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Messages - Just a Rube

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26
i'm observing!  possibly commenting like I did last time.
So did you decide to comment on them this time? I know I have several things already I'll be curious about when the game ends.

27
Sorry, all. Computer is busy dying on me; I have sent in orders now.
Great to have you in. Don't forget to check all your QTs and participate in the scheming as well; that's most of the fun.

28
I prefer qt, but I can certainly do gchat; rwcorrell for me.

29
Other Games / Re: Interest for Diplomacy 4?
« on: August 08, 2014, 09:14:54 pm »
I don't have much experience, but I can give it a shot if you still need a 7th player.

Edit: And this would also be my first forum game here, so I'd appreciate any format tips.

30
I think changing Recycle to exactly $1, exactly $2 would fix the aformentioned issues. It's also in line with other durations; weak first, then strong. It's not quite as good as Expand for power $5->Province because you have to wait a turn, in which the game could end. In fact I think it's worse enough for the card to be reasonable at $5.

Also if it's too strong, a compulsory Chancellor effect means you'll only see it once per shuffle. Always wanted to see that nerf on a duration card.

Another nerf could be if the card from the first trash is topdecked instead of set aside.

Also there's no reason Seaside can't have a $6.

I definitely want the card to win so we can elaborate how to balance the fantastic idea that fills a gap in Seaside.

Might be a bit crazy, but what about changing the order, something like:

Recycle
Types: Action – Duration
Cost: $5
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing exactly $2 more than the trashed card, setting it aside face down.

At the start of your next turn, trash a card from your hand, gaining a card costing exactly $1 more than that trashed card.

Return the set aside card to your hand.


It'd also be a bit like outpost in that you have to decide to trash a card before you see your choices.
If we switch to "exactly more" as your wording does, then the Province==> Province path goes away anyway, as does some of the competition with Expand. No need to reverse the order to fix that. I'd much prefer leaving the original order (or making the $2 next turn/$1 this turn, that's plausible, though it does risk making it too Expandy), because it provides a safety valve for when your next hand is all colonies or whatever.

Sure, it's unlikely that the next hand will have literally nothing you can safely trash, but the psychological factor is similar to the one some people have with Lookout. That's not necessarily a gamebreaker (people can learn to overcome), but it's a negative factor that doesn't really need to be there for this card to work.

I also second AJD's suggestion of "Refit" as a better name for the card.

31
I have some crazy ideas for this one too, but not particularly well developed.  :-\

Just make sure to put the gained ideas on top of your deck!

If you go this route, you need to gain two ideas, one costing exactly one more, and one costing exactly one less than your original idea.  This technique works best when there is a synergy between ideas that have a cost difference of two, or when ideas cost $7.

This joke was bad enough when it was just Mint and Mine, so can we please stop expanding this joke to include more cards? It's not making things any better.
I believe it's making the jokes up to $3 better.

32
So Courtyard, Secret Chamber, Swindler, Scout, Duke, Saboteur, Trading Post, Upgrade—that's eight cards from Intrigue that, in my opinion, would feel more or less at home in the base set. Well, I guess that's not that few; it's almost a third of the expansion, anyway.
You really need to compare that with other expansions.

Taking Seaside as an example, Donald identified 5 cards as being "off-theme":
Ambassador, Warehouse, Cutpurse, Salvager, Explorer, Bazaar

Ambassador seems way too wacky for the main set, but I suspect Navigator could fit in fairly well (it's pretty similar to Chancellor in many ways). So that's 5 cards

Prosperity is harder; it has so many treasures, super-expensive cards; VP tokens, etc.
The only Prosperity cards that I see as real possibilities (and several of them are dubious) would be:
Worker's Village, Mountebank, Rabble and maybe Counting House and Vault

I'm too lazy to go through the other sets (I suspect Hinterlands in particular would probably score high) but you get the idea.

33
Sorry if this has been discussed elsewhere in this thread... but wanted to get more opinions on the "permanent / while this is in play" cards. In his video, WW insists that Customs Officer won't stay out in play, because there's no "next turn" clause. I disagree with this. I think Customs Officer would work exactly as intended... because it has the Duration type, it will stay out "until the cleanup phase of the last turn on which it does something." Well, because it has a "while this is in play" clause, it IS doing something. You won't clean it up, because 1) it's a duration and 2) this isn't the last turn that it will do something. I don't think it needs specifically "next turn" wording. "While this is in play" wording should be just fine. Same goes for Harbour and the couple others, except those had a "do not discard this" clause, which I believe is unnecessary.

So, am I mistaken?

*Edit* AJD just pointed out Lighthouse as I was typing this. So perhaps that alone is enough to prove me wrong...
But Lighthouse does do something next turn besides the in-play cause (+$1 at the start of your next turn), so it's not a pure example. We really don't have an example either way.

34
Wait, the results aren't up yet?
Patience, young Padawan. Oh, and congrats to the winner (and runners up).

Also, because it seems like everyone else went through the "this was my card" post, I made Blood Feud. Never really liked the name, but I liked the idea that it signified that vengeance was destructive for both you and your opponent.

I seem to be good at picking obvious ideas; my card was one of the zillion woodcutter variants from the last contest, and now I was one of the several people who submitted "helpful ruins" cards. Ironically, I decided on a "helpful ruins" approach after my last card was criticized for being too boring and I wanted to do something "different."

