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Author Topic: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One  (Read 12061 times)

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fika monster

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #75 on: May 15, 2021, 11:10:08 am »
+2


Quote
Consulate • $5 • Action
+2 Cards
+2 Actions
-
When you buy this, gain another Consulate, then each other player gains a Consulate.
twelve to the pile in 2, 3 and 5player. fifteen to the pile in 4p, fourteen in 6p.
will pile in
4 buys in 2p
3 buys in 3 + 4p
2 buys in 5+6p

Lost City version of Port that also gives everyone else the card.

nice, this was sorta what i was going for, but it doesnt get infinite loops
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4est

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #76 on: May 16, 2021, 12:06:39 am »
+5

Submissions are closed to new entries at this point, but please do check the OP to make sure I've got everyone's card and with the most updated version. Let me know if I'm missing anything!

I'll have my comments on all submissions and the winner posted tomorrow.
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Shael

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #77 on: May 16, 2021, 05:17:27 pm »
0

Seem that there is a lot of entry for this one, it was a really cool contest, really inspiring!
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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #78 on: May 16, 2021, 10:24:29 pm »
+8

WDC #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One

Commentary & Results


Thanks everyone for the submissions, there were lots of great ideas, and I loved all the different types of cards this challenge pulled in. It was hard to pick a winner! OPs are linked, shortlisted entries are bolded, enjoy.



Idiot’s Village by NoMoreFun
A normal village that disappears if you use all your Actions and gains a copy of itself if you don’t. Having your villages either be one-shots or multiply themselves is an interesting idea, however I’m concerned about the scaling here creating a win-more situation, where the player who gets several in play first, can quickly empty the pile (I’m assuming this is a normal 10-card pile since it’s not specified otherwise). With a bunch of villages, it’s not hard to always leave at least one Action to prevent returning them, while the other player is forced to do the same with fewer Actions to keep the few they have. Adding a clause to prevent gaining more than one Idiots Village per Clean Up phase might mitigate this issue some.

Foundry by mandioca15
Inventor but with +Cards instead of Bridge. Sounds neat and there’s potential for this to go nuts (something like Bandit Camp would be especially fun), however without +Actions or other gainers, the only time this will activate is when buying something which is usually the very worst time to get +Cards (and even with +Actions/other gainers, unless you’re drawing your deck you likely still aren’t going to want to get the +Cards effect when buying). Without the combos, this is usually going to be worse than Workshop. Perhaps try revising to “This turn, if it’s your Action phase, when you gain a card, +1 Card.”

Mousetrap by venusambassador
A non-terminal Workshop or Ambassador, but the thing you gain can shift, fascinating idea. I’m still trying to wrap my head around this one. It’s definitely got Lurker vibes, where if you get one, your opponent kind of has to get one too, but then there’s this awkward dance of not wanting to move the token until you’re confident you can play another one before your opponent. I’m torn on the Ambassador option; it’s certainly cool and opens up some interesting decisions, but I worry this can get oppressive quickly. That said, it needs trashing and draw to get there so perhaps it’s not too bad. It also seems like going for Mousetraps can sometimes be an actual trap (again like Lurker) where an opponent needs only to have one to really mess with the Mousetrap player (by threatening gains or moving the token). While playtesting is necessary to be more confident of the balance, this is a really creative one. Also, welcome to the forum!

Worker by The Alchemist
Inexpensive terminal draw which chains and gets stronger, and has a pseudo-overpay option to gain a second one (which you’ll likely almost always use since just one of these isn’t super helpful). Seems okay, though obviously requires +Action and trashing/sifting support to be usable. The setting aside then playing feels a little weird—without revealing, there’s not really a way to keep the player honest in playing a Worker they drew vs. one that was in their hand. Is there a reason to not just have it say, “You may play a Worker from your hand.”?  Without that, it’s much harder for Workers to chain off the first play unless your first Worker draws a Worker.

