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[werothegreat]

AUCTION
$5
Action-Attack

+1 Card
+1 Action
Discard a card.
Put any number of Treasures into play.  This does not require you to enter your Buy phase.  Each other player reveals a Treasure from their hand and puts it on top of their deck, or reveals a hand with no Treasures.

I wanted a card that deliberately does what Black Market does as a side effect - let you play Treasures before your Buy phase.  I made it a cantrip not so that it could be spammed, but so that you don't have to choose between playing it or some other Action.  I'm not sure why I put in the discard - it just felt right.

So as a whole, this card synergizes with:
Library
Minion
Tactician
Herbalist (with Tactician/Minion)
Alchemist (with Tactician/Minion)
Watchtower
Menagerie
Horse Traders
Hunting Party
Tunnel
Jack of all Trades
Mandarin

I'll admit that without any of these cards in the supply, this card is rather useless.  Perhaps there could be some sort of Menagerie-like self-synergistic effect?  Like, +Cards equal to number of Treasures in play?  Or +$1 for every Treasure in play, like an Action bank?  Though of course, either of those options would just make Auction/BM ridiculously powerful.  Thoughts?

[Graystripe77]

I like it, though I'm not sure how it would play out. You forgot to add Quarry to the list, it could lead to some insane Remodel/Upgrade tricks.

[Tables]

I like the idea, but I also agree with your assessment, and often, all of those cards will not be in play (if my maths is correct you'll have none of those cards (ignoring herbalist/alchemist) just over 50% of the time... but I feel like I've missed something in my calculation: (146!/136!)/(156!/146!)) assuming you have every set. I think a bonus of +$1 per treasure played is too much, and +1 card is generally going to be quite insane (chances are you'll have say 2 treasure cards at least in an average hand, making this a super lab with an attack attached - and often more).

Its attack effect might be enough to make it worthwhile, though anyway - but more importantly because this card can be spammed, it could very easily end up pinning someone if you can get your density of them high enough - just as long as they have 5 or more treasures in their deck. So I think something needs to be done about that.

[Zem]

The attack seems too strong for a cantrip.
Far stronger than cutpurse, and it lacks the limited curse supply that keeps familiar in check.

Although now that I think about it, the "discard a card" might be barely enough to keep it in check.

there would however still be a KC-KC-scheme-scheme-auction-auction pin:
after playing that you have 6 cards in hand, you can repeat it every turn, and your opponent will stay at 0 cards after a few iterations.
(edit: actually, this only plays auction 4 times. you would need one more KC+scheme for the full pin, but it is probably effective enough this way.)

perhaps "discard 2 cards"?
or remove the "+1 card"?
or "discard a treasure; if you do ..."?

[meshuggah42]

I think KC (or even TR) would make this very much imbalanced, especially on boards that do not have actions that give money.

Though it's hard to spam because of the discard, I think it's still way too powerful, giving you the opportunity to lock down your opponent something like KC-Goons-Masq does, only with treasures this time.

On the other hand, on boards that have actions that give money it's next to useless.

All in all a very limited card with serious balance issues.

I like the general idea though. Maybe because I don't like Black Market.

Edit: ninja'd.

[werothegreat]

How about removing the Attack, and changing it to "Put any number of Treasures in play, and buy a card.  This does not start your buy phase, and you may continue playing Actions after this."  You could buy a card, and with a small enough deck and a drawer, instantly put it into play.  Plus, even though the $1 of the Quarry might be used, it could still be used to Remodel an Estate into a Grand Market.

[jotheonah]

You could avoid the pin problem by making it "each other player with 4 or more cards in hand puts a treasure on their deck or reveals a hand with no treasure."  You could make it less spammable by having it be merely +1 Action like Scout. This would still allow for some of the BM combos, but you'd have to work a little more to set them up.

[dondon151]

I know this sounds slightly off-topic, but I've always had the impression that a card titled "Auction" should thematically be a Tournament that involved Treasure cards...

[DrHades]

I don't like the idea and here are my 2 simple reasons:

1. It makes the game more complex and harder to understand, but not more interesting or more funny. The treasures are treasures for a reason and it is nice that we can play them ONLY in the buy phase, so we must be prepared to do so.

2. It makes combos that seems a bit silly to me. The general idea of Tactician is "I will change 2 good turns for 1 hell of a turn!" With Vault, you are still punished the way you cannot play Golds and Silvers (and you need a Village). With Black Market or Auction, the idea dies.

I don't like Black Market, but I don't hate it for 1 simple reason - IT IS A PROMO! The card is wierd, but it should be wierd, cause that is to me what promos should be.

So if this is an "I think it would be awesome to have a card like this in an expansion" idea, I totally disagree.
If this is an "I think this card is funny and I want to play with it with my friends" idea, it is of course your bussiness  I don't find it funny, because it adds nothing new to the game (except some annoying AP such as "I have a Library and a Remake in my deck, so should I put the Coppers in game or not?")

PS: Sorry if this was a bit harsh, I didn't mean it 

[werothegreat]

I don't like the idea and here are my 2 simple reasons:

1. It makes the game more complex and harder to understand, but not more interesting or more funny. The treasures are treasures for a reason and it is nice that we can play them ONLY in the buy phase, so we must be prepared to do so.