The idea of a self-junker seems (and apparently was) obvious, but it runs into the problem that it needs some way of clearing away the ruins; that suggested letting it trash ruins as well (and play them while it's at it, so you get something). Once that's established, I figured "why not make it a power-trasher in it's own right". Which is how the "reveal up to 3 cards, play any actions, then trash the revealed cards" language came about. I toyed with the right number of cards to trash, and settled on 3; one less than Chapel but one more than Steward. I quickly realized that the "cannibal village" aspect was the most interesting part, but left the self-junking in mainly so it would still have some use (collide 2 Blood Feuds and it becomes a weak Junker for your opponents, and either way your deck is still getting some lint for you to clean out) later in the game (before your final mega-turn, when it's essentially "+3 actions"). That's why it has a few weak vanilla bonuses on the first option, so that you get something ok from colliding the 2 cards.

I like the "cannibal village" idea in the abstract, but feel like it needs some way of getting actions into your deck that you want to trash (either by self-junking, or by junking your opponent) or else it basically becomes a weak Chapel; that's honestly the main reason why I didn't dump the self-ruins effect.

35
I think Harbor master could be fixed by removing the discard option entirely.  It eliminates the multiple-play problem, and gets rid of most of the confusion about when things happen.  So:

"+3 Cards.  At the start of your next turn, you may trash this.  If you do, +3 Cards."

All copies that were played therefore stay in play until the next turn, so no infinite loops, no confusion about whether this stays in play because it might not do anything next round, etc.
Seems like a good change. Also +1 for taking my super-important suggestion into effect implicitly.

36
I made Satan's Workshop.  Sorry.
Ehh... we all make cards that don't work out (I submitted a Workshop/Scout combo last contest that got almost universally panned).

The important thing is to figure out what went wrong, adjust, and submit a card for the next contest that is terrible/broken in a whole different way.

37
Quote
Treasure Fleet
Types: Action – Duration
Cost: $4
+$2. Now and at the start of your next turn, +1 Buy.

While this is in play, when you buy a card, gain a Treasure card costing less than it, setting it aside. At the start of your next turn, put that card into your hand.

I'm not sure but I think the duration rules means that this stays out forever as long as you buy a card every turn. You buy a card, gain a treasure card, the card stays out to keep track of the gained treasure going into your hand, you buy another card, gain another treasure, etc., etc. If this is intended then it's a cool idea but probably overpowered, in a money deck it's basically a silver or gold in your hand every turn for the rest of the game.
So, this card seems to have been edited (by which I assume the behavior was not intended; note that it only treasure floods once now).

But the quoted card brings up interesting rules questions, and since we spent a page or so debating how Duration-Attacks interact with Moat/Lighthouse, I know we all love rules questions.

Firstly, is Drowned Kernel's interpretation of the quoted effect correct, and if so, would you get you +$2 that turn or not?

38
I'll have more comments on the cards later, but for now I'll comment on the truly important matter: NAMES

Dominion, as befitting a game by an American designer, tends to use American spelling (see e.g. Armory).

So you Harbour and Harbourmaster cards should be warned; if they win I will lobby to have the names Americanized. DUN DUN DUN!

Also, I looked it up and a "Martello" seems to be a type of early 19th century British coastal fortification (or a Brazilian martial arts roundhouse kick). So thanks for teaching me a new word!

39
In fact, reshuffles aside, the Duration Type is something of a bonus on this bizzarro Wharf; it would probably have to cost more than $8 rather than $8.  So a "strong now, weak later" Duration card would cost more than the strong effect, rather than less, which does not help to expand the design space.  You'd be better off just printing the strong effect without the tiny later bonus.

Of course, with the Wharf example, the strong effect leads to drawing your deck, so the reshuffle issue is more acute.  Imagine instead a Duration card which is "Pearl Diver now, Familiar later".  That card would be worth less than Familiar.  On the other hand, "Familiar now, Pearl Diver later" would tend to be worth more than Familiar.  Yet despite being the stronger of the two cards, I think the latter feels less fun.
Thanks for these interesting thougts. I do also prefer "weak now, strong later". But I don't really understand your reason why a card with reversed effects should cost more. Okay "strong now, weak later" is less fun, but why should it be considered weaker?
I think the next turn effect is just naturally better because it may be considered as a cantrip.
The cantrip effect is a mechanical reason why it will naturally be better. On the other hand, that's not entirely preventable (you could stick a cantrip effect onto this turn as well).

But the balance reason (behind the psychological anticipation factor) is 2-fold:

1: Happening later is closer to the end of the game. Early on you are ramping up your deck, so an earlier start accelerates that. There is a reason drawing Chapel on Turn 5 is much worse than Chapel on turn 3 or 4. With Durations, you have the added factor that next turn may never happen, b/c the game will end first. Indeed, the stronger benefit helps you to possibly end the game this turn.

2: Related to this, you have more information about your current turn. Imagine a card that gave you a Remodel effect now and at the start of your next turn. This turn, you know what is in your hand when you play it, so you can decide whether or not it's  worth it for this turn. But next turn? You can't be sure that you will have a good Remodel target next turn. You might draw 5 coppers with no Kingdom $2 on the board, and have to take an Estate. Likewise, imagine some kind of fixed-cost gainer in a deck with Highway. I can play my Highways first this turn, but if the gaining happens at the start of next turn, then I get no benefit from them. You can probably imagine similar concerns about other card effects. Now consider a Merchant Ship that gave $4 this turn vs. one that gave $4 next turn. This turn, I can calculate whether $4 is worth spending an action with my current hand. Next turn? I have no idea whether or not that $4 will be needed or not. So how do I decide whether to play it or another useful action?

