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« on: March 31, 2014, 05:32:32 pm »
This is my first post on this forum (I lurk a lot though), and I think the fact that your set made me want to make a post is a really good sign. So, good work on the set. It’s exciting, especially now that any new Donald X. expansion is less likely.
Disclaimer: Sorry, I haven’t playtested any of your cards, so these are just my thoughts from looking at them. I’m not really going to respond on the strategic value of the cards, but rather if they excite me or not. Although I certainly believe that a card may not look fun but be fun when it’s actually played, I think there is value in player reactions without playtesting. I mean, if a card doesn’t look fun or interesting, I’m not going to buy it in the first place. So this might be too personally subjective, but I hope it’s still useful. Alright, with that out of the way, here’s my thoughts:
I feel like too many cards in the expansion are conditional labs. There’s Gambler, Convocation, and Vendor. The first two seem sufficiently different and interesting that I think it’s fine, but Vendor just looks so boring next to those cards. It’s an ok card (and I’m sure plays differently than both Gambler and Convocation), but it seems so much less inspired when the other two cards exist in the same set. When I read it, I think “wait, isn’t there already a card like this in the expansion?” rather than, “that looks fun.”
Similarly, there’s too many cards that gain cards based on some other value: Redistrict, Mill Town, Craftsman, and Exchange. Each of these cards turns different resources into cards. I think I remember someone else complaining before about there being too many “remodels” in the set. I can only guess that this is part of the reason. Mill Town looks the most fun because it adds a new goal that doesn’t exist in Dominion (get as many copper in my hand as I can). Redistrict seems ok because of its versatility and low cost for this type of card. Exchange’s trade token ability seems fun, but I don’t find “non-terminal Remodel” to be all that interesting. Craftsman, I’m really not a fan of. First, I anticipate it being confusing. My friends always have to re-read Butcher every time they play it, and this is worse. The fact that trade tokens = two coin increments and that it starts at 1 all make it less intuitive than Butcher. Also, I don’t like the fact that this gets trade tokens on play. I think there’s value in all of the trade tokens being on gain/buy and only one at a time. And now that Jubilee returns itself back to the supply and can be an unbounded supply of trade tokens, Craftsman seems even less necessary.
Would a more standard Workshop variant with a trade token ability to put the gained card in hand be too similar to Workshop/Armory? Oddly, even though this is more similar to existing cards, I find it to be more compelling in this set than Craftsman or Exchange.
I’ll end on a more positive note with cards that look really fun to me:
Clerk – simple, but makes me think of situations that could make it really cool (e.g. Mill Town).
Jubilee – simple, looks fun on its own, but even more so with other trade token cards around.
Gambler – simple (there might be a theme here), an all-upside lookout variant.
Guide – I dream of playing this card 5 times with only one copy.
Floodgate – simple, but has many complex interactions/uses (this seems to be a perfect example of “lenticular design”). It also is a different way to make a “one-shot.”
Terrace – same as floodgate: seems really simple (village with mulligan), but could be incredible in certain situations (e.g. disappearing money).
Barracks – New way to do a pretty basic attack (something I imagine is very difficult these days), and can be used a couple different ways on different boards.
Convocation – encourages deck diversity in a slightly new way.
Fund – looks fun. And it also allows someone to play more on the “big money” end of things but still have opportunities for interesting decisions (when to pop the fund?) over the course of the game.
Sorry, I don’t have the chance to playtest (I’d love to if I could). Hopefully this was still helpful though.
If someone else has already mentioned it somewhere, sorry, I didn't see it.