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[fika monster]

Overpay Meets Queue meets +1 Card token... for a price



Its quite wordy as it is, and i would appreciate wording suggestions.

At first it was just its top part, but i thought "hey, what if there is no other Queue cards or no surplus actions?". So i added the Overpay option. Now, for 1$, you can essentially scheme a card you have in play. And hopefully be able to activate Consultants positive effect for a while...

Decided to change the card into a sort of +2 cards

[Aquila]

I thought of queuing commands on a computer program and came to:

Commissioner - Action, $5 cost.
+ $2
You may play an Action card from your Queue. If you don't, Queue this.
-
When you gain this, Queue any number of Actions you have in play.

Edit: added self-Queue on play for more permanent functionality.

[Timinou]

I thought of queuing commands on a computer program and came to:

Commissioner - Action, $5 cost.
+ $2
You may play an Action card from your Queue.
-
When you gain this, Queue any number of Action cards you have in play.

I really like the concept but I’m not sure about the power level.  With the way the Queue mechanic works you will eventually run out of Action cards in the Queue even without playing Commissioner.  If gaining Commissioner is the only way to add more Action cards to the Queue, you risk adding a bunch of $5-cost terminal silvers to your deck.

[emtzalex]

My Submission:

INTO THE WOODS [Card art shows a black and white drawing of a dark forest, with the outlines of trees covering most of the image and grass in the foreground; an eerie light glows from the center of the image] Queue all of the Action and Night cards you would discard from play this turn. During your Night phase, you may discard this from your Queue to play an Action card from your hand. Cost: $3 NIGHT

RAPUNZEL TOWER [Card art shows a narrow tower, most of which is white with a few bricks that are pale red or blue; the tower has a very steep red roof, as well as decorative elements on the corners with red cones at the top and bottom; the top part of the tower has decorative green designs at the top an bottom, and each side has a large window with green-blue shutters. An extremely long length of hair runs out of one of the windows and most of the way down the tower. In the background, from bottom to top, there is a small amount of dark green foliage, then a pale purple mountain, then large, fluffy white clouds, then a grey-blue sky.] Add 1VP to the Rapunzel Tower Supply pile. You may play an Action card from your Queue twice. When you buy an Action card this turn, if you have a copy of it in your Queue, take 2VP from the pile. Cost: $5 ACTION - GATHERING

There's so much to do with this mechanics. I have already designed about 20 different cards/landscapes, and I really am not sure which one I wanted to submit. I decided to go with this split pile, which adds a couple of extra functions to the mechanic (although I think there are a lot of great designs without doing that).

I knew I wanted something that would interact with cards while they were in the Queue (playing them, trashing them, etc.). For that to work, you are generally going to need to put a lot off different cards on there. Designs that (for example), give you the choice of either Queuing an Action card or playing one from the Queue will rarely work, as you usually have to collide them to get them to do anything. The solution I came up with was a split pile, with one card Queuing a lot of Actions (which is still useful even if you never get to the second half of the plie) and the other playing from the Queue.

In order to get a lot of Actions on, the Night card that Queued from play seemed like a solid choice. Originally, that is all Into the Woods did, but I was worried that the pile would rarely been bought up, especially in 2 player games, so I made it Queue itself  (and all Night cards, adding some additional versatility) and then added the Reserve like effect (which will usually be of limited use, since many Actions aren't helpful during your Night phase, but can put a drawn-dead Action in play to get Queued by another copy of ItW).

For the second card in the pile, I wanted a throne variant that played the card from your Queue. The Rapunzel Tower fit nicely, and was originally an Action-Victory card that was worth more if in your Queue at the end of the game. However, there are some tricky issues with split piles and Victory cards, and I didn't love the design, so I decided to add one more unique interaction with the Queue: a Gathering that rewards VP tokens for buying Action cards already on the Queue.

Overall, I like this combo, and I really like the mechanic. There are so many really great things you can do with it. I'll post my other designs after the contest is over.

