help the others hit their targets more. But given how much synergy the rest of this pile has with itself, I think that’s okay.
Binbag420Bounty: A duration treasure that acts as a pseudo village. Personally I like this implementation more than Contract, as the option to play this every turn can be really useful with ways to reorder the top of your deck. I would like this card even more if somewhere else in the pile had ways to help you trigger its effect.
Huntsman: This is a $4 Oasis that can gain more cards in its pile. Given that the actual Oasis costs $3 and is fairly weak, I think this card could use a boost. One idea is to maybe let Huntsman gain Gatherers onto the deck, thus setting them up for either Bounty or Huntress. But hey, it can gain $5 and $6 Actions sometimes so that’s still pretty good.
Huntress: This card gives you 4 options of how to play it, and I see all 4 of them being used at least sometimes. Trashing is obviously good for the DTX portion, but failing that it can still act as a pseudo Lab. I can’t think of much else to say, it seems decently strong for its price and provides you with a lot of versatility, which is nice.
Deerstalker: This card is way too susceptible to random deck ordering in my opinion. Because there are only 4 of these, you’re likely to only have 1-2 on average, meaning there will be times that your other Gatherers come up first and make these substantially worse. This could also have issues in multiplayer as well; if everyone has a Bounty in a 4 player game then these are going to make you discard multiple cards.
Gamer3000Compass: More type interaction! This looks good in the opening just as a standard thrasher, being on par with Investment or Goat. Later on you can use it for some big Action gains with the help of Chest, which can also trigger the Reaction on Merchandise. It can also get you a little extra cash if you immediately follow it up with another Loot, which will always be the case with Chest. I think this card is quite strong and offers a lot of choice in what it can be used for.
Chest: Newer Dominion expansions (mostly Allies) seem to be pushing for more Treasure playing in the Action phase. And I am all for it. Besides its obvious synergy with Compass, this can be used in combination with other Kingdom Treasures with special effects like Quarry and War Chest. That’s about all I have for this one, it’s also really fun.
Merchandise: I already love the normal Grand Market as well as Sheepdog, and this one looks just as good as those. It can obviously be activated off of the earlier Compass + Chest combo, but it also works with other gainers too.
Ancient Texts: This card looks on the weak side to me. I think that for a $6 at the bottom of a split pile, you can afford to go a little stronger. Simply changing this from +2 Cards to +3 Cards should make that happen, this way you’re more likely to draw into your desired Treasure to double play, and since the attack portion is fairly weak (which is fine) the extra draw helps provide more benefit to the attacker.
TheRedKnightHealthcare Sector: Currently the forum isn’t displaying an image, but with spineflu’s help I was able to find this card along with the others on reddit, so I’m going to take it this should be the first card:
https://www.reddit.com/r/dominion/comments/wueov6/fan_cards_rotate_pile_theme_communication_sector/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=shareI think the power level of this one is okay, it’s a bit slow like Ratcatcher, but makes up for it by being able to trash multiple cards while giving some coin as well. I do worry that this is a bit susceptible to shuffle luck in the same way Transmogrify is (that is, it’s way better to draw this on turn 3 than turn 4), especially since this can trash up to 3 cards. I do also like how it counters junking attacks slightly by letting you get the full extra $3 off of just 1 Curse, it just feels a bit awkward here since you aren’t guaranteed to have Curses being dispensed all the time, but the other bonus makes up for that well enough.
Real Estate Sector: This, like Chateau, can act as some pretty substantial payload if you’re able to maintain having a significant amount of Victory cards in your deck, while also being one itself to help out with that. I’m not sure it needs to be a Peddler if it only reveals one, but it definitely isn’t overpowered if it is, so it’s probably fine. The points on this are unlikely to amount to much (only 2 are possible guaranteed and likely to not be more than 3) but for a playable Victory card that’s definitely appropriate.
Communication Services Sector: Like with Mountain Hall, I think the reaction portion of this causes its power to fluctuate randomly, and since nothing else in the pile helps get this into your starting hand (Industrial Sector sets it aside, so that doesn’t work) this seems like another card with a huge benefit if you just happen to randomly have it in your starting hand. I feel like I should also mention I’m not a huge fan of Moat or Black Cat either, reactions that occur from the starting hand exclusively feel too random to me without extra support to help them be there.
