WDC #149: The Resurrection
Commentary & ResultsAppreciate y'all's patience. Thanks everyone for the submissions, there were some tremendous entries this week, and I went back and forth on a winner for quite awhile.
OPs are linked, shortlisted entries are bolded, enjoy!
Pawn Shop by GubumpSalvager or gain to hand from the trash. Still nice for Estate trashing, though harder to open with, and feels a little weak at $5 when you’ll mainly use it as Salvager at first. It feels like the gain from trash to hand will most often be used on Treasures like Silver or Gold since it’s rare you’ll trash useful Action cards with Pawn Shop, and Treasures can be played non-terminally. I like the player interaction here too—do I trash Gold for $6 and risk my opponent picking it up next turn? Clean design overall.
Gravedigger by CarlineThe on-play here will not see much use in the early game (and in some kingdoms, perhaps not at all), though it can help seed the Duration part if you have nothing else to set aside which is neat. On the Duration turn, you either Salvage the set aside card or get +$3 if it cost $0. I find it a little awkward as a Duration, since you don’t get much the turn you play it, and the money doesn’t come until next turn. I do like that it trashes both Estates and Coppers though, unlike Salvager and Moneylender which deal with only one of them.
Reclaim by xyz123Another Salvager variant, this one grants a guaranteed +$2 and does a neat thing of letting you buy stuff from the trash, Black Market style. I’m always a fan of ways to get Treasures into play during the Action phase. The differently named clause makes it much more interesting since you can’t just rebuy what you trashed. And like Pawn Shop, you get the player interaction stuff. I like it.
Debt Collector by NoMoreFunA Moat that does a half Bonfire thing, trashing something you’ll discard from play. You’ll almost always use this exclusively on Coppers, and it’s nice that you get the money from playing them too (it’s better than Recruiter at Copper trashing, though this can’t get rid of Estates). When you run out of Coppers, this can become a Moat that Schemes itself (by trashing itself), which is still pretty useful sometimes. There’s also lots of Fortress-like shenanigans to be had here with the on-trash, though it’s weaker if you don’t have a lot of +Actions. A solid entry.
Copycat by TiminouThis could have worked for last week’s contest too! Copycat is Procession, except you gain from the trash instead of something costing $1 more from the Supply. Seeding the trash with a pile of $5 costs that you can usually only access with this card is super cool, and it ensures the first few plays of Copycat aren’t sad. Depending on the $5 cost it adds, this does feel quite a bit stronger than Procession, especially as it gets better the longer the game goes on and the more options you have in the trash. I do think it should say non-Duration somewhere like Procession now does, and yes, this can have tracking issues (also like Procession does, man that card), but I still really like this entry.
Crucifixion and Boulder by Ultimate GeekEvent Salvager (wow, Salvager was a popular inspiration this week) with some trash-gaining. There’s a couple of issues here. As others have pointed out, it’s WAY too automatic to mill Estates here (you even get your $2 and Buy back), and Province-milling in the endgame looks broken as well. The simplest fix is to disallow trashing Victory cards, similar to Enhance which does so for the same reason. The from-trash gaining feels a little tacked on, but most of all, I don’t like at all that you can trash and immediately regain the card you just trashed—pay $2, trash Province, gain Province, buy another Province is busted. The Boulder can help prevent things getting too out of hand, but really the event needs more restrictions than Boulder alone can provide.
Reforge by AJL828Cantrip trasher, always a crowd pleaser, and this one can trash an Action to gain an Action from the trash. Given how rarely you want to trash Actions, I’d suggest buffing the from-trash gain, to gain the card to the top of deck or even to hand like Swap. The biggest issue I see here: outside of the combos like Border Village or the presence of trashing attacks, there’s going to be so many games where the Action gain just never happens, making this a much weaker Junk Dealer.
Locator by jakavIt’s sort of like cantrip-Lurker that does both things, gain from trash first, then trash from the Supply. Like Lurker, you want these in pairs so your opponent doesn’t nab the thing you trash before you do, and also like Lurker that is naturally going to create some awkward Locator dances where you have to buy Locator since you opponent did, and then no one plays them. I don’t like that you can be forced to take Coppers or Estates with this, and more critically, the cantrip nature of this means Locator is going to just eat piles so fast, particularly Estates. I’d recommend keeping Supply trashing to non-Victory cards, or perhaps even just Action cards.
Buried Treasure by Commodore ChucklesOn play, this is almost identical to Stockpile—a one-shot Treasure that gives +$3 and +1 Buy, but trashing itself instead of Exiling. However, it plays totally differently since the only way to get it back is to gain a Victory card. There’s a little more player interaction here which I like, and while it does make gaining VP earlier a little more appealing since it will nearly always come with a free one-shot Gold, I’m not sure how often players will go out of their way to green early just for extra Buried Treasure. Better of course with alt-VP.
Family Grave by Xen3kA one-shot Night card that can trash from hand, gain a trashed Action, or gain a Spoils. On-buy, it also trashes an Action from the Supply, and you can gain a second Family Grave from the trash. Hm. The trash + Spoils option is terrific in the early game, though the on-Buy Action trash can set up a free gain too. There’s the Lurker issue here as well, of not wanting to put something too good in the trash that your opponent might gain first. Not totally sure what the right strategy is for these, but it’s definitely a unique idea.