[Gubump]

My Submission:

INTO THE WOODS [Card art shows a black and white drawing of a dark forest, with the outlines of trees covering most of the image and grass in the foreground; an eerie light glows from the center of the image] Queue all of the Action and Night cards you would discard from play this turn. During your Night phase, you may discard this from your Queue to play an Action card from your hand. Cost: $3 NIGHT

Is the fact that you can play Into the Woods and then immediately "call" it intentional?

[emtzalex]

Is the fact that you can play Into the Woods and then immediately "call" it intentional?

Yes. I did not explain that well in my OP (I was pretty tired). I was trying to add functionality to Into the Woods, in hopes that it would be viable to buy them out to get to the second card. Playing an Action card during your Night phase tends not to be that useful (as vanilla bonuses are all but useless), but it gives players another way to play ItW. But, I don't think calling ItW just to get it out of your Queue is necessarily an automatic thing; a sounder strategy will often be to hold it until you especially want the Action card(s) you start your turn with back sooner.

It also creates another combo with Rapunzel Tower. If you draw ItW and RT with other Actions but, but don't have any Actions left on your Queue, you can play the other Actions, play ItW to Queue them, then discard ItW to play RT and play one of your Actions two more times. That will tend to be of limited value (again, no vanilla), but you might be able to Curse your opponent(s) 3 times (if there are that many Curses left), Exile 3 cards with Sanctuary or Displace, or Groom Experiment 3 time to get 9 one-shot Labs.

There is also a chance if your deck is (almost) empty that you could discard ItW, play an Action with +Cards, draw ItW, then play that same one (maybe for a second time on your turn) to Queue the drawing card you just played. However, that will mean you either (a) got very lucky; or (b) drew your entire deck. In the case of (b), that generally means you have a great engine that let you play all of your Actions and draw your deck, in which case playing ItW is the last thing you would want to do (since you're only getting 1 Action card back per turn).

This is also why I don't think the cards are busted. While they do help a lot with playing and colliding Actions, they are not as useful with decks that play all of their Actions on a turn.

I have no idea about the mechanical soundness of the split pile but it is a lovely and very creative design.

Thanks.

[NoMoreFun]

24 Hours to go

[Aquila]

I thought of queuing commands on a computer program and came to:

Commissioner - Action, $5 cost.
+ $2
You may play an Action card from your Queue.
-
When you gain this, Queue any number of Action cards you have in play.

I really like the concept but I’m not sure about the power level.  With the way the Queue mechanic works you will eventually run out of Action cards in the Queue even without playing Commissioner.  If gaining Commissioner is the only way to add more Action cards to the Queue, you risk adding a bunch of $5-cost terminal silvers to your deck.

True, sometimes waiting for setting up big Queues to condense the deck down to mainly Commissioners won't work. So I added self-Queue if you choose not to play something from your Queue. They can stack themselves up for big payload.
Hopefully not overloaded with options like this.

[mathdude]

Not sure on power level here. But trying to get a balance of usefulness of if the card, and the ability to sometimes actually build up a queue of cards instead of just queuing 1 card and putting it in your hand next turn. Here's what I've got:

Phoenix
Night, $3
Queue all cards in your hand. Trash any number of cards you would discard from play this turn. Queue a card from the Supply costing exactly as many $ as the number of cards you trashed.

(So if you choose to just queue your hand and trash nothing, you will also queue a Copper from the supply. You can usually trash 1 to get nothing from the supply. You can likely trash 3 to get a Silver in Queue for next turn. And sometimes, you may be able to get something better.)

[NoMoreFun]

I think it's time to cut off formal entries. I'll judge later tonight.

emtzalex and anyone else feel free to post outtakes etc.

[NoMoreFun]

Migration by Timinou

This looks like it will be fun to have around during greening - instead of a province you can get a Duchy that stays out of your deck for 3 turns (likely to miss a shuffle) and 2 $5 cards to your hand to help you on future turns. With multiple you can keep the Duchies out forever, or even put a Duchy and Estate (or better) at the back of your queue. I think this makes it possibly too strong, especially as with decent non terminal 5s you can aim to 3 pile by getting the same 3 cards on each purchase. However it's a really nice exploration of the queue mechanic, and it's strong in a way that makes use of the kingdom. Not sure what the ideal cost would be, but an event queuing 3 $4 cards probably would have fared better.

