I don't find Street compelling at all, or rather its on-play effects, to be exact. While I think that -1 Buy on-play combined with 2 Buys at the start of each turn is a fine idea, I cannot cotton up to "+2 Cards" as a vanilla bonus. You say it can be the draw part of your engine, but +2 Cards is so weak and -Buys is the exact opposite of what an engine usually wants.
I would much rather see it at $5 with +3 Cards, or at $4 with +$2 on top. The first would would still be a little vexing as your only source of draw in an engine but it would be a nice Big Money card. The latter could be a great payload of your engine, as it would be similar to a Gold with -1 Buy. Actually, playing only one of it would be quite strong. It might justify a cost of $5 as well.
Street's vanilla benefit cannot be considered separate its cost reduction. If you want to try to ignore its cost reduction, at least call Street +2 Cards, +$1 like it actually is when your only Action. As an opener, that effect is quite strong; sometimes better than a Silver (usually at least as good) and always leaves you closer to important early game reshuffles.
If you put Street at +3 Cards, it will be overwhelming as a singular action, likely a must-buy on any board if it cost less than $6 since that effect is nearly as good as
Hunting Ground. With +$2 instead, it would only be a worse
Bridge. As it is, Street is a niche card that manages to be a unique cost reducer that does not necessarily produce a megaturn when useful.
Starting each turn with 2 Buys is a mildly interesting effect, but having that slapped onto some random card makes its effect harder to remember. The "in games using this" effects in Dominion: Greed try to be related to the play of the card. For a card that starts each turn with 2 Buys, there are three options: 1) A card that is cheap and good in multiples, 2) A card that combos with +Buy, or 3) A card that gives -Buys.
In the case of 1, we are making a card that simply encourages a boring 1-card deck construction (which we have in a more interesting way in
Fool's Gold already). In the case of 2, most obvious effects have been taken by the likes of
Talisman,
Haggler, and
Hoard, such that the card would likely have to become very semantically complex to function uniquely. I believe that 3 is the most simplistic and interesting of the 3 options, especially since it is the easiest way to make a -Buy card work (I mean, you could have a
Workshop card where you swap your Buy for a gain of some sort, but then the -Buy is really just a wash).
A -Buy card in the event that you start each turn with 2 Buys needs to be something you want to play in multiples for the -Buy to really become a problem, and cost-reduction is a great spam-friendly effect. If you can get to your payload card that gives a +Buy, Streets can be played with impunity because you can never have fewer than 0 Buys. After playing 4 Streets (easier to do than 4
Bridges with those +Cards, easier to get than 4
Highways since it costs so much less), one +Buy will leave you with 1 Buy. If you can find a way to get multiple +Buys (
Squire maybe?) while playing Street, you can possibly get to those 3 Province turns, but that will require a unique kind of effort.
Yes though, it is only +2 Cards, +$1 on a board with no +Actions (or with +Actions and without +Buys or a
Workshop of some sort). Without something that enables it, it is of minimal use, but that support is so much more common than support for
Rats. Even when that support is lacking, Street still has an effect on the board because of its "in games using this".
If Fletcher runs out piles too fast, the obvious solution is to not have it gain Estates (or Curses). Just raise its cost and have it gain at most two cards.
What I'm getting from your post is that Fletcher's "deceptive power" comes from the ability to quickly end the game on piles. That's…not fun. Not for most players, anyway. It's fun to be able to build up your deck. When the entire point of a card is to cut the game short, that's no fun. When we were playtesting Adventures, cards were scrapped or changed specifically to avoid running out piles too fast.
Fletcher's point is not to cut games short nor does it--what I said was that Fletcher
can cut a game short. Apologies if I gave the sense otherwise.
Of course Fletcher can be used to force some games into premature endings because of other players not monitoring piles very well. I have seen that happen just as well in Kingdoms with
Ironworks, where one player gains a lot of
Ironworks and then starts blindly draining away other piles. Even in 2-player games with
Stonemason 3-piling is something you should always be thinking about. Other players are an important factor to pile management and one that cannot be understated.
But not every board with the current Fletcher on it ends in a 3-pile nor does necessarily every board in which multiple players buy Fletcher end in a 3-pile. Fletcher is strongest when you need to watch piles, but it is not useless otherwise. There are plenty of boards where a
Workshop- would be welcomed in absence of +Buys.
Back when Fletcher could gain copies of itself practically every Fletcher game ended rapidly on piles and that was no fun, but ever since Fletcher has been unable to gain more Fletchers that has not been a problem.
The strength of Fletcher is deceptive not only because of its ability to pile out games, but also because there are more Kingdoms where 2 $3-card gains outweigh the cost of an Estate gain than you might think.
