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[J.Co.]

(I haven't seen this idea anywhere, so hopefully I'm not stealing it)

I've read about how there won't be cards created that interact with previously trashed cards (i.e. an action that lets you take a card from the trash and adding it to your hand). One of the problems was not having any benefit if there are no trashers in the kingdom, which happens quite often. Another reason would be the cards that are trashed usually aren't worth gaining, as well as dealing with what goes on top of the trash v. searching through the trash, etc.

So I thought of an idea to remedy these: A trasher that also is a reaction to when other people trash and makes others gain them. For example:

Regifter (not super thematic, but work with me. Plus, I'm a Seinfeld fan)

Action-Reaction, $4
+1 action
Trash a card from your hand, then gain a Silver and put it into your hand.
---
After any amount of a player's cards are trashed, reveal this card. Choose up to that same number of cards from the trash for him to gain, putting them on top of his deck. Discard once revealed.


*Rule clarification: The idea is to put 'x' amount of cards back on top of the player's deck during his turn, but I would think the reaction part of this would be after the initial card is played. For example:
Player A plays Apprentice, trashes a silver to draw three cards
Player B reveals Regifter, then discards. Player B chooses up to one card to place on top of Player A's deck
Player A plays Smithy, drawing three cards (one of which was placed on top of his deck), then finishes his turn.



First of all, Regifter would have to be worth getting on its own without the reaction function, which would mean players wouldn't have to buy it just to get in on the reaction part of it. Trashing an Estate or a Copper for a Silver early on obviously could be nice. Trashing curses for Silvers is good always. I'm sure there are other neat interactions that would make just that function worth it.

I tried pricing Regifter at a higher cost point, like $5, and make it give Golds, putting them on top of the deck (consistent with the reaction function, which I thought was cool). But Golds were too powerful. Even just gaining Golds was too strong. Putting a Silver on top of the deck was okay, but eh. So I came up with this. I'm sure there could be other, better suggestions for this function. The higher cost point also hurt the reaction function since it'd be harder to open with.

The real crux of the card, of course, is the reaction. The card it hurts the most seems to be Chapel. If you've got this in your hand, you can simply return the four cards he just trashed on top of his deck. Ouch. For Remodel, the player still gets the two cards at a higher cost, but he doesn't get rid of the two cards. Ouch again. Forge, Expand, Mine...all trashers would get messed with!

I could see this card getting kinda crazy. If someone tries to trash a curse, it could basically become a Sea Hag. Someone buy Mint with five Coppers? Well, now they'll have five cards from the trash put back on their deck, possibly even those same Coppers. Regifter would force you to think about whether or not to trash cards. That could change some strategies, for sure. And since the card is not an attack, there wouldn't be anything else someone could do about it, save the usual, like revealing a Watchtower.
*Special note on Watchtower, actually: If a player reveals Watchtower to trash a gained card, a player could reveal Regifter to make him regain that card, but the player with Watchtower still has Watchtower in his hand, so he could reveal it again. The other player had to discard Regifter, so he would lose that battle and waste a valuable card from his hand.

Some negatives to the card:
-Timing confusion: An issue of when cards are put back on top of the deck could come up, though hopefully the way it's worded would clear up any sticky situation.
-It could be a lengthy step if there's a lot of cards in the trash for the revealer to sift through.
-It would require keeping track of how many cards were trashed, since the reveal function occurs after the cards are trashed (This is an important distinction, since the trashed cards would be eligible to be returned to the deck).

What say you all? Any tweaks to make it better? Is the cost too high or low? Is the reaction too effective? I'd love to hear thoughts.

[ftl]

It's a little worrisome not because of the interaction with the trash, but because it acts like a counterattack. Donald X wrote a post somewhere about making reactions that actually hurt the guy doing the attacking, and why they were/are tough to make work; the same sort of things would apply here. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=53.msg753#msg753 quotes it.

