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Messages - Mahowrath

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26
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #129: In Play
« on: September 23, 2021, 09:39:47 pm »

Quote
Treetop Village
Action - $4*

+1 Card
+1 Action
You may play a cheaper Action card than this from your hand, for +1 Card. Otherwise, +1 Action.
-
On your turns, this has the same cost as the last Action you played this turn, if any.

Variable cost village; activating to Lost City, if you can find the appropriate Action to play.

@xyz123: let me know whether this qualifies; "last action you played this turn" could become "...that's still in play" if not.

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Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #128: Look at the trash!
« on: September 10, 2021, 09:36:31 pm »

Quote
Altruist - $5
Action - Duration

Trash any number of Treasures from your hand for +$1 each.

At the start of each of your Buy phases for the rest of the game, you may gain a Treasure from the trash to your hand.
(This stays in play.)

One time treasure-trasher. Gives some coin on the turn you play it, and thereafter its perpetual yoyo effect combos with TfB much like treasurer.
Costs $5, but could be a risky opener; likely you're better off building up to it.

28
Last minute entry:


Quote
Native Trail, $4: Action - Duration
+1 Action
Now, and at the start of your turns while you have any cards set aside with this:
Set aside the top card of your deck under this, or put all cards set aside with one of your Native Trails into your hand.

Pseudo-trasher/card drawer. Having multiple in play gives you more control over which cards you leave set aside.

29
Pretty sure my entry is too late, but I just had an idea that may or may not qualify, so at least for the sake of sharing:

]
Quote
Home Guard:
Action - Attack - Reserve: $3
If it's the start of your turn, +$2 and each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand.

Otherwise, put this on your Tavern mat.
-
At the start of your turn, you may call this to play it.
Quote
Cover of Darkness:
Night - Duration: $4
At the end of this turn, +1 Card, then set aside any number of cards from your hand face down under this.
At the start of your next turn, you may play any Attacks set aside with this, and discard the rest for +$1 each.


5/5 split pile: Reserve Attack, and a night card with an end of turn effect. playing Action or Night Attack cards at the start of your turn should hopefully be unusual enough to qualify.

Home Guard is a cheap Militia you can only use at most every other turn. This should hopefully be popular enough to justify acquiring Cover of Darkness as a cheap duration gold when you would otherwise be attacked, with a chance of playing home guard in 1 turn, or gaining actions off your Attacks in general.

30
Quote
Mahowrtath
:(

Witch's Brew is a Homestar Runner reference - http://hrwiki.org/wiki/Witch%27s_Brew

31
Does Subdeck/Aquatic make it onto the atlas? Happy to transcribe examples from http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20770.0

32


Quote
Arcane Conscription - Act
Spend any number of your remaining actions and buys, for +1 Card per action or buy spent

Edit: image

33
Yeah, perhaps $5 is still appropriate, as dudding with these is pretty dangerous.
There's little excuse for drawing this dead, as you know exactly where it's going to be until you draw it dead.
Most games this will be stronger than Hireling, but Hireling isn't the strongest $6 in 2 player, and like Golem shines in larger games, so perhaps that's acceptable.

34
Keeping it simple:



Quote
Fair Tide - $6
Dawn - Subdeck
+2 Cards
How can you justify $6? Isn't this strictly worse than Lab?

How do you figure? I mean, if it cost $5, you could lab turns 3&4 at least. That's a high roll for lab

35
Keeping it simple:



Quote
Fair Tide - $5
Dawn - Subdeck
+2 Cards

Laboratory (Sea's gift) that bottom-decks from gain/play; effectively top-decking with the shuffle. However, as a Dawn card, it can't be conventionally drawn into and played (so being made to discard one from hand is really bad), nor throned/imped.

Edit: Updated to cost $6: the card's on par with hireling, and opening these would snowball super effectively.
Edit: Put it back to $5, as the snowball isn't the end of the world, and the user-unfriendliness keeps this from strictly outclassing Hireling.

36
Judgement

Thanks for waiting everyone. This has been a difficult contest to judge, with every entry really grasping the mechanic, and diving into the flavour. I sincerely hope not to judge another contest like this for some time; not least because bottom-decking is a really hard concept to try to evaluate.

