Assessment Round 2 - Cards for the Intrigue expansionIntrigue has 3 sub-themes: 1) Choosing something from 2 or more options, 2) Victory cards that do something, and 3) cards that do something with Victory cards. All cards submitted offer one or more of these mechanics (Chamber Pot does it indirectly, but that is fine), so I will not mention much about this criterion for the challenge. A minor point of the contest was to give your card a name that fits to its abilities and to the flavor of Intrigue. You have done that more or less successfully, although in a few cases (e.g. Farmers Guild), I wasn’t able to find the connection. Anyway, this criterion wasn’t decisive for the evaluation of any of your cards.
When I will mention “simple” in the assessments of your cards, this is meant to be a positive attribute.
Informer from
LibraryAdventurer$3 - Action
+$1.
Reveal the top four cards of your deck.
Put all victory cards and any one other
card into your hand. Put the rest back
in any order.
This is a cheap version of Scout and Patrol, with the important difference that a useful card (other than Action-Victory cards) can be put into hand a la Sage. Since it is itself terminal, it needs support if included in an Engine. On the other hand, it can keep and use a revealed Treasure, and a revealed Action card can be put back, if no further Action is available. This means that $5 can be reached pretty soon during a game. Informer allows some indirect sifting, but is like Scout still weak. A solid card with a fitting name, but the mechanic is not “breath taking”.
Farmers Guild from
Jonatan Djurachkovitch$5 - Action-Victory
Discard up to 3 victory cards from
your hand for +2 cards each.
If any of them were Action cards,
+1 Action.
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2 VP
This looks like a Shepard with VP tagged on it. Farmers Guild needs to discard Action-Victory cards for getting further Actions, or a Village that was played before. With a cost of $5 it is in tough competition, but is might be quite useful late in the game as it shows synergy with itself and other Action-Victory cards. Farmers Guild has relatively simple instructions, but is a bit too similar to Shepard and looks too powerful, i.e. a $5 cost card that produces 2 VP and has quite strong abilities.
Lumbermonger from
spineflu$5 - Action – Treasure
If it's your Buy phase, +$2.
Otherwise, you may gain a
card costing up to $4.
As I have said shortly after your submission, an Action – Treasure is not the best choice for a typical Intrigue card. The argument that this represents the missing combination of a dual card type is debatable (for an Intrigue card) and would only hold when the abilities of the two phases (Action and Buy) are clearly distinctive. However, mechanically Lumbermonger doesn’t need to be a hybrid card as the two choices can be put on an Action-only card just by adding +1 Action to the first choice. Even then, it seems to be weak when compared to Charm.
Fief from
LordBaphomet$5 – Action - Victory
+1 Action
+1 Card for each victory card in play.
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1 VP
This is a guarantied cantrip (Great Hall) with the potential of being a Lab or more. For its cost likely not an opening buy, but it can be useful later in the game. It needs support (itself or other Action – Victory cards), but that is okay for a card providing VP and a high potential for becoming a strong card. It is simple in design, but for a $5 cost card, it’s use is a bit too limited even in Intrigue-only games.
Impersonator from
Aquila$5 – Action
+$1
Choose one: reveal the top 3 cards
of your deck, set aside one of the Actions,
discard the rest, then play the Action;
or replay an Action card you've played
this turn that's still in play.
This allows sifting, and then gives a choice between playing one of the revealed cards or one that is already in play. With the given wording, my understanding is that it would be able to play itself in an endless loop. Even if that was not meant to occur, it could be still done with 2 Impersonators; The name of the card is a nice choice as it fits to its abilities and to Intrigue. I feel that a modified second option would improve the card.
Golden Throne from
grrgrrgrr$5 – Action - Victory
You may play an Action card
from your hand twice. If it is
Victory card, play it another
time.
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1 VP
A Throne Room variant with the potential for becoming really powerful. It shows some synergy with itself, but clearly requires other Action cards; so in that sense a typical Throne Room variant. It may get crazy with other Action – Victory cards, i.e. Mill and Nobles, but which Throne Room variant doesn’t do that? This looks like a typical Intrigue card that is useful in a lot of Kingdoms.
Rook from
D782802859$2 – Action
Choose one: +1 Action and
look at the top 3 cards of
your deck, discard any
number of them and put the
rest back in any order; or
+2 Cards.
Two weak options on a cheap card, which looks fine. It combines a Cartographer light and a Moat, i.e. either allows some non-terminal sifting without drawing or is terminal with limited drawing. The apparent self-synergy looks like a Rooky trap as playing two consecutive Rooks leads to the same hand size without any Action left. Without support this means drawing Treasures with a second Rook is the preferred strategy. Rook looks appropriate for a $2 cost card and has an innovative mechanic.
Chamber Pot from
pubby$3 – Action - Reaction
+1 Action
Discard any number of cards.
+$1 per card discarded.
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When you discard this other
than during Clean-up, you
may trash it to gain a card
costing up to $6.
When played, this is a non-terminal Secret Chamber, which is quite strong. As a Reaction, it is a modified Tunnel that trashes itself for a strong card. The on-play abilities guarantee that Chamber Pot’s Reaction is always useful. Overall, it looks interesting, probably too strong, since gaining any card up to $6 is extremely flexible (Gold, Duchy, strong Action cards including Nobles), in any phase of the game and with any strategy. What I especially like is that the Reaction ability of Chamber Pot counteracts the misconception that new players often have in that the job of a Reaction is to prevent Attacks a la Moat. I would likely let it cost $4 to prevent a double-Chamber Pot opening.
Heiress from
Xen3k$5 – Action
+2 Cards
You may reveal a Victory card
from your hand. If it is an...
Estate, +1 Buy, +$2.
Duchy, gain a Gold.
Province, +2 Actions.
Action card, play it.
A Courtier for Victory cards, fitting to Intrigue but also directly competes with Courtier (cost and design-wise). The drawing ability increases the likelihood for finding a suitable target and ensures that the card is not useless when no Victory cards are in hand. Heiress is quite useful early in the game for using untrashed Estates for payload and late in the game when the density of Victory cards increases. What I like here is that it does not show self-synergy. It emphasizes Action-Victory cards, but is also useful in any Kingdom because of the presence of the basic Victory cards needed as targets.
Landscaper from
NoMoreFunAction/Victory - $3
Worth 1VP if you have
more Estates than Landscapers
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+1 Action, +$1.
Reveal cards from your deck
until you reveal a Victory card.
Put that card into your hand
and discard the rest.
This looks like an exotic reverse Duke. It is basically a non-terminal Copper that digs for a Victory card. Just from that point of view it looks counter-productive, except when finding Action-Victory cards and thus other Landscapers. If Estates can be trashed, it easily becomes a Peddler variant sifting through the deck; and in this case I would likely ignore the VPs of Landscapers for scoring at the end of the game. If considered to be worth buying in a given Kingdom, it requires a strategic decision about what to do with the Estates. This is definitively an interesting card with a name fitting to its mechanic.
Side note: The Action and Victory instructions should be swapped.
There are several cards I like and that would fit well to the Intrigue expansion, maybe with some minor modifications, but given the relative small pool of submitted cards, I refrain from naming too many cards. The cards that I found most exciting were those that offer clever new mechanics and a new version of the "reveal something for doing something" mechanic. So, my final assessment is:
Winner: Heiress from Xen3k.Runner ups:
Landscaper from
NoMoreFun and
Rook from
D782802859.
Thank you all for participating!