Floating City by emtzalex
This… is too much, I think. There’s not necessarily anything wrong with super expensive, super powerful cards, and I get the Dominate comparison, but the win-more nature of this as others have noted feels far too prevalent. The first player to get them is practically guaranteed to gain the rest in the next couple turns, and there’s really nothing an opponent can do to stop you once you’ve got a pile of these in your deck. This is also probably broken with trash for benefit. Pay $13, gain THREE $13 costs to Salvage/Bishop/Apprentice/etc.

Foundry by Gubump
A nice little trasher. The “you may” is a subtle touch which let’s you trash two Coppers and not have to gain a Copper like Forge forces you to. The dream of colliding with exactly two Estates in the second shuffle is going to be uncommon, which makes Remake look much better in the early game (trash Estate-Copper, gain Silver is usually superior to just trash Estate-Copper). It’s stronger than Remake later for turning engine parts into green, but it may suffer from some of Forge’s occasional clunkiness when the card costs don’t quite add up. A solid card, nonetheless.

Investor by majiponi
Discard to gain a copy, and it comes with a free Gold like Skulk, which is nice because you definitely don’t want this early without the free Gold. Investor has two main issues: the first being you have to collide it with the thing you want to gain which can be tricky, and more significantly, this suffers from the problem of, cards you want to gain copies of, you usually want to play now and not discard. Being terminal also really hurts—it feels like this could give +1 Action and still reasonably cost $4. The late Duchy gaining is okay, since it doesn’t hurt your hand to gain, but I think for many games, you’ll maybe get one of these for the Gold and otherwise not get a ton of use out of the gaining effect.

Tin by grep
Coppersmith is back, this time as a Treasure, which I like. Tin also allows you to trash Coppers into more expensive Treasures, though to do so, you’re giving up $2 this turn (for the Copper and the extra $ Tin would have made). It’s a strong opener in the beginning since it’s often a Gold or better in the first shuffle or two. The mini-Mine effect is nice with Kingdom treasures, but it feels like the two abilities directly conflict with one another (you almost don’t even want to upgrade Coppers to Silvers since your Coppers basically are Silvers when this is in play, and better if there are multiples in play). If you do trash them, eventually your Coppers are gone and this does nothing. Adding +Buy might help a bit since it will interact both with the payload on the top and allow you to buy additional Coppers, but even with that, this still seems of limited utility in a lot of games, for many of the same reasons Coppersmith and Mine are of limited utility.

Suburb by artless
A cheap Port that’s only a Village if it’s at least the third Action you’ve played, sort of like Conspirator. The fact that they come in pairs helps them activate, though you sure hope you’ve got some other cantrips to make these work, since the first two you get won’t increase your Actions, at least by themselves. Interesting idea, if a little vanilla.

Riot by naitchman
Lab-Rats, though instead of eating your whole deck, it slowly makes your cards stop working. A cheap Lab that gains copies of itself sounds incredible on paper, especially when you add in Copper trashing, but as with Rats, this will quickly destroy your deck if you aren’t careful, especially with a 20-card pile. I suppose you can try to build a deck of mostly $5s and $6s but once you’ve got 10 of these in your deck (which won’t take long) it’s going to be hard to find your playable non-Riots without playing through them all. Obviously, this wants TfB (or just trashing in general), but in games without it, this card looks like a trap.

Parish by xyz123
A $5 Estate that turns junk into $5 Estates (i.e. more junk). Doesn’t sound great so far. Let’s set aside the on-trash for a second (which yes, I realize that’s the main point of the card)—this is a terminal single-card trasher that doesn’t actually thin your deck at all, and it costs $5. When do you buy this? You certainly don’t want to open with it or make this your first $5 card. By the mid-game, you likely don’t have much junk to trash to activate the self-gaining, and by the end, there’s not time to get the on-trash bonus and these are literally $5 Estates. Of course, the strategy here is to trash them for the VP, however, Parishes alone are far to slow to accomplish this—most other strategies can gain VP much faster than the Parish player can gain and trash. The one place this card might work is with a TfB card like Apprentice or Salvager, but these games are rare. I do really like the +3 VP on trash and there’s definitely something interesting you can do with the card here—perhaps it could be a pure Victory card that trashes on gain like Cemetery? Pretty great combo with Salt the Earth.