Anyway, without further ado:

UserCardLinkHandwavy analysisFinalist?
mxdataKrakenhttp://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20770.msg868323#msg868323Kraken is an aquatic smithy variant, with an attack that looks suspiciously like it's designed to hit other krakens. Being terminal draw, this will often need some serious villager/topdecked village assistance to do anything more than big money.
fika monsterPoseidon's Gifthttp://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20770.msg868389#msg868389Simple, but effective. Poseiden's Gift takes the aquatic mechanic and asks the player to choose what they want topdecked at the start of their shuffles, taking a leaf from Pathfinding and Lost Arts. As this looks good on most cantrips, it's a great way to ensure the aquatic subtype will be relevant on most boards.Finalist
bootymancerSunken Treasurehttp://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20770.msg868390#msg868390This is cool; I'm glad people are going beyond the Action examples and bringing aquativeness to the Treasure type. Sunken Treasure is, true to its flavour, a treasure that sinks to the bottom of your deck. A lone Sunken Treasure will effectively cantrip itself in the process, in many ways like Bandit Camp, and its discarded Spoils payload. The final treasure when you reach it, is a Ducat with the power of a Gold (which arguably, is a lot of Coffers). Accountability-wise, this card currently raises some problems - I've played in a 4p Dominion tournament where a player tried repeatedly to flash $5 as $6, and $7 as $8: to catch them in a lie with this card, the table would have to definitively remember the player not putting cards into their hand at the end of their previous turn, which could be a pain. That said, as its location in your deck is largely fixed (the bottom), perhaps this card wouldn't particularly suffer from being double-sided, and bottomdecked when shuffled? This is a really impressive first entry, welcome to the forums!
emtzalexPOOR UNFORTUNATE SOULShttp://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20770.msg868414#msg868414Poor Unfortunate Souls is a neat drawing sifter; something great for the start of the shuffle. It's a non-terminal embassy if you can pitch the right cards, though a nasty junker if not. From a hand of 9 other cards, one would expect to be able to find a victory card and a treasure, making this exceedingly powerful for a lab variant. The cursing, while thematic, seems pretty nasty for an event largely out of the player's hand; with 5 attempts to draw in any missing card types, it's a no-brainer to take this gamble in most circumstances, and the very occasional punishment for an unlucky draw could feel bad. I wonder whether there's a less swingy way to punish such draw failures.Finalist
AquilaCoral Reefhttp://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20770.msg868421#msg868421Coral Reef is Poseidon's Gift on steroids; so long as you balance your Reefs with your card of choice, you can start every shuffle with your chosen card on top with attached villages to boot. This is a neat way to showcase the aquatic subtype in any kingdom, but also feels like an autobuy, particularly in any kingdom with terminal draw.
spinefluShell Merchanthttp://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20770.msg868430#msg868430Shell Merchant looks like a tricky card to utilise: the card itself is a disappearing Copper, that Scavengers any card costing up to $5, and at cleanup bottomdecks itself as per the aquatic mechanic. One could consider this a weak engine piece; but true to the aquatic mechanic, it lives its best life building golden decks, eg: 4x Shell Merchant, 4x peddler variant (< $5), 1x Copper (no trashing required). The mandatory putting of deck into discard pile makes this card less versatile than it could otherwise have been (Smithy variants struggle to make as good use of this), and I wonder whether this is strictly necesary.Finalist
pubbyImmersedhttp://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20770.msg868449#msg868449Immersed takes aquativeness to the Treasure type, and makes good use of the collision-heavy aspect with this non-terminal bridge-variant. While immersed is cumbersome payload to have at the start of your shuffle, it attempts to make up for this with great self-synergy, with some fantastic low cost rush options, but only for as long as immersed remain in the supply to replenish those trashed.
silverspawnFishing Boathttp://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20770.msg868537#msg868537Fishing Boat rewards you for drawing the end of your deck, while not drawing your full deck. This feels difficult to consistently achieve, and often prone to sabotage, though cantrip Silver is nice if you can make it work.
Xen3kWay of the Dolphinhttp://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20770.msg868546#msg868546Way of the Dolphin is a neat use of the aquatic mechanic; throwing in a dolphin while you're building lets you set up your next turn for success with your buys and next played action going to the top of your shuffle. The mandatory bottomdecking makes this not so great while you're greening (outside of very specific circumstances); perhaps a "non-Victory", or "Action or Treasure" filter on affected supply piles wouldn't go amiss. Still, pleased to see a Way, and very happy with the concept.
TiminouShipwreckhttp://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20770.msg868547#msg868547Liking the flavour here; Shipwreck is an aquatic semi-junk card that invites itself to the bottom of your deck when you trash non-zero cost cards. Then, if you can set these up, they can yield nice $5s. I wonder whether a larger pilesize wouldn't go amiss here; in a 4-player game, these could empty before players have finished trashing their starting Estates.
mathdudePearl Collectorhttp://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20770.msg868625#msg868625Pearl Collector is a nice sifter; somewhere between its obvious comparison and say Secret Passage, and appropriately priced in between. I'd have to playtest this to give an informed judgement, but my initial thought is that this is still somewhat weak for its cost as per Pearl Diver.

