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[GeronimoRex]

Excavation ($2)
Action-Looter
+1 Action
Choose one: Gain a Ruins into your hand and place any number of Ruins from your hand face up on your Excavation mat; or play all the Ruins from your Excavation mat in any order. During discard, any Ruins played by Excavation are shuffled back into the Supply.


I'm still trying to find other ways to play Ruins and make them useful. This is the best idea I've come up with. Seems to me like it would work well and make for some interesting turns and mid/end-game strategies.

I think this also synergizes nicely with the other three looters (Death Cart, Marauder and Cultist); it still hurts opponents to give them Ruins as it slows down their decks and effectively reduces their hand size, but this gives a way to make those Ruins useful. It also makes it less likely to run out of Ruins, so those Attack-Looter cards keep being effective instead of running out of Ruins.

Also has some fun synergies with things like City... you could empty the Ruins pile with Excavations, play all of your upgraded Cities, then play all the cards from your Excavation mat to refill the Ruins supply so that your opponent's Cities didn't get the upgrade.

What I'm not sure about is how powerful this card could potentially be in a 3 or 4 player game. I don't think it would break the game because there are still a finite number of Excavations they take up hand space, and there are a finite number of Ruins, and the fact that you have to play them all at once means that while they can facilitate a mega-turn, it takes a while to build up the mega turn and it's an all-or-nothing use if you go that route.

I suspect, Excavation will be most effective to help give a slight boost to mid and late game turns, perhaps playing out the Excavation board every time you get 3+ cards on it.

This may be my favorite fan card idea I've come up with so far. Really am curious to see how it would work and if it would actually be effective.

Thoughts?

[scott_pilgrim]

This is very interesting.  I think it's kind of a Tactician-ish card, where it capitalizes on the principle that one big turn and one small turn in Dominion are better than two average turns; but this is much more long-term than Tactician.  Instead of throwing away one hand to get a double hand next turn, it slightly hurts one turn every shuffle, until you decide to explode into a megaturn.

If there are no other Looters on the board (which will be the case most of the time), then each time Excavation comes up (until the megaturn), it will feel like a dead card in your hand.  The reward that you get in exchange for having that "dead" card is that later on, you will get one more vanilla bonus added to your megaturn jackpot.  Is that worth it?  I doubt it.  If it gained the ruin, played it, and returned it all in one shot, it would be terrible (buying it would almost be like buying a Ruin); but your version is clearly at least somewhat stronger than that, since it can save them up and capitalize on the Tactician principle.

Consider some of the things you could have saved up on your Excavation mat.  If you played Excavation four times (which is like seeing a dead card four times), you could maybe get +4 cards; or +3 cards, +1 action; or +2 cards, +2 actions; or +$4; or +$3, +1 buy; or +3 cards, +1 buy.  Those are probably the "best" effects.  (Maybe Survivors would be good with +cards?  Not sure.)  Most of those are roughly $5-$6 effects.  If I buy a Margrave, I get +3 cards, +1 buy, plus a bonus, and I get that every time I play it.  If I buy Excavation, I have to play it 5 times just to get +3 cards, +1 buy.  The lack of control over what you get probably hurts too.

It's a very cool idea, but I'm pretty sure that it's very, very weak; I don't think it's ever worth getting on boards without other Looters (and even then I'm not sure).  It's just that spending a buy (and $2) to get a card that's going to be dead in your deck for most of the game is not worthwhile, even if it gives you a decent bonus later on.  If you add +1 card that makes it a cantrip; maybe you could do that and bump the price up?  That sounds really powerful, but thinking about it some more, I think it's worth testing it as a cantrip at $4.  If it's too strong maybe bump up the price or bump down the vanilla bonus (maybe +1 action, +$1).  It's tough to predict exactly how strong that effect is, but I'm pretty convinced that it's not strong enough to be worth buying on a card with just +1 action.  As it is now, even if you offered to let me start the game with one in my deck, I don't think I would want it.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Other buffs you can try:
 - Let it gain 2 Ruins at a time instead of 1. This can power up faster, but might drain the Ruins too quickly.
 - Get rid of the "choose 1", so on the turn you use the cards, you get one more Ruins to use as well.
 - Make returning the Ruins to the supply optional. This way if you can draw your whole deck anyway, you can use just 2 Excavations to play all the Ruins.

[AJD]

I can't tell whether you mean...

"At the start of Cleanup this turn, shuffle all Ruins played this way into the Ruins pile in the Supply."

(FAQ answers: you can't use Scheme to topdeck a Ruins played by Excavation; you can topdeck a Walled Village if Excavation and its Ruins were the only other Actions you played.)

...or...

"When you discard from play any Ruins played this way, return them to the Supply. If you do, shuffle the Ruins pile at the end of your Cleanup phase."

(You can use Scheme to topdeck a Ruins; you can't topdeck Walled Village.)

[eHalcyon]

"During discard, any Ruins played by Excavation are shuffled back into the Supply."

That has the potential for trashing problems.  Why not just return any Ruins played that turn, via Excavation or not?

"When this is discarded from play, you may return any number of Ruins from play back to the Supply."