Iron Mine by spinefluAn Ironworks-style trasher and from-trash gainer. Except in the very beginning of the game when e.g. only Estates or only Coppers have been trashed, this doesn’t actually help you thin since you gain a card for every card you trash. Early on, you’ll mostly be exchanging Estates for Coppers (and $2) or Coppers for Estates (and eating the Estate pile I guess?). Gaining something other than Victory/Treasure cards is going to be rare, unless you want Curses for +2 Cards, or if there’s other trashing. I definitely think there’s potential in this sort of idea, but I think this needs a little more workshopping.
Undead Horse by LibraryAdventurerChoice of non-terminal single trash or Moat. This would normally be a little weak for $3, but the on-trash lets you immediately play it, and there’s loads of cute little tricks to be had here. Remodel your Undead Horse for a $5 and +2 Cards, defend against trashing attacks a la Fortress, trash one Undead Horse with another for a janky Lab. A simple yet versatile card that’s different enough from Fortress to add something new to the “untrashable” card idea.
Ranch by JoxeftA Village that can be a Lost City if you have anything in your discard, and trashes itself if you don’t. You also gain a free Ranch from the trash (if there’s one there) when you buy one. Village for $6 is a really hard sell, even one that’s sometime a Lost City, but given how often discard piles are empty, especially at the start of your turn when you really want to play your villages, making this a one-shot feels really bad. I would price this at $4, and even then, I don’t know if I love the trash if no discard. Perhaps reversing it, where you trash it if you get the Lost City effect, might make it a bit more interesting.
Phoenix by emtzalexA powerful terminal sifter and trasher. Really great in the early game for cycling. But the most interesting thing of course is the on-trash, another Fortress thing. This should probably have a parenthetical clause explaining where the card should go when you play it (e.g. “putting it in play”). I’m assuming that’s the intent, correct? (vs. “leaving it there”). I think it’s also a little more interesting to make the trash mandatory (i.e. Discard one, trash one). Tons of combos with trashers obviously, and since Phoenix is a trasher, they can chain together (play a Phoenix, trash another Phoenix, play that one, trash another one, etc.). This might be a bit too strong, and I’d recommend playtesting to see how centralizing it is, but it looks like a fun card, nonetheless. Terrific theming too, Phoenixes are dope.
Ship Captain by faustThe only attack submitted, I was surprised not to see more! A terminal +2 Cards with a trash from the hand or trash Action from the Supply on the Duration turn (I didn’t realize at first that you can do one of each, that’s much better than only 2 either way). While it’s in play, the first time a player trashes a card, they gain a card from the trash, (which affects the player too). I’ve never seen an attack like this, and I love the idea of forcing players to gain stuff from the trash—it will often be junk, but not always. I do wonder if it would be more interesting to have the trigger be something other than trashing (perhaps when players gain a card?) since it most often just means that they miss a single trash (they can even just gain back the thing they trashed). Still a really creative entry that does something different.
Recycled Goods by X-traA similar idea to Buried Treasure, it’s a one-shot Plunder, but they come free with your Estates and Duchies. The VP is really nice of course, but again, I don’t know how much more appealing it will be to pick up Estates or Duchies earlier than you usually would. That said, it is really interesting to have this exclude gaining on Provinces as it means the player trying to catch up on Duchies gets the Silvers and VP from Recycled Goods.
Mass Resurrection by lompeluitenI may be mistaken here, but I think +2 Cards, trash 2 cards is too strong for $5, and makes getting 4/3 against your opponent’s 5/2 basically gg. For that reason, I think I agree with trying at trash 1 card instead to compare with Recruiter. That top part aside, the gain up to 10 cards for +$1 each part is wild. Yes, it’ll be mostly junk, but +$10, gain 6VP (Estates) is solid payload towards the endgame. There will be a dance of who takes the trash first. Interesting idea.
Tenant by infangthiefA cheap Command card that can play Actions from the trash and return them to the Supply, with an overpay to put stuff into the trash. On play, it’s almost identical to Necromancer, except you return the card to the Supply instead of turning it face down. There’s a myriad of issues though. If you want these to keep working, you have to keep buying more or somehow get more Actions back into the trash. I don’t like how a big overpay can eat entire piles in one go (even with the turn delay). While your tracking suggestion of setting aside Coffers works, I guess, the delayed overpay effect still feels super awkward. And even apart from all those, DXV and others have found that 1:1 overpay for Coffers is busted, which is what this card is at the end of the day.
Enchanter by JWA cantrip trasher with another Ironworks-style effect that depends on what you trash. Early on, these will just be weaker Junk Dealers, but eventually, popping an Enchanter with an Enchanter for an extra +2 Cards and a free Gold is a nice deal. If you’re lucky, you can maybe nab your trashed Enchanter back before your opponent and keep the Enchanter trash Enchanter thing going. You’ll want to keep a few Coppers/Estates around to make use of the trashed Action gains, and keeping tabs of how many Enchanters you have vs. your opponent has will help you know what you can safely trash and what you can’t. Really interesting card with several minigames to think about, and a delightful amount of player interaction. Love this one.
Honorable Mentions: Pawn Shop by Gubump, Undead Horse by LibraryAdventurer, Reclaim by xyz123, Debt Collector by NoMoreFun, Copycat by Timinou, Ship Captain by faust
Runner Up: Phoenix by emtzalex
WINNER: Enchanter by JWCongrats to JW and thanks everyone for participating!