3rd Place: emtzalex's POOR UNFORTUNATE SOULS
2nd Place: SpineFlu's Shell Merchant

Winner: Congrats to fika monster's Poseidon's Gift.
It was a tough decision, but ultimately, the card-shaped-object felt ready to play.

38
24 hour-ish warning!

39
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas
« on: April 29, 2021, 01:12:36 pm »
Four goats would usually net you $4 though; this card must be quite weak if it just removes cards from your deck

40
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #112: Steal the Show
« on: April 29, 2021, 05:44:39 am »
Aha, good spot pubby! I'm not sure how I'd work around that; there doesn't feel like a good way to stack trashes or unstack trash-gains; will have to have a think...

41
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #112: Steal the Show
« on: April 28, 2021, 07:55:08 pm »
Well judged; that was a difficult, but rewarding challenge. Let me know what the multiplayer issues were with Beguiler/Hoodwinked.

Congrats Timinou!

42
As for the mechanic itself, one could theoretically get themselves stuck (depending on the types of Aquatic cards in play) with a hand that gets played, discarded to the "bottom" of an empty deck, drawn again, and repeated. There would be an option to not  play one or some of the Aquatic cards, to "reset" the pile, but then that can weaken the cards if you have to not play them occasionally. On the other hand, getting 5 Aquatic cards which all have no "+Cards", and 4 of which have +Action, +$2... this will guarantee a Province every turn. So either this design of card needs to be carefully avoided (like a Festival), or we need a slight change to the Aquatic card Type.

 I would propose the following change, to defining the Aquatic card Type:
If you have at least 1 card in your draw pile, Aquatic cards are gained and discarded from play to the bottom of your deck. If your draw pile is empty, they go in your discard pile.

I would go with the careful design; I'm happy with aquatic golden-decks being a thing, but as with all card contests, one should carefully consider whether their card often creates a trivial winning strategy.
If I understand your proposed change correctly, it would just mean buying a 6th aquatic-festival, but feel free to play with the mechanic as you wish.

43
If we follow the design rules of the official cards as closely as possible, there would neither be an Aquatic type or a different colour scheme, just the below line text 'this is gained and discarded from play to the bottom of your deck'. New types are used when a card's text needs to refer to that type (Knights refer to themselves, Defiled Shrine refers to Gathering), or there are rules that make the card behave in an unusual way (Reserve, Duration) or cards with that type have a common extra setup rule (Looter needs the right number of Ruins got out the box, shuffled). Different colours are visible reminders of unusual behaviour.
So unless a card exists which needs to refer to Aquatic cards, none of these criteria are met. It's just the same as Nomad Camp's 'this is gained to the top of your deck' in essence.

I think a parallel could be made with Durations, which could be summarised with "this card stays in play until its effects are complete, along with any card that played it". Other than Durations, there are few cards with mandatory, potentially harmful cleanup operations: Capital's effects are felt close enough to cleanup that little reminder is needed, and relates to a single card.

At the time, I chose the text explanation to make the mechanic more accessible, and a blue half-colouring and "Aquatic" subtype name to work with my chosen flavour.
In hindsight, a full colouring, and a more self-explanatory type-name such as "bottomdecker" (or something more consise, "subdeck"?), would probably be more Dominiony.

I appreciate the feedback given here, and I'm happy to accept your preferred implementations of this mechanic on contest entries. I'll update the header post to reflect this.