[eHalcyon]

Regifter (not super thematic, but work with me. Plus, I'm a Seinfeld fan)

Action-Reaction, $4
+1 action
Trash a card from your hand, then gain a Silver and put it into your hand.
---
After any amount of a player's cards are trashed, reveal this card. Choose up to that same number of cards from the trash for him to gain, putting them on top of his deck. Discard once revealed.


*Rule clarification: The idea is to put 'x' amount of cards back on top of the player's deck during his turn, but I would think the reaction part of this would be after the initial card is played. For example:
Player A plays Apprentice, trashes a silver to draw three cards
Player B reveals Regifter, then discards. Player B chooses up to three cards to place on top of Player A's deck
Player A plays Smithy, drawing three cards (the three cards placed on top of his deck), then finishes his turn.

In your example there, why would player B be able to put 3 cards on top of player A's deck?  Apprentice only trashed a single card (Silver).

What happens in multiplayer if multiple players reveal this card in a response to a trash?  I trash four cards with chapel in a 3-player game; both of my opponents reveal Regifter so now I get up to 8 cards on top of my deck?

[Davio]

It's a little worrisome not because of the interaction with the trash, but because it acts like a counterattack. Donald X wrote a post somewhere about making reactions that actually hurt the guy doing the attacking, and why they were/are tough to make work; the same sort of things would apply here. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=53.msg753#msg753 quotes it.

Also, the reaction part would make it a targeted attack and that's not in spirit with the other cards. No other card uses direct targeting like this, it's always the player to your left or right.

Besides, it needs a FAQ for Possession.

[J.Co.]

It's a little worrisome not because of the interaction with the trash, but because it acts like a counterattack. Donald X wrote a post somewhere about making reactions that actually hurt the guy doing the attacking, and why they were/are tough to make work; the same sort of things would apply here. http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=53.msg753#msg753 quotes it.

I see your point, but I don't know. To me, the same hang up comes into play with a card like Pirate Ship. You're actually trashing other players' coppers, which could help them more than the attacker (not the same thing, but the issue seems similar). Same with Bishop. It benefits other players, too, but it's worth playing Bishop yourself for the two VPs. It just depends on how you handle it.

But as a compromise, what if the card was a Duration card instead of a reaction? So while it's in play until your next turn, the effect would occur? I guess that way players wouldn't be surprised by a "counter" attack while still affecting their strategy by making them hesitant to trash cards. If multiple ones are out, the closest player to the right with Regifter out would get to choose the cards.

Regifter (not super thematic, but work with me. Plus, I'm a Seinfeld fan)

Action-Reaction, $4
+1 action
Trash a card from your hand, then gain a Silver and put it into your hand.
---
After any amount of a player's cards are trashed, reveal this card. Choose up to that same number of cards from the trash for him to gain, putting them on top of his deck. Discard once revealed.


*Rule clarification: The idea is to put 'x' amount of cards back on top of the player's deck during his turn, but I would think the reaction part of this would be after the initial card is played. For example:
Player A plays Apprentice, trashes a silver to draw three cards
Player B reveals Regifter, then discards. Player B chooses up to three cards to place on top of Player A's deck
Player A plays Smithy, drawing three cards (the three cards placed on top of his deck), then finishes his turn.

In your example there, why would player B be able to put 3 cards on top of player A's deck?  Apprentice only trashed a single card (Silver).

What happens in multiplayer if multiple players reveal this card in a response to a trash?  I trash four cards with chapel in a 3-player game; both of my opponents reveal Regifter so now I get up to 8 cards on top of my deck?

Also, the reaction part would make it a targeted attack and that's not in spirit with the other cards. No other card uses direct targeting like this, it's always the player to your left or right.

Besides, it needs a FAQ for Possession.

Sorry, fixed the three-card error (I typed a different example, but forgot to change everything). And as far as the multiplayer thing, I'm not against adding a player-to-your-left stipulation, making it similar to something like Contraband. I don't think it's too out-of-spirit with the game. There's Tournament that allows anyone to reveal a Province to prevent a bonus, there's Tribute that only affects the next two cards of the person to his left. I don't think it'd break the game, but as a compromise, I came up with the duration alternative instead (see above).