Workhouse by spineflu

Initially I didn't like how you had to queue absolutely everything, but now I think that's what makes this card fun. The way you'd set your deck up a certain way, and then the next 4 or so turns have no luck involved, make it seem like a card trick. Because those hands are going to start small it doesn't seem particularly strong, so it will be all the more impressive when it works well. It would be really fun to watch someone pull off a good Workhouse setup at a tournament. It has limited uses, but I don't mind that for a landscape. 

Assembly by Gubump

This one stands out as using the queue mechanic to make a card visible and allow effects to act on it until the player's next turn while still being quite simple. When I saw this I thought of a curser that uses Queue to limit players to receiving one curse per round of turns. I really appreciate the originality. 

 As for the card however, I think it's too swingy. The card can whiff, it can be blocked by any Duration or Command Action card, or players can have multiple cards in their hand and queue the worst one. Additionally a counter play strategy is big money. I think this card would work better if it queued one of your own Action cards, as a kind of Throne Room/Scepter variant. 

Breadline by Xen3k

This is a good use of the queue mechanic. A trash for benefit where the benefit is more trashing wouldn't work easily, but queue for benefit definitely does. As you gain access to better and better cards to put away more coppers, you will have fewer Coppers that need putting away. But do you want to forego playing that power card this turn to queue a bunch of Coppers? Probably, but not necessarily, and that's fun. I'd like to playtest trash for queue and queue for trash as well.

I don't see the need for all the extra frills - queueing the top card of your deck makes it too luck based (you will get the card next turn, but its value will vary). I don't really see the point of the setup rule - it won't be too long before you have a full queue of Copper if you play with this card, and you don't need to give someone 4 more Copper to convince them that trashing or pseudo trashing is worth it.

Novice by segura

Probably the first card I'd want to playtest to really test the Queue mechanic.

The way I see this playing out is to almost always Queue the top card of the deck. Spamming Novices will be tantamount to trashing, as it will be very easy to get good cards back into your hand (either wait, or play another Novice) and leave the bad ones in the queue. I initially had this pegged as a classic "too good for $4, too weak for $5" but I think this would actually be quite a convincing $5 card. I really like the simplicity of the design though as it really brings out the mechanics of the mat.

Strategist by The_Alchemist

Another good card to size up the Queue mechanic - a version of Scheme/Herbalist/Save. It wasn't quite clear whether you could Strategise a card in your hand - you are going to discard that during Clean-up (so it fits the wording), but all the other cards with similar mechanics specify a card you'll discard from play. 

It seems like pretty much a no-brainer to buy for $5. It's a better Hireling ($6 card)  or a Scheme+Caravan (an amazing $3 and an amazing $4), or, especially if you intended it to be able to queue cards from hand, a Sancutary  (one of the best $5s). You can overdo it with this card but  even with excess Queue capacity, Queue-trashing coppers and early game actions while still getting their on play benefit is good.

I think it would be a more interesting card with "+2 Actions" instead of "+1 Card +1 Action" for $6. At the very least it's a Barracks (hence why it needs to cost $6) but being +2 Actions motivates you to get other Action cards and play around with the Scheme type effects. 

Consultant by fika monster

I really like "Overpay for Queue" - what I'm imagining is doing a big buy later in the game on a good turn to set you up for the rest of the game (like a Merchant Guild megaturn). I think I'd prefer something less situational for the on play (Something like "+1 Action Queue a card from your hand, or put a card from your Queue into your hand") - but it's really all about the overpay.

Into the Woods/Rapunzel Tower by emtzalex

Initially I thought it was trying to do too many things, but everything seems to work together very nicely.

Into the Woods sets up increasingly big Queues of cards where you'd actually feel the pain from having good cards too far back in the Queue, then Rapunzel Tower makes that long Queue an asset. You could lose the "Action in the Night" mechanic of into the woods, and the Gathering aspect of Rapunzel Tower, but I also quite like them, they add to the fun of the cards, and it wasn't as if the cards were too hard to understand.

