Yo Asper, it's been so long since I publically reviewed your cards. We’ve played with a lot of them last year and you revised them many times. Now I feel like writing something about them. I will only cover your “main set” cards. Edicts, Spellcasters and Team cards would be too much for me. Alright, here we go!
Alley: I can only remember one game with Alley where we both bought it lot. I assume we had extra buys there, which is of course the most common opportunity to snatch them up. Also, in contrast to Poor House, this is something you actually want when you Upgrade or Remake your Coppers. And that’s enough for it to be good. No more words required.
Decree: A decent Silver variant. You don’t always want it but when you do, you can usually do pretty nifty tricks with it. It benefits from Estate trashing and hates cursing attacks.
Sheriff: This is so clever, yet so simple, like so many of your cards. $4 or $5 seems like a good price to pay for this, and you should always open with it (paying the highest price possible) on any board where you would want a curser. You usually want a second one that costs at least $5, because if you paid too little for the first 2 and there’s still Curses left in the Supply, you have that difficult decision to make whether you buy a third Sheriff (which usually sucks for your deck). And that last part is the best thing about it!
Sunken City: I love Sunken City and always bought as many of them as possible. A more educated player would probably handle this more carefully as they tend to whiff about half of the time, unless you trash really fast and gain Action cards simultaneously. It looks like a double Herald but it’s really not. The missing card on the turn you play it hurts a lot when it whiffs. But that’s fine. It costs $2 after all. But one the right board it can be an excellent $2!
Carrier/ Nightwatch: This is completely new to me. It looks like a decent Peddler variant, but only in non-mirrors. My intuition tells me you want a lot of Carriers (3-4) fast but leave at least one on the pile so if other players want to block yours, they’d have to gain the last and then gain Nightwatches and then have them in hand when you play your Carriers. Until that happens you will have gotten a lot of use out of your Carriers. But in games with 3-4 players, if everyone gets one or two Carriers each, they will probably suck for everyone as soon as people also have Nightwatches. Since there are so few of each card, it might feel extra bad if yours get blocked and your opponents’ don’t (and here I thought you don’t like that characteristic in a card). Still they are both okay cards (in matters of strength) since their opportunity cost is very low, even if you only buy them for one specific purpose. Lastly, I like the reaction of Nightwatch flavor-wise and am looking forward to some interesting multiplayer games with it.
Lady-in-Waiting: Two years ago, I might have said, this is rarely ever worth it. With the huge boost to alternate VP strategies since Empires, as well as lots of your cards supporting VP rushes, this is actually a decent card. Again, opportunity cost is the only thing that matters here. It’s a cantrip that leaves your deck once played which makes it perfect for BM + draw and “good stuff” decks. In both cases, it’s probably better than your third or fourth Silver.
Pilgrim: Ah yes, I remember our first (and only) game with Pilgrim as if it had been last week. There are several considerations to make before deciding how many Pilgrims you play when you have them in hand; How much $ do I want to make this turn? Can I find my key actions in my deck with this? Do I trigger a reshuffle with this? And most importantly, can I afford to give my opponent another Pilgrim? Tough decision in a simple card. I like it. The on-gain incentive is good. If Pilgrim tends to be bought too infrequently, just boost that.
Sawmill: This is a Chancellor variant in a fancy disguise. Don’t deny it! I know you liked Chancellor a lot
In the second shuffle, instead of +$2, you gain a card costing $2 or $3. If there’s any such card you want, Sawmill is probably better than Chancellor. And, other than the latter, Sawmill gets better each time you shuffle when building an engine. In slogs it’s horrible though.
Scientist: Neat. We played with Scientist once. I think it was balanced. Taking debt is an elegant penalty.
Well: Wasn’t this one of my favorite cards of yours? I still like it a lot. We should play with it soon!
Farmer: This was called Blacksmith before, I think. Back then I thought it was weak but it turned out picking cards from a large sample is actually pretty useful in most decks (monolithic strategies being the exception), provided there’s Copper trashing.