Industrial Sector: I think you could afford to go stronger on this one. The double Village effect can be useful but since you’ll only get that every other turn it makes it difficult to play around. And comparing to cards like Artisan or Altar, this is limited to gaining only once every other turn, while also being the bottom card of a split pile. I think that this would be significantly better if it discarded itself from play at the start of the next turn like Highwayman does, that way the extra actions would be easier to make use of.
X-traStatuette: I initially underestimated this one, thinking about it only in the context of buying cards. But since this is a Reaction, you can trigger it multiple times a turn if you manage to gain cards during your Action Phase, which is always possible to an extent due to the next 2 cards in line. This seems like Tunnel in that it’s usually on the weak side but it will infrequently have a board where you can go absolutely nuts and trigger its reaction several times. It also helps that all the Statue cards have 3-4 types to up your payload when gaining them. Great job with this one!
Bust: Having a stop card that takes 2 turns to gain a copy of the first card you play on the second turn seems like a fair drawback for the fact that there is no cost restriction on what it gain. This card is also well done.
Hero’s Effigy: This one is really simple. Gaining Gold is a nice back up option if you’re not ready for more Victory cards yet or if one of the cheaper Statues is on top. This is also really helpful in triggering Statuette’s reaction. Another solid card.
Golden Sculpture: Everything Harem wished it could be. Considering how good Platinum is, this also seems like a reasonable strength level to me.
IlstrawberrySeedThe concept of a split pile with existing Kingdom cards is a very fun one, although I think it would function better without non-Supply cards like the Zombies + extra blanks. The main problem here for me though is the first card itself being nearly identical to Pawn. I think a more interesting approach would be to have the top card be something that encourages/rewards the diversity brought upon by its 3 companion cards.
LTacoKintsugi: I really like the scoring condition on this, but I dislike how it impacts the opening. By replacing a Copper with what is effectively a Silver (at least for the opening) you’re adjusting the possible openings to 5/3 or 4/4. The problem is that a 5/3 is going to be far better than the 4/4 the majority of the time, moreso than the overal difference between 5/2 and 4/3. Things like Baker, Desperation, or Borrow that modify the possible opening splits work due to their element of choice, being able to choice which of your 2 hands the extra money goes into guarantees you hit $5 (or even $6 in the case of Desperation). With an extra Silver instead of a Copper though, that extra money is all up to chance. Personally I think you could drop the extra Action phase money portion and the card would be a good Heirloom with the rest.
Conservator: The top part of this seems okay to me, however I think the reaction part is too good for reasons others have pointed out. With trash-for-benefit cards like Salvager, Remodel, or Apprentice, you’re able to effectively exile your Provinces and receive the full benefits of the other cards. The fact that this remains in your hand every time makes this even stronger. If you limited it to non-Victory cards you could avoid this problem while still allowing you to send lots of differently named cards to your Curio mat.
Curator: The Action and coin options both seem very weak in comparison to the Victory card option. Draw is generally a more powerful bonus than coins or Actions, Victory cards are the ones you’d most want to put onto the mat anyways, and the pile guarantees that you’ll have at least 6 different Victory cards available to you in the game. I do like the concept of a bonus that scales with the cards you have set aside, but using card types doesn’t seem like the right way to go about it.
Vitrine: I actually really like this one, it seems like a fixed version of Island. Much like Distant Lands, it provides you with the dilemma of having to first play the card in order to earn points off of it, and provides you with a further challenge of needing an expensive card (likely Province or Colony) to pair with it. But the payoff is good enough to make these restrictions worthwhile. Nice job on this one.
Wunderkammer: First off, I’m not entirely sure I understand your wording on this. I’m interpreting it as “differently named” to mean any amount of 1 card and “unique” to mean “exactly 1 of a card” (basically like how the Heirloom works). I hope that’s right. Anyways, I feel like considering this card’s whopping price of $16, it scales too slowly to be worth it most of the time. Because you need to both afford a high price point while setting aside many differently named cards, on top of dealing with opponents possibly rotating the pile, I think it will be too slow to pursue these. I think a cheaper spin on the same idea would work out better ($16 is a seriously high price).
Xyz123Musician: Without a discard pile this is just a terminal silver, and even with one I still feel that this effect is too similar to Scavenger. With some sort of backup effect like Mountain Village has, both of these problems would be addressed.
Thespian: Very simple, but seems pretty good. Double villages are a rare thing in Dominion and I think this is a great way to address the problem of a “standard” double village being too good for $4 but too weak for $5. Nice job on this one.