Phoenix by mathdude

An interesting card in the sense that it's really good in early game (fast copper trashing and possible bonus gains) and late game (pseudo-exile), and sags in the middle (Scheme with no draw and a penalty). The name really clicked for me as I wrote this appraisal! Not sure the cost is right (probably a fine $5) but it gets to the heart of the queue mechanic.


Winner: Into the Woods/Rapunzel Tower by emtzalex
Runners Up: Phoenix by mathdude and Workhouse by Spineflu

[Aquila]

Looks like you missed my Commissioner. Does the mock-up load for you? Just recently they haven't been on one of my devices.

[NoMoreFun]

Looks like you missed my Commissioner. Does the mock-up load for you? Just recently they haven't been on one of my devices.

Just an oversight, sorry. There's no image but I can see the quote text.

Commissioner by Aquila
Two good ideas - the self queuing terminal, and the long queue of Actions that can he shortened by the card.

Unfortunately I think the end result is a bit too strong. Definitely a power $5, the strength of BM+Commissioner may just be counterbalanced by what other things are possible with the card. Even then however it is so good both on buy and as you play that the other cards diminish in significance - thinking just "Commissioner + any village" gets you a reliable $8 every turn after a bit of setup, or a reliable $13+buy to get a province and another Commissioner. This makes it seem less interesting than it should be.

I really like the simplicity however. Thinking a version that's a Workshop instead of a Terminal Silver might be a great card. As it is, probably just a bit too strong as both payload and deck control.

[emtzalex]

Into the Woods/Rapunzel Tower by emtzalex

Initially I thought it was trying to do too many things, but everything seems to work together very nicely.

Into the Woods sets up increasingly big Queues of cards where you'd actually feel the pain from having good cards too far back in the Queue, then Rapunzel Tower makes that long Queue an asset. You could lose the "Action in the Night" mechanic of into the woods, and the Gathering aspect of Rapunzel Tower, but I also quite like them, they add to the fun of the cards, and it wasn't as if the cards were too hard to understand.

Winner: Into the Woods/Rapunzel Tower by emtzalex
Runners Up: Phoenix by mathdude and Workhouse by Spineflu

Thanks, NoMoreFun! I will try to have the next contest posted some time this evening.

[Xen3k]

Breadline by Xen3k

This is a good use of the queue mechanic. A trash for benefit where the benefit is more trashing wouldn't work easily, but queue for benefit definitely does. As you gain access to better and better cards to put away more coppers, you will have fewer Coppers that need putting away. But do you want to forego playing that power card this turn to queue a bunch of Coppers? Probably, but not necessarily, and that's fun. I'd like to playtest trash for queue and queue for trash as well.

I don't see the need for all the extra frills - queueing the top card of your deck makes it too luck based (you will get the card next turn, but its value will vary). I don't really see the point of the setup rule - it won't be too long before you have a full queue of Copper if you play with this card, and you don't need to give someone 4 more Copper to convince them that trashing or pseudo trashing is worth it.

Thanks for judging and I greatly appreciate the feedback! Inspired by what you said, I mocked up a version of Breadline that is much simpler. I kept the cost at $4 but tacked on the gain to hand mechanic many Night cards have to make the first use of it a lot more consistent. It definitely makes the early game more interesting.

Breadline - $4
Night
Queue a card from your hand. You may Queue a Copper from play per $1 it costs.
----
This is gained to your hand (instead of your discard pile).

[emtzalex]

So, there is just a ton you can do with this. Even without the extra functionality I incorporated (like playing cards from your Queue, self-discarding from the Queue for an effect, or considering the cards on a Queue to give a bonus), Queuing has a rather vast design potential. The biggest barrier I ran into is how broadly beneficial Queuing cards is. Having even one card on your Queue means you get to add an extra card to your hand, which is very often (although not always) beneficial. You also get to choose which card to add (if you have more than one), knowing what is in your starting hand, which can be a huge benefit when needing to collide cards (think Treasure Map, or Smithy/village). It can also hold your set-aside cards aside longer. You might set aside 3 Victory cards with Church (even ones you didn't want to trash) so they would miss the shuffle; but while Church puts them all back the next turn, a Queuing version of church would have one of them out for at least 3 turns.

