Sorry this is taking a while. There were a lot of entries this time around, but I've narrowed things down to the finalists.
Cohort by Doom_Shark
I agree with the assessment that the first version was strong. Putting junk back onto the deck is a good solution. I'd also probably remove the empty supply pile part for simplicity and to make it even weaker. It's great if you can remove the junk from your deck, and greening hurts a lot, so you probably want to work up to a megaturn or two.
Copy Editing:
Courier uses "Action or Treasure." so simply "Actions or Treasures" works here.
Fortune Hunter uses "from them."
Golem says "play the Action cards in either order," while the more recent
Prepare says "play those Actions and Treasures in any order," so something like that would be appropriate here too.
Untitled action by fika monster
It's kind of like a card form of
Toil, which is neat. It could also be classified as a
Peddler variant; you can spend $2 of what you just made to get your action back. But if you don't need the +Action, or if you have village support, having the option to just keep the terminal gold non-stop card makes it too good when compared to the other $5 peddlers. As is, it should probably cost $6, but I agree at that cost it is awkward to get a lot of them. Or make it $4 and only provide $2? I don't know for sure.
Copy Editing: Saying "instead of spending an action, you may instead..." makes it seem like you have to have a remaining Action to pay in order to use the effect, so it would be useless without the support of another village. So assuming that is not the intent, here is a more Domonion-like wording that does something similar (borrowing from
Inspiring): "For the rest of this turn, after playing an Action, you may take 2 debt to play an Action from your hand."
Explosion by Will(ow|iam)
An interesting event in line with
Seize the Day and
Journey, and
Launch. You want to get this one when you have enough good cards in your deck/discard to take full advantage of a pseudo- extra turn. The trouble is that you don't want to have extra payload terminals just for this one turn, and it will be difficult to get extra value out of terminal draw on top of the +10 cards. Could be useful for setting up duration effects like
Mastermind, or just drawing a key card on the right turn. So this effect isn't really a sustainable village, and just not a great fit for this contest.
Social Climber by faust (Finalist)This one is super interesting. Like
First Mate it can play many cards, but this time they're all different. It also lacks First Mate's draw, making it significantly weaker. The low cost is functional; with it you will be able to start the Action playing chain with almost any other Action.
There's also an interesting rules question here: What exactly counts as the "last Action card you played?" And does playing Social Climber even count as played when it first makes that check? The phrase "last Action" is never found in the
Card List, so I'm assuming no official cards make this check, meaning there's no easy official ruling.
Wayfarer uses "the last other card gained this turn" to clarify that it doesn't count itself, so Social Climber could use "other" if it didn't want to count itself. I reviewed the wording, Official FAQ, and other rules clarifications for
Conspirator,
Harbor Village,
Kiln,
Landing Party,
Inspiring, and
Scepter. Scepter's Other rules clarifications gave the most insight: "Scepter can replay an Action that isn't finished resolving, such as a Storyteller that played Scepter in the first place." So by extension, that means Social Climber can count itself on initial play. For exotic stuff, like Social Climber plays Conclave which plays Hamlet then Hamlet finishes playing then Conclave finishes playing, we don't have a super nice example for what the "last" card played was, but I'm going to assume it's "the last card that entered play," which in this case would be the Hamlet.
There was some discussion about it being strong or weak, but I think it's good as is. It's really just a fancy Necropolis, but there are times you would buy even an ordinary Necropolis for $1. And you'll also want multiples making it reasonably likely you get a copy in your starting hand. The suggestion of using "This is gained onto your deck" helps make it more reliable and usable, but for simplicity I'm fine with it as is.
Copy Editing: No cards use "do this any number of times," although
Remake uses "Do this twice." It's fine as is, but I think I prefer "Repeat as desired" found on
Cave Dwellers etc. I don't think "this turn" is needed here.
Lute by 4est (Finalist)A nice, simple submission that fits well in the Dominion theme. It kind of reminds me of
Night Festival from a few contests ago. This is simpler by not visiting the Night Phase. But didn't we say that that playing 2 Actions was too strong? The difference here is $1 and the +Buy, and that is huge. Now it's comparable to
Coin of the Realm. While that can be saved for when you need it and keeps you in your Action phase, this can be used every turn instead of usually only every other turn. So I think this is fine at $3.
Lawless Village by LibraryAdventurer
The reverse village is an interesting idea, but the weak discard attack definitely does not make up for not drawing a card yourself. The possible bonus to the opponent isn't helping things. The villagers may help to make up for it, but at the end of the day, this is still a stop-card that just lets you start your turn with terminals later in the game. Villagers also isn't really all that unusual of a way to play lots of terminals. Instead, I kind of want this to be Reaction like
Clerk that lets you play it from your hand after playing an Action on some condition, maybe having 0 Actions remaining. So instead of the normal Village+Smith combo where you play Village and then Smithy, with this you have to play Smithy first and then Lawless Village, doubling down on how it's like a reverse village.