I'm not sure if this was what Sir Peebles was was going for, but it's something to keep in mind.

41
Quote
Blood Feud
Types:
Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $4
Choose one: +1 Action, +$1, and each player (including you) gains a Ruins, putting it in his hand; or reveal up to 3 cards from your hand, play the revealed Action cards in any order, then trash all the revealed cards.

Hard to see how this would play out. If it's not too weak and your opponents get them, you pretty much have to follow suit, since it's essentially the best way to trash all the Ruins you'll be getting.

Someone else brought it up too, but I missed that Blood Feud trashes all revealed cards, which is why you can reveal cards that aren't actions.  This puts this almost on par with Chapel for trashing.  Not sure how I feel about that.
I agree that the second part, not the "helpful Ruins" is the more interesting part of this card (interesting not necessarily meaning good or bad, just "interesting"), and I'd like to see some more discussion on it before I decide. On the one hand, it's like a Chapel that trashes 1 fewer card (and I seem to recall that one of the Secret Histories said that that was way slower) and costs $2 more (but can act as a cannibal village). On the other hand, it's a (very) weak junker that runs out of ammunition, so might it have the expensive chapel problem (if you find out that you need it after your deck is junked, you'll never afford it). I don't know how big an issue that is; what do other people think?

42
Second verse, same as the first.

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Alehouse
Types: Action
Cost: #3
When you trash a card this turn, +1 Action, discard a card, +1 Card, and you may gain a card costing less than the trashed card. Trash a card from your hand or from play.
Awkwardly worded. Otherwise, it trashes a card, and then adds a forced cellar effect and optionally gives you a card costing less than the card you trashed. Combos with other trashers. My first thought is: isn't a deck with heavy trashing precisely the sort that needs a cellar effect least? But I suppose you don't have to play it. It just seems uninspiring then (a handsize-decreasing, non-terminal trasher with a bit of filtering).

Quote
Ignoble Brigand
Types: Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $4
+$1. You may trash a Treasure from your hand. Each other player may discard a Treasure. If he doesn't, he gains a Ruins.
Not really a fan of the name, especially since it's more like Taxman than Noble Brigand. Simultaneously junks decks while eliminating treasure seems like a dangerous combination; in a mirror match you could easily end up with decks not able to buy anything other than more Copper.

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Junkyard (C)
Types: Action
Cost: $4
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing exactly $1 more than it, putting it into your hand.

When you trash this, trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing exactly $1 less than it.
Didn't we have a non-terminal version of this earlier? Anyway, this seems fine if a bit dull; putting cards in your hand is less exciting on a terminal, but turning Estates into Silvers in-hand is nice.

Quote
Heretic
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $5
Trash a card from your hand. Choose one: +1 Card per $ it costs; or +$ equal to its cost.

When one of your cards is trashed, you may trash this from your hand. If you do, put the trashed card into your hand.
An Apprentice/Salvager mash-up, only less powerful than either card individually (but compensating with flexibility). The reaction seems somewhat tacked on, as you'll rarely want to trash a $5 card that way, but could be used to squeeze a little extra money out of a Province on the last turn (if you had actions left you'd probably save the second Heretic to use an action).

Quote
Iron Maiden
Types: Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $4
+$2. Each other player with 5 or more cards in hand discards a card. If it is an…
Action card, he gains a Copper; Treasure card, he gains a Ruins; Victory card, he gains a Curse. He puts the gained card into his hand.

When you trash this, you may trash up to 2 cards from your hand.
Like the name, it's a combination of Iron(works/monger) and Torturer (or at least a mythical torture device), which fits the card. As for the card itself, I've previously expressed my concern about multiple type junkers. This is a particularly brutal attack (compare with Followers; this also junks and discards, but makes the discard painful in inverse proportion to the pain of the junking). Either way, this seems too powerful.

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Satan's Workshop
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $5
Gain a card costing up to the number of Fire tokens in your Satan Pit. Each other player may reveal a hand with 2 or fewer Treasures. If nobody does, put a Fire token in your Satan Pit. Each other player gains a Copper, putting it into his hand.

When you would trash this, set it aside. If you do, at the beginning of your next Buy phase, +1 Buy, +$1 per token in your Satan Pit, and put this into the trash.

Setup: Each player puts 2 Fire tokens in his Satan Pit.
Not a fan of the name (or the names of the tokens/mats). Doesn't really seem to fit with Dominion, especially with the Santa pun. But as I've said before, names are easily tweaked.

The attack itself is fairly weak, and scales oddly with player number(both because Copper runs out at different rates, and because in larger games you will have more players to have better odds of revealing low-treasure hands, and because previous players may have "primed" the pump by playing copies of this, filling up other people's hands). Actually, that's a concern right there; because you are more likely to be able to gain bigger cards if other people haven't played this card this turn, it becomes political.

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Bargain
Types: Reaction
Cost: $1
When you would gain a card, you may discard this. If you do, instead, gain a card costing exactly $1 more than it.
A Copper that also works on gainers. Appropriately priced, but not particularly interesting.

