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[Trogdor the Burninator]

Mountain Range - $4
+ 1 action
+ 2 cards
+ 1 Buy
_____________
 2 Victory Points
When you buy this,
gain two Coppers, putting them
on top of your deck.
You may not buy this if you have
any Coppers in play. You may not
use virtual coin from other Actions
to buy this card.

Thoughts?

[soulnet]

Mountain Range - $4
+ 1 action
+ 2 cards
+ 1 Buy
_____________
 2 Victory Points
When you buy this,
gain two Coppers, putting them
on top of your deck.
You may not buy this if you have
any Coppers in play. You may not
use virtual coin from other Actions
to buy this card.

Thoughts?

"You may not
use virtual coin from other Actions
to buy this card. " This looks hard to rule properly (for instance, virtual coin is not an official term). Is it necessary. Is the Copper restriction necessary? Gaining two topdecked Coppers seems like penalty enough. However, the combo with workshop type gainers is spectacular, you should probably have the the copper penalty be on-gain. WS-variant / this / gardens is awesome, but that's fine.

What I don't like is that the different parts of the card do not seem to have any relationship with each other.

This seems decent enough for playtesting:

Code: [Select]

Mountain Range - $4
+ 2 cards
+ 1 action
+ 1 Buy
---
When you gain this, gain two Coppers, putting them on top of your deck.
I would consider topdecking the card itself as well.

[Trogdor the Burninator]

What do you think of changing the wording so it says something like: "When you buy this, gain two Coppers and put them on top of your deck. You may NOT gain this with Workshop or other such gainers."?

EDIT: Other than that, I think you do have a point.

[silverspawn]

You may NOT gain this with Workshop or other such gainers."?

not good. but if you really wanted, you could do "you may not gain this in any way other than buying it" or "you may not gain this except by buying it." there is probably a better wording, but this is the way to go for that restriction.

I'm not really seeing the appeal of this card though.

[Trogdor the Burninator]

Ok, that would make sense. I just though it would be interesting to have a card where the only way you could gain it was through buying it, that's the only reason I thought of it in it's original form...

[soulnet]

Ruleswise, just "When you gain this, if it is not your buy phase, return it to the supply." works. But I think it is better to allow gainers, especially when you have on-gain clauses, it raises interesting combos (like, gain with WS, then play Sage and avoid the topdecking of the Coppers annoyance). Usually "you can't" clauses are tricky and better avoided if possible.

[Awaclus]

Sounds extremely weak. Also, "virtual coin" doesn't actually mean anything, and what happens with Poor House? Can I choose which coins I lose?

The "village that junks you" might actually be interesting, though. I think that the VP isn't a good way to make it strong enough, because it doesn't make it any stronger during the game, and requiring the players to gain that much treasure cards is definitely overkill.

You may NOT gain this with Workshop or other such gainers."?

not good. but if you really wanted, you could do "you may not gain this in any way other than buying it" or "you may not gain this except by buying it." there is probably a better wording, but this is the way to go for that restriction.

"You can't gain this during your action phase". Doesn't stop Haggler, but that's probably not too bad. EDIT: But yeah, I don't think it needs that restriction, it's already weak without it.


EDIT 2: I see now that it's not a village. Well, then it's not as weak, but I think it would be a lot more interesting if it was a village.

[silverspawn]

"You can't gain this during your action phase"

that's elegant, but that way you can still gain it in another players turn, e.g. via swindler, jester, or saboteur.

I think "you can only gain this by buying it" might be best after all.

[pacovf]

"you may not gain this outside your buy phase" is probably the sought wording. There are some differences with silverspawn's version (Haggler, horn of plenty, etc.), but I think it's cleaner.

Any wording needs specific ruling for possession interaction though, and maybe black market with my wording. Some trouble with trader too, maybe. Depending on the wording, you can buy it without gaining it, which is weird.

Maybe this is cleaner:

"when you gain this, if it's not your buy phase, trash it". I think this doesn't require specific ruling for weird card interaction.

PPE3: yeah, what I said.

The problem with the "return to the supply" version is black market.

[Trogdor the Burninator]

"you may not gain this outside your buy phase" is probably the sought wording. There are some differences with silverspawn's version (Haggler, horn of plenty, etc.), but I think it's cleaner.

Any wording needs specific ruling for possession interaction though, and maybe black market with my wording. Some trouble with trader too, maybe. Depending on the wording, you can buy it without gaining it, which is weird.

Maybe this is cleaner:

"when you gain this, if it's not your buy phase, trash it". I think this doesn't require specific ruling for weird card interaction.