Rabbit by mxdata
A $5 Peddler which can gain a copy of itself when exactly 2 are in play, bonus points for theme. You’re not usually super excited to pay $5 for a plain Peddler (see Treasury or Fisherman), and in this case, you have to get at least two before you can activate Rabbit’s bonus which does slow it down a bit, but the self-gaining is really nice once you can start colliding them every turn. I’m assuming it’s still just a 10 card pile? It’s definitely fine at that count, and is mildly stronger if it’s 12 (more than that feels a bit excessive). I’ve seen a variety of multiplying cards named Rabbit in the variant forums over the years, and this one is definitely my favorite for its simplicity.

Consulate by spineflu
Lost City/Port mashup that gives you two copies and everyone else one. At first, I was worried about the first player advantage, but it seems the 12-card pile (and scaled pile size) should help mitigate that a bit. I like that “losing the split” isn’t as bad since you get some too. My bigger issue with this card is how quickly the pile will vanish. It’s slightly slower in 2 player games, but regardless, this pile will likely disappear in 2-4 consecutive turns in just about every game. Lost Cities are always good, so there’s going to be a mad rush for them no matter what, and they will go faster than even Port. I feel like most games with Consulate will play pretty similarly, where everyone just gets 4-6 Consulates no matter what.

Village of Secrets by Aquila
Village in the daytime and a Village+Gainer at Night. It’s a unique idea, and I like that this lets you “rescue” dead-drawn Actions, however playing normal Actions at Night is awkward—most resources that Action cards give you, you usually don’t want in the Night phase (+Cards, +Actions, +Buy, +$). It’s also tricky in that some of the cards that most benefit from being played in Night (trashers, gainers, attacks) are often not ones you want to gain a bunch of copies of. Finally, it feels like the two modes don’t interact that well with one another. By being a Village, you should hopefully have the actions you need to not need to play something at Night. 

Locket by faust
Treasure-Workshop that can play what it gains if there’s not a copy in play which nicely gets around autogaining the pile. Very strong opener—gain Silver, +$2 is always a solid baseline option (makes Explorer look quite silly, but so do a lot of cards at this point). Gain and play in the Buy phase is a little awkward sometimes, since +Cards can draw Actions dead, but I like that it changes up the strategy a bit from typical gainers and encourages you to add variety. As the game goes on, this gets weaker since multiples can’t gain and play the same card, and you’re likely to have already played the Action cards you’d like to gain, and thus won’t be able to activate. Locket is indeed very strong, but I like this as a $4 nonetheless, though I could see removing the Treasure play option if it ends up being too centralizing.

Tools by Shael
A Silver that’s also a Tunnel-Workshop, but can discard at Clean-up which is neat, this would definitely be way too weak without that. Also non-terminal like Locket, but when using at end of turn, there’s not a way to gain and play. With discarders though, this can get much stronger, and it’s possible to activate the same Tools multiple times in a turn. It’s possible there are some potential loops with things like Forum or Stables which is a little worrisome, but overall this seems balanced and fun to play with. 

Hydra by X-tra
You’re paying for the flexibility, that’s for sure, but $6 feels right (though this certainly looks much better than Nobles). It’s cool that it can sort of function as whatever missing engine piece you need (draw, village, payload), though I wonder if just three options might be better (I’d eliminate either the Peddler option or the +$3). I agree about the wording—just listing the options is much simpler and more intuitive. The on-trash is of course the most interesting part of Hydra, obviously many cute combos with Remodelers and other TfB. In this regard, it's a little reminiscent of Fortress, but gaining two copies instead of returning to hand. Very neat and definitely wins most thematic award with the kill one, two spring up in its place thing.

