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1951

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Scholars

« on: July 10, 2012, 06:18:18 pm »

Cellar turns every card in your hand into a cantrip
Secret chamber turns every card in your hand into a copper
This turns every card in your hand into a laboratory (essentially)

1952

Dominion Articles / Re: Masquerade

« on: July 10, 2012, 05:32:13 pm »

I find pins actually quite underrated. The fact that you're not only left with an empty hand, but your deck is slowly getting trashed into nothing makes them a force to be reckoned with. The only way to win against a pinning player once the pin is ready is to end the game before the pin's set up. Once the pin's going you may be lucky enough to have more VP chips or set aside VP than the other player and can win by emptying the copper and curse piles (Which requires another pile to be empty and the pinning player to have no means of gaining more VP), but this is almost never the case (I think most games where the pin gets set up end with the pinned player forfeiting).

Moat and durations may allow you to have cards in your hand once the pin's going, but with those cards (which will be very few unless you had a wharf engine or played tactician) you can usually only slow the pin down by using young witch, familiar, witch or ambassador, or buying an IGG or embassy (which will leave you with 1 more card than usual the next turn) or mountebank (which will leave you with 2 more cards than usual the next turn) or using masquerade itself. That's the best bet, but if the attack being used is militia or goons, it will be very easy to simply buy whatever card gets passed out and the classic KC/KC/Attack/Masq pin has room for an extra card anyway. While all this is going on, you need to find some way to end the game before your deck is turned to mush. This is a very tough proposition, and requires a lot more luck than the pinning player ever needed to get his pin set up.

Also, I don't know if it's been brought up, but I think that Minion/Village/Outpost/TR/Masq is a pin. That is a pin that you'd be able to set up without your opponent even knowing you've got that plan.

1953

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: July 10, 2012, 02:40:03 pm »

Unfamiliar
Cost: 3;D
+1 Magic
+1 Will
Each other player gains a Hex

1954

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Speed Challenge: Fastest Pin

« on: July 03, 2012, 05:08:26 pm »

Definitely it's possible to do better than this, but to get started, here's one that first hits on turn 8:

Open Quarry/Chapel.

Shuffle to HCEEE QCCCC CC (where H indicates Chapel).
T3: Trash CEEE.
T4: Buy King's Court.

Shuffle to CCHCC QKCC.
T5: Don't play Chapel; buy Bridge.

Shuffle to QKCCB HCCCC.
T6: KC your Bridge. Together with the Quarry, that's -$5 on actions, $6 to spend, and 4 buys. Buy KC, Margrave, Masquerade.
T7: Trash CCCC.

Shuffle to KKRHM QCCB. (R indicates Margrave. M indicates Masquerade.)
T8: KC KC Margrave, then Chapel to trash QCCB, then Masquerade to complete the pin.

So elegant, and actually quite robust too
Well done setting the standard

1955

Puzzles and Challenges / Speed Challenge: Fastest Pin

« on: July 03, 2012, 03:27:44 pm »

Playing masquerade with an empty hand allows you to trash an opponent's card, and combined with cards such as Goons and King's Court, can allow you to reduce your opponent's hand size to nothing. These combos are more of a curiosity than a strategy, but the challenge here is to see how quickly they can be set up. With perfect shuffle luck, what's the quickest you can set up a masquerade pin?

Rules:
You may use any combination of cards to set up the "pin" (defined as being able to reliably leave the opponent with an empty hand every turn)
You do not have to prove that you can win the game, only that you can pin the opponent
Normal Dominion rules apply

To get you started, a sample pin is your entire deck consisting of:
Village/Militia/King's Court/Masquerade

Or if you want to be a bit cleverer:
Minion/Throne Room/Throne Room/Outpost/Masquerade

1956

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Single card ideas

« on: June 13, 2012, 08:44:03 pm »

Ambush's trashing is such that it trashes the card that was just gained (the one that triggered the ambush). It will only be otherwise if it's in the curse pile and the current player just used a curser (or the copper pile with mountebank/noble brigand), or ambassador if nothing was returned to the supply.

Or if it's in the Nomad Camp pile, or a Treasure pile and someone uses Mine, or a few other cases?

Though actually, the way it's phrased, the trashed card would always be a Curse.

Noted

1957

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Dominion: Dark Ages on Rio Grande Games' Website

« on: June 12, 2012, 11:53:57 pm »

The attack would have to be pretty weak or else it might end up comboing too well with Torturer, Rabble and Margrave (or even Ghost Ship and Witch) to make engines. It will be incredibly easy to chain the attack village itself, so they can't chain too well.
Hell, maybe the "attack" could actually be helpful. I like it when I have a moat in hand but I don't reveal it because I can get something out of the attack (such as discarding tunnels off a militia), or when attacks end up "backfiring" (like swindling a peddler into a province because the peddler pile was empty). Something like:


Poorhouse
Cost: 4
+2 Actions
+1 Coin
Each other player discards a card and gains a copper, putting it into his hand

Or even get rid of the discard and make it cheaper. The complete opposite of stacking.

