Now that all the official cards have been released, I decided to re-evaluate the existing cards that I felt needed a change to make them more viable options. As we all know, every card can be quite strong given the perfect kingdom, but the number of times Chancellor makes any sense to buy is few and far between.
I want to make subtle improvements to these weaker cards without changing their core functionality or cost.
This is just a first pass at some changes, so any and all input would be welcome. We'll probably be rolling out these changes in our home games to see how they play out and adjust them as need be.
Pearl Diver - +1 Card; +1 Action
Look at the bottom card of your deck. You may put it on top of your deck or discard pile.
Allows you to discard bad cards so that Pearl Diver doesn't become useless as soon as it hits an Estate.
Throne Room - You may choose an Action card in your hand. Play it twice.
Added "may" a la King's Court.
Transmute - +1 Action
Trash a card from your hand. If it is an… Action card, gain a Duchy; Treasure card, gain a Transmute; Victory card, gain a Gold.
+1 Buy when you buy this card.
Adding an action seems to really help overhaul this slow trasher. Also allows you to buy an additional card when you initially buy the card so that you don't have to get upset next time you end up with $5 and your only Potion.
Bureaucrat - Gain a silver card; put it in your hand or on top of your deck. Each other player reveals a Victory card from his hand and puts it on his deck (or reveals a hand with no Victory cards).
The gained Silver can go in your hand if you'd prefer. Adds a little bit of flexibility.
Counting House
- You may discard the top 5 cards from your deck. Look through your discard pile, reveal any number of Copper cards from it, and put them into your hand.
Allowing you to discard 5 cards first helps a tad bit with drawing this card without a discard pile to look through.
Moat - +2 Cards; +$1
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, you are unaffected by that Attack.
This still probably isn't enough to make Moat playable when there's no attack cards in the kingdom, but at least it's something.
Chancellor - +$2
If you have any cards in your deck, you may place the top card in your discard pile. Repeat until you wish to stop or you no longer have any cards in your discard pile.
If you're good at tracking cards, you can weed through enough crap until you know there's a better mix of cards left in your deck, or simply keep going until you force a reshuffle anyway.
Coppersmith - You may gain a Copper putting it in your hand. Copper produces an extra $1 this turn.
Adds an extra $2 in the event you really need it.
Duchess - +$2
Each player (including you) looks at the top card of his deck, and discards it or puts it back, your choice.
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In games using this, when you gain a Duchy, you may gain a Duchess.
Lets the Duchess player make the decision, a la Spy.
Spy - +1 Card; +1 Action
Each player (including you) reveals the top card of his deck and either discards it, puts in on the bottom of his deck, or puts it back, your choice.
Speaking of Spy, you can now put the card on the bottom of their deck in the event you wish to play multiple Spy's and don't want to get stuck looking at the same bad card on top of their deck.
Tribute - The player to your left reveals then discards the top 2 cards of his deck. For each card revealed, if it is an… Action Card; +2 Actions; Treasure Card; +$2; Victory Card; +2 Cards.
Removed the differently named card criteria.
Lookout - +1 Action
Look at the top 3 cards of your deck. Put one on top of your deck. You may trash one of them. Discard the rest.
Removed the mandatory trashing. Too many Gold, Province, Province plays burned me.
Navigator - +$2
Look at the top 5 cards of your deck. Either put them back on top of your deck in any order, or put one on top of your deck and discard the rest.
Putting the best one card on your deck seems like a nice bump in usefulness.
Woodcutter - +$2; +1 Buy or +1 Card
Slightly more flexible with the +1 Card option.
Vagrant - +1 Action
Reveal the top card of your deck. If it’s a Victory card, Curse, Ruins, or Shelter, put it into your hand, otherwise you may discard it.
+1 Card;
Lets you sift through your deck a little easier. The +1 Card at the end makes it a much different card.
Here's the rest of the cards I feel need an update, but I need more time to figure out what needs to be changed.Scout - There's a huge thread on this. +1 Card is an easy fix, but there's plenty of other interesting fixes available. I'm not sure what's best at this point.
Contraband - Perhaps make it worth $1 if you don't want your opponent to choose what you can't buy?
Or maybe add the option to trash it for +$3 and +1 Buy to avoid the opponent restriction.
Cache - No idea yet. Originally was thinking of a way to add them to your next hand, but a 7 card hand would probably be too strong.
Rats - Maybe when you trash it, you get +2 Cards instead of just 1?
Feast - Originally I thought of changing the gained card cost to "up to $6", but that may be too strong?
Explorer - Maybe add +1 Action, or how about you get 1 Gold for each Province revealed?
Adventurer - Maybe add +1 Action? I have no idea how to make this $6 card playable. This is the only card I really want to change the cost on.
Secret Chamber - No idea yet. Hard card to tweak.
Develop - No idea yet.
Mandarin - No idea yet. Weird card to tweak.
Saboteur - No idea yet.
Thoughts on any of the above changes?