Illusionist: Even though this is below two other cards in a split pile, that doesn’t seem like enough of a drawback for this card to cost the same as a Lab. Even in the “miss” case you’re getting to sift an extra card, which is pretty substantial. This being easier to activate than Wishing Well also makes the double Lab payout way too good for just a $5.
Director: This one seems weak to me. The main benefit of a Command card like Overlord is your flexibility to play whatever you need at that moment, but this is hampered by needing the card in play already. Barring some expensive Action cards or Platinum being around, I don’t think this will see much use at $6. Honestly, I would start off by just swapping the costs of this and Illusionist, and then see how things go from there.
MrHiTechWorshiper: Cool concept, but because this is the only card that rotates the split pile (barring Priest’s reaction which you cannot make use of during your own turns) it seems too difficult to make this a reliable enough bonus. Also I think you should reduce the variance between the bonuses (there is a huge difference between gaining Wishes and getting 2 extra buys). Conditions like this are fun, but only if you have a good amount of control over what they can turn up as (for example, consider the differences between Ironmonger and Tribute).
Priest: This is already the name of an official card, but that’s not a big concern (you could just change it to Clergyman or something). I like the on play effect quite a lot, it seems pretty good for $4. The reaction seems… potentially nasty. Because it only triggers when other players play a Faithful, people are most likely going to use this to screw up their opponents’ Worshipers (which further adds to the complications of using that card). If the reaction were changed to only be when you play a Faithful, I think that would be much nicer. You could even make it a discard to play reaction instead to synergize well with Cleric.
Cleric: A cantrip curser for $5 with the drawback of needing to discard a specific type of action card to dish out the curse. It probably isn’t super strong, but is likely pretty close to Sorcerer/Sorceress, so it seems appropriate at $5. As I said earlier I think this would be really cool with a discard reaction on Priest, as you could get the full benefit of both cards.
Deity: A mini-champion only for the Deity pile. This should have some adjusted wording to show its effects happen for the rest of the game (see Champion or Hireling). This seems decently strong, and I really like that it can’t gain other Deities (that would definitely snowball too much). It seems pretty strong but for a $6 at the bottom of a split pile I think it’s a fair price.
J410 Stone of Transformation: I think this card is way too slow considering it’s a stop card. A way to fix that could be to let it trash multiple cards from your hand, but then it faces the same problem as Transmogrify that I mentioned earlier.
Stone of Improvement: I think this one is pretty cool. Being able to just use it as a Silver is a good enough base use case, and it avoids the whole $4 Silver problem by still limiting your purchase a little bit (there needs to be a card costing $2 less with a matching type) and also by being in a split pile. It also seems really good to use this in combination with gainers, especially those that gain to hand. I think if this pile featured a gain to hand card, this would be even better, but it’s rock solid (haha) as is.
Stone of Preparation: Gaining Reserve cards to the Tavern mat is a great concept, but this card looks a little too expensive to be able to do that quickly enough. In many games it will be limited to gaining only Stones which rotate slower than normal due to how Stone of Transformation works. I think that if it had a stronger second option that it would work a little better. The call ability is obviously a nice counter to discard attacks like Guide is, but seems much more limited because you can only use it a few times before being unable to do it anymore (without help from Stone of Repetition).
Stone of Repetition: Another great concept that seems too slow/expensive to actually work out in practice. I wish Reserve cards were a mainstay type like Durations are because cards like this would be so much fun if they had more targets to hit. I think the main problem with this effect in this pile is that there isn’t a huge benefit to doubling up on the call abilities. Preparation makes you re-discard your hand and you can’t activate Improvement twice on the same gain (since exchanging for a card is not gaining it). Transformation would help a little but by the time you’d have that set up trashing an extra card just wouldn’t do enough.
Scott_pilgrimVikings: Since these cards are all quite similar I’ll just group them together. I do think that Valhalla is priced fairly since the on-gain effect makes it much more difficult to obtain multiple of them than Provinces (Provinces also obviously have the game end condition tied to them, whereas these do not). The main problem I see with this pile is that the third card will likely be skipped over most of the time. Starting off with a Novice, you can either not rotate and gain another Novice (which of course doesn’t accomplish anything) so you would rotate and gain a Privateer. The next turn you could either rotate and gain a Paladin, or a Valhalla, and then rotate back into Novices. Unless a player chooses to gain the lower value Paladin for themselves, this cycle will never stop until all the Valhallas are gone. I think that a pile like this is interesting and could work out, but the rotations need to be reworked to make all 4 cards have more equal appearances.