1958

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Single card ideas

« on: June 12, 2012, 11:26:33 pm »

Why would Deed ever end up in your deck?

For the niche remodel/remake/upgrade chain. It can be used if there are no other 7 cost cards in the supply (which is often), and one you can rely upon having in your hand often, but only one player at a time gets to have it.

Ambush's trashing is such that it trashes the card that was just gained (the one that triggered the ambush). It will only be otherwise if it's in the curse pile and the current player just used a curser (or the copper pile with mountebank/noble brigand), or ambassador if nothing was returned to the supply. You can know which pile the Ambush was placed in, so discard ordering will only come into play in that circumstance, at which point it could even be used for an advantage (if one curse is left, you can use hamlet, discarding a curse for an action, gain Ambush with workshop, then use a curser and ambush yourself, trashing the curse you discarded), but those will be rare circumstances. Another idea I toyed with was "when it's no longer your turn, discard down to 3 cards in hand", but that effect may be hard to keep track of if the ambush comes out very early in a megaturn.

1959

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Dominion: Dark Ages on Rio Grande Games' Website

« on: June 12, 2012, 02:48:23 am »

Since it's dark ages I'm thinking there'll be an attack card that will make torturer look pleasant. If the theme is trash;

Emperor:
Each other player draws a card, then reveals a card from his hand. He either trashes it, or gains a copy of it and puts both it and the revealed card on top of his deck; your choice. You may also gain a copy of the revealed card.

I don't think they'll make cards that make card-destruction pins easier.

Note the card draw, so your hand is always the same size after the attack.
Noble Brigand was an outtake from this set, so I wouldn't be surprised to see more trashing attacks. So far we have Thief, Swindler, Saboteur, Pirate Ship and Noble Brigand.

I'm also thinking we'll get a village type card that trashes heavily. Something like +2 actions, +1 Card, Trash 2 cards which will be godly early game but become a liability to build an engine out of. There hasn't been a card yet where trashing is a flaw (except maybe lookout, but only because you don't know what you might have to trash).

1960

Variants and Fan Cards / Single card ideas

« on: June 11, 2012, 07:49:05 pm »

I liked seeing the constraints Donald had to work with in the secret histories. One of them us rounding off expansions to have the right number of cards. This made me come up with a few ideas that aim to change the game without taking up much space in the box.

Without further ado

Deed
Cost: 7
Action
+1 Card, +1 Action
You may return this card to the top of your deck.
---
When you buy this, instead of gaining this card, put your deck in your discard pile, gain a card costing less than this, and put it on top of your deck.

When this card is trashed, return it to its supply pile.

Burden
Cost: 0
Action/Curse
-3vp
Trash this card
---
When this card its trashed, place it on top of the curse supply pile
Setup: Place this card on top of the curse pile. When called upon by another card, this card is named "curse"

Fool
Cost: 1
+1 Action
Return this card to the top of any supply pile
---
When you gain this card, +1 buy
Setup: Place this card on top of the province supply pile. The supply pile now has fool's name and cost. The supply pile "fool" is on top of can not be called upon by any card.

Ambush
Cost: 3
Special (red border)
When you gain this, place it anywhere inside any supply pile.
When this card appears on top of a supply pile, the current player trashes the top card of his discard pile if it is not a province or colony, then gains a curse. After this, return Ambush to its supply pile.
You may not inspect supply piles in games using Ambush


Guardian
Cost: 0*
Action/Reaction
+1 card
When another player uses an attack, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, no players are affected by the attack, and you may give this card to a player of your choice, putting it in his hand.
Gain this card when you use an attack
(This card is not in the supply)

Anyone else have ideas for single cards (kingdom or otherwise)?

1961

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Dominion: Dark Ages on Rio Grande Games' Website

« on: June 11, 2012, 05:52:35 pm »

Since it's dark ages I'm thinking there'll be an attack card that will make torturer look pleasant. If the theme is trash;

Emperor:
Each other player draws a card, then reveals a card from his hand. He either trashes it, or gains a copy of it and puts both it and the revealed card on top of his deck; your choice. You may also gain a copy of the revealed card.

1962

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Dominion: Dark Ages on Rio Grande Games' Website

« on: June 11, 2012, 05:17:05 pm »

Or even more simply, an action/victory trasher that gives victory points based off the size of the trash pile. Or, more interestingly, the total cost of it. The trash pile is shared, so anything based off it gets the "interactive without attacks" thing going, which IMO makes for the most fun cards.