Quote
Soldier
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $3
+1 Card. +1 Action. Each player trashes a Copper card from his hand (or reveals a hand without Copper). You may trash this. If you do, gain a Mercenary from the Mercenary pile if there are 4 or more Treasues in the trash; or gain a Madman from the Madman pile if there are 2 or more Soldiers in the trash.

Clarification: If there are 4 Treasures and 2 Soldiers in the trash, you choose whether to gain a Mercenary or a Madman.
As others have said, kudos for theme. Not sure I like alternate paths to Madman/Mercenary though, especially since those two cards are somewhat contradictory (Mercenary yields small handsizes for everyone, Madman likes big handsizes to kick off).

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Archaeologist
Types: Action – Looter
Cost: $5
+1 Card. +1 Action. You may trash the top card of the Ruins pile.

While this card is in play, when you play an Action card, play a copy of the top card of the Ruins pile.
As others have said, this is crazy strong and swingy. If Ruined Library is on top, each of my cantrips becomes a Lab, and each of my nonterminals becomes a cantrip. My villages become activated cities. If Ruined Village is on top, each of my terminals, is now a nonterminal. If Ruined Mine is on top, Pearl Diver is better than a Peddler. If Ruined Market is on top, I cry, knowing that my opponent will be laughing. If Survivors is on top, I look "forward" to an insanely long turn. That's way too swingy, especially since this card is nonterminal, so not only does it stack, but it already provides a cantrip to trigger most of these effects. Pretty sure the optimum strategy for a game with this is to buy as many as you can and pray that the Ruins pile favors you. It also has potential tracking issues (if you play several and trash some ruins).

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Stronghold
Types: Victory
Cost: $6
Worth 1 VP for every 2 Spoils in your deck (rounded down).

When you gain this, gain 3 Spoils from the Spoils pile.
This costs too much, and adds a bunch of dead cards to your deck if you want to treat it as a VP source. If you just want to get a ton of Spoils? Would Gold (same price) really be that bad instead? It gives you less money at once, but stays around longer, and clogs your deck less.

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Garrison
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $3
Trash a card from  your hand. For each $2 that it costs (rounded down), gain a Spoils from the Spoils pile.

When a player trashes a card, you may reveal this from your hand and gain the trashed card. If you do, discard this.

Clarification: If multiple players reveal a Garrison, the Garrison of the player who trashed the card gets resolved first, the other players follow in turn order. Later players can't gain the card due to losing track; Garrison can only gain the card if it is still in the trash.
I'm now having pictures of one card bouncing around from person to person, giving spoils to everyone without ever being played. But on to the card itself. I like that it tries to give a way to encourage you to trash more expensive cards, so that you are encouraged to actually use the reaction. I'm less certain this is the best way to do so, however. It's fine for trashing estates (although note that a delayed one-shot $3 is not that different from the $2 you'd get for Salvager; in fact this card as a whole is somewhat reminiscent of a delayed Salvager), but how many expensive cards are you really going to want to trash for Spoils? Especially if you know your opponent could steal them from you?

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Raid
Types: Action – Looter
Cost: $3
Choose one: Play and trash up to 2 Action cards from your hand; or gain any number of Action cards from the trash costing up to $3 and play them in any order.

When you trash this, each other player gains a Ruins.
I like the idea of a "cannibal village" as someone said earlier, but I'm not sure this is the best way to go about it. It clearly wants to interact with Ruins, but then has the issue that the only way to get Ruins (other than other Looters) is to trash this card, which is probably too slow for a marginal benefit.

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Surveyor
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $4
+1 Action. You may trash a Victory card from your hand. If you do, gain two Treasures each costing exactly $1 more than it, putting one on top of your deck.

When another player buys a Victory card, you may set this aside from your hand. If you do, at the start of your next turn, return this to your hand and gain an Estate, putting it into your hand.
Not a fan of the bottom half (gratuitous messing with the PPR, although I appreciate that it's worded so at least you can't have someone buy the last Province, thinking that they've won, only to reveal this card; so kudos for avoiding that problem). Most of the time, the top-half will be used as a Trader for Estates, but it's non-terminal, and puts one on top. Seems ok, but not stunning.

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Smelter (B)
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $3
You may trash a card from your hand. If you trash an… Action card, +2 Actions; Treasure card, +$2; Victory card, +2 Cards.

When you trash a card you may discard this from your hand. If you go, gain a card costing less than the trashed card.
So, comparing with Moneylender, you get 1 less money for trashing Copper, but can also trash Estates for +2 Cards instead. That's probably better than Moneylender, and almost certainly on-par. The reaction seems extremely situational, but that's ok.

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Condottiero
Types: Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $4
+2 Buys. +$2. Each player (including you) may discard a Treasure. If he does, he puts his deck into his discard pile and immediately reshuffles. Each other player gains a Ruins.

When you trash this, look through your discard pile. You may trash up to 2 cards from your discard pile or hand.

Clarification: Each other player gaining a Ruins is not contingent on whether or not he discards; it just always happens after the discard and shuffling effects.
The on-trash seems somewhat gratuitous. The on-play effect itself is interesting (a fairly strong benefit on a junker, but they can delay the effects of the junk for a shuffle, at the cost of discarding a treasure), but I'd probably bump it up to $5, even without the on-trash.

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Angry Mob
Types: Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $4
+1 Action. +1 Buy. Each player gains a Ruins, putting it into his hand.

While this is in play, when you buy a Ruins, you may trash this. If you do, gain a Mob Boss from the Mob Boss pile.