[Kirian]

Regifter (not super thematic, but work with me. Plus, I'm a Seinfeld fan)

Action-Reaction, $4
+1 action
Trash a card from your hand, then gain a Silver and put it into your hand.

I'd buy this card in a heartbeat at that price without the reaction.  Compare with Trading Post, which requires two trashes and doesn't give you a bonus action... and is priced at $5, because at $4 everyone would open with it.

Compare with Mine.  While this card can't get Golds with Silvers, it can get Silvers in hand from Estates and Curses.  That's a net +$2 this turn, plus a huge jump in cash density for your deck.  And an extra action so you can do it again.

So now you have a card that everyone must buy.  That top part is so good that it wouldn't be worth it to use the reaction against another player's Regifter.  Which would you prefer:  Put a junk card on top of your opponent's deck, or remove a junk card from your deck and gain a Silver in hand?  The reaction would nullify or mostly nullify the major trashers (Chapel, Steward, Remake), so no one will take those for fear of having their trashed cards put back on top of their deck.

In other words, the reaction is far too powerful against most other cards, but not powerful enough against itself (or any other trash-one-card-for-benefit) to use the reaction instead of playing the card.  Even without the reaction it's underpriced.  And the reaction suffers from both the "take stuff out of the trash" problem and the "who gets to do it?" problem.  (Consider:  in 4-player, if all three opponents are holding one, whichever opponent discards theirs is now at a disadvantage compared to the other opponents!  Mexican standoff.)

[J.Co.]

To Kirian, that was kind of the point of the card: making people think about trashing. If Regifter is the only trasher out there, it's wouldn't be a big deal. But this card could slow down an Apprentice chain a little bit. Or make Chapel players take caution, maybe consider buying more than one chapel. It's not that the card would keep people from trashing at all (Remake is almost too good not to pick up if available), it would slow them down. Since Regifter is only able to trash one card, it's not like it would have a 'strictly better than' advantage.

But for further balancing, here's a couple other alternatives I've thought of. One is take away the +1 action, especially if it's a duration. Another version was when you gain the Silver from trashing, you would put it on top of your deck instead of in your hand (without a +action). That's how I originally had it, which kept it consistent with the function of the reaction. You're right, I don't want the action function to be so good that it'd overshadow the reaction, which is the crux of the card. It does need to be decent enough to make people want to buy it, and at an opening cost of $4.

A final version would be what I have, but don't put anything on top of decks, which may end up being the best balancing solution. Also, since it's now a duration, I think it makes sense to take into account the amount of cards you'd get to choose from the trash. If everyone played Regifter consecutively, it would stymie trashing strategies (though that's the point of the card, it may be too much). 

REVISION:

Regifter

Action-Duration, $4
Trash a card from your hand, then gain a Silver.
-----
While this is in play, after a player trashes any amount of cards, choose up to half that number of cards rounded up from the trash and make him gain them, then discard this from play.


Discarding after using the bottom ability would prevent multiple ones from being out at the same time: You play it, then someone else plays his, which triggers your effect and the subsequent discard. Then he would have the only one in play. I thought of using "No more than one of these can be in play" clause instead. That way, if no one else plays Regifter, the ability can be used on everyone who trashes with other cards, not just the first player who does (which keeps the spirit of the game intact). I somehow doubt the reception of a card that refers to itself like that, but I wouldn't have a problem with it.

[cored]

I was just thinking the same thing.  The trash pile is a totally unused resource for a game mechanic that could be pretty fun.

I think there are a few catches though:

1. The card itself should be a trasher, so that a trash pile would exist if this card was in the game.
2. It should probably use existing mechanics.

I was thinking of something like this:

$2
Junk Yard
ACTION
Trash a card from your hand.  You may choose to trash this card as well, gaining $1 for each card in the trash pile, including this card, and returning all cards in the trash pile to the Supply.
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