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[Rush_Clasic]

Orchard - 4
Victory
Worth VP equal to the most common cost in coins among cards in your deck. If two or more costs are tied for most common, use the highest cost.



While the usual critiques are more than welcome, I'm mostly posting this card to gauge how comprehensible it is. So, here's a little quiz.



1. Your deck consists of 8 Orchards, 8 Estates, and 8 Coppers. What is each Orchard worth?
2. Your deck consists of 8 Orchards, 5 Duchies, and 5 Laboratories. What is each Orchard worth?
3. Your deck consists of 4 Orchards, 4 Estates, 3 Copper, 2 Curses, and 1 Scrying Pool. What is each Orchard worth?
4. Your deck consists of 4 Orchards, 4 Coppers, and 1 Transmute. What is each Orchard worth?

Feel free to answer or just discuss the card in general. As I stated, I'm a little more interested in understandability than relative strength.

[silverspawn]

Orchard - 4
Victory
Worth VP equal to the most common cost in coins among cards in your deck. If two or more costs are tied for most common, use the highest cost.

1. Your deck consists of 8 Orchards, 8 Estates, and 8 Coppers. What is each Orchard worth?
2. Your deck consists of 8 Orchards, 5 Duchies, and 5 Laboratories. What is each Orchard worth?
3. Your deck consists of 4 Orchards, 4 Estates, 3 Copper, 2 Curses, and 1 Scrying Pool. What is each Orchard worth?
4. Your deck consists of 4 Orchards, 4 Coppers, and 1 Transmute. What is each Orchard worth?

1. 4
2. 5
3. 2
4. 0
understanding the card isn't a problem
e: okay, i take that back -.-*
e2: you can delete posts? i didn't even know that. it's dishonest though 

[Marcory]

I agree with Zappie's results.

The card is fine, but I'm not sure if it properly produces a skewed strategy the way the other Alt-VP cards do. Garden makes you buy Coppers, Silk Road goes for Estates, Feodum for silvers, Vineyards for cheap Actions, Fairgrounds for variety, Duke for $5 hands, Bishop for the Golden Deck, etc.

But with this card, you'll want to buy as many Golds and $5 Action cards as you can. But don't most strategies revolve around getting either Gold or $5 actions, or both? So I'm not sure how this wouldn't just be a cheap Duchy that you buy in the endgame.

And if you're consistently able to buy $6+ cards, aren't you also consistently able to buy Provinces? And wouldn't you want those instead?

[Zappie]

removed my results because I saw a mistake in them:P

Now i would go with 4, 5, 0, 4

[Rush_Clasic]

The card is fine, but I'm not sure if it properly produces a skewed strategy the way the other Alt-VP cards do. Garden makes you buy Coppers, Silk Road goes for Estates, Feodum for silvers, Vineyards for cheap Actions, Fairgrounds for variety, Duke for $5 hands, Bishop for the Golden Deck, etc.

But with this card, you'll want to buy as many Golds and $5 Action cards as you can. But don't most strategies revolve around getting either Gold or $5 actions, or both? So I'm not sure how this wouldn't just be a cheap Duchy that you buy in the endgame.

And if you're consistently able to buy $6+ cards, aren't you also consistently able to buy Provinces? And wouldn't you want those instead?

I feel that the card's appeal comes from properly judging kingdoms in a different manner. When you judge if a Garden rush will work, you have to account for your ability to acquire Gardens fast, ability to empty piles, and ability for the opponent to clean out the Provinces. That's sort of how these alt-VPs tend to go. With this card, you have to consider whether you can acquire enough Orchards while simultaneously supporting them. If you are just looking to make 4 point Orchards, you need to get all 8 of them, support it with Ironworks or something similar, or trash some copper. It's most often going to be worth 4 if you're building around it. But with Hoard, suddenly you've got a faux Province machine. With Altar, perhaps you can make them solid 5s. With Peddler, you might have a crazy amount of VP. That's where the card shines. The real question at that point is whether or not it's too good. It's awful against junkers, and easy to be clumsy about in regular games. The variance is wild from board to board, moreso than perhaps a card should be.

As I said, I mostly posted it to gather how people would interpret the reading of it. Which, so far, shows that there's a complexity issue, since of 3 posts there are 2 results.

[silverspawn]

As I said, I mostly posted it to gather how people would interpret the reading of it. Which, so far, shows that there's a complexity issue, since of 3 posts there are 2 results.

acutually this

I agree with Zappie's results.

post is referencing the old post from zappie, which was 4.4.4.4, so it's 3 different results

i bet that people also do lots of mistakes with forge and potion cards though, and that's an official card

[eHalcyon]

I'm with silverspawn on the answers. 

It's worth 2 in Scenario 3 because SP's cost in coins is $2, which means you have 5 $2 cards and 5 $0 cards.  2 > 0 so it's worth 2.  Similarly, it's worth 0 in scenario 4 because Transmute is $0 in coins.