Nice. I don't have (yet) Black Market IRL, although I probably have enough blank cards to test this out with BM in the same game. I'll hopefully be getting together with some friends tomorrow, so maybe then I'll actually have a chance of playtesting it.I wonder how this would work with Prince...

EDIT: I think it's important to add some sort of victory point effect to this card just to make it (slightly) more unique. Maybe something like: "Worth 1 victory point for every 5 Coppers in your deck"?

[Trogdor the Burninator]

Giving this card an entirely different flavor:
Mountain Range - $4
+1 Action
+2 Cards
+ 1 Buy
________
Worth 1 VP per every 5 Coppers in your deck
When you trash this, gain 5 Coppers
If you gain this outside of your Buy phase,
trash it

[pacovf]

Worth 1 VP per every 5 Coppers in your deck
When you trash this, gain 5 Coppers
If you gain this outside of your Buy phase,
trash it

I like this sort of wacky self-synergy, but I am starting to think that you don't really need the action part anymore, and that this is starting to look like a feodum/gardens wannabe, so you might want to push it in a different direction?

[soulnet]

The problem with the "return to the supply" version is black market.

I don't think that's a problem, you can just buy it from the BM and keep it, that sounds good to me, since buys from the BM have the same consequences and restrictions than buys from the supply. In any case, I think the cleaner sounding the card, the better, and I don't think this restriction is adding anything really interesting, regardless of how it is phrased.

On other comments, I really dislike making this a Victory card. I see no point in doing it.

[pacovf]

The problem with the "return to the supply" version is black market.

I don't think that's a problem, you can just buy it from the BM and keep it, that sounds good to me, since buys from the BM have the same consequences and restrictions than buys from the supply.

But if you buy it from the black market and trash it later, your version can be gained with rogue and graverobber, and we can't have that! 

[silverspawn]

don't forget streetsweeper

[Trogdor the Burninator]

I like this sort of wacky self-synergy, but I am starting to think that you don't really need the action part anymore, and that this is starting to look like a feodum/gardens wannabe, so you might want to push it in a different direction?

Mountain Range - $5
+1 Card
Worth 1 VP per every 5 Coppers in your deck
When you trash this, gain 5 Coppers
If you gain this outside of your Buy phase,
trash it. When you play this, you may gain
a Copper, putting it into your hand

[soulnet]

Mountain Range - $5
+1 Card
Worth 1 VP per every 5 Coppers in your deck
When you trash this, gain 5 Coppers
If you gain this outside of your Buy phase,
trash it. When you play this, you may gain
a Copper, putting it into your hand

I dislike the card. Too complex and not especially compelling. I like the original idea of an engine-y card with a penalty, that has also some uses in BM and slogs and combos, much better.

Also, "When you play this" does not make sense, why not put that on the main text?

[Trogdor the Burninator]

You have a point there... What would you think of:
Mountain Range -$4
+1 Card
+2 Actions
+ Buy
When you gain this, gain two Coppers,
putting them on top of your deck
__________
Worth 1 VP per every 5 Coppers in your deck
When you trash this, gain 5 Coppers
If you gain this outside of your Buy phase,
trash it

[eHalcyon]

You have a point there... What would you think of:
Mountain Range -$4
+1 Card
+2 Actions
+ Buy
When you gain this, gain two Coppers,
putting them on top of your deck
__________
Worth 1 VP per every 5 Coppers in your deck
When you trash this, gain 5 Coppers
If you gain this outside of your Buy phase,
trash it

You're making it more and more complicated.  At this point, the text probably won't fit on the card.  Consider that you need to specify rounding up or down for the 5 Copper, and that you would need to have a second line between the VP value the on-gain effect if you want to do it properly (the lines are meant to separate text that resolves at different times, which includes separating VP counting at the end of the game and on-gain effects during the game), which is in itself something that no official card has to do, for aesthetics if not to keep card complexity from going out of control.

So you are at:

3 lines for vanilla bonuses
1 separating line
3-4 lines for TWO different on-gain effects (both of which should be below the first separating line)
1 separating line
2 lines for the VP value

That's 10 lines minimum.  Possession has 8 lines of text and it's pretty much full with tiny text.  The text for vanilla bonuses is a larger font size so I just don't see it working.

And that's just formatting issues.  The card right now just has way too much going on.  You'd have enough trouble balancing if you just stuck with one core concept, like the self-synergizing VP card.  I'm not convinced that it works.  Compared to Feodum and Gardens, it has ridiculous potential.  It gains Copper when you buy it and you START with 7 Copper, so it already has a head start on Feodum.  It scales far better with +Buy since more Copper is always free.  Compared to Gardens, it scales twice as fast.

