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[Captain Stupendous]

Hey everyone, here's another custom I designed a while back; I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

Cathedral
Action
Cost: $5
Reveal the top six cards of your deck. You may discard any revealed victory cards. Place two of the revealed cards into your hand. Trash the rest.

It's a relatively simple card that has an interesting change in usefulness throughout the game. I think it would be a fantastic card to open with, possible strictly better than Embassy as it doesn't give your opponent a silver and cycles your deck faster while trashing coppers and estates like nobody's business. However, it becomes MUCH less useful in the mid game as you'll probably have three cards out of the six revealed that you'd like to keep, potentially forcing you to trash valuable action cards. This is especially likely if you've been using it religiously (no pun intended  ) early on in the game to make a slim deck. However, I think it's most interesting use comes in the late game when you can use it as a super-sifter, searching through the top six cards of your deck for the ones you really need, discarding upcoming green, and not really worrying too much about the possibility of having to trash action cards because at that point in the game you might not see them in the next reshuffle anyway. It basically gives you the ability to gamble crippling your long-term economy so that you can search for the cards you really need this turn.

One change I've considered is making it force the player to discard all revealed victory cards, so that it couldn't be used to trash estates in the early game.

Anyway, any and all feedback would be appreciated, thanks in advance!

[soulnet]

Seems a little OP to me, though is hard to tell with so many decisions involved. Notice that Chapel at $5 would see some Action. This is better. Seems way better than Junk Dealer to me, for instance. A LOT better than Masquerade, which is a power card (ok, it costs $3, but still). A good trasher + good cycling makes for a super-fast beginning. Opening with it is just insane. I think this could easily be a $7. It could be better than Forge a good number of times, and ensuring you do not get it too early diminishes its impact. Maybe a good nerf, that also removes a usually trivial decision, would be to discard all victory cards revealed. You can still trash Copper and get the cycling and sifting, which is a great deal.

A couple of minor details: With the current wording, you do not need to reveal all the cards, just the victory cards you choose to discard (for accountability).

[SirPeebles]

I would either drop the line about victory cards or make the discard mandatory.

[GendoIkari]

Agreed with Soulnet, except for the "little" part. I think it's very OP. Imagine if Chapel let you draw up to 6 after trashing. With extra filtering power. The only drawback is that the trashing is mandatory, but you don't often play Chapel later in the game anyway. And I think $5 cards can be fairly compared to Chapel; Chapel doesn't cost $2 because it's only worth $2, it costs $2 to ensure that everyone gets a fair opening.

[LastFootnote]

I would either drop the line about victory cards or make the discard mandatory.

This is a good idea. I would make the discard mandatory AND reduce the number of cards revealed to 5. Even then, this may be too strong as an opener.

[Captain Stupendous]

Thanks for the suggestions!

As I said in my original post, I was already considering making the victory point discard mandatory and your comments have helped convince me that that is almost certainly a good idea.

With the mandatory vp discard, I'm not so sure that its overpowered as an opener. I think we all agree that chapel would probably be worth buying most of the time if it cost $5; but I really don't think it would be nearly so useful if it couldn't trash estates. I do think the comparison to chapel is legitimate, the name of the card itself is a reference to chapel.

Also, in response to LastFootNote, I'm not entirely convinced that reducing the number of revealed cards is the thing to do here. At some point, the card actually becomes weaker the more cards it reveals as you can still only keep two and are forced to trash the rest, so the more cards you reveal the more good cards you'll be potentially forced to trash. Also, since its terminal, unless you play a village before it you're unable to play any nice action cards you decide to keep. In this way it's very different from Embassy; I find Embassy to work well partially because if I play it as my last action I can just discard my extra action cards and keep whatever treasure cards I draw. You're unable to do this with Cathedral, because if you choose not to draw any revealed action cards they will be trashed.

Do you think it would still be worth picking up at $6, primarily for its endgame sifting/searching function?