The only way Queuing can be broadly disadvantageous is when you put too many of your good cards in your Queue, and are stuck waiting a long time to get them back. But even then, this downside is mitigated by multiple turns adding one of your really good cards to your hand. Despite this strength, there are plenty of ways to mitigate the amount of Queuing and make really interesting, balanced cards.


The first thought I had was (like spineflu, and before I saw their post) was to Queue a huge chunk of a player's cards, by putting their hand, and deck into their discard and then Queuing the discard pile. My initial thought was using a Night card to do it.

Immurement Cost: $6 Type: Night Text: Discard your hand. Put your deck into your discard pile. Queue your discard pile.

This was obviously too powerful, even at $6. Queuing everything but the cards you have in play is almost always great, and if a player can use it after drawing most of their deck with a strong engine (thus Queuing all of their dead cards, along with any Treasures or Actions they chose not to play), that engine would become even stronger, and the player could keep using Immurement to Queue any cards she didn't want. My next thought was to make it a kind of one-shot:

Immurement Cost: $6 Type: Night - Duration Text: Discard your hand. Put your deck into your discard pile. Queue your discard pile. At the start of your next turn, you may trash this. If you didn't, shuffle your Queue into your deck.

At first I thought a pure one shot at $6 was too harsh, so I made it optional, adding a Duration that, at the start of your next turn, either trashed itself or emptied your Queue. Version 0.2 (not pictured) put your Queue into your discard pile, but then the non-one shot version would effectively let your deck be all the cards you have in play, and have your discard pile be all of the dead cards. Shuffling into your deck helped, although you still get a starting hand of playable cards, plus any one out of your Queue (if you want it). My next thought was just to do a pure one-shot.

Immurement Cost: $6 Type: Night Text: Trash this. If you did, discard your hand, put your deck into your discard pile, then Queue your discard pile.

While this was a little more sensible, it still felt extremely strong any kind of a deck with an engine that can draw the deck (and therefore put in play every card a player wants, while leaving out any other card), as it effectively lets the player Queue whatever cards they want (unless they had to play those cards to draw their deck, but presumable the player wants to keep such card around). The fact that you would have to have one card per turn dribble back (increasing handsize each time) is not enough of a downside.

Given that my main concern was a player using this after putting all of their cards in play with a strong engine, it occurred to me that I could borrow the mechanic from Stampede to prevent specifically that, and thus I turned it into an Event:

Immurement Cost: $6 Type: Event Text: If you have 10 or fewer cards in play, discard your hand, put your deck into your discard pile, then Queue your discard pile.

I made a couple of other Events as well. My first was another attempt at mass-Queuing. Given that the main downside of Queuing is when you have multiple good cards stacked in your Queue, I thought I would combine Queuing and trashing:

Bureaucracy Cost: $6 Type: Event Text: Queue a Silver from the Supply. Reveal the top 10 cards of your deck. Trash up to 5 of them, then Queue the rest.

My other idea was to Queue a massive number of Silvers. While getting an extra Silver in your hand each turn is generally pretty beneficial, I would image that this would ultimately be more than a player would want (although this is probable totally busted in a game with Feodum).

Mercantilism Cost: {6} Type: Event Text: Queue 10 Silvers.

I also made a Project.

Irrigation Canal Cost: $3 Type: Event Text: The first time you gain a Victory card each turn, Queue it.

I don't love this, and don't think it's all that effective. I chose the name because it has a nice synergy with Crop Rotation.


I made a bunch of other cards as well. This Duration is one of my favorites.

Iron Gate Cost: $4 Type: Action - Duration Text: Queue up to 3 cards from your hand. Then, if you Queued an... Action card, +1 Action Treasure card, +$1 Victory card, +1 Card At the start of your next turn, choose one: +1 Buy; or play an Action card from your Queue.

