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[Showdown35]

So I wanted to get some feedback on a couple cards for my fan set.  I had posted one of them earlier, and then made some significant changes based largely on comments.  While deciding on the changes, I tried squeezing too much on to the card to make it interesting, and then thought better of it, and took one idea and made it into it's own card!  So here is the revised Plotting Room, and the new card that spawned from reworking it.

Plotting Room
Action - $3
+4 Cards, +1 Buy, +$1
Put 4 cards from your hand on top of your deck in a random order.

I'm hoping the random order will cut out some of the AP the original version would have caused (as well as trimming from 5 to 4 cards).


Shady Plans (working name, will most likely change)
Action - $4
+2 Buys, +$2
-----
While this is in play, when you buy an Action card,
you may put that card on top of your deck.

Originally considered changing Plotting Room to this mechanic, but then thought this was different enough to be it's own card. I'm thinking it would be fine with only one buy, but +2 Buys is just so rare, and it made sense to let you set more cards on your deck when you play it.  Although I guess it would make more sense with +1 Buy to encourage chaining a couple.

Comments and critiques are welcome!

[Warfreak2]

Shady plans is a bit too similar to nomad camp.

[LastFootnote]

Shady plans is a bit too similar to nomad camp.

I think you mean it's a bit too similar to Royal Seal.

[Showdown35]

Its kind of a cross between both.  Shady Plans cant topdeck Treasure like Royal Seal can. I like the Royal Seal mechanic, but I like Actions more than Treasures as Kingdom cards. Shady Plans was an attempt to make a Royal Seal variant that is an Action, and that can let you put more than one Action on your deck by itself.

[LastFootnote]

Its kind of a cross between both.  Shady Plans cant topdeck Treasure like Royal Seal can. I like the Royal Seal mechanic, but I like Actions more than Treasures as Kingdom cards. Shady Plans was an attempt to make a Royal Seal variant that is an Action, and that can let you put more than one Action on your deck by itself.

Well, that's reasonable, but I'm not sure it's sufficiently different from Royal Seal to be interesting. Also, Royal Seal is considered to be a pretty weak card (although I think it gets a bit of a bad rap). Putting Royal Seal's topdeck bonus on what is effectively a Woodcutter (another pretty weak card), seems like it's not going to be very popular. While Royal Seal's flaw is that it's got so much competition at the $5 price point, Shady Plans's flaw is that it's got so much competition from other terminal cards at all price points. I can only play so many terminal Actions in a turn, and I'm not sure I'd be willing to waste one on Shady Plans. Maybe I'm wrong, though. I have a tough time designing cheap (≤$4) terminal cards myself for this reason. "If it's not good enough to cost $5," I think, "why would it be good enough to take up a terminal Action in my deck?" But clearly this reasoning is very flawed.

I appreciate your efforts to make Plotting Room faster, but I don't think randomizing the cards does it. You're still picking 4 cards to go back, and shuffling those cards to randomize their order also takes time. I don't really have any suggestions in order to make it faster, though. I think you should scrap the card. I say this as someone who has himself scrapped a similar card for the same reason. It's just not compelling enough to justify the slowness. Courtyard is sort of the ideal card of this type and any similar card had better do something interesting rather than just be a "bigger" version of Courtyard (see Count, Mandarin).

[Awaclus]

Its kind of a cross between both.  Shady Plans cant topdeck Treasure like Royal Seal can. I like the Royal Seal mechanic, but I like Actions more than Treasures as Kingdom cards. Shady Plans was an attempt to make a Royal Seal variant that is an Action, and that can let you put more than one Action on your deck by itself.

Well, that's reasonable, but I'm not sure it's sufficiently different from Royal Seal to be interesting. Also, Royal Seal is considered to be a pretty weak card (although I think it gets a bit of a bad rap). Putting Royal Seal's topdeck bonus on what is effectively a Woodcutter (another pretty weak card), seems like it's not going to be very popular. While Royal Seal's flaw is that it's got so much competition at the $5 price point, Shady Plans's flaw is that it's got so much competition from other terminal cards at all price points. I can only play so many terminal Actions in a turn, and I'm not sure I'd be willing to waste one on Shady Plans. Maybe I'm wrong, though. I have a tough time designing cheap (≤$4) terminal cards myself for this reason. "If it's not good enough to cost $5," I think, "why would it be good enough to take up a terminal Action in my deck?" But clearly this reasoning is very flawed.

I appreciate your efforts to make Plotting Room faster, but I don't think randomizing the cards does it. You're still picking 4 cards to go back, and shuffling those cards to randomize their order also takes time. I don't really have any suggestions in order to make it faster, though. I think you should scrap the card. I say this as someone who has himself scrapped a similar card for the same reason. It's just not compelling enough to justify the slowness. Courtyard is sort of the ideal card of this type and any similar card had better do something interesting rather than just be a "bigger" version of Courtyard (see Count, Mandarin).

I think that Shady Plans is usable in Engines as a source of +buy; you get two instead of one, and you'll topdeck any engine pieces you're picking up.

[LastFootnote]

…

I think that Shady Plans is usable in Engines as a source of +buy; you get two instead of one, and you'll topdeck any engine pieces you're picking up.

Yeah, you're right. I still worry it's too close to Royal Seal, but really it's not that similar. And the +Buys do make a big difference.

[Showdown35]

Its kind of a cross between both.  Shady Plans cant topdeck Treasure like Royal Seal can. I like the Royal Seal mechanic, but I like Actions more than Treasures as Kingdom cards. Shady Plans was an attempt to make a Royal Seal variant that is an Action, and that can let you put more than one Action on your deck by itself.

Well, that's reasonable, but I'm not sure it's sufficiently different from Royal Seal to be interesting. Also, Royal Seal is considered to be a pretty weak card (although I think it gets a bit of a bad rap). Putting Royal Seal's topdeck bonus on what is effectively a Woodcutter (another pretty weak card), seems like it's not going to be very popular. While Royal Seal's flaw is that it's got so much competition at the $5 price point, Shady Plans's flaw is that it's got so much competition from other terminal cards at all price points. I can only play so many terminal Actions in a turn, and I'm not sure I'd be willing to waste one on Shady Plans. Maybe I'm wrong, though. I have a tough time designing cheap (≤$4) terminal cards myself for this reason. "If it's not good enough to cost $5," I think, "why would it be good enough to take up a terminal Action in my deck?" But clearly this reasoning is very flawed.

I appreciate your efforts to make Plotting Room faster, but I don't think randomizing the cards does it. You're still picking 4 cards to go back, and shuffling those cards to randomize their order also takes time. I don't really have any suggestions in order to make it faster, though. I think you should scrap the card. I say this as someone who has himself scrapped a similar card for the same reason. It's just not compelling enough to justify the slowness. Courtyard is sort of the ideal card of this type and any similar card had better do something interesting rather than just be a "bigger" version of Courtyard (see Count, Mandarin).

I think that Shady Plans is usable in Engines as a source of +buy; you get two instead of one, and you'll topdeck any engine pieces you're picking up.

The +buys are what I thought made it interesting, and different enough from other cards. Like I said in the OP, +2 Buys is very rare, and the card lets you top deck ALL actions you buy in the turn. I was going for that cute interaction when I chose to put 2 buys.

As for plotting room. I'm thinking I will scrap it, or maybe work the mechanic into a Hireling card so there is only one of them in a given game. That being said, I've decided on a new name for Shady Plans... Plotting Room!!