[soulnet]

Trashers are usually the most important thing in the game. Reducing end-game usage to improve trashing almost certainly strengthens the card, while the reverse of course weakens it. Also, a card that trashes worse but is still safe enough to use later is more interesting.

[Captain Stupendous]

Trashers are usually the most important thing in the game. Reducing end-game usage to improve trashing almost certainly strengthens the card, while the reverse of course weakens it. Also, a card that trashes worse but is still safe enough to use later is more interesting.

I think I agree with everything you're saying here. I worry that reducing the reveal to 5 cards doesn't significantly weaken its trashing, and makes it much less viable as an end game searcher, almost strictly worse than Embassy. At six cards I hoped that late in the game it would be able to easily set up strong turns on the turn you play it even with heavy greening, at the cost of severely damaging your long-term economy.

I also think that limiting its ability to trash estates is a pretty significant nerf; isn't that the only thing keeping Spice Merchant from being completely OP?

[popsofctown]

I think the concept has the feel of a 6$ or 7$ card.  That makes it all the more interesting since by the time you acquire it there may already be risk of trashing good cards.  At 5$ it's quite a no brainer for 5/2 openings, and it might also be no-brainerish as early as turn 3/4.  At 7$, like Forge, by the time you get there you have a tough call.


The opposite direction to go is to make it a 3$ card, a card that players expect to be obligated to buy but which makes the game neat and different, like Masquerade, Ambassador, or Chapel.  Unlike those other guys, the mandatory trashing on Cathedral makes you value +buy so that you can get coppers to cushion against mandatory gold trashing, so the feel should be at least somewhat unique. 

[soulnet]

I think I agree with everything you're saying here. I worry that reducing the reveal to 5 cards doesn't significantly weaken its trashing, and makes it much less viable as an end game searcher, almost strictly worse than Embassy. At six cards I hoped that late in the game it would be able to easily set up strong turns on the turn you play it even with heavy greening, at the cost of severely damaging your long-term economy.

I also think that limiting its ability to trash estates is a pretty significant nerf; isn't that the only thing keeping Spice Merchant from being completely OP?

Trashing one less card significantly weakens any trasher. It is not strange to want to open Chapel/Moneylender instead of Chapel/Silver, for instance, just to use Moneylender once or twice.

Yes, limiting the ability to trash Estates is a significant nerf. But the card needs one and that seems like a good one: It goes to your original point of the card "not being a trasher". It also simplifies execution and removes non-interesting decisions. It is fun to make strong cards, but it is good to make good cards. Rebuild is strong and awful. City is weak and great (design-wise).

EDIT: Unless you price at $7, the card will always be regarded as a trasher and everything else is just a bonus. Trashing is THAT important. If you want it not be a trasher you need to make it cost too much to be "just" a trasher, or be worse at trashing stuff. I like the idea for a $7 price, but you probably want a safer trashing at that price. Maybe cost $7 and reveal 5 cards.

[LastFootnote]

Also, in response to LastFootNote, I'm not entirely convinced that reducing the number of revealed cards is the thing to do here. At some point, the card actually becomes weaker the more cards it reveals as you can still only keep two and are forced to trash the rest, so the more cards you reveal the more good cards you'll be potentially forced to trash.

So what you're saying is that reducing it to 5 cards makes it weaker in the start of the game, but stronger in the end of the game. Isn't that exactly what the card needs?

Also, since its terminal, unless you play a village before it you're unable to play any nice action cards you decide to keep. In this way it's very different from Embassy; I find Embassy to work well partially because if I play it as my last action I can just discard my extra action cards and keep whatever treasure cards I draw. You're unable to do this with Cathedral, because if you choose not to draw any revealed action cards they will be trashed.

Remember that Embassy has an on-gain penalty. Also, I don't find the comparison between the two cards particularly informative. They're really quite different, and you'd use them in different situations.

[Awaclus]

Remember that Embassy has an on-gain penalty.

...for the opponent.

Even if I'm completely serious, like 50% of the times when I buy Embassy rather than another terminal draw that I could be getting on that board, it's because Embassy has the on-gain ability.