(To clarify, the conditional vanilla bonuses are not cumulative, so if you Queue 3 Victory cards, you don't get +3 Cards, just +1.) Optimally (maybe), you would Queue one of each, get a peddler effect, then at the start of your next turn, play the Action, put the Treasure into your hand, and keep the Victory card in your Queue. Here are some of the other cards (one of the thematic motifs are architectural structures where people might wait or gather):

Veranda Cost: $3 Type: Action Text: Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal an Action. Queue the other cards. Play that Action.

Back Door Cost: $4 Type: Action Text: +1 Action Put this on your Tavern mat. When you buy a card, you may call this from your mat to Queue all of the copies of that card you have in play.

Church Nave Cost: $3 Type: Action Text: +1 Action If there are no cards in your Queue, Queue the top 5 cards of your deck. Otherwise, trash a card from your Queue.

This one combined the Queuing and playing-from-Queue into a single Action-Night card:

Royal Chambers Cost: $5 Type: Action-Night Text: If it's your Action phase, play an Action card from your Queue twice. Otherwise, Queue three other Action cards you have in play.

There does seem to be a lot of interesting design space with Night cards.

Midsummer Night's Dream Cost: $5 Type: Night Text: Do each of the following, in any order: trash a card from your hand; discard a card; put a card from your hand onto your deck; Exile a card from your hand; Queue a card from your hand.

I almost submitted Midsummer Night's Dream as my entry (I generally feel like my entries are too complicated, so when choosing between a single card and a split pile, I tend to lean towards the single card). While I think it is a solid card, I didn't think it showcased the mechanic as well as Into the Woods/Rapunzel Tower.


I made a number of cards that riff on official cards (and one that redesigns an official card that was dropped). My first was a twist on Armory:

Weapons Cart Cost: $5 Type: Action Text: Queue a card from the Supply costing up to $4.

I also made a riff on Courtyard (also fitting the architecture motif):

Portico Cost: $4 Type: Action Text: +3 Cards Queue a card from your hand.

I wanted to do something that Queued itself on-gain, and was inspired by Nomad Camp. After Nomad Scout interacted with other cards with "Nomad" in the name, I decided to do one more.

Nomad Scout Cost: $3 Type: Action Text: +1 Card +1 Action Reveal the top card from your deck. If it has "Nomad" in its name, put it into your hand. When you gain this, Queue it.

Nomad Village Cost: $4 Type: Action Text: +2 Actions Choose one: Queue the top 3 cards from your deck; or put a card from your Queue into your hand. When you gain this, Queue it.

Finally, I wanted to do a Reaction, and it occurred to me that I could redesign Secret Chamber, which fits nicely thematically (and might be a bit more interesting than the original).

Secret Chamber Cost: $2 Type: Action - Reaction Text: Queue any number of differently named cards from your hand. When another player plays an Attack card, you may first reveal this from your hand, to Queue this and another card from your hand.

In his OP, NoMoreFun modified a number of official cards to illustrate the mechanic. One card he could have modified, but didn't, is Gear, which would have looked like this.

Gear Cost: $3 Type: Action Text: +2 Cards Queue up to 2 cards from your hand.

The reason I suggest this is that it points to an interesting potential area for design--using the Queue to "soften" terminal drawing cards. By putting cards on the Queue, Action cards drawn dead can be used on later turns. Portico (above) is an example of this (like Courtyard, which softens in terminal draw by topdecking a card). Of course, this could easily be too powerful, so probably needs some limitations.

Card Cost: $5 Type: Action Text: Name a card.+4 Cards. Then, you may Queue any copies of the named card from your hand. Discard down to 6 cards in hand.

Antechamber Cost: $5 Type: Action Text: +4 Cards If you have 6 or more cards in hand, Queue cards from your hand until you have 5 cards in hand.

The wording of Antechamber is a bit awkward, but I took it from Ghost Ship, and it seems to be the only way to do it. This soft terminal effect has some interesting synergy with some of the fan mechanics from Season 1.