Heir: Cool idea. We played a game where you made it work but I can’t remember if you won or what. It’s certainly a powerful support card for Victory card rushes. Its flexibility should also make it useful in engines and help them green earlier.
Hunter: A weak-ish Lab variant that has gotten better over time. A must-buy in VP slogs where you rarely hit $5.
Scribe: A card that hurts engines the most. I would say I’m starting to see a pattern if the pattern wasn’t clearly in front of me, yet. Although I doubt the existence of this card in the Kingdom alone would be sufficient to discourage you from building even a weak engine. That’s because when you buy this card you essentially pay $4 for a much-delayed Silver. That’s bad. Like… really bad, especially for money decks (which want the Silver now, not later). Because of that delay, Scribe might be at its best in an engine mirror with spare actions. Even then it would struggle hard to be the best $4 to buy on any board.
Town/ Road: Another simple set of cards that require you to make important decisions. How many Roads do you want in your deck? A good player shouldn’t have too much trouble figuring that out though, I assume.
Assemble: I liked the old Assemble that gained two cards onto your deck with a total cost of up to $3 more than the trashed card. What was the problem with it? This is very different, although more useful overall. In a thin deck you can gain cheap engine components by trashing Coppers. When trashing is more scarce, you can buy Assemble in the end-game to turn $5-cards into Provinces. The Copper penalty for the $2-discount compared to Expand is totally reasonable here.
Cliffside Village: This is the first card in this list I don’t like. It’s boring and seems redundant even though there’s not actually an official card akin to this. It’s just perception.
Craftsmen: This is too powerful for $5. Artificer often gains $3-cost cards but you gotta do a lot of work if you want more expensive stuff, or you just gain a card with one Artificer per turn while the others gain nothing. Craftsmen just burn through piles with no downside while also providing economy. Drop the +$1 and it might be fine.
Maze: Another one of my favorites. This usually equates to a Duchy in points and provides cursing. It’s pretty powerful but the power is distributed over two different aspects (you get the other half of the benefit at the end of the game) and pay some opportunity cost (no economy) so it should be balanced.
Necromancer/ Zombie: Someone already compared this to Nocturne’s Necromancer and found enough differences so they should be able to happily coexist. Yours is stronger, hence it costs $5. I also like yours a bit more. Games with it have been fun.
Sanctuary: This might be situationally pretty good. If there are any attacks that you normally can’t ignore, I will ignore Sanctuary if I want to win. Although, I might be totally underestimating it. If there aren’t any good attacks, I will buy the heck out of this.
Tribunal: I like the idea. Some people might not like it. But they can’t possibly deem this more unfair or hurtful than Mountebank or Minion.
Werewolf: This would be among the strongest attack cards in Dominion. It’s pretty swingy and similar to Mountebank but not as absurdly swingy as the latter (which I have come to hate in the past weeks). +$3 is huge and Silver as a defense hurts engines a lot. Your Werewolf might drive games towards Big Money even more than Witch does. That’s quite a ridiculous claim. You could rename yours “Lycanthrope” or “Lycan”.
Minister: Finally an engine component! And what a potent one! I’ll gladly give you 2-3 VP if you’re going for a money strategy to gain all the great cards. If you’re going for engine as well, the penalty doesn’t even matter. I’m not saying it’s too strong. It costs $6. It competes with Goons so it better be powerful.
Homonculus: A cantrip trasher is good but it’s delayed and the opportunity cost is so high that I will happily ignore it if there’s any decent alternative trasher available. On boards with other good potion cards you probably don’t want this too early as having to trash and re-buy the Potion would be too painful.
Incantation: We conclude with a great, great card. Incantation is so good. A lot of fan cards with Potion cost just have it for the Potion’s sake but this is such a good non-terminal that $3P-cost seems very adequate. And its effect is unique, too! Design-wise, probably your best work.
Phew, I wrote quite an essay here. It made me want even more to play with your cards again.