Copy Editing: It needs something like
Villain's "(or reveals they can't)."
Helper by Zoyarox
Really this is a non-Potion
Golem that only plays one card but gives you +1 Action. I agree that it's far too expensive, but even then it's difficult to place a price on it. Aside from Golem's potion price, the fact that Golem does nothing once all your Actions are in your hand, and it playing random Actions, are both major downsides over the comparable
Lost City. That is somewhat alleviated with Helper thanks to the innate +1 Action, and having the choice of 2 Actions to play. A cost of $4 is probably fine. It's weird that it names another Action that will most likely not be in the kingdom. Sure Helper+Golem would be busted, but there are lots of busted 2-card combos in Dominion.
Carnival by BryGuy
Fun fact, we now have an official card named
Carnival, but it's all good. This has some of the same rules considerations that I discussed in the Social Climber entry. The way I see it, Carnival's effect happens by the time it is done playing. There are even hints to an alternate
Priest wording in the retrospective which would have worked just like this. But because the Action playing applies to this too, it is essentially a double Laboratory where you can only follow it up with a card costing $4 or less, which should be that difficult to achieve. That's way too powerful, and we haven't even touched on the stacking effect by playing more than 1 copy.
Ballroom by n_sanity
An easy comparison can be made to
Border Village The only downside I can see is that you can't gain Duchies or Treasures with this. Meanwhile, Throne Room costs more than Village even before the Night shenanigans. That said, once the card is that expensive, the difference between $6 and $7 isn't that crucial. In the end, this really just Thrones Actions normally. There's the option to use it at Night, but I see more use happening in the day, so it isn't a great fit for this contest.
Midas Touch by NoMoreFun (Finalist)A
Worker's Village with something extra for the same cost; how can that be right? Well, just like in the ancient legend, that blessing can quickly become a curse. It will be difficult for this to make it as the only village, although it's still possible. Instead Midas Touch is best used in kingdoms with other sources of +Actions. In a deck with only cantrips, a Midas Touch played toward the end of the cantrip train is effectively +1 Card, +$2, +1 Buy, which is fair. Alongside other villages, you can play the village idiot, having many redundant villages, but play Midas Touch partway through to start getting the payload you need.
Copy Editing: The updated wording mirrors
Way of the Chameleon fairly well. It just needs to end the sentence with a period.
Construct by sumrex
It's a lot like the original version of Cohort (see judging above). Playing and/or drawing the top 3 cards of the deck is way too strong for $5, and that's before you get to the
Harbinger effect.
Beaver by petamatt
Getting the effect of a card without actually gaining the card is an interesting concept, but the execution needs work. The fact that you just discard Beaver instead of playing it opens up the possibility for loops. An alternative to playing Beaver would be to do what
Joust does and set this aside, then discard it during cleanup. It uses
Trader's old "would gain, ... instead" wording, which is "super crazy confusing." And it's not like you can use "Exchange" here to fix things. The other thing is that I wish the top did something besides being a village, like maybe being a terminal silver. It's not just for the contest requirements; it would be reasonable to gain a Beaver early on for the Silver effect, and then use the other effect later in the game.
Dragon Pit by silverspawn
Dragon Pit is a double
Barracks that also requires Action fodder. It needs to be limited to once per turn part because
Fortress is a thing. But I don't care for the "your first Buy phase each turn" wording because nothing else does that. I'm also not a fan of entering and the Buy phase only to immediately return. Maybe it could use wording like
Innovation: "Once during each of your turns, after playing an Action card, ..." But in the end, it's just too close to Barracks to be interesting.
Maid (edited) by D782802859
Regarding the first version, -Actions is a mechanic that feels like it belongs in Dominion. And a gainer that uses gives -Actions per $ of the card gained is a straightforward application. But as you figured out, it's difficult to make a card that is not too under-powered or too overpowered. Gaining $4 cards is just vanilla Workshop; $3 is usually worse than
Ironworks or
Carpenter, and gaining cards costing $2 or less for the Village effect is usually just bad. I thought out a few scenarios for re-balancing, including doing a $5-cost gainer, but none of them worked.
