I'll try to finish judging tomorrow, but for now here is the initial judgement and list of finalists.Exploration/Conquistador by BryGuyThis one changed a few times over the course of the contest. I liked the Way version that cost $5 and was by itself the most. The split pile alongside the setup is too complex, and Conquistador doesn’t seem good here. So I’ll focus on Exploration (also heads up that
Exploration is also the name of a Project). I don’t think it’s necessary to mess with the starting hand size for this one. I also don’t think the Villager is necessary, as in most games there will be non-terminal ways. WotChameleon is a very special case because it lets you do all the normal things your actions could do, with $ and draw swapped, and with 6 set aside Ways it will be available in almost 1 out of 3 games. All this makes me feel like you could lower the number of set aside Ways to 5 or maybe even 4. So to summarize, I would try to simplify things and balance around your core idea of an extra turn using only Ways.
Carnival by fika monsterThe Warlord wording is definitely necessary here. In isolation, it doesn’t seem as powerful as Voyage, even putting the +1 Action aside. Although the low cost isn’t too relevant because this is bad in the opening. It’s nice in kingdoms with a lot of variety, but even then, you would have to decide if you want to weaken your normal turns by avoiding too many duplicates. Overall a pretty solid card.
FinalistSleep Walking by Chappy77I like this one quite a bit. Engines are strong, so it’s nice to occasionally have cards that work well with Big Money to make you weigh that option against the rest of the kingdom. You probably won’t want more than one copy, and you won’t draw it every turn, so it isn’t like it’s super busted or anything. The engine play is a nice puzzle. The wording is definitely tricky. I was going to suggest handling the -1 Action like a reverse
Champion, but that would nerf interactions with Throne Room and others, which is bad. $5 is a good cost.
FinalistRainbow Bridge by JWAnother one I really like. It’s a
Magic Lamp for extra turns. Like how Magic Lamp can always hit 6 uniques because it comes with Secret Cave, this one being a village means it’s also possible to meet the requirements in all reasonable kingdoms. Of all the submissions, this one really doesn’t want to have to be a Duration. It’s reasonable to want more than one copy of the village, especially if it’s the only one in the kingdom. But if you activate the extra turn, all those villages are stuck in play, one is discarded at the end of the extra turn, and technically all the additional copies are stuck in play until the end of your next opponent’s turn. The fix would be to add the old Outpost’s “If this is the first time you played a Rainbow Bridge this turn,” not to limit the extra turns, but to have the discards work well. Or just not have it be a Duration, and well, Possession isn’t a Duration, although that’s the least of Possession’s worries.
FinalistNight Shift by Augie279Very nice. The wording is simple, while the effect is still compelling. The power level is comparable to Voyage, but this is a Night card, in its own pile, and works better with trashing; so $5 is appropriate. This should also resolve quicker than a typical Voyage turn. Then there’s the draw-to-x interaction. That’s strong, but allowable, given how rare it is and the effort that usually goes into making draw-to-x engines. A minor nitpick in the wording is that it shuts down an opponent's +Cards from things like
Road Network. A wording like this gets around that: “during which you ignore all +Cards.” As a final note, I like the thematic connection to
Werewolf being a Smithy by day and doing something else at night.
FinalistSurvey Station by Builder_RobertsI definitely agree that multiplayer lockout potential was bad, but the updated wording has its own issues. If you play it and gain a Victory card on the same turn, you don’t get the extra turn until after your next turn. Also, for all the official “next turn” cards, they do the thing right then, but with Survey Station it’s next time… no wait a little longer, which makes tracking extra tricky. Lots of potential for missplays. The cool thing here is that you can get 2 copies, where you can play the second copy on the extra turn. I kind of think I like it better if it only triggered on opponents’ turns, which lets you remove the cost requirement, for simplicity and additional interactions.
Band of Thieves by seguraThis one requires Gold as fuel for an unrestricted extra turn. Usually Gold is a steep price. The Gold gainers are rare and tricky enough that the combo with this is OK. I don’t really care for trashing a Gold from the discard and especially from hand. The comparison to Remodel only matters if gaining Provinces is the only useful thing you can do on your turns, but usually there are better things to do. Other interactions aside, you still get the $3 from a played Gold, while the Remodel wouldn’t. I do agree it needs something more. Maybe have it cost less and let it trash some number of non-Duration treasure(s) from play, but only give the extra turn if a Gold was trashed. Maybe give it some when-gain, even just “This is gained to your hand.” There isn’t really a good reason for this to not be a Duration.