1963

Dominion: Dark Ages Previews / Re: Dominion: Dark Ages on Rio Grande Games' Website

« on: June 11, 2012, 05:10:25 pm »

For cards that care about the trash, I'm thinking there'll be a trade route like card like

Squat:
Cost: 5
You may trash a card from your hand
Search the trash pile for cards costing 5 or more
If you find at least one:
Action: +2 actions
Treasure: +2 coin, +1 buy
Victory: +2 cards

So you can get an extremely powerful card, but at the opportunity cost of buying and trading strong cards. Then your opponents can profit off your hard work.

1964

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: March 23, 2012, 11:54:45 pm »

King Midas:
Whenever you play a card, trash it, gain a Gold, and put it in your hand. If the "Gold" supply pile is empty, you immediately lose the game.

1965

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Really bad card ideas

« on: March 23, 2012, 11:48:21 pm »

Ill Fated Pearl Diver:
Cost: 1
+1 Card
+1 Action
Reveal the bottom card of your deck, then trash this card.

1966

Puzzles and Challenges / Better "you must" than "you may"; A card design challenge

« on: March 23, 2012, 11:42:37 pm »

Your challenge in this topic is to design a card, with the text "you may " in it, that gets better if you replace it with "you must". I define better as if both cards are in the supply and the same price, you'd buy the latter every time.

Things that I don't count as making a card better:
* Having fewer clicks in isotropic/less analysis paralysis
* Making the card more balanced/fair (it has to be objectively BETTER)
* Making the card less wordy
* Removing the moral burden of having to "pull the trigger" (so if torturer had a "you may" clause you couldn't justify playing it by saying "I need it for the cards")

1967

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Fan Expansion - Dominion: Piston Town

« on: March 23, 2012, 12:43:06 pm »

I like Drunkard. I had a similar idea in another thread:
Dweller
Action/Attack
Cost: 3
Each player (including you) reveals the bottom card of their deck. He either puts it on top of his deck or discards it; your choice.
Then, +1 Card, +1 Coin

Some of your attacks like runaway train would benefit from having some arbitrary bonus to the player, otherwise it falls into the same problem as saboteur.

Drilling machine is great for seeming extremely overpowered until you think about it, but still not being weak. I love cards like that.

Also why not add "trash a card from your hand" to the options for mad mechanic. I think it's great for the theme and doesn't break the card.

I don't know enough about high level strategy to say much more.

1968

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Cards That Use The Bottom of The Deck

« on: March 23, 2012, 12:32:35 pm »

Is having a dead hand worse than 5 4 card hands? If so, how about the following for oppressor:

Oppressor
Cost: 4
+1 coin
Each other player returns cards of any type to the bottom of their deck until he reveals a hand with no victory cards. Then, reveal the bottom card of his deck. If it is not a curse card, they gain a curse, putting it on the bottom of their deck.

Also another idea

Ghost Town
Cost: 2
+1 card
+2 actions
Either discard or trash the bottom card of your deck
Then, return a card from your hand to the bottom of your deck

Also a card I liked from Dominion - Piston Town (by user FishingVillage)


Buried Ore $5
Treasure

$3
______________________________

In games using this, before you shuffle, look through your discard pile, reveal all Buried Ore cards and 2 other cards per Buried Ore and set them aside. Shuffle your discard pile into your deck, then put the set aside cards at the bottom of your deck in any order.

1969

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Cards That Use The Bottom of The Deck

« on: March 23, 2012, 03:01:36 am »

A bottom of the deck bureaucrat could be devastating if played multiple times

1970

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: New Gainer

« on: March 20, 2012, 01:12:56 pm »

I posted a similar card in my "Conflict" expansion (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=1640.0) called "Tactic", except it's costed at 3, doesn't give you an action and you must play the card after you buy it. To counter the "buy ALL the tactic" strategy, there's a card at the bottom of the pile that you can't gain (so the supply pile doesn't empty for the purpose of powering up cities), and since you don't get the +1 action, it's probably not a card you're going to want the whole pile of anyway.

I really like the name "Conscription" though.

1971

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Cards That Use The Bottom of The Deck

« on: March 16, 2012, 11:12:04 pm »

Flea Market
Cost: 4
The player to your left reveals the bottom card of his deck. If it's not a province or colony, you may gain a copy of that card or trash up to 2 copies of that card from your hand. If you do neither, +1 action.

1972

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Cards That Use The Bottom of The Deck

« on: March 15, 2012, 07:34:47 pm »

2 Attacks (which are variants on other attacks)

Dweller
Action/Attack
Cost: 3
Each player (including you) reveals the bottom card of their deck. He either puts it on top of his deck or discards it; your choice.
Then, +1 Card, +1 Coin

Oppressor
Cost: 2
Action/Attack
+1 Card
+1 Action
Each other player reveals the bottom card of their deck. If it is not a curse, he gains a curse and places it on the bottom of his deck.

