A lot of people toy with the idea of turning Curses into Kingdom cards. As most people I'm a fan of this idea. So I decided to take a spin on it by making a mini-expansion concept based around Kingdom Curse cards with the Seven Deadly Sins theme. If you can't tell, the expansion will only consistent of 7 cards that compliment each other in some way or another. Some new rules to follow when these cards are in play:
1. When a Kingdom Curse card is in play, infinite Curse cards in the Supply. (As in, regular curses.) Aka just combine all the Curse cards from Base and Intrigue into a pile. If you run out for some reason, make some indication that you've obtained a Curse somehow or another (like making markers next to your deck).
2. Unless it's a Curse card, other cards cannot gain Kingdom Curse cards, unless stated otherwise.
3. You can get negative VP, which is sometimes necessary to determine who is the winner.
The centric card of this concept is this one:
Basically with Pride, you're rewarded for having a deck with Curses in it. With this card, players are constantly having to decide whether giving a player a Curse hurts or benefits the player. Using Pride is all about deck management, in concept, in balancing out the amount of Curses you have with the amount of VP you're getting. This card would probably go as quickly as Gardens does at the beginning of the game.
Despite all this, getting 1 VP for every Curse is still not a lot, so I made a card to balance this factor out:
Meet Envy, a solid easy way to gain Victory cards. On the surface it seems broken and sounds like it could be a cheap card in non-Curse-based games. However the base idea is still there. You pretty much don't want to use Envy unless you're using Pride too. Much like Pride, Envy is a card that is something you'd have to be careful with and would require really solid deck management to really work.
Aside from these two, there's several more concepts I have. One I've whipped up in photoshop already:
To balance out the fact that your deck is full of Curses, you're going to need some cards that give you a good amount of money and give it to you fast. Digging in the trash or in opponent's discard piles is a perfect way to emulate the feeling of petty greed in the game. Players who are striving to draw Treasure will want to use this card, or possibly a card like Treasure Map which'll give players an easy amount of Gold. Since my ideas for Curse cards are relatively in low prices (aside from Envy), getting Silvers is fine too. Gaining two Silvers from the Trash could save you.
Of course one new thing is that this is an Attack card, an attack that initiates when you purchase it. This is to keep it balanced so it doesn't get abused.
Some other concepts I'm working on, for the other sins:
LustTreasure-Curse
Cost 2
0* Coin
-1 VP
Trash any Curse card from your hand. The total amount of cost of the trash cards is how many coins this is worth.
GluttonyAction-Curse
Cost 4
-3 VP
Set aside this card and any card in your hand. Return them to your deck at the end of the game
(Place them on Gluttony mat, it's basically Curse version of Island)
Still need to come up with something for Wrath and Sloth.
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I hope my idea here got across. I know the cards are flawed and need tuning, and the concept needs work, I just think it'd be an interesting new way to play Dominion without adding a drastically brand new type of card into the fray. All of these card concepts, even the ones I made in photoshop, are straight up brand new w/o any playtesting.
I'd like to toy with the idea of having Victory-Curse, Curse-Duration, and Curse-Reaction cards with time. Not sure if I could fit it into this concept but all three sound interesting. Maybe Pride should be Victory-Curse.
I also need help with the wording on some of these cards. I tried making it Dominion-like as possible but some sound off to me. Though you have to remember that these aren't necessarily cards, just concepts of cards to be.