War Tax by grepThis does solve the Penultimate Province rule, but I think it creates other rules. For instance, in a 2-player game once 4 Provinces are evenly split, Player 2 could buy this to take the Provinces pile to 3. If Player 1 gets a Province, Player 2 can empty the 2 remaining Provinces for a tie, which is an acceptable outcome for Player 2. Or Player 1 starts Duchy dancing a Province early, and nothing really changes. So really this is just a strategy check on Player 2 (although maybe there’s some other strategy I’m missing, and I didn’t attempt a 3-player game strategy). But in games with +Buy for double Province, or other useful things to do on your turns, this can be useful. You’ll probably only buy it once in a game, so the one-shot event cost isn’t a problem. Moving to the early game Estate trashing, I think that is a little too good.
Bonfire trashes Coppers, lowering your overall money density. Trashing a single Estate also yields lower money density than a Silver gain, but not by much. A better comparison is
Scrounge, which also lets you trash an Estate for $3. But if you do, your opponent can gain that Estate along with a $5, which is especially relevant with strong $5 trashers or junkers in absence of other trashing. Without some gimmick like that, I’d want an Estate removal event to cost $4, comparable to
Banish.
Insurance by faustThis one is a neat puzzle. I especially like how Silver is the trigger; it’s not a bad card, but usually you want other things. The mini-game here gives most of the power to the opponent. They can gain a single Silver on their turn, turning your Insurance into a delayed Copper. But that requires +Buy or you just keep buying Silver. In a single buy kingdom, I’d even consider a bad Silver gainer like
Bureaucrat; extra turns are that powerful, especially in the absence of +Buy. Alternatively, you just get your own Insurance and then neither player is incentivized to get Silver. You’ll need at least 2 copies of Insurance to have the effect constantly up. At that point, maybe one player gets even more insurance, and then gets Silver to stack up many Coffers while also disabling the opponent’s extra turn. All that said, the price of Insurance seems a little too high, but didn’t I say extra turns are powerful, so it’s better to err on the side of caution.
FinalistDejima by majiponiFirst off, this one has the Golem issue, if you have something like
Toil to play
Golem, and some Action - Treasures for it to hit. I would recommend a wording like “during which you can’t play Treasures from your hand.” The extra turn is either going to be useless or really powerful, depending on the kingdom. The high cost seems geared toward the really powerful case, so the rest of the time Dejima probably just sits on the table. I kind of want to make it into something like “Choose one: +$N; or …” and then balance the coins with the cost. It would still need engine support, but then it would at least be playable in the absence of virtual money or something else to do.
Crusade by anordinarymanMost extra turn effects come with some sort of drawback for the extra turn. This one affects all of your turns for the rest of the game. Topdecked Copper junking is the perfect self-drawback, and I’m surprised there are no official cards that use it. The neat thing is that I can see it being useful in Big Money, Engines, and Slogs. I agree with the cost. At $2, it could be too easy for one player to gobble them all up, in games where that’s relevant. The wording is good, and the effect is immediately understandable.
FinalistEnterprise by 4estThis one seems a little too good. It definitely wants to cost $4 though, so it can fill the roll of early game Silver. Maybe give the extra turn some downside. Or maybe have it be a Woodcutter instead of a Silver. This one should also have the Duration type, with wording to trash it at some later time.
Time Shift by NoMoreFunAnother puzzle to evaluate its power. I would move the opponent’s +5 cards to the start, to make it clear that they get that now. Being unaffected by Attacks during the extra turn means it will be difficult to follow this up with a Militia, though in some kingdoms it’s possible. Attack shenanigans aside, in the early game, one 10 card turn is better than two 5 card turns, especially considering the first turn has to buy Time Shift. But once both players can draw their whole deck each turn, the +5 Cards is negligible and the extra turn matters a lot. Assuming +buys in the kingdom, after one player buys Time Shift, the next will likely be able to do so, continuing for the rest of the game, which is so thematic! Then the person to Time Shift first stands to get the greatest benefit, but there still needs to be caution not to do it too soon, as it also helps the opponent reliably play their attack on their normal turn. Maybe you even want to time things well enough to ensure you get the first Time Shift turn and the last. I’m tempted to add +1 Buy to the event to see this happen in more games, but even in games without +1 Buy, maybe you buy this when you get bad luck and dud late-game. It might need “Once per turn” like
Journey, but then again
Deliver doesn’t have it.
FinalistStartup by Will(ow|iam)I would avoid the
Conspirator counting and instead look for Actions “in play.” The wording for the first part also seemed odd, but it actually matches
Baths. Still, I think I would prefer something more common, like “When you gain an Action, if you have no Actions in play, …” At first I was dismissive of the limitation, but I keep being reminded just how powerful an extra turn can be. This being a $5 Project means you probably already have Actions in the deck when you buy it. But maybe you just don’t play them and buy a cheap engine piece instead. So it encourages an engine with decent treasure density, which is kind of uncommon and therefore a fun deck to play. A 5/2 opening on this and some cheap but useful Action could be interesting.
