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[NoMoreFun]

Thank you spineflu!

Contest #79: Different strokes for different folks

This is a more open ended one - design a card (shaped thing) that encourages players to pursue different strategies during the game. The card may explicitly distinguish between players (eg a split Landmark, or something that changes setup rules to give different starting decks). It could also be a card that more subtly creates more than one optimal strategy for the board, or gives different players different tools to work with (Black Market and Tournament), or encourages you to pursue unique cards (Gladiator), or involves competition for a single resource (Mountain Pass).

With difference baked into the card, balance, or at least the ability for players on either side of the inequality to win the game, will be more important than usual.

Similarly a card that does this differentiation solely by being very political (eg attacks that only affect one other player you choose), would fit the criteria, but probably wouldn't do very well.

All submissions are "eligible"; just think holistically about how a Dominion game involving your card (shaped thing)(s) would play out. If there is more than one "optimal strategy", or if players are actively trying to avoid doing the same thing as each other, then you have done well.

[anordinaryman]

Reclaimer • $4 • Action • auth: anordinaryman
+1 Buy

Trash a card from your hand. For every $2 it costs, rounded down, gain a Trinket to your hand.

I think, on the one hand, the scenario you outlined with the province milling makes a compelling case for this card, but this card will otherwise be a noob trap, Just, in general, you want trashers to get cards out of your deck, not flood it with more junk. I think it's going to be higher skill and/or more niche than you're presenting it (though it does have a fun synergy with Triumph).

I think maybe a direction to look into to fix this would be giving a choice of, per $2 rounded down, +$1 or a Trinket? like you could take the money or take the trinkets, but not a little of each. That keeps it worse than Salvager but not totally useless.

Ah, that's a really really good suggestion. I knew that Reclaimer was weak, but it still felt interesting to me. Your suggestion strengthens it in a thematic way (continuing to use the per $2 rounded down) and I think would be a much better designed card. Thanks for the feedback!

For what it's worth I thought this was a really good and interesting contest! You demonstrated that Trinkets definitely have a lot of interesting design space with all the varied submissions. The winner does a great job taking advantage of using both the Junking aspect of trinket and the beneficial aspect of Trinket.

[ConMan]

Rialto - Landmark
At the start of the game, each player in turn order names a pile in the Supply (the choices must be different). When scoring, 3 VP per card in your deck from the pile named by the player to your right.

[segura]

I like this but it massively increases the first player advantage if there is a crap terminal in the Kingdom.

[mandioca15]

Will try this for size - it might be hideously bad.

Harbour (Landmark)
At the start of the game, select a different non-Victory card from the Supply for each player. That player cannot buy copies of that card in this game (they can still gain them).


Not sure how best to do the selection - the other players could decide between them, or it could be done randomly. The former might be too political, or take too long, while the latter is likely to be swingy.

This would presumably need some kind of token to mark the verboten cards, one per player.

[spineflu]

Will try this for size - it might be hideously bad.

Harbour (Landmark)
At the start of the game, select a different non-Victory card from the Supply for each player. That player cannot buy copies of that card in this game (they can still gain them).


Not sure how best to do the selection - the other players could decide between them, or it could be done randomly. The former might be too political, or take too long, while the latter is likely to be swingy.

This would presumably need some kind of token to mark the verboten cards, one per player.

have everyone pick one at the start of the game, shuffle those and deal them randomly? That way no one picks a card that's the most crucial because they might get it as their verboten card?
also three suggestions: 1- make copper a forbidden-to-embargo card, just to idiotproof it a little. 2- make it pile-based rather than card-based. 3- use a card marker like Young Witch does with the Bane pile

[[TP] Inferno]

Umm.............. This is a hard challenge.
How about this??

Investor
$5
Choose one: Gain 2 cards each costing up to $3; or gain a copy of your selected Investment card.
-------
Setup: Choose 2 random unused Victory cards. Each player then sets aside a random card from either pile in front of them. This is their Investment card.

This is a crazy idea, but hopefully it works. Feedback is welcome.

[segura]

Simple Alt-VP support card that lifts all boats and thus makes all non-Province green slightly more attractive.

An alternative version would be: "When you gain a Victory card, +1."

[X-tra]

Spineflu, nothing wrong with your contest of the week! Honestly, I forgot to submit an entry because of 3 factors:

A. I was more focused on the thread I created for my custom cards.
B. I was a little uninspired.
C. I think some people's submissions were very good already. In fact, I thought there were so good that I would've preferred their entry to what I could've posted anyway.

Rialto - Landmark
At the start of the game, each player in turn order names a pile in the Supply (the choices must be different). When scoring, 3 VP per card in your deck from the pile named by the player to your right.