Or
Cost: 3
Action/Attack
+$2
Each other player may return a card to the bottom of their deck and draw a card. Then, if the bottom card of their deck is not a curse, they gain a curse and place it on the bottom of the deck.

1973

Variants and Fan Cards / Re: Cards That Use The Bottom of The Deck

« on: March 15, 2012, 06:00:30 pm »

I don't know, but is Pearl worded right? One Pearl says that you may return one copy of it to the bottom of the deck, so wouldn't 5 Pearls mean that you may return 5 times one copy? If so, it would be overpowered, since 5 Pearls would mean that you get 10$ every turn (unless attacked): Play 5, draw pile is empty, return them to the bottom of your deck, i.e. draw them again.

Edit: I misunderstood Reserves and edited it out. Let's say you have 5 cards in hand as usual. Maybe compare it now with other cards like Spy or Cartographer. I think it's way, way better than Cartographer. Ok, you don't discard cards, but you get to chose 5 cards out of 10 for each turn, which is huge, especially since it is non-terminal. Plus, the maybe bad 5 cards don't go into your next hand, but to the bottom of the deck, which may be some turns ahead, or, with cards like Chancellor, never.
Draw up to 10 cards can be even more a problem after handsize-reduction attacks or something like fishing village, and so on. Even Minion or Watchtower can be huge in this kind of decks, and they only draw to 4 and 6.

It was supposed to read no matter how many pearls you played, you could only return 1 to the bottom your deck. I've changed it to 2.

I've also added a condition to Reserves so it doesn't get played like an uber powerful library.

1974

Variants and Fan Cards / Cards That Use The Bottom of The Deck

« on: March 15, 2012, 06:10:33 am »

I like pearl diver, and think that other cards could use the bottom of the deck as a place for safekeeping/something that will come back eventually/a pocket for deck density.

Here are a few of my ideas:

Mermaid:
Action
Cost: 3
+1 action
Draw the top and bottom card of your deck
Return one card from your hand to the bottom of your deck

Trio:
Action
Cost: 3
+1 action
You may return cards to the bottom of your deck. For every card you return to the bottom of your deck, +1 card
Then, for every card you return to the top of your deck, +1 coin

Pearl:
Treasure
Cost: 5
If this is the first treasure you play this turn, worth 3, otherwise worth 2.
During the clean up phase, you must return either one or two pearls to the bottom of your deck instead of discarding.

Rear Admiral:
Action/Attack
Cost: 4
+1 Card, +1 Coin
Each other player returns cards to the bottom of their deck until they have 3 cards in hand

Reserves:
Action
Cost: 5
+1 action
If you have not played any other actions this turn:
Draw up to 10 cards in hand
Return 5 cards to the bottom of your deck


Scrapper:
Action
Cost: 2
+1 Card
+1 Buy
Return all treasures played this turn to the bottom of your deck

Dweller
Action/Attack
Cost: 3
Each player (including you) reveals the bottom card of their deck. He either puts it on top of his deck or discards it; your choice.
Then, +1 Card, +1 Coin

Oppressor
Action/Attack
Cost: 3
+$2
Each other player may return a card to the bottom of their deck and draw a card. Then, if the bottom card of their deck is not a curse, they gain a curse and place it on the bottom of the deck.

Flea Market
Action
Cost: 4
The player to your left reveals the bottom card of his deck. If it's not a province or colony, you may gain a copy of that card or trash up to 2 copies of that card from your hand. If you do neither, +1 action.

The cards are mostly just variants of other cards (Laboratory, Cellar+Secret Chamber, Stash, Militia/Ghost Ship, Tactician, Herbalist) but the bottom of the deck adds some interesting twists. For example, the choice of what to "discard" when hit by rear admiral isn't very obvious since those 2 victory cards you "discard" are likely to return together, and you can't really expect when.

Any comments?

Any other ideas for cards that use the bottom of the deck as a mechanic?

EDIT: Added 3 ideas from later posts.

1975

Puzzles and Challenges / Re: Most points with no VP chips.

« on: February 23, 2012, 05:16:12 am »

I agree with JanErik's choice of cards, but in games with more than one player you can use the ambassador and/or masquerade in the black market to get everyone else's starting coppers and estates (as well as silvers and potentially curses when you buy the Ill gotten gains and Embassy in the black market deck). I'd also interpret the black market deck as having every single card not in the supply, including Goons, Bishop and Monument (just never play them).

It wouldn't be too hard to redo the calculations (just have as many cards as possible and solve for the ideal number of curses - in games with 3 or more players it will be as many as possible without going over the nearest multiple of 10 total cards)

Also, the buying is even easier if you TR a KC and use it to play Bridge and Highway thrice, and also play princess. The bridges will themselves give you enough money to buy the last platinum and colony, and everything else will be free.