2. It makes combos that seems a bit silly to me. The general idea of Tactician is "I will change 2 good turns for 1 hell of a turn!" With Vault, you are still punished the way you cannot play Golds and Silvers (and you need a Village). With Black Market or Auction, the idea dies.

I don't like Black Market, but I don't hate it for 1 simple reason - IT IS A PROMO! The card is wierd, but it should be wierd, cause that is to me what promos should be.

So if this is an "I think it would be awesome to have a card like this in an expansion" idea, I totally disagree.
If this is an "I think this card is funny and I want to play with it with my friends" idea, it is of course your bussiness  I don't find it funny, because it adds nothing new to the game (except some annoying AP such as "I have a Library and a Remake in my deck, so should I put the Coppers in game or not?")

PS: Sorry if this was a bit harsh, I didn't mean it 

I'm trying to find a way to make it funny/interesting.  And the whole point of cards is to change the rules.  New expansions mess with your idea of what you do when.  Nomad Camp?  Inn?  You're not supposed to be able to play Actions before the first reshuffle! 

Also, you don't have to Vault your Golds and Silvers.  That would actually be kinda stupid.

[DrHades]

I don't like the idea and here are my 2 simple reasons:

1. It makes the game more complex and harder to understand, but not more interesting or more funny. The treasures are treasures for a reason and it is nice that we can play them ONLY in the buy phase, so we must be prepared to do so.

2. It makes combos that seems a bit silly to me. The general idea of Tactician is "I will change 2 good turns for 1 hell of a turn!" With Vault, you are still punished the way you cannot play Golds and Silvers (and you need a Village). With Black Market or Auction, the idea dies.

I don't like Black Market, but I don't hate it for 1 simple reason - IT IS A PROMO! The card is wierd, but it should be wierd, cause that is to me what promos should be.

So if this is an "I think it would be awesome to have a card like this in an expansion" idea, I totally disagree.
If this is an "I think this card is funny and I want to play with it with my friends" idea, it is of course your bussiness  I don't find it funny, because it adds nothing new to the game (except some annoying AP such as "I have a Library and a Remake in my deck, so should I put the Coppers in game or not?")

PS: Sorry if this was a bit harsh, I didn't mean it 

I'm trying to find a way to make it funny/interesting.  And the whole point of cards is to change the rules.  New expansions mess with your idea of what you do when.  Nomad Camp?  Inn?  You're not supposed to be able to play Actions before the first reshuffle! 

Also, you don't have to Vault your Golds and Silvers.  That would actually be kinda stupid.

Yes, but there are some things you want to change and some things you want to stay permanent. For example: In Ruse and Bruise there is a card, that more or less says "The one who is the worst, wins this round." And it is really funny and good for this game. But a Dominion card that says something like "When you play with this card, the player with most Curses wins the game." would be pretty annoying. For me - treasures played outside of B-phase is crossing a line I don't wanna cross

About Vault - I was talking about Tactician-Vault, not Vault in general...

What seems funny/interesting to me is something like this:

AUCTION
$2
Action - Duration

+1 Card
+1 Action

At the start of your next turn, you may play any number of treasures. If you played a treasure this way, you cannot play any treasures during your Buy phase.

[Dubdubdubdub]

I rather like werothegreat's idea, though I agree it may need some tweaking. I think the main 'weird' promo-y thing about Black Market is the Black Market deck, not playing the treasures early. In fact, I really like that part about the card and am glad to see that somebody agrees.
Btw, DrHades' last suggestion (the Duration card) is completely worthless on most decks, which is pretty much a no-no for me.

Oh, and you forgot a card - I'd say Auction would synergize pretty nicely with Quarry.

[rinkworks]

The combos you can play with Black Market are so sweet and uniquely cool that it really is a shame you can't do it with any other cards, and in particular with a card that has less baggage attached to it than Black Market has.  I would love another card that allows Treasures to be played in the Action phase.  The challenge is that since it doesn't combo with all THAT many cards, how can one make it useful in the absence of another combo?

I agree that the card in the original post is too strong.  Even as a terminal Silver, this attack is worse than Cutpurse, because dropping a Copper not only hurts your current hand but it hurts your next hand as well.

Maybe this card is best done as a $2 card, where a lot of unique effects are priced.

X
$2 - Action
+$1
Play any number of treasures from your hand immediately.
--
While this is in play, when you buy a card, you may put it on top of your deck.

It's probably still not usually desirable in the absence of a combo, but perhaps one might imagine situations where you'd still want it.  The vanilla bonus(es) are negotiable, certainly:  maybe this can offer +1 Action as well and not be overpowered.  A cantrip version (even without the +$1) feels too powerful for the $2 level, though.

The trick is to find a second benefit (the "while this is in play" clause, here) that is unique enough to make the card desirable in the absence of combo potential without being so weird and unique like Black Market is.

[dondon151]

Alternatively: think of a way to make it combo with itself. That's kind of hard, though.

[WanderingWinder]

Something like

Awesomesauce
$5 - Action
+1 Action
Play any number of treasures from your hand immediately
Draw cards until you have 4 cards in your hand

It could probably do with a little tweaking. Maybe making it a non-terminal $3 is more interesting, or tweaking the numbers a little, adding some small vanilla bonus or drawback... but you get the idea.