Mob Boss
Types: Action
Cost: $0*
+1 Buy. Reveal your hand. For each Ruins revealed, +1 Card and +$1. You may return a Ruins from your hand to the Supply. If you do, +1 Action. (This is not in the Supply.)
So, gaining a ruins in hand for everyone is a fairly weak attack, but still an attack. The upgrade to Mob Boss seems to run into the Crossroads problem; if you have enough Ruins to get a decent bonus, you likely have so many Ruins that many of the drawn cards are also going to be Ruins. The last clause on Mob Boss runs into tracking problems; since you can't look at the Ruins Pile beyond the top card, you have no way of going back and saying "wait, how many actions do I have left" if you forgot. I believe a similar problem is discussed in the Secret Histories.

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Charter (B)
Types: Treasure – Attack – Looter
Cost: $5
Worth $2. When you play this, each other player gains a Ruins, putting it into his hand.
Junking on a Treasure-Attack seems too strong. I buy this whenever I have $5, and don't have to worry about drawing it dead, ever. Meanwhile, I'm hitting you with a nasty attack.

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Danse Macabre
Types: Action
Cost: $4
You may play an Action from your hand for none of its effects. If you do, +4 Cards and +1 Action.

When you buy this, trash it.

When you trash this, gain 2 cheaper cards of different costs.
Cool name. Don't like the fact that without a Workshop variant (and note that we didn't select any of the zillion Workshop variants submitted to the last contest, not even my card :-[) or some other gainer, this will be just "pay $4, get a $3 and a $2". Also don't like the fact that with a Workshop, this becomes a hideously broken super-Lab.

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Garderobe
Types: Action – Looter
Cost: $2
+1 Action. +$2. Gain a Ruins, putting it into your hand. You may play an Action card from your hand costing up to $3.
So, a Garderobe that gives you Ruins. Someone has too much fiber in their diet! (I'm always this classy). Now lets look at what each of the Ruins will do in  this set-up: Library==> super Peddler, Market==>weaker Festival, Mine==>Gold, Village==>Village that drew a Silver, Survivors==>Spy that drew a Silver (roughly). Each of these effects come at the cost of junking your deck in the future. OK, I guess?

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Drug
Types: Action – Victory – Looter
Cost: $5
+1 Card. +1 Action. +$1. You may gain a Ruins. If you do, +1 Card. You may gain a Ruins. If you do, +1 Action.

Worth –3 VP if every other player has fewer Ruins than you.
Don't like this card. It will probably never be more than a Peddler, if only because losing the Ruins split, even by one is so devastating (each Drug you have then becomes worth a Duchy...to your opponents, and they didn't even have to do anything to get, other than not do Drugs).

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Street Sweeper
Types: Action – Looter
Cost: $4
+2 Cards. +1 Action. Trash a card.

When you trash this, gain a Ruins.
The top is arguably stronger than Lab (it can't build up a bigger hand size like Lab can, but it will clean your deck insanely fast). The bottom seems meh (how often are you going to be in a situation where you will trash this card? even if you do decide to do so, you're presumably in good shape to trash the Ruins, or at least have a trim enough deck to ignore it).

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Blood Feud
Types:
Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $4
Choose one: +1 Action, +$1, and each player (including you) gains a Ruins, putting it in his hand; or reveal up to 3 cards from your hand, play the revealed Action cards in any order, then trash all the revealed cards.
Probably my favorite of the "helpful ruins" cards, if only for the "cannibal village" aspect. Note that this card will eventually run out of ammunition for Ruins, but still has the cannibal village functionality. And of course, it remains a strong trasher regardless.

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Barrister
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $5
+2 Cards. Each player (including you) reveals the top 2 cards of his deck; you may choose a revealed Treasure for him to trash. He discards the rest. You may gain a Treasure from the trash.

Setup: Replace one of each player's starting Coppers with a Claim.

Claim
Types: Treasure
Cost: $0
Worth $1. When you play this, look through your discard pile. You may trash a Claim from your discard pile or hand. If you do, gain a Gold, putting it into your hand.

Clarification: In a 6-player game, the starting player does not replace a Copper with a Claim.

EDIT: Added "+2 Cards." to Barrister.
I like that my silly rules-lawyering helped change this card. Also like that the change helps counter 1st player advantage. But you can't fool me, this is a Thief in Barrister's clothing, and I don't think the crazy mucking around with Claims makes a Thief sufficiently interesting to put in this set. Still, kudos for the effort.

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Mendicant
Types: Action – Looter
Cost: $2
+1 Card. +1 Action. Gain a Ruins, putting it into your hand. You may play any number of Ruins from your hand. If you played two or more, +1 Card.
[/quote]
Once again, this has the Crossroads problem. It's less severe in this case, because Mendicant gives you a ton of actions to play Ruins specifically; but that just means you'll want to get a ton of Mendicants, and they are cheap enough that both Abandoned Mines and Ruined Markets make that fairly doable. If Ruins become Cantrips (which these effectively do), they actually give you fairly nice bonuses, as I mentioned before (Peddlers, Market Squares, Labs, and pseudo-Spies). This card may make Ruins too nice.