Ancestral Grounds Cost: $5 Type: Action - Kin Text: +5 Cards Queue any number of Kin cards from your hand. Discard down to 6 cards in hand.

Vanguard Patrol Cost: $5 Type: Dawn - Action Text: +3 Cards Reveal your hand; Queue the Dawn cards, then you may Queue any number of Action cards.

Dawn cards have a few interesting synergies with Queuing. First, by Queuing Dawn cards, you ensure that you get to use them (by putting them into your hand at the start of your turn). This design also avoids the problem of drawing Dawn cards, as it prevents players from chaining them on a single turn.

There are a lot of interesting ways that Queuing can be used to potentially "soften" terminal draw, but I think these would all have to be tested (I suspect they might be too strong). Ultimately, card pricing and design is about balance, and while a "softened" terminal draw will have to be more expensive than its hard-terminal equivalent, you could just as easily go in the opposite direction, and use Queuing to "harden" a terminal draw (for example, by Queuing the Treasures):

Card Cost: $3 Type: Action Text: +7 Cards Queue all of the Treasure cards from your hand.

(Yes, this should really say "Reveal your hand. Queue any Treasure cards." And yes, I have previously designed a card with this name and Art for my Level mechanic).


To round things out, I tried designing an Attack, a Treasure, and a Victory card using the mechanic.

Sandstorm Cost: $5 Type: Action Text: Each other player draws 3 cards. Each player (including you) reveals their hand, Queuing any revealed Action cards. Each other player discards down to 3 cards in hand.

Bronze Mirror Cost: $4 Type: Treasure Text: $2 Queue a Copper (from your hand, one of your mats, the Trash, or the Supply, or one you have in play).

Secluded Estate Cost: $3 Type: Victory Text: 1VP When you gain this, Queue it and all of the cards you have in play.

Secluded Estate should not Queue Duration cards that are staying in play. I do like Bronze Mirror, as it is not strictly better than Silver, since it sometimes junk you with additional Copper. But if you can play enough of them, you can actually keep all of your Coppers in your Queue, turning them into a version of the Key.


As this huge pile of cards shows, there are a ton of different ways that this mechanic can be used. I really enjoyed designing these.

[spineflu]

The only way Queuing can be broadly disadvantageous is when you put too many of your good cards in your Queue, and are stuck waiting a long time to get them back. But even then, this downside is mitigated by multiple turns adding one of your really good cards to your hand. Despite this strength, there are plenty of ways to mitigate the amount of Queuing and make really interesting, balanced cards.

I came to similar conclusions. My only outtake was kind of a doozy, and i'd only implement it if queuing was a huge part of the expansion it was in and destined as an evergreen/revisitable mechanic like durations or tfb.


My thought process was like this:
"how do i make this mechanic nontrivial? it has to do a whole bunch of stuff, otherwise it's better done with a 'at the start of yur next turn, X' style duration. ah, lets have it give you one of each treasure, you just lost to a deck that used Palace real effectively. Hm but then this is not a card that gets in its own way - you take the $ card that gets you to $8 or whatever. Ah, what if a state made you de-queue things a certain way? there's that fun story-generating hubris card effect i like."

An early revision of churl gave you one of every treasure - kingdom treasures, platina, etc. That was too much and made obsessed stick around too long.

Ultimately I asked 'what if i did Donate like this" and if you can do a donate-tier design, I figured, do that (and i was changing the mechanic too broadly for a contest with "obsessed", imo). It certainly makes games interesting and it still had the "bitter" taste i like when there's a potential backfire/fizzle during those first two or so turns post-workhouse buy.

[NoMoreFun]

Really glad this mechanic inspired people.

I noticed that Archive and Crypt are quite unique and are often hard to place in terms of power level, so I thought it would make a good mat. I've played games where I've overdone it with those cards, and I've been annoyed by the "setting aside" of Research, so I thought having cards locked away was a bigger problem than it was.