Maybe this should be limited to Kingdom Supply piles or Action Supply piles. A player could simply mention "Curse" and that'd be annoying for the player who must collect them. Or a player could be disingenuous and say "Province" and massively aid the player to their left. Or a pile could be randomly selected for each player when building the Supply during the setup.

[mandioca15]

Will try this for size - it might be hideously bad.

Harbour (Landmark)
At the start of the game, select a different non-Victory card from the Supply for each player. That player cannot buy copies of that card in this game (they can still gain them).


Not sure how best to do the selection - the other players could decide between them, or it could be done randomly. The former might be too political, or take too long, while the latter is likely to be swingy.

This would presumably need some kind of token to mark the verboten cards, one per player.

have everyone pick one at the start of the game, shuffle those and deal them randomly? That way no one picks a card that's the most crucial because they might get it as their verboten card?
also three suggestions: 1- make copper a forbidden-to-embargo card, just to idiotproof it a little. 2- make it pile-based rather than card-based. 3- use a card marker like Young Witch does with the Bane pile

Being able to perm-Embargo Copper might be interesting in certain cases, though. I'm prepared to allow it.

Harbour (Landmark)
At the start of the game, each player chooses a different non-Victory card from the Supply. Shuffle these and deal one to each player. Each player cannot buy cards from their card's pile in this game (they can still gain them). Each player should place their Harbour token on the pile they cannot buy cards from. Return the shuffled cards to the Supply.

Bit of a long winded setup explanation, but hopefully it makes sense.

[spineflu]

I went with a probably-too-complicated Science Grant / Inheritance variant

Breakthrough • PP • Event
Move your Alembic token to an Aqua Vitae card with no tokens on it. (During your turn Potions are also Actions with 'If it's your Action phase, play the card with your Alembic token on it.')

Breakthrough • (randomizer)
(Draw another randomizer)
Set Up:
Include the "Breakthrough" Event in the Kingdom.

Shuffle the Aqua Vitae Actions and place one per player, plus one extra, next to the Breakthrough Event; These are not in the Supply.

Return the rest to the box.

Important differences from Inheritance:
• You can buy this multiple times, to change what your Potions do
• You can still play Potion during your Buy phase for (Potion currency)
• You have to pick an Aqua Vitae action that doesn't have a token on it, so your potions can't do the same thing as other players potions. (This is how it qualifies for the contest.)
• You'll only have players+1 Aqua Vitae actions to choose from, so these won't all be available every game
• The setup instructions are on a randomizer (like castles) since the event itself was already super crowded; the randomizer tells you to draw another randomizer since you'd be down a pile otherwise.

I made up nine "Aqua Vitae" actions - they aren't as important as the event itself but they're all roughly a "Strong 5"; I'd consider these more "thoughts about where to go with Aqua Vitae actions" rather than "these are the Aqua Vitae actions, fullstop"; they probably aren't balanced currently.
My guidelines for Aqua Vitae actions are:
• no "incredibly unique" cards - there's a fair bit of functional overlap with these
• no durations - too hard to track
• worth roughly $5
• mostly non-terminal or remodel variants

Transfigure • $5 • Action - Aqua Vitae
 Trash a non-Victory card to gain a card that shares a type with it.

a remodel variant; can mill Curses but not trash them outright (until the Curse pile is gone). Can remodel copper into Gold and ruins into princes.

Grimoire • $5 • Action - Aqua Vitae
+1 Action
You may play a Treasure other than Potion from your hand.
Draw until you have five cards in hand.

Nonterminal library variant. The restriction on Potion is because it's confusing enough when you play Crown with Storyteller. of course, you can play Crown->Potion with this, which is its own can of worms but i figure that's niche enough that anyone who does that wants the complexity.

Radiant City • $5 • Action - Aqua Vitae
+2 Cards
+2 Actions
At the start of your Buy Phase, you may discard a Potion for +$1 per unspent Action (not Action Card).

"Diadem Village"

Oust • $5 • Action - Aqua Vitae
+2 Cards
+1 Action
Reveal the top card of your deck; you may Exile it or put it back.

dejunker that works a little smoother than native village, which is a trap card

Trestle • $5 • Action - Aqua Vitae
+1 Buy
Cards cost $1 less this turn.
You may reveal a card from your hand that you do not have a copy of in play for +$2.

potentially better bridge.

Agistment • $5 • Action - Aqua Vitae
+2 Cards
+1 Action
If you have an odd number of Potions in play, +1 Card.

Stables/Lab variant.

