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[eHalcyon]

Eminent Domain
$5 - Action-Attack
+$2
In your buy phase this turn, the other players reveal their hands.  You may buy a card from another player.  He gains coin tokens equal to the card's cost in coins.

I think this may work because it gives the targeted player major compensation.  As the attacker, you'd mainly use this on high value VP cards, Potion cards and important contested piles (especially if they're already empty).  If there are no +Buys on the board, the attack also stands out as one of opportunity cost.  Yes, the victim gets a bunch of coin tokens, but he also loses a Buy.  Note that each play of this card only lets you buy one card from another player; you need multiple plays to buy multiple cards from others.

The primary problem with this card is that it is rather political.  A way to fix this is to limit it to the player on your left.

A second problem is that it's probably too weak most of the time, but overly strong in rare cases.  Instead of +$2, it could give 2 coin tokens.  It could also get some limits.  If it could not gain Victory cards, it would be a niche attack for contesting splits and inflicting opportunity cost on others.  So maybe:

Expropriation
$5 - Action-Attack
Take 2 coin tokens.  In your buy phase this turn, the player on your left reveals his hand.  You may buy a card that is not a Victory card from him.  He gains coin tokens equal to card's cost in coins.

Thoughts?

[pacovf]

You realize that this is an unbounded, non-one-shot trashing pillage, right? Not sure if the coin tokens can balance that.

Also, vislor came up with something similar before Donald posted that. You probably want to read that thread if you haven't already.

It's a cool idea, but I just don't see how this can be made to work with two players, let alone with more than that.

[eHalcyon]

I'd forgotten about Vislor's Leech.  Maybe this idea could be moved to that discussion.

I wouldn't underestimate coin tokens.  An unbounded discarder can pin you, but this can't.  If you buy my good cards, I'll still have coin tokens to buy things on my turn, with or without cards.

I suppose the danger then is a combo pin with Possession, but that's not easy to set up.  You need a way to play multiples of this card and Possession as well, and to play it consistently would be difficult as well.

If it is really a problem, it could be bounded in the same way that Pillage is.

[GendoIkari]

I dunno if this was mentioned in the Leech discussion, but "buy from another play" could cause confusion as to what that means exactly. In most contexts, "buying from someone" means paying them the amount it's worth. So someone could assume, or at least wonder if, the player you are buying from gets money. Now in this case, you specifically give that player coin tokens; which helps lessen the ambiguity. But it's still not 100% clear that the player doesn't get the money you spend in addition to getting the coin tokens.

[TheOthin]

Maybe cut the buy part entirely? Gain Coin tokens, then trade a number of Coin tokens for a card of equal value. Would be slow though.

[pacovf]

I'd forgotten about Vislor's Leech.  Maybe this idea could be moved to that discussion.

I wouldn't underestimate coin tokens.  An unbounded discarder can pin you, but this can't.  If you buy my good cards, I'll still have coin tokens to buy things on my turn, with or without cards.

I suppose the danger then is a combo pin with Possession, but that's not easy to set up.  You need a way to play multiples of this card and Possession as well, and to play it consistently would be difficult as well.

If it is really a problem, it could be bounded in the same way that Pillage is.

I think you are underestimating the trashing and overestimating the coins. This can pin you just as well as an unbounded discarder. Afterall, if you use that turn to buy back what you lost, it's the same as if you got that card discarded AND lost a buy.
Imagine you play this 5 times in a turn*. The other player has zero cards in hand, and tons of coins. Neat, what I am going to buy with all this money, she thinks. There's two possibilities: either she buys a treasure or action card, or a victory card:
- In the first case, it doesn't really matter what she buys, because she won't get to play it: you will trash it before she does.
- In the second case, there is the danger that she will get half the points, but you know, if she is getting all her useful card trashed and is greening aggressively in response, you will simply stop trashing her cards, because she isn't going to do much with a deck that is half coppers and half green in turn 12. Or even better, you will simply buy her provinces after a while. Sure, she can buy a province right after, but her total victory points aren't increasing, while yours are.

I think the pillage clause is necessary here.

EDIT: it is absolutely not necessary to play this 5 times to pin the other player, I'm just taking the extreme case.

[Deadlock39]

Perhaps if there is a way to give them the coin tokens and a buy on their next turn.  Then they could definitely replace their cards.  It still has a pin... maybe the flexibility it gives the other player is enough, but probably not.  A limit on the number of cards that can be taken seems necessary.

[eHalcyon]

I dunno if this was mentioned in the Leech discussion, but "buy from another play" could cause confusion as to what that means exactly. In most contexts, "buying from someone" means paying them the amount it's worth. So someone could assume, or at least wonder if, the player you are buying from gets money. Now in this case, you specifically give that player coin tokens; which helps lessen the ambiguity. But it's still not 100% clear that the player doesn't get the money you spend in addition to getting the coin tokens.