You can throw shuffling in there, but it's not so important I think.



It seems pretty weak.  I think I would give it some more conventional use like so:

Excavation
$2 - Action
+2 Buys
Choose one: put any number of Ruins from your hand face up on your Excavation mat; or +1 action per Ruin on your Excavation mat and put all the cards from your mat into your hand.
----
While this is in play, when you gain a Ruins, you may put it on your Excavation mat.  When this is discarded from play, you may return any number of Ruins from play back to the Supply."


Now Excavation can be used for +Buy in an engine.  If you want, you can use any of your Buys to put Ruins onto the mat.

[AJD]

"During discard, any Ruins played by Excavation are shuffled back into the Supply."

That has the potential for trashing problems.  Why not just return any Ruins played that turn, via Excavation or not?

I stared at this for a while before I realized you meant tracking problems.

"When this is discarded from play, you may return any number of Ruins from play back to the Supply."

You can throw shuffling in there, but it's not so important I think.

I think shuffling is important—you don't want someone to able to unilaterally stack the Ruins pile, especially if they may be planning to Excavate again.

[eHalcyon]

"During discard, any Ruins played by Excavation are shuffled back into the Supply."

That has the potential for trashing problems.  Why not just return any Ruins played that turn, via Excavation or not?

I stared at this for a while before I realized you meant tracking problems.

"When this is discarded from play, you may return any number of Ruins from play back to the Supply."

You can throw shuffling in there, but it's not so important I think.

I think shuffling is important—you don't want someone to able to unilaterally stack the Ruins pile, especially if they may be planning to Excavate again.

Oops!

I think stacking the Ruins would be a near trick. Main problem is that it may induce AP.

[GeronimoRex]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I think the wording that requires shuffling the Ruins pile at the end of a turn when Excavation is played is mandatory for speed of play reasons -- if people were allowed to stack the order of returning Ruins to the Supply pile, it could potentially significantly slow down the game.

I think you all may be right that it is underpowered as-is at it's current cost; based on great feedback, there are several ways to buff it that I think could work:

OPTION 1: Adding +1 Buy (makes it useful in most games as a cheap, non-terminal +buy, no matter how slow it is to build up to a megaturn). This option keeps the cost cheap, which I like. I have a soft spot for $2 non-terminals, and probably overbuy them.

Excavation ($2)
Action-Looter
+1 Action
+1 Buy
Choose one: Gain a Ruins into your hand and place any number of Ruins from your hand face up on your Excavation mat; or play all the Ruins from your Excavation mat in any order. During discard, any Ruins played by Excavation are shuffled back into the Supply.

OPTION 2: Raising the cost and making it a cantrip:

Excavation ($4)
Action-Looter
+1 Card
+1 Action
Choose one: Gain a Ruins into your hand and place any number of Ruins from your hand face up on your Excavation mat; or play all the Ruins from your Excavation mat in any order. During discard, any Ruins played by Excavation are shuffled back into the Supply.

OPTION 3: Increasing the cost to $3 and making it draw twice as many Ruins; for this, I think Setup would need more Ruins in the pile:

Excavation ($3)
Action-Looter
+1 Action
Choose one: Gain two Ruins into your hand and place any number of Ruins from your hand face up on your Excavation mat; or play all the Ruins from your Excavation mat in any order. During discard, any Ruins played by Excavation are shuffled back into the Supply.
-----
Setup: Add 10 extra cards to the Ruins pile.

OPTION 4: Allowing it to both gain and play Ruins on the same turn, making it more versatile:

Excavation ($2)
Action-Looter
+1 Action
Gain a Ruins into your hand. Place any number of Ruins from your hand face up on your Excavation mat. You may play all the Ruins from your Excavation mat in any order. During discard, any Ruins played by Excavation are shuffled back into the Supply.


Any thoughts on which version works the best? Personally, I really like Option 4; it's very close to the original, but adds more choice and more potential strategy in terms of how the card is played. It will require playtesting to see if it's powered/priced correctly, but I like the potential.

[enfynet]

You still have the odd "any ruins played by excavation" on all of them.

[AJD]

You still have the odd "any ruins played by excavation" on all of them.

I mean, "During discard, any Ruins played by Excavation are shuffled back into the Supply" is just poor Dominion style. It has to be one of the following (or the equivalents with "you may", or "any Ruins from play"):

"At the start of Cleanup this turn, shuffle all Ruins played this way into the Ruins pile in the Supply."
"When you discard from play any Ruins played this way, return them to the Supply. If you do, shuffle the Ruins pile at the end of your Cleanup phase."
"When you discard this from play, return all Ruins played this way to the Supply. If you do, shuffle the Ruins pile."

"During discard" is vague if not meaningless, and Dominion card instructions shouldn't be in the passive voice.

[Awaclus]

What about adding an on-gain effect gaining some Ruins on the mat? That way you could open with it without losing much early buying power compared to other alternatives.

By the way, it's Native Village, not Native Island.

[liopoil]

Native Island:  6$, action-victory
2VP
+2 Actions
reveal the top card of your deck. Put it on your Island or Native Village mat, your choice.