NoMoreFunCarousel: The constant rotation is an interesting spin on the mechanic, and it’s also very thematically fitting. However my big problem here is the first turn you play the Carousel. $3 and a buy for $2 with no drawbacks is too much. Stockpile already makes hitting high price points in the early game easy, and while I do actually like Stockpile, the problem with this card is how lopsided it would make 5/2 splits on many boards. I dislike cards like Sentry for the same reason; although you’ll always have boards where 5/2 is better and where 4/3 is better, this card makes 5/2 too consistently dominant.
Juggler: This provides you with some good flexibility and allows you to thin your deck at a good rate. I also like how the Juggler provides you with 3 options and jugglers typically juggle 3 balls at a time. I don’t know if that was intentional or not but it’s a nice touch if it was.
Slippery Dip: Another card that provides rotation seems like a good idea in a pile like this where the cards are going to be spinning all the time. The Festival like option is also nice with Juggler’s DTX portion. A simple card, but it seems very appropriate here.
Funhouse: Now this is a cool effect, kinda like Elder (which I also really like). Now your Slippery Dip villages can become Lost Cities and your Carousels can draw you even more cards. I don’t have much else to say about this one, I really like it.
ArowdokWater: Very simple, I like the tie-in to the water boons from Nocturne. The power level of this seems fine. It doesn’t really synergize with the rest of the pile much though, but that’s not the end of the world.
Earth: This looks a little weak to me, as there aren’t as many high valued Treasures as there are Actions, and some Actions also have on trash bonuses that make them much better with Lurker. I think it would be interesting if this let you play the gained Treasure, as that would encourage using these for more mid cost Treasures like Quarry or HoP. The discard reaction is a nice bit of interactivity with the other 2 cards.
Fire: This card makes up for being a little late to gain by being a sort of “seek and destroy” thrasher, which is pretty on point thematically as well. As inconvenient as it may sound to reveal your cards one by one in person, what would most likely happen is that people would reveal their reactions all at once after they’re discarded. It’s clunky for sure, but I don’t think it really detracts much from the play value. One thing I think would be really cool for this card would be if another card in its pile cared about shuffles like Emissary does, since that’s a mechanic that hasn’t been explored much yet in the official cards.
Air: Again, even though this card is at the bottom of a split pile, I think it compares too well to Festival by letting you search through 2 extra cards. The biggest weakness of Festival is not so much that it decreases your handsize as much as it is not letting you draw to search for more draw cards to follow up with. I’m not sure how to adjust this card to make it not look so good in comparison to Festival.
MarpharosGraper: This looks very weak and also really similar to Harvest. Even assuming the best case scenario of this hitting 2 differently named Victory cards, it’s just a non-terminal Silver that gives you a bit of sifting.
Vintner: A sort of double Peddler with the drawback of adding an extra Silver to your deck that you must continue to draw. A card like this would definitely make for some annoying money strategies on its own, but as a part of a split pile I don’t think that’s likely to happen. The reaction is actually pretty cool, although it doesn’t actually synergize with Graper much since you’ll have already gotten your $ payout before triggering the reaction on this. I like this card overall though.
Taverner: The whole reserve part of this card feels unnecessary to me, as it never makes sense to save the extra buys for a future turn when the card itself helps you draw. With that being said this card is effectively just +3 cards and +3 buys, which is probably okay for a $5 card but is rather uninteresting.
Sommelier: I’m not a huge fan of cards that provide VP without helping bring the game to an end. Monument and Plunder get away with this by providing you with extra money (which encourages purchasing cards) and being stop cards that only provide 1 VP each (and terminal in Monument’s case). I also dislike the idea of playing Victory cards as that messes with a lot of the official gainers in the game.
And without further ado, here are the results!
Honorable Mentions: 4est (Lodges), segura (Royals), NoMoreFun (Carnivals)
3rd place: Gamer3000 (Loots)
2nd place: Xen3k (Vendors)
Winner: X-tra (Statues)Huge thanks to everyone who submitted, I'm surprised this many people were up for designing 4 cards this week! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go take a well needed nap.
I just posted the new contest as well!