I think this is a fair criticism on the wording.  FWIW, "buying" in Dominion doesn't involve giving money to any person or some NPC bank, so it shouldn't here either.  Actually, I think a bigger ambiguity is whether the instruction tacitly gives you a specific +1 Buy in the way that Black Market does, or in the way that Cultist gives you a pseudo +1 action by allowing you to play another Cultist.

Maybe cut the buy part entirely? Gain Coin tokens, then trade a number of Coin tokens for a card of equal value. Would be slow though.

I think this would be either too weak or too strong, dependin gon how many coin tokens it granted.  Too many and you could just use it as a coin token gainer.  Too few and it becomes very slow to build up and losing those coin tokens would hurt too.

I think you are underestimating the trashing and overestimating the coins. This can pin you just as well as an unbounded discarder. Afterall, if you use that turn to buy back what you lost, it's the same as if you got that card discarded AND lost a buy.
Imagine you play this 5 times in a turn*. The other player has zero cards in hand, and tons of coins. Neat, what I am going to buy with all this money, she thinks. There's two possibilities: either she buys a treasure or action card, or a victory card:
- In the first case, it doesn't really matter what she buys, because she won't get to play it: you will trash it before she does.
- In the second case, there is the danger that she will get half the points, but you know, if she is getting all her useful card trashed and is greening aggressively in response, you will simply stop trashing her cards, because she isn't going to do much with a deck that is half coppers and half green in turn 12. Or even better, you will simply buy her provinces after a while. Sure, she can buy a province right after, but her total victory points aren't increasing, while yours are.

I think the pillage clause is necessary here.

EDIT: it is absolutely not necessary to play this 5 times to pin the other player, I'm just taking the extreme case.

I'm still not convinced that this potential pin is even close to existing pins in terms of viability.  I think this is flimsier than a Bureaucrat pin.

First, you need a way to play multiple copies of this card.  Then you need a way to get multiple +Buy (note: my intention was that buying from the other player counts as a regular buy; I pointed out above that this is ambiguous in my wording).  Then you need to generate enough coins to actually buy the cards in their hand, or else you need cost reduction.  And you need to continue doing this every turn to maintain the pin even while you bloat your deck with your opponent's purchases which may not suit your deck at all (or else you need a Watchtower to trash the incoming cards, in which case you aren't getting an edge at all and are just playing super-Salvager for the other player).

Also note that my second version prohibits buying others' VP cards.

All in all, I think this at least a 4-card combo (vs. the 3-card combo of the classic KC-Goons-Masquerade), and the most likely scenarios would probably feature KC-Bridge which probably invalidates this strategy anyway.

Perhaps if there is a way to give them the coin tokens and a buy on their next turn.  Then they could definitely replace their cards.  It still has a pin... maybe the flexibility it gives the other player is enough, but probably not.  A limit on the number of cards that can be taken seems necessary.

+Buy tokens?

[pacovf]

Oh, ok, I thought it was implied that this gave you a virtual extra buy. I would argue that it does, the way it is worded now. Might be just fine then.

...scout.

[GendoIkari]

I dunno if this was mentioned in the Leech discussion, but "buy from another play" could cause confusion as to what that means exactly. In most contexts, "buying from someone" means paying them the amount it's worth. So someone could assume, or at least wonder if, the player you are buying from gets money. Now in this case, you specifically give that player coin tokens; which helps lessen the ambiguity. But it's still not 100% clear that the player doesn't get the money you spend in addition to getting the coin tokens.

It's worded identically to Black Market, isn't it? So I don't see any room for ambiguity about if you still have your regular buy in addition to the buy you get here.

Just saw your other note that this was not your intention. I don't know how you can word it differently to do what you want, though.

[eHalcyon]

It might be easier just to let it match Black Market with the pseudo +Buy and add the standard 4-card restriction.  The main difference is that the timing is off; Black Market happens immediately but this card defers it to the Buy phase.

[GendoIkari]

It might be easier just to let it match Black Market with the pseudo +Buy and add the standard 4-card restriction.  The main difference is that the timing is off; Black Market happens immediately but this card defers it to the Buy phase.

I completely missed the "in your buy phase" part. That does make it different, and ambiguous. Perhaps it could be something such as "During your buy phase this turn, other players reveal their hands. Cards you buy this turn may come from other players hands."

To me this achieves what you want. There's no "you may buy" that gives the player a free buy.

[eHalcyon]

It might be easier just to let it match Black Market with the pseudo +Buy and add the standard 4-card restriction.  The main difference is that the timing is off; Black Market happens immediately but this card defers it to the Buy phase.

I completely missed the "in your buy phase" part. That does make it different, and ambiguous. Perhaps it could be something such as "During your buy phase this turn, other players reveal their hands. Cards you buy this turn may come from other players hands."