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First half of my meaningless commentary. As before, I have a card in this contest (although I won't say which half it's in), so if you feel that I bash your card unfairly, fear not, someone else will bash mine just as unfairly. I see that there are updates since I began typing this, but not ones that affect my rantings, so I will be lazy and not track them down. EDIT: fixed missing [

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Cultivate
Types: Action – Victory
Cost: $5
+1 Action. Choose one: Trash a Victory card from your hand and gain a Treasure card costing up to $1 more; or trash a Treasure card from your hand and gain a Victory card costing up to $2 more.

This is worth 3 VP if there are at least 4 differently named Victory cards in the trash; otherwise it's worth 1 VP.
So, I have to trash 4 Victory cards (including a Province if there are no other alt-VP; if there aren't Colonies then I turn it into a gold) to turn it into a Duchy worth of points for anyone who buys one. That seems unlikely to happen. As for the top, it turns Estates into Silvers (or Loans or Fool's Gold, I guess) but lousy for copper trashing. You can Remodel Silvers into Duchy/this or Gold into Province end game. So it's a non-terminal, less flexible Remodel that costs $5 and will probably be worth 1 VP at the end.
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Cemetery
Types: Victory
Cost: $5
Worth 2 VP plus 1 VP for every 2 differently named Action cards in the trash.

When you gain this, trash a card from your hand other than a Cemetery.
So, if there is no other trashing or looters, this is probably dead, except maybe as an extra stack of duchies in a megaturn. I'm not going to clog up my deck with a $5 worse Duchy just to trash a copper or even an estate. Trashing 2 actions by buying this (if there aren't ruins) is something that would pretty much have to happen close to the end of the game, and even then it helps everyone's cemetaries equally (since the trash pile is communal). Probably doesn't need the "other than a cemetary" clause.

Appropriate name, however, especially considering the interaction with Graverobber.

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Patrol
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $3
Discard any number of cards. Draw until you have 5 cards in hand.

When you discard a card from your hand other than during a Clean-up phase, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, either trash that card, or put it on top of your deck.
So, a terminal, non-handsize reducing sifter. If you have multiple, you can use it as a Chapel when they collide. Or make an opponent's Militia into a Ghostship, I suppose. Anyway, it seems fairly strong, comparable to Warehouse, even without the Reaction.

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Model Village
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+1 Card. +2 Actions.

When you trash this, you may trash a card from your hand. If you do, gain a card costing up to $2 more than it.
Without any trashers, it's just an expensive Village, a la Fortress. With trashing, it can be a one-shot remodel. But how often do you really want a one-shot remodel that costs you a Village?

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Tribal Man
Types: Action
Cost: $5
Gain a Spoils. Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an Action card. Choose one: Put the card into your hand; or play the Action, trash it, and gain a card costing less than it.

When you trash this, gain an Action card costing at most $5 that is not a Tribal Man.
So, it's like all the "dig for an Action" cards from the Hinterlands contest, but it potentially turns that action into a one-shot, and gives a Spoils. Also you can't choose the Action. So in short, it's nothing like those cards. Someone else called for giving it +1 Action, but I see that as a balancing act; basically it lets you protect the card if you don't want to trash it. Otherwise, it mostly becomes: dig for an action and play it, maybe trashing it. Still, this card seems like it would be kind of weak for a $5.

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Disciple
Types: Action
Cost: $4
Look through your discard pile. You may reveal a Tresaure from it and put it into your hand. You may trash this and another copy of Disciple from your hand. If you do trash two Disciples, gain a Savior from the Savior pile.

Savior
Types: Action
Cost: 0*
+1 Action. You may put your deck into your discard pile. Look through your discard pile and put a card from it into your hand. You may return this to the Savior pile. If you do, play an Action card from your hand three times. (This is not in the Supply.)
So, the Disciple is basically a terminal "whatever your best treasure is" with the Counting House problem. That's not so great. The Treasure Map-esque effect upgrades to a Demonic Tutor and one-shot King's Court. So this is definitely an Engine card. I'll have to think about this one.

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Renovate
Type: Action
Cost: $4
Trash a card from your hand. You may gain a card costing up to $1 more than the trashed card, putting it into your hand. If it is an Action card, play it.
This seems significantly better than Remodel at the same price. Maybe even stronger than Upgrade; the extra flexibility (both in terms of what you gain and in terms of putting it into hand) probably surpasses the +1 card of Upgrade.

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Brick
Types: Treasure
Cost: $5
Worth $1. When you play this, trash a card you have in play. Gain a card costing exactly $1 more than it.

When you trash this, gain a Copper, putting it into your hand.
A trashing treasure, reminiscent of Counterfeit. I'll have to think about this some.

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Bricklayer
Types: Action
Cost: $4
Trash any number of differently named cards from your hand. +1 Card per card trashed.
Menagerie meets Dark Ages! Early on this will probably trash Estate-Copper, then Copper. Unless there are Ruins, in which case it's much better. Still, this could probably be $3, or maybe even $2? I don't know, it just seems a little bland (says the guy that submitted a Workshop-Scout combo for Hinterlands).

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Deathmonger
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $3
Trash the top card of your deck. You may trash the top card of your deck.

When any player (including you) trashes cards, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, that player puts the trashed cards into his hand.
Crazy swingy. The top is also probably very weak. Compare Lookout: non-terminal with more control of your trashing (so you can avoid trashing you other opening buy), and offers sifting. As for the bottom, if you can collide them it turns the top into +2 cards, potentially. But mostly it will be used to slow the opponent's trashing (one of these in hand makes trashing impossible). That probably scales very badly with more than 2 players. Interesting idea, though.