I like the idea of the Obsessed state - maybe that would temper the power of the mat a bit and enable more card designs. Making order matter in general might be the better mechanic.

Ideas I had:
* An attack that has other players queue all but 2 cards from their hand (So a queuing Militia). Could get quite brutal but also helps opponents.
* A victory card that queues itself and/or one that's worth more if it is in your Queue at the end of the game.
* A "young mountebank" that queues a Copper and a Curse if you don't have a Copper in queue. You can take the Copper first but it leaves you vulnerable.
* A project that queues a card from your hand every turn at the start of clean up (basically a Save every turn).
* A reaction that lets you queue when you discard
* A weak or situational terminal that protects you from attacks while it's in Queue
* "Queue a Silver" for a simple $4 Action
* A simple "Queue Chapel" (queue up to 4 cards from your hand) which would maintain relevance throughout the game.
* A treasure (or $P costing event) that reveals the top card of your deck, plays treasures, queues actions and discards junk.

[NoMoreFun]

I like Bronze Mirror a lot. Remove the "from play" and it's definitely not better than Silver. "Mandatory Save" is a very interesting penalty

[emtzalex]

Bureaucracy is broken. Due to the Silver you get you can open with it.
Open T1 with 4 Coppers, T2 you pay back you Debt and T3 you can buy a 5.
Whoever opened with 3 Coppers is likely to auto-lose.

Ah, this is a good point. I did not think through how Bureaucracy would work if you open with it. Since wouldn't be able to reach your first 5 cards (which would still be in your hand or in play), so you would either Trash or Queue the 5 cards you didn't draw. I think it is actually even worse, as with with 4 Coppers there's more than a 50% chance you with hit $6+ on T3 (I did the math below).

My first thought on nerfing it would be to have it only work if you actually have 10 cards to do something with. This makes it fail if used at the open (and anywhere near it), and also prevents it from being used to maintain a Golden Deck. It also weakens its use with engines, but I don't know that they need this much extra deck control.

Bureaucracy Cost: {6} Type: Event Text: Reveal the top 10 cards of your deck. If you revealed 10 cards, trash up to 5 of them, Queue the rest, then Queue a Silver from the Supply.

Here is how the old version of Bureaucracy worked on opening:

If you opened with 3 Coppers, you would pay $3 of the {6} on T1. On T2 you would draw the same 3 Coppers and 2 Estates, add the Queued Silver to your hand, and then pay off the other {3} (having $2 left over if there was anything worth buying at that price). You would have a Silver, 3 Coppers, (maybe a Hamlet or Patrician), and 2 Estates. That's a 1 in 3 chance of hitting $5 on T3 (although if you Queued one of your Coppers instead of trashing it, you would have a 100% chance of hitting $5, but would only have trashed 1 Copper).

If you opened with 4 Coppers, you would pay $4 of the {6} on T1. On T2 you would draw the same 4 Coppers and 1 Estate, add the Queued Silver to your hand, and then pay off the other {2}, and have $4 left over for a T2 buy. You would have a $3-$4 card and a Silver (or 2 Silvers), 4 Coppers, and 1 Estate. If we presume 2 Silvers, on T3 you have about a 38% chance of hitting $5, the same chance of hitting $6, and an 19% chance of hitting $7, with less than a 5% chance (1 in 21) of hitting $4.

If you opened with 5 Coppers, you would pay $5 of the {6} on T1. On T2 you would draw the same 5 Coppers, add the Queued Silver to your hand, and then pay off the last{1}, and have $6 left over for a T2 buy. You would have a Gold (or maybe Goons, Altar, etc.) a Silver, and 5 Coppers. On T3 (presuming Gold), you have an almost 50% chance of hitting $8, and less than a 5% chance of not hitting $6.

[spineflu]

for the season finale, this mechanic pairs real well with Level.

[spineflu]

played a game tonight with Workhouse (mine), Bronze Mirror (emtzalex), Strategist (TheAlchemist). Was able to keep queuing enough stuff to have a neutral/negative effective deck size, even when Bronze Mirror made me gain coppers. Really love this mechanic.