44
Is that below-the-line text what defines the category?  In that case, I'd definitely say they should be omitted - that would simply be included in the rulebook for the Aquatic type

Also, for clarification: If you have no draw pile, would it work the same as top-decking to an empty draw pile?  I'm assuming the answer is yes, but I want to make sure

  • Yes, bottom-decking defines the category, feel free to omit the accompanying text in your entries.
  • Good question. I've so far interpreted as topdeck in the absence of a deck. By default, I will be assuming this when judging cards.


45
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: New Weekly Contest: Fan Card Mechanics
« on: April 23, 2021, 07:35:56 pm »
Week 8 (Under the Seeeeea); continues here

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Week 8; continuing from previous Fan Card Mechanics Contests, indexed here

Fan Card Mechanics Contest Week 8: Under the Seeeeea

This week, I'm pushing my fancard mechanic, the Aquatic/Subdeck card subtype (please excuse the mistakes, these were from my first fancard set):
Piranhas: Pile size 20

These cards, typically Actions, have the effect: "This is gained and discarded this from play to the bottom of your deck". Following discussion, you are free to implement this effect however you wish - explicitly, as a new type, or otherwise. In ShardOfHonor's card generator, I have so far used the primary colour 1,1,1.15, and half split with the usual Action colour on top.
This is functionally similar to silverspawn's Village Outpost's "When you shuffle your deck, put this on top afterward", though sometimes you can avoid the shuffle completely. Needless to say, your Aquatic cards will frequently clash.

I'm looking for card-shaped suggestions that in some way make use of the Aquatic subtype mechanic, (or if that turns out to be too narrow, generally contribute to a bottom-decked ecosystem).
Contest closes Saturday 1st May, 11am GMT

edit: these cards as a non-explicit "subdeck" type, with a whole 0.5,1,2 colouring:


47
Variants and Fan Cards / Re: New Weekly Contest: Fan Card Mechanics
« on: April 22, 2021, 03:20:34 pm »
Thanks DunnoItAll!

As an aside; is there any interest to try to move this thread into a directory format as per a certain other competition? Might be more user friendly.

Otherwise, happy to make the next one on this thread tomorrow

48
Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #112: Steal the Show
« on: April 20, 2021, 08:21:19 pm »

I agree that unfun one-off interactions don't ruin a card, but I think the change is an improvement, and covers enough cases to be worth the additional text.
For example, letting Captain get a supply card trashed for a free gain is another amusing case best avoided. But letting these cards provide an opportunity to trash your terminals without killing your turn is a nice interaction.

I don't think Captain would've worked that way anyways with the old version, since Captain specifically says to leave it in place.  Wouldn't the stop-moving rule apply here?  Beguiler expects to find the card in play, but it's not, so it can't trash it, same as, for example, Counterfeiting a Spoils or Processioning a Horse

On the other hand, either version would be a lot of fun with Fortress.  Play Fortress, it gets trashed, going back to your hand, you get a free $4 card, and you get to play that same Fortress again!

Captain: Not sure; stop moving rule might not prevent the trash as the "leaving it there" only applies to the play, and the Hoodwink is an external, prior effect on that card due to you playing it. Perhaps the explicit wording for this should be "first trash it", as on-play is kind of ill-defined in precedence with the actual playing of the card.
Regardless, the gain trigger would occur, as it is not conditional on trashing, so you would gain a card out of it.

Fortress on the other hand is perfectly entitled to its fun as always!

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Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #112: Steal the Show
« on: April 20, 2021, 07:14:46 pm »
I think the better solution is to just not use Prince or Reap on Beguiler boards. I think it's fine to allow those interactions. It's not any more broken than Swindling Province->Peddler or Province->Prince.

I agree that unfun one-off interactions don't ruin a card, but I think the change is an improvement, and covers enough cases to be worth the additional text.
For example, letting Captain get a supply card trashed for a free gain is another amusing case best avoided. But letting these cards provide an opportunity to trash your terminals without killing your turn is a nice interaction.

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Weekly Design Contest / Re: Weekly Design Contest #112: Steal the Show
« on: April 20, 2021, 04:18:56 pm »
I just realized that this would make Prince completely useless

Yes, this is a good point! Fortunately I think it's relatively easy to fix while keeping the spirit of the card, by adding "from hand" to the Hoodwinked trigger condition.

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