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Carpenter
Types: Action
Cost: $5
Trash a card from your hand and gain a cheaper card, putting it into your hand. +$ equal to the cost in coins of the gained card.

When you trash this during your Action phase, +1 Action.
So, this is kind of like a Salvager. If it trashes another copy of itself, that copy becomes a 1-shot Band of Misfits, which is kind of cool. Not sure what else to say about this card (and I apologize for that).

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Necromancy
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $5
Choose one: Gain an Action or Treasure card from the trash, putting it into your hand. Play it immediately. At the end of the turn, trash that card; or each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck, trashes one of them costing from $3 to $6, and discards the rest.

When you gain this, you may trash a card costing up to $6 from the Supply if there is not a copy of it in the trash.
So, this has a big problem with cards with on-trash abilities. Many of those abilities are explicitly more powerful than a card of their level could justify, because they will be trashed. Now, this card with Sir Vander reads: "Gain a Gold, each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck, trashes one of them costing from $3 to $6, and discards the rest." With Cultist, it becomes "+5 cards, each other player gains a Ruins, you can play a Cultist."

Other than that, it's cool.

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Ravage
Types: Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $5
You may discard a card. If you do, +1 Action. Each other player with 3 or more cards in hand reveals his hand and discards the card with the highest cost in coins (you choose in a tie). If he discarded a Victory card, he gains a Ruins, putting it into his hand.
This is an insanely powerful attack. Everyone's most expensive card will generally be either a key card or a Victory card. Either way, they are hosed. Adding to the problem, this card doesn't provide any advantage to the player playing it (other than letting them discard their own cards to make it non-terminal), so it will likely lead to a lot of long, stalled games. Especially since it can theoretically hit anyone with more than 2 cards in hand.

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Junkyard (A)
Types: Action – Looter
Cost: $5
+1 Action. You may gain a Ruins, putting it into your hand. Discard any number of cards. +1 Card per card discarded. +1 Card per Action card discarded. You may trash this.

When you trash this, +2 Cards.
So, a cellar that wants to discard Action cards (and lets you get an extra Lab effect at the cost of either gaining a Ruins or trashing itself). I worry this might be too strong?

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Mortuary
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+1 Action. Look through your discard pile. You may trash a card from your discard pile or hand.

While this is in play, when you trash a card costing $2 or more, +1 Card.
Non-terminal trasher that lets you pick the target very selectively. Becomes a cantrip when trashing estates. OK, but maybe a bit dull?

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Pact
Type: Treasure
Cost: $2
Worth $0. When you play this, trash it. For each Pact in the trash, gain a Spoils, putting it into your hand.

When you buy a Pact, each player gains a copry of it (you get 2 copies total).
So, this is sort of a Chicken sort of situation. Everyone wants to be the last person to spend theirs (because you get more Spoils, and can spend them immediately), but if you never spend them, they are effectively Confusions. That said, if you can draw your deck, these can give an insane amount of money.

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Ferret
Types: Action
Cost: $4
You may trash this. If you do, +$ equal to the cost in coins of an Action card in the trash that you choose.

While this is in play, when you buy a card, gain a Ferret from the Supply or trash.
This seems like a mega-turn card, and not a particularly interesting one. At the very least, it could probably use +buy on the top part, to give you some incentive to build a mega-turn engine around it.

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Incendiarist
Types: Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $5
You may trash a card from your hand. If it is an… Action card, each other player gains a Ruins; Treasure card, gain a Spoils; Victory card, each other player gains a Curse.
I'm not sure I like a way to get both Curses and Ruins in the same game with the same card. The fact that it allows trashing does not fully mitigate these concerns.

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Priestcraft
Types: Action – Attack
Cost: $5
+$2. Choose one: Trash a card from your hand; or choose a card in the trash and each other player gains a copy of that card, putting it on top of his deck.
Interesting idea for a junker. That said, it scales awkwardly, and has real issues with Ruins, which is a problem for a Dark Ages card.

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Miser
Types: Action
Cost: $4
Choose two: +$2; gain a Spoils; gain a Silver. (The choices must be different.)
So, this is as close as Dominion comes to being strictly better than Explorer (+$2 and gain a Silver) at a cheaper price. And it definitely doesn't want to be at $6, so I don't know how to fix it easily.

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Charter (A)
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+1 Card. +1 Action. Trash the top card of your deck. You may gain a card from the trash.

When you trash this, +2 Cards.
Cantrip optional trasher. Does very well with cards with on-trash abilities (including itself). Seems to want you to mass it.

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Robber Baron
Types: Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $4
You may discard a Ruins. If you do, +$3 and each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand. Otherwise, gain a Ruins.

When you gain this, gain 2 Ruins.
A non-trashing, less flexible version of Death Cart with a Militia attack. I like the name (it's like Baron, except it uses Ruins instead of Estates, and hurts others). I'm not sure how I feel about the card itself.

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Sacrifice
Types: Action
Cost: $5
Trash a card from your hand. If you do, +$2 and gain a Spoils.
Straightforward. I appreciate that. Maybe a bit on the dull side though? Could also probably be a bit cheaper, but that's an easier tweak.