[Trogdor the Burninator]

I wouldn't actually put the text on a physical card... I'd just have whatever version I'm playtesting available for easy reference (like on a computer screen nearby the board visible to all players) and use blank cards as proxies....

Edit: So I should remove the +Buy?

[eHalcyon]

I wouldn't actually put the text on a physical card... I'd just have whatever version I'm playtesting available for easy reference (like on a computer screen nearby the board visible to all players) and use blank cards as proxies....

Edit: So I should remove the +Buy?

As a general rule of thumb, if the text wouldn't fit on a regular card, you probably have too much stuff going on, no matter how you actually test the card out.

The +Buy is not the problem.  The problem is that right now you have two or more half-baked concepts here that you are cramming together into one card.  You've got your lab-with-penalty (or is it village-with-penalty now?) and you've got your copper-counting alt VP.  There's no compelling reason to put them together; doing so just makes it messy and overly complicated.  Try working on each one separately.  I've already given some criticisms on the copper-counting (I don't think it can work).

Try laying out what your core concept is in a single phrase.  For example, looking at your original iteration in the OP, I'd say that Mountain Range was meant to be a cheap but powerful card that's still a pain to gain.  It's better than Lab in your deck, but it has an on-buy penalty of 2 top-decked coppers.  You made it even harder to gain with the copper and virtual coin restriction.  Soon after, you thought about adding a restriction so that it wouldn't work with gainers, which still fits with that core concept.

You can iterate on it from there.  The VP value does nothing but artificially increase the card's power.  Is that really necessary?  If the card isn't strong enough as is, you can just make it more powerful without tacking on VP.  Are the buy restrictions OK, or are they too complicated?  Are they strict enough, or too lenient?  Are there simpler or more interesting ways to phrase them?

[Drab Emordnilap]

You have a point there... What would you think of:
Mountain Range -$4
+1 Card
+2 Actions
+ Buy
When you gain this, gain two Coppers,
putting them on top of your deck
__________
Worth 1 VP per every 5 Coppers in your deck
When you trash this, gain 5 Coppers
If you gain this outside of your Buy phase,
trash it

I'd say it has about three lines too many. You'll notice that for the most part, cards either do multiple simple things (Market), or one complex thing (Possession), or a couple, moderately complex, related things. Count would be too complex except both things are "choose one of three from a list". The fact that the clauses are similar cuts down complexity. Mining Village has a good amount going on, but you can internalize the first part as "Village".

This card is a Village, plus a buy, plus THREE more things that take a sentence each. Overwhelmingly complex.

[silverspawn]

yea, note that complexity is a bad thing in card design.

this is just a personal opinion, but i'd say that a good card should be unique, interesting, and simple, with "interesting" basically meaning "makes for interesting strategies". also balanced, but let's forget about that for a moment. making a card that has two of the above is actually really easy.

unique and simple: just a card with "+3$" for 4$ does the trick
interesting and simple: basic village
interesting and unique: your card.

if you just throw a lot of stuff into a card, but know some stuff about the game, you usually end up with something in the third category.

[Trogdor the Burninator]

yea, note that complexity is a bad thing in card design.

this is just a personal opinion, but i'd say that a good card should be unique, interesting, and simple, with "interesting" basically meaning "makes for interesting strategies". also balanced, but let's forget about that for a moment. making a card that has two of the above is actually really easy.

unique and simple: just a card with "+3$" for 4$ does the trick
interesting and simple: basic village
interesting and unique: your card.

if you just throw a lot of stuff into a card, but know some stuff about the game, you usually end up with something in the third category.

That's basically what I was trying to do, is make the card as interesting and unique as i could. Well, now it's off to playtesting it in solo mode. I'll let y'all know how it is

[Trogdor the Burninator]

Update:
I played a solo game with the final idea for Mountain Range in it. There were no $5 or $2 cards in it so that made it a little more interesting. The things I can gather from initial playtesting is:
- Later on in the game, if both/all players are actively going for this as a strategy, the money density in their decks will be no higher than $7 in a regular non-platinum/colony game
- Coppersmith should work well with this card, but by the time Coppersmith would've been effectively used, the piles ran out
- This could be an effective counter to Swindler if it is the main strategy as Swindler and all the other trashing attacks trigger it's on trash ability
- This would not be good in a Colony game, as even if you had a ton of Copper, a good Colony player who knows what they're doing should still be able to beat you handily