Jewelry by fika monster
Cheap Gold that duplicates itself. Obviously a nice early open, but they will quickly start getting in each other’s way. The self-trash option is helpful and enables you to not always get hosed by having duplicates in your hand (which is going to happen a lot). It feels like the discard option won’t get much use—when would you choose this over making the Jewelry a one shot? These will be especially nice with TfB or sifters, and still workable without. Not sure on the 20-card pile, but maybe it’s fine?

Irregulars by Xen3k
A reimagined Urchin, with the same discard attack, but with +2 Cards instead of cantrip. You can overpay by $2 to get a second one which neatly makes up for all those games where you wanted to open Urchin-Urchin but opened 5-2. Colliding Irregulars is going to be much easier than Urchins since they draw an extra card, and can chain one after the other (though you don’t get the discard attack when they activate). Mercenary doesn’t play quite as nicely with this as Urchin due to it being terminal, but you’ll get one most games anyway. The three Silvers option feels a bit too strong in my opinion (in this way, it’s actually more akin to Tragic Hero than Treasure Map), though I do like the interaction with Mercenary. Overall, this feels much stronger than Urchin, but I appreciate the unique idea.

Pier by LastFootnote
A $5 Smithy that can discard a non-Victory card to gain a copy of it. Cute with dead-drawn Actions and can function as a sleek draw-gainer combo with enough thinning and +Action support. Like Investor, the cards you want to gain, you’d usually rather play now instead of discard, but the draw helps make up for that, and make it more possible you’ll get back around to those cards. This looks good in money decks too: Smithy, hit $8, and then discard a leftover Silver or Gold to gain another is a pretty good turn. Pier will be centralizing in some Kingdoms, but even in ones without the engine support, just about any deck can find a use for this. A simple and elegant card. 

Scriptorium by gambit05
A $5 up-to-$5 Action gainer. When creating Artisan, DXV mentioned initially having the card cost $5 but with a penalty, discard down to 2 cards in hand. Scriptorium feels a much more fun take on this idea, where the “penalty” of other players possibly playing a copy of the card you gain (which is very good for them) you can maybe partake in too. There’s some great decisions and player interaction here of trying to gain things you have copies of in hand, but also trying to gain things you know your opponent doesn’t have. I agree with LF about keeping the opponents play to their next turn—otherwise there’s potential for really weird situations with certain cards (especially Throne-variants and Scriptorium itself) where a player can sort of start playing their own turn within your turn (you gain Crown, they play Crown, play Crown, play Smithy, play Scriptorium, now my brain is starting to hurt). Of course, you want the play now option for you, and there’s likely not a great wording to keep that and make it next turn only for other players. Potential for turnception aside, it’s a very interesting idea!

Scaffolding by Timinou
So it’s either Enchantress (without the attack) or it returns to the pile to gain two other cards, and the more Scaffoldings in play, the better those cards can be. Making this a duration helps you get more in play which is neat, and gaining two cards means you can always regain a Scaffolding to make this function more like Workshop. +Actions are usually necessary to make this ever gain anything costing more than $4. I think the hardest thing for me with this card is the cost to set up. You have to buy two terminal $4 costs, play one as a duration (which does nothing the turn you play it), and then hope you collide with the other one to gain two $4 costs—which you could have just bought to begin with. I think this can safely cost $3 like Enchantress. Unique idea, but still feels like it needs a little something extra to make it worth going for.



Honorable Mentions: Foundry by Gubump, Tools by Shael, Rabbit by mxdata, Locket by faust, Scriptorium by gambit05, Hydra by X-tra

Runner Up: Mousetrap by venusambassador

WINNER: Pier by LastFootnote


Congrats to LastFootnote and thanks everyone for participating!
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gambit05

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #79 on: May 17, 2021, 01:57:44 am »
0

Congratulations to LastFootnote for the win and venusambassador for the runner-up, and welcome to the Forums!