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King of the Slums
Types: Action – Looter
Cost: $5
Look at the top 3 cards of the Ruins pile. Gain any number of them, putting them into your hand. Put the rest back in any order. Choose up to 3 Ruins from your hand. Play the first one three times, the second one twice, and the third one once.
Not a fan of the name; it should clearly be "Slumlord" instead. Consider this a suggested tweak should it win. And that is a perfectly reasonable tweak, so I won't hold it against the card itself; renaming is literally the easiest change to make, as it has no play-balance issues.

As for the card itself, I'm not a fan of the fact that you have no way of predicting whether it will be terminal or not until you play it.

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Astral Conqueror
Types: Action – Attack – Looter
Cost: $5
+$2. Each other player gains a Curse, a Ruins, and a Spoils. This cannot cause the last player to gain the last Curse or Ruins in the Supply.
No. I do not want a card that can flood your deck with junk this fast. Spoils do not help that. Also don't like the name, this is Dominion not Ascension. Seems out of place. But that's just my personal preference.

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Smelter (A)
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $3
+1 Action. Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card of equal cost, putting it on top of your deck.

When you would gain a Silver, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, instead, gain a Spoils.
Top is not particularly powerful (might be more interesting if it gained to hand instead, although way more powerful) outside trashing Provinces for themselves. Bottom is somewhat interesting, although probably not enough for me to vote for it. Still, interesting idea.

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Junkyard (B)
Types: Action – Victory
Cost: $5
Choose one: Trash a card from your hand; gain up to 2 cards from the trash with a total cost of up to $5 and trash this.

Worth 1 VP for every 3 Victory cards in the trash.
Doesn't really seem like a viable path for Alt-VP. You can't reasonably rush it ($5 is too expensive, and you need to buy and then trash 3 VP cards to get it to be worth as much as an Estate, plus it's worth exactly as many points for your opponent as for you, so denial is fairly painless). It relies on trashing Victory cards to power itself, so it doesn't really work well as an extra pile to give an engine time against BM. BM certainly doesn't want it. $5 for what will likely be a worse Duchy doesn't seem reasonable for a slog either.

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The thought did occur to me. But it is legal...

Edit: Although we could just assume we aren't considering 6 player games, which I'm fine with. I was mostly just wondering if anyone could come up with an elegant way to avoid the problem.

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I'm still digesting this list, but one thing jumped out at me:
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Barrister
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+2 Cards. Each player (including you) reveals the top 2 cards of his deck; you may choose a revealed Treasure for him to trash. He discards the rest. You may gain a Treasure from the trash.

Setup: Replace one of each player's starting Coppers with a Claim.

Claim
Types: Treasure
Cost: $0
Worth $1. When you play this, look through your discard pile. You may trash a Claim from your discard pile or hand. If you do, gain a Gold, putting it into your hand.
So lawyers are thieves; I knew it! But doesn't the limitation of 5 extra cards conflict with using this in 6 player games? Not that I'd ever want to play a 6 player game with a Thief variant...

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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Parody cards
« on: September 20, 2013, 11:24:36 pm »
Surely a Witch can still cast her hex across a narrow body of water.
I spent the entire production of 2 copper mines. I believe I paid enough to get a body of water wide enough that a witch can't cast spells across it.

Also, crocodiles.

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Trailblazer
Types: Action
Cost: $4
Gain a card costing up to $4.

When you gain this, reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. Put any number of the revealed Victory cards and Curses into your hand. Put the other cards back in any order.
Since the card got an understandable amount of mockery for being a workshop-scout (which it is), I figured I might as well explain the thought process behind it (which actually was more than "let's paste 2 cards together").

My second attempt to create an on-gain Scout. My first attempt, which was posted on these forums, had a Woodcutter top; I figured that was too similar to Nomad Camp for a Hinterlands card. I really like the effect when you open with it (improving your opening split at the cost of adding a Workshop your deck; I was disappointed that no one else made the Nomad Camp connection), and late-game during the greening stage it lets you improve your next hand (and can even gain itself with the effect to avoid spending a buy). As I mentioned, I came up with the bottom first, and then needed a top-half. It had to be something that you might want early on (so the opening would be more than just a cute trick), that retained some utility through the mid-game (so you hadn't just clogged up your deck with an entirely useless card), while still being cheap enough to be opened with and readily obtainable during the greening stage. A Workshop effect seemed like a good fit for these, and also guaranteed that someone wanting to use it's scout effect during the greening phase wouldn't have to waste money and a buy to do so. Plus it gave an obvious synergy with rushes.

Sadly, taking two boring effects and combining them still leads to a boring card. The glut of Workshop variants this time around didn't help either. I'm still trying to make the on-gain scout idea work, but this card doesn't seem the right way to go about it. Tricky.

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Dominion General Discussion / Re: Homage to the Best Card
« on: September 18, 2013, 01:24:21 pm »
Hmmm? ConMan has a good joke about witches?
Well I have *a* joke ...

Maybe instead of making a new expansion for Dominion, they could follow the lead of many collectable card games and release "premium" versions of existing cards. Like holographic foils, or alternative art. If they did that with the base game then every time my opponent plays a Witch I could go "Curses - foiled again!"
I'll trade you a Mine in Mint condition.

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Interesting that there was way less consensus for the Hinterlands cards. Or maybe we just had way fewer ballots submitted.

Either way, congratulations to jamespotter.

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Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Copper as a Reaction
« on: September 14, 2013, 05:28:50 pm »
It needs an action to go with the reaction. I suggest making the top-half a village (+2 Actions, +1 Card).

Then you can name it "Bartertown"

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