To me this achieves what you want. There's no "you may buy" that gives the player a free buy.

On the other hand, it means that a single copy of Expropriation is enough for the potential pin.  You'd still need multiple other cards to get +Buy and the coins to buy expensive cards though.

I also limited it to the player on your left rather than all other players to avoid politics.

[GendoIkari]

It might be easier just to let it match Black Market with the pseudo +Buy and add the standard 4-card restriction.  The main difference is that the timing is off; Black Market happens immediately but this card defers it to the Buy phase.

I completely missed the "in your buy phase" part. That does make it different, and ambiguous. Perhaps it could be something such as "During your buy phase this turn, other players reveal their hands. Cards you buy this turn may come from other players hands."

To me this achieves what you want. There's no "you may buy" that gives the player a free buy.

On the other hand, it means that a single copy of Expropriation is enough for the potential pin.  You'd still need multiple other cards to get +Buy and the coins to buy expensive cards though.

I also limited it to the player on your left rather than all other players to avoid politics.

Oh right, oops.

[eHalcyon]

Oh, but I just realized that this would make it an attack card that only affects the player on your left.  Hmm.  Maybe it just doesn't work at all.

[GendoIkari]

What if the player got to draw a card if you bought from them? Then it no longer reduces their handsize in addition to trashing their cards.

All in all, I feel that the biggest issue here is that none of this "feels" like buying a card from a player. It just feels like an attack that both trashes their cards and reduces their handsize. With the side effect of you gaining the trashed card; like with Noble Brigand or Thief, or sort of Rogue.

To feel like you're buying a card from another player, it needs to feel like you can buy something that you normally couldn't. So like if a supply pile is empty, or your opponent bought cards from Black Market. Also, I would think that you can buy cards like Spoils and Prizes, right? They have a cost. Normally they can't be bought; but you aren't buying from the supply here. So in those cases, buying from another player makes sense.

But if you're just buying their Village, when there's also plenty of Villages in the normal supply, then it's really not like you're buying Village from them, you're simply Pillaging them, with trash instead of discard.

[eHalcyon]

What if the player got to draw a card if you bought from them? Then it no longer reduces their handsize in addition to trashing their cards.

All in all, I feel that the biggest issue here is that none of this "feels" like buying a card from a player. It just feels like an attack that both trashes their cards and reduces their handsize. With the side effect of you gaining the trashed card; like with Noble Brigand or Thief, or sort of Rogue.

To feel like you're buying a card from another player, it needs to feel like you can buy something that you normally couldn't. So like if a supply pile is empty, or your opponent bought cards from Black Market. Also, I would think that you can buy cards like Spoils and Prizes, right? They have a cost. Normally they can't be bought; but you aren't buying from the supply here. So in those cases, buying from another player makes sense.

But if you're just buying their Village, when there's also plenty of Villages in the normal supply, then it's really not like you're buying Village from them, you're simply Pillaging them, with trash instead of discard.

Oh yeah, letting the victim draw a card afterwards!  I thought of that in the shower this morning and then promptly forgot it.

The intention is that you would use this to contest the split of piles that have already emptied.  I still feel that the coin tokens is enough compensation that you wouldn't use this just for the Pillage effect.  If that's all you're doing, I think it can help more than it hurts.

[pacovf]

What if the player got to draw a card if you bought from them? Then it no longer reduces their handsize in addition to trashing their cards.

All in all, I feel that the biggest issue here is that none of this "feels" like buying a card from a player. It just feels like an attack that both trashes their cards and reduces their handsize. With the side effect of you gaining the trashed card; like with Noble Brigand or Thief, or sort of Rogue.

To feel like you're buying a card from another player, it needs to feel like you can buy something that you normally couldn't. So like if a supply pile is empty, or your opponent bought cards from Black Market. Also, I would think that you can buy cards like Spoils and Prizes, right? They have a cost. Normally they can't be bought; but you aren't buying from the supply here. So in those cases, buying from another player makes sense.

But if you're just buying their Village, when there's also plenty of Villages in the normal supply, then it's really not like you're buying Village from them, you're simply Pillaging them, with trash instead of discard.

Oh yeah, letting the victim draw a card afterwards!  I thought of that in the shower this morning and then promptly forgot it.

The intention is that you would use this to contest the split of piles that have already emptied.  I still feel that the coin tokens is enough compensation that you wouldn't use this just for the Pillage effect.  If that's all you're doing, I think it can help more than it hurts.

If you don't want the pillage effect, you might want to reveal five (or whatever) cards from the top of their deck instead, and work out a bonus from there.

[werothegreat]

Change it to:

Take 2 Coin tokens.  The player to your left reveals their hand.  Pay any number of Coin tokens; the player to your left takes that number, and you gain a card from their hand costing up to that amount in Coins.