Many thanks to 4est for your excellent assessment of the cards.

With respect to my card, Scriptorium: I was aware of the potential craziness that can occur when other players play their copies immediately. My guess is that in the majority of the cases, it wouldn't differ from the more safe way of separating the "reactions" of the active player vs. the opponents. It definitely needs some play testing with real players to see how often crazy situations would occur. If that is only once in a while, then I would keep it as it is. By the way, the wording for separating the "reactions" isn't too complicated and requires just one additional line, e.g. ..."You may play... Each other player may set aside..." I just thought I go for the spicier version here. Anyway, thanks for the evaluation.

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xyz123

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #80 on: May 17, 2021, 03:25:49 am »
0

Congratulations Footnote.

Thanks for 4est for running the competition.
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venusambassador

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #81 on: May 17, 2021, 10:17:13 am »
+1

congrats LFN for the win, and thanks so much to 4est for judging and for the thoughts on my card!
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LastFootnote

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #82 on: May 17, 2021, 11:06:51 am »
+3

I'm honestly surprised I won. There were a lot of great entries. Thanks for running the contest, 4est. Hopefully people will enjoy WDC #115.

I've been out of the fan card scene for a lot of years now. It's good to see the Variants forum thriving! This rotating weekly contest idea is really genius. It's great that just one person isn't responsible for keeping the whole thing going.
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Shael

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #83 on: May 17, 2021, 01:01:23 pm »
0

I agree that Pier and Locket are two great cards.
Thank you for your junging ^^

I'm honestly surprised I won. There were a lot of great entries. Thanks for running the contest, 4est. Hopefully people will enjoy WDC #115.

I've been out of the fan card scene for a lot of years now. It's good to see the Variants forum thriving! This rotating weekly contest idea is really genius. It's great that just one person isn't responsible for keeping the whole thing going.
Honnestly, I'm not, your card are one of the best in my opinion too.

Locket by faust
Gain and play in the Buy phase is a little awkward sometimes, since +Cards can draw Actions dead, but I like that it changes up the strategy a bit from typical gainers and encourages you to add variety.
It's not a huge miss but I think + cards could be usefull during the buy phase: if you play locket, gain a +card action and draw a treasure you can play it since you've bought anything, right?
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The Alchemist

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Re: Weekly Design Contest #114: Two (or more) for the Price of One
« Reply #84 on: May 17, 2021, 11:23:59 pm »
0

Worker by The Alchemist
Inexpensive terminal draw which chains and gets stronger, and has a pseudo-overpay option to gain a second one (which you’ll likely almost always use since just one of these isn’t super helpful). Seems okay, though obviously requires +Action and trashing/sifting support to be usable. The setting aside then playing feels a little weird—without revealing, there’s not really a way to keep the player honest in playing a Worker they drew vs. one that was in their hand. Is there a reason to not just have it say, “You may play a Worker from your hand.”?  Without that, it’s much harder for Workers to chain off the first play unless your first Worker draws a Worker.

It doesn't need a reveal clause because cards set aside are automatically revealed unless otherwise stated ("set aside face down"), this is made explicit in the rule book. Since you can only set aside drawn Workers, that's how you know they're not playing one from their hand. It has the same wording as Library, which likewise does not have a reveal clause for the same exact reason. As for why it doesn't play Workers from your hand, its because that would be a different card. Cultist already does that, and with just +2 cards its already quite strong even without the junking effect. This card would surely not cost $1 if it were to chain from hand, its the difference (upon playing the first worker) of finding a worker in 5 cards in your hand vs 1 on top of your deck. The drawing power as it is now is weak, but that was always the intention of this card, a weak drawer that gets stronger.
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