Symposium • $5 • Action - Aqua Vitae
+4 Cards
+1 Action
+1 Buy
Discard 3 cards from your hand.

Stronger Forum.

Abyss • $5 • Action - Aqua Vitae
Trash a card from your hand. Choose one:
Gain a card costing up to $4; or
Gain a card costing up to $1 per uniquely named card in the trash, and if the gained card was a Victory card, trash all Potions you have in play.

revised this to remove the early dud-ing.

Repair • $5 • Action - Aqua Vitae
+2 Cards
Trash a card from your hand to gain a card costing up to $2 more than it.

If both cards share a type, +$2.

revised this to be slightly better than remodel

and then these are the Alembic tokens I quickly threw together; they're adventure tokens; i used the windows segoe emoji font with the 'alembic' emoji for the icon.

[Carline]

Land Grant - <10> - Project

Once per game, place a cube on a Landmark of Land Grant set that has no cubes on it. When scoring, it applies only for you.

Setup: make a Land Grant set with the following Landmarks: Fountain, Museum, Obelisk, Orchard, Palace, Tower and Triumphal Arc. Choose at random Obelisk's supply pile.

EDIT: I UPDATED MY ENTRY, SEE POST OF JULY/04/20, AHEAD.

[Carline]

• You can buy this multiple times, to change what your Potions do

In the card image it is "once per game". I think you probably changed your mind and forgot to change image.

[Aquila]

This is a nice and challenging contest. Getting around the inequality whilst not creating unpleasant races to the best unique benefit (Tournament, Mountain Pass), swinginess (black market) or indirectly causing mirrors by the benefit of going unique being too strong.

This is my entry for now:

Monolith - Project, <8> cost.
Put your cube onto a kingdom pile with no other cube on it. When scoring, +2VP for each card you have from that pile.

An obelisk you can sculpt to suit your tastes. Go in early and you can seize the most hotly contested pile or deny one your opponent is focusing, or go late to pick a more obscure one. This might suffer from the unpleasant race problem, if going obscure late means picking undesirable stuff up.

@ Spineflu's entry: Grifter is the only attack; whilst you've done well in avoiding the race scenario, this one may still cause it.

Land Grant - <10> - Project

Once per game, place a cube on a Landmark of Land Grant set that has no cubes on it. When scoring, it applies only for you.

Setup: make a Land Grant set with the following Landmarks: Fountain, Museum, Obelisk, Orchard, Palace, Tower and Triumphal Arc. Choose at random Obelisk's supply pile.

This will surely make the race scenario, if not a 'first player wins' one, since Museum seems to stand out as vastly superior to the other Landmarks. Sometimes it's Tower with maybe a Silver flood strategy, but same thing.

[spineflu]

• You can buy this multiple times, to change what your Potions do

In the card image it is "once per game". I think you probably changed your mind and forgot to change image.

yeah i've got too many revisions of it that are largely unlabelled. ty for pointing that out, i'll fix.

@ Spineflu's entry: Grifter is the only attack; whilst you've done well in avoiding the race scenario, this one may still cause it.

yeah good point - i'll just cut that one.

[segura]

A player could simply mention "Curse" and that'd be annoying for the player who must collect them.

If there is a good source of extra Buys, Curse is actually a pretty bad choice (from the perspective of th choosing player, it is brilliant for the player for whom the choice is made) as it is a Tunnel sans Reaction for $0.

[Carline]

Land Grant - <10> - Project

Once per game, place a cube on a Landmark of Land Grant set that has no cubes on it. When scoring, it applies only for you.

Setup: make a Land Grant set with the following Landmarks: Fountain, Museum, Obelisk, Orchard, Palace, Tower and Triumphal Arc. Choose at random Obelisk's supply pile.

This will surely make the race scenario, if not a 'first player wins' one, since Museum seems to stand out as vastly superior to the other Landmarks. Sometimes it's Tower with maybe a Silver flood strategy, but same thing.

Thank you. Maybe I could remove Museum from the set. The case of Tower with Silvers seems more situational. But maybe the best solution is to create specific Landmarks for this set, I'll try to do it.

[Carline]

Land Grant - <10> - Project

Once per game, place a cube on a Landmark of Land Grant set that has no cubes on it. When scoring, it applies only for you.

Setup: make a Land Grant set with the following Landmarks: Fountain, Museum, Obelisk, Orchard, Palace, Tower and Triumphal Arc. Choose at random Obelisk's supply pile.

This will surely make the race scenario, if not a 'first player wins' one, since Museum seems to stand out as vastly superior to the other Landmarks. Sometimes it's Tower with maybe a Silver flood strategy, but same thing.