The other version assigns a fixed bonus based on card cost. I feel like this version has better balance. You can get the Village effect by gaining $3 cards. There's always Silver, but a Necropolis Silver gainer isn't going to be super effective. Still, engines can be powerful, so in the absence of other Villages, you take what you can get. The other issue is that now a fixed +2 Actions is no longer a great fit for this contest. So you have a better card than your first version, but it's just not as unusual as some of the other entries.
Marina by LTaco (Finalist)A Plunder "next time" duration that gives Actions based on the cost of the next Action you play. It uses wording mirroring
Bishop. The closest comparison is
Flagship another $4-cost terminal silver next time Duration. And while Throning seems like it would always be better than a Necropolis-ish, that isn't always the case. If you use a Smithy at the start of the turn, Flagship draws more cards, but Marina lets you continue your turn. So I think that Marina is a perfectly reasonable balanced card worth consideration.
Pastoral Village by anordinaryman
Another entry like
Snowy Village, where you get a lot of Actions up front and then fewer later on. This one lets you keep getting +Actions afterward, but every Action played costs more. I don't really like the spend an extra Action wording though. Paying more for Action plays is confusing. You use "When you play an Action card," but it sounds like you need to have the extra Action before you actually play the card, which is a little bit of a contradiction. The stacking effect also becomes confusing. For example, I think you messed up the Action count when playing Smithies; it should be -3 per Smithy played; -1 for each Pastoral Village played, along with the ordinary -1 Action from playing a terminal Action. As an alternative, this is another place that I feel -1 Action could be utilized: "For the rest of this turn, when you play an Action card, you first get -1 Action (you can't go below 0 Actions)." It borrows wording from
Champion and cards with -$, like
Souk. It still stacks, but you are able to play Actions before the -Action penalty goes into effect, and after the -1 Actions are subtracted, any +Actions from the card are still available, so this is more forgiving. Or an "after playing an Action card, -1 Action" timing could be used to make things a little more restrictive.
Witches Coven by RovingBear
An interesting friendly Curser that turns your Curses into Villages. It isn't an "in games using this" effect; that would be too good. Instead you have to keep playing the Witch's Coven. Because it's a Duration, it's possible to make use of the Curse villages without the help of another Village. In fact, gaining the Curse onto your deck ensures that you will be able to use the effect. Just know that all "While this is in play" effects have been removed from the game and turned into "On this turn and your next turn" effects (see
Bridge Troll version history). Turning to power level, I actually kind of think this one is too strong. It's effectively +$2 this turn and +1 Action +2 Cards next turn. And that doesn't even factor in that with each play you add another permanent Village to your deck. Even with the negative points, there are plenty of times I would be fine paying $5 for this. There's also the issue of what happens when both
Charlatan and this are in the Kingdom.
Copy Editing: Action should be capitalized in the last sentence. Use lower case for card name and types; the card mock up font will display it in all caps, but the first letters will be a little bit bigger.
Hire by Freddy10
Hire is pretty similar to
Launch,
Delay,
Toil, and
March. It's mostly fine, but I don't really like how it returns you to your Action phase without any way to get your Buy back, unlike Launch,
Villa and
Cavalry. That and the fact this is so similar to many other Events makes this a no from me.
Esplanade by grep
This one is pretty interesting. It reminds me of
Inventor, except you are playing cards instead of gaining them. Because you also get to play another Esplanade, this counts as a Village even when there are no cheap non-terminals. For simplicity, I kind of wish it didn't work with Treasures. In fact it loops with
Scepter if Treasures are allowed because Scepter does not have the Command type. The power level really depends on what options are available at $3. Like other sources of
Cost Reduction it has the potential to enable a
megaturn. Other cost reducers come with +Action, +Card, or +Buy. This could have none of those, but it also could have all of them at once if something like
Market Square is around, and on top of the Esplanade chaining, that's a little too good.
Copy Editing: This can use wording like Cultist: "You may play an Esplanade from your hand."
Ancient City by Cutepelican126
I think this is supposed to be like a bigger
Landing Party. The trouble is that discarding a Duration from play doesn't actually cancel the future Duration stuff from happening. Sure the
Lose Track rule kicks in to prevent further setting aside and quadruple play, but the attempts at setting aside a second and duplicated time still happen anyway. Also, I would prefer that cards with Village effects remain in play as a visual indicator that you have those extra actions. Throne Room + Horse kind of has this issue, but you still have the solo Throne Room as an indicator.
Copy Editing: Treasure should be capitalized. Like
Landing Party it needs to address whether the next-time effect happens before or after resolving the Treasure play; for instance with "set this aside afterwards." That matters if Ancient City is a Treasure due to
Capitalism and it's the first card you played on your turn.
I'll try to have the judging of the finalists completed in the next few days.
- Action - Duration - Attack