Understanding will probably be in issue when it comes to Potion cost cards.  It may also be a bit annoying to actually check the value at the end of the game.  It takes more effort than Silk Road. 

[Rush_Clasic]

The understanding issue with potions is an odder display here than with cards like Salvager, which is the primary concern I'd have with adding Orchard to a set. Point totaling doesn't seem a much bigger issue than Fairgrounds, which admittedly is a minor chore.

[MetaSkipper]

I will say that, the quiz seems to be set up almost like those trick questions (Why are you not allowed to take a picture of a man with a turban in the Middle East?). That said, they do highlight possible oversights and mistakes people could make when scoring the card.

Although unlikely to be easy in a real game, setting up for having as many or more Provinces/Colonies as any other card in your deck makes Orchards worth more than Provinces/Colonies. In fact, with trashing and a bit of luck and manipulation, this will probably be more valuable than a Duchy.

[SirPeebles]

I feel the wording is ambiguous.  Is it CostInCoins( MostCommon( cost 1, cost 2, ...)) or is it MostCommon( CostInCoins( cost 1, cost 2, ...)).  My initial reading is the latter.

edit:  I've thought quite a bit about different sorts of alt-VP, and I've decided that I don't like cards where "forgetting" to account for a few cards in your deck will cause your VP total to increase.  It's not even that I'm concerned about cheating, but rather it is easy to overlook that, say, each of your Spoils is worth $0 and therefore your Orchards is worth 0.  Curses I'm ok with, since everyone is aware that you picked up a few Curses, and they stand out vividly as bright purple cards.

[Rush_Clasic]

I don't get what ambiguity you're referring to, but I'm quite open to wording suggestions.

[SirPeebles]

I don't get what ambiguity you're referring to, but I'm quite open to wording suggestions.

If I have Orchard, Orchard, Estate, Estate, Estate, Golem, Curse.

Then the costs are 4, 4, 2, 2, 2, 4P, 0.

Do we first reduce to costs in coins -- 4, 4, 2, 2, 2, 4, 0 -- and then take the most common -- 4, 2 -- and finally the larger -- 4?
Or did we take the most common before reducing to coins, and thus arrive at 2?

[ChocophileBenj]

I submitted a pretty similar card for a contest, although it worked only on treasures and also was a treasure itself :

-Forgot the name-
$5, treasure-victory
Worth $1
---
When you discard this from play, you may trash a Treasure you have in play
---
Worth 1 VP equal to half the cost (rounded down) in $s of the Treasure card you have the most copies of in your deck. (if tied, take the most expensive Treasure).

I thought it was pretty awesome -despite the double line which is awkward, but didn't end well ranked in its challenge (dual type card iirc) because people I never understood what was good.

[eHalcyon]

I don't get what ambiguity you're referring to, but I'm quite open to wording suggestions.

If I have Orchard, Orchard, Estate, Estate, Estate, Golem, Curse.

Then the costs are 4, 4, 2, 2, 2, 4P, 0.

Do we first reduce to costs in coins -- 4, 4, 2, 2, 2, 4, 0 -- and then take the most common -- 4, 2 -- and finally the larger -- 4?
Or did we take the most common before reducing to coins, and thus arrive at 2?

I assumed reducing to cost in coins first, but I see how this is ambiguous.  Nice catch.

[Rush_Clasic]

I don't get what ambiguity you're referring to, but I'm quite open to wording suggestions.

If I have Orchard, Orchard, Estate, Estate, Estate, Golem, Curse.

Then the costs are 4, 4, 2, 2, 2, 4P, 0.

Do we first reduce to costs in coins -- 4, 4, 2, 2, 2, 4, 0 -- and then take the most common -- 4, 2 -- and finally the larger -- 4?
Or did we take the most common before reducing to coins, and thus arrive at 2?

Ah. So, a simple switch to "Worth VP equal to the cost in coins most common among cards in your deck." would probably suffice.

[MetaSkipper]

I don't get what ambiguity you're referring to, but I'm quite open to wording suggestions.

If I have Orchard, Orchard, Estate, Estate, Estate, Golem, Curse.

Then the costs are 4, 4, 2, 2, 2, 4P, 0.

Do we first reduce to costs in coins -- 4, 4, 2, 2, 2, 4, 0 -- and then take the most common -- 4, 2 -- and finally the larger -- 4?
Or did we take the most common before reducing to coins, and thus arrive at 2?

Ah. So, a simple switch to "Worth VP equal to the cost in coins most common among cards in your deck." would probably suffice.

So in the given case, Orchard would be worth 4 VP?

[Rush_Clasic]

Right. I don't really think this card is worth printing, but I was interested to know how people interpreted it and felt about it.

[GendoIkari]

This is ridiculous with Ironworks. Should be a good bit better than Ironworks / Silk Road or Ironworks / Gardens.