Thank you. Maybe I could remove Museum from the set. The case of Tower with Silvers seems more situational. But maybe the best solution is to create specific Landmarks for this set, I'll try to do it.

The specific Landmarks I want to add to Land Grant set:

- When scoring, 3 VP for set you have of Province - Duchy – Estate
- When scoring, 2 VP for different named Action card you have
- When scoring, 3 VP for different named Treasure card you have
- When scoring, 1 VP per 4 cards you have (round down)
- When scoring, 3 VP for different type of cards you have
- When scoring, 3 VP for different type of cards in the trash
- When scoring, 1 VP per Action card you have from an empty supply pile
- Choose a card type besides Action, Treasure and Victory. When scoring, 1 VP for each card of that type you have

I’ll create names and arts. I don’t know for sure if they are well balanced. What do you think?

EDIT: I UPDATED MY ENTRY, SEE POST OF JULY/04/20, AHEAD.

[Marpharos]

I think my last submission (WotMagpie) could've used that +1 Action, and maybe drawing Treasures as well. Hindsight, eh?

For this week, I had thought of doing a Tournament variant but it didn't seem all that worthwhile. Here's what I've got instead:

Metalworker

Action - $5
Reveal a Treasure from your hand. The player to your left may reveal a copy from their hand. If they do, gain a copy of it. If not, take either the Copper Alloy, the Silver Charm, or the Gold Token.

Copper Alloy

Artifact
Each Copper produces an extra $1 this turn.

Silver Charms

Artifact
Each Silver provides +1 Buy this turn.

Gold Token

Artifact
Each Gold in your deck gains the Attack - Doom type.
When you play a Gold, each other player receives the next Hex.

I'm not 100% on how I've worded some of these, especially Gold Token. I took inspiration from Capitalism for that, but because Artifacts aren't attacks and Metalworker isn't an attack I thought Golds gaining those types made the most sense?

[spineflu]

I'd reword Gold Token & Silver Charms
Silver Charms as "when you play a Silver, +1 Buy"
Gold Token, look to inheritance for wording - something like "On your turns, Gold is also an Attack - Doom card that reads '$3. Each other player receives the next Hex'"

[Awaclus]

Silver Charms

FUCKING GREAT! This is what silvers need!

[X-tra]

THIS SUBMISSION IS OBSOLETE. SEE PAGE 248 TO FIND THE UPDATED VERSION.


This week’s contest will be a tough one to judge; its open-endedness means that a lot of different concepts will be tossed here and there. A direct comparison between each user’s entry is going to be difficult, hahaha!

So for my submission, I tried to take a shot at a Traveler line. Here are the 5 cards part of that line:




The game-wrapping element here is that the Successor Traveler line is one that focus on Victory cards a lot. In fact, going for a Monarch takes even longer seeing as your deck will be inflated with Victory cards and stuff, thanks to Successor and Landowner. So while going for a Page or a Peasant is almost instinctive in most Dominion games, I’d argue that Successor could make one a little more hesitant if they want to aim for that.

I’m wondering if Monarch should always stay in play like Champion does. That’d be massively overpowered though, I think.

[segura]

This looks very good precisely because, as you said, it is not as crazy as Peasant or Page. The only thing I do not like is the massive power jump from the $4 to the $5. One of the first 3 cards might get away with a slight buff, perhaps making one non-terminal.

[Something_Smart]

I have a concept that seems to be promising but I'm not really satisfied with either of the cards I've made using it yet. I will tentatively submit this:

Opera House - Action - $4
+1 Buy
+$4
--
While this is in play, when you buy a card, the player to your left may reveal a copy of it from their hand. If they do, take 2 Debt.

My other idea for the bottom half is "While this is in play, you can't buy cards that the player to your right played a copy of on their last turn." That solves the victory problem but it is a pain to track and also has nastier FPA. The first version has FPA but there's a lot more variance of whether they will have the card in hand or not, so it's probably less bad for the second player (but more prone to randomness).

Like I said I'm not satisfied with either version; I'll keep thinking about them. Any feedback is welcome.

[grep]

Royal Monopoly
Project - $5
Gain a card costing up to $4 from a Supply pile with no Patent tokens on it, and move your Patent token on that pile.
When any player gains a card from the pile with your Patent token, +1 Coffer

Technically it's another token similar to Ferry, but with a monopoly clause to encourage the patent holder and discourage the others. Yes, you can patent Curse or Ruins, and junk the opponents while getting profit. To nerf this feature, monopoly is once per game.
The wording is heavier than I prefer, I would really appreciate any help with rewording.