Safe House by GubumpThis is the most complicated, rule-bending entry, in spite of having reasonable wording. Don’t get me wrong, this is a really cool idea, but the more I dug into it, the more difficulties I found.
This definitely gets props for wanting multiple copies in your deck, unlike something like Outpost where each player usually only wants one copy. The downside there is that all copies of Safe House after the first will stay in play after your extra turn, when they hit the “(but not a 3rd turn in a row)” check, so they would get discarded at the end of the next player’s turn. A FAQ could point that out. Wording like “if this is the first time you played a Safe House this turn.” wouldn’t help here because then the other Safe Houses get discarded before the extra turn.
There are 3 main phases: Action, Buy, and Clean-up. This doesn’t play nice with Night, but a lot of other things don’t either. For skipping the Action and Buy phases, the trickiest interactions are whether or not you still do start of turn stuff (I would say yes), and whether things like
Villa take you back to your skipped Action phase. (I’d say no, but that one definitely needs a FAQ). Otherwise, it’s as if you just clicked the End Actions / End Buys button in the online implementation. Skipping Clean-up is the trickier one to wrap your mind around. How I interpret that is that you don’t discard anything from play (much like
Journey), but you also don’t discard your hand, and you don’t draw a new hand of 5 cards. Some effects like
Improve are unavailable. I’m surprised that there aren’t a ton of cards that break with no Clean-up.
Encampment stays set-aside (forever, or until your next Clean-up, needs FAQ), but that also happens if you got the Encampment from
Black Market. It’s also kind of annoying that you need to track whether your Durations still have something to do, or if they are done. Yes, that happens with Journey too, but at least finished Durations get discarded before the next player’s turn, while with this you have to keep track of everything during the other player’s turn(s).
OK, now let’s look at the 7 modes of extra-turn play:
- Clean-up only: Usually pretty pointless. Maybe you have Harbinger that likes having 5 cards in the discard. You do get your Safe House discarded, so you don’t need an extra copy to play on your next normal turn. There are also start of turn effects and things like Coastal Haven that could make it worthwhile.
- Action only: You can play your engine and even draw your whole deck, but with no Buy phase even virtual money is pointless, Black Market aside, and how many gainers can you reasonably have. Also, your engine pieces are stuck in play and you don’t draw a new hand. You were probably better off just waiting for your next turn. The one advantage this has is the extra turn’s +1 Action, which maybe lets you play a Smithy and have a hand of 7. I’d rather have a Ghost Town though.
- Buy only: Play the Treasures you happen to have and buy something. Might be nice to get rid of Coppers for a while, but with your better Treasures being stuck in play, using them here won’t help you to improve your next turn, things like Stockpile being the exception.
- No Clean-up: The most comparable to Journey, but remember you don’t draw a new hand, so keep some engine pieces for next turn, letting you draw what you gained on the extra turn to further improve your deck. The greatest downside here is that your 2 Safe Houses are stuck in play for your next normal turn, so you need 2 more copies to get an extra turn then, and at that point you might as well just play 3 Safe Houses at once.
- No Action: Usually more limited than Night Shift, Figurine or Duration draw aside.
- No Buy: Much more limited than Dejima.
- All 3 phases: Again, Night is left out, but otherwise this is an ordinary turn. Remember that it required $9 and 3 Buys (or 3 Workshop plays), and you had to draw 3 stop-cards together (compare to Treasure Map, which is only 2). But you wouldn’t go for this if you weren’t drawing your whole deck right? ::Anakin stare:: Right??
Maybe I’m missing something, but aside from the rare combos, the downsides of those limited extra turns are way too much, so only the Safe House x3 play is worth it. So I’d rather this just be “You may discard 2 Safe Houses, revealed. If you did…” Yes I know this is different with
King’s Court, but not everything has to combo with King’s Court, and it makes things so much more simple. The cost (in terms of card price and deck control) is still probably too high. Maybe make it cost $2 or give it a when-gain or Overpay.
Trek by kru5hA lot like the Night Shift entry. Village becomes comparable to Necropolis. Smithy becomes comparable to Moat. Laboratory becomes worse than Old Map. So in your run-of-the mill engines, you’re not actually increasing hand-size. Draw-to-x is still the exception here, which is fine. And that’s just the Actions. Treasures also require a discard. So most of the time you’re only playing 3 Treasures, making it comparable to Voyage, but you can mill through your engine pieces. It ends up being a close call, but I fear all the discard decisions might slow down the turn a lot, so Night Shift edges this out just barely.
