Dominion Strategy Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Pages: 1 2 [3]  All

Author Topic: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast  (Read 10003 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

emtzalex

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 840
  • Respect: +1450
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #50 on: November 03, 2021, 11:13:37 am »
0

My Submission:


Quote from: Deploy
DEPLOY
EVENT
Cost: $7
Gain a card costing up to $5. Queue it.
                     

My submission is Deploy. It uses NoMoreFun's Queue mechanic. A quick reminder how it works:

At the start of your turn, put a card from the Queue mat into your hand. It doesn't matter how the card got there, or how many cards are on the mat, or (contrary to the card's name) what order they arrived in - you put exactly one card from it into your hand at the start of each of your turns.

Cards on the Queue mat are face up (the same as Exile).

All the rules around "Exile", the noun and the verb, apply to Queue. To "Queue" a card means to put it on your Queue mat. You can refer to a card on your queue mat as "In your Queue".

Deploy gains a card costing up to $5 and (unless you have another card in your Queue), puts it into your hand at the start of your next turn. It is somewhat analogous to Reap, not (absent discounting) gaining as valuable a card, but providing more choices. It also permits interactions that require the gained card to be in your hand (e.g. throne variants, using Shephard on a gained Duchy, etc.), although not playing it immediately can also be a disadvantage (especially with actions).

I'm glad you liked the Queue mechanic but it isn't really necessary for this Event. Reap and Summon are official Events that set aside a card and do something with it next turn. Being able to delay a Duchy coming into your deck 2 turns is nice but so would getting multiple cards at the start of your next turn.

I think this is meaningfully improved (or at least distinguished) by using the Queue mechanic. For example, there is a potent combo here with Mastermind that doesn't work with Summon (as the Summoned card will be played, while the Deployed card can be in your hand to be Masterminded). The same is true if you want to get a card you don't want to play at the start of the turn (Tactician comes to mind, but also DtX cards if you have disappearing money). It could say "Set it aside. If you did, at the start of your next turn, put it into your hand" but that is much wordier. Given that Timinou expressly allowed for fan mechanics, this is a much cleaner implementation.

Also, in the presence of other Queuing (or the ability to buy this multiple times on a mega-turn), this might keep a Duchy (or Duke, etc.) out of your deck for the rest of the game. Or, it could permit a player to hold a gained card for an important collision (e.g. Tactician - Black Market).
Logged
he/him/his

Thanks to Shard of Honor for his Extended Version of the Dominion Card Image Generator, which I use to mock up my fan cards, and to Violet CLM, who made the original.

Firestix

  • Swindler
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 19
  • Respect: +55
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #51 on: November 04, 2021, 10:04:12 am »
+1

My Submission (Updated):
Quote
Parole Officer ($6 Action - Command)
You may play a non-Command, non-Duration Action card you have in Exile twice, returning it to Exile at the start of Clean-up.

When you gain this, you may Exile a card from the Supply costing less than this.

Old Submission:
Quote
Parole Officer ($6 Action)
You may play a non-Duration Action card you have in Exile twice, returning it to Exile at the start of Clean-up.

When you gain this, you may Exile a card from the Supply costing less than this.

(Action cards played from Exile using this are removed from Exile until the start of Clean-Up.)

Uses:
  • An exile throne room that can exile actions on gain, allowing you to play it without needing the other action in your hand.
  • You can gain Duchies/Alt-VP with the on-gain effect at the cost of potentially having a dead card in your hand, nullifying the benefit.
  • The aforementioned weakness can be mitigated with other cards with Exile abilities, like Camel Train.
« Last Edit: November 05, 2021, 08:57:45 pm by Firestix »
Logged

JW

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 968
  • Shuffle iT Username: JW
  • Respect: +1781
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #52 on: November 04, 2021, 01:34:01 pm »
+1

My Submission:
Quote
Parole Officer ($6 Action)
You may play a non-Duration Action card you have in Exile twice, returning it to Exile at the start of Clean-up.

When you gain this, you may Exile a card from the Supply costing less than this.

(Action cards played from Exile using this are removed from Exile until the start of Clean-Up.)

In addition to what segura says about it being too good because it is better than Captain, it is much better to buy this card exiling Duchy than it is to buy Duchy. At worst, your last Parole Office does not do anything. That can make decisions about greening too simple.
Logged

emtzalex

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 840
  • Respect: +1450
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #53 on: November 04, 2021, 04:04:14 pm »
+1

My Submission:
Quote
Parole Officer ($6 Action)
You may play a non-Duration Action card you have in Exile twice, returning it to Exile at the start of Clean-up.

When you gain this, you may Exile a card from the Supply costing less than this.

(Action cards played from Exile using this are removed from Exile until the start of Clean-Up.)

In addition to what segura says about it being too good because it is better than Captain, it is much better to buy this card exiling Duchy than it is to buy Duchy. At worst, your last Parole Office does not do anything. That can make decisions about greening too simple.

I would also point out that (in the presence of other sources of Exiling), nothing prevents a Parole Officer from playing itself. If you Exiled a Camel Train and a Parole Officer, then played another Parole Officer, you could play the Parole Officer from Exile twice, the first time playing the Camel Train twice to Exile a Parole Officer and a Camel Train, and the second time playing the Parole Officer to repeat the process. This would allow you to pile out both cards (if the piles had the same number of cards in them).

The next time you played PO from your hand you could play the Exiled POs in a chain, using the first play to play the next Parole Officer, and the second play--or, in the case of the last one, both--to play the Camel Trains to Exile a bunch of other Action cards (or you could start playing those Action cards part of the way through).

Each time after that you are effectively able to Throne one Action cards (that you never had to buy and don't need to collide) per PO you were able to get when you piled them out. Even if you only got 6 POs, unless the other Action cards available are truly horrendous, this is virtually guaranteed to let you win, meaning any Kingdom with PO and CT is just a race to be the first person to pull this off (or, if someone is not aware of the combo, a guaranteed win for their opponent who is).
Logged
he/him/his

Thanks to Shard of Honor for his Extended Version of the Dominion Card Image Generator, which I use to mock up my fan cards, and to Violet CLM, who made the original.

JW

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 968
  • Shuffle iT Username: JW
  • Respect: +1781
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #54 on: November 04, 2021, 04:10:04 pm »
0

I think there is also an infinite loop with Parole Officer, cost reduction, and an exiled Overseer (play Parole Officer as Overseer as Parole Officer twice…). The easiest solution seems to be to add the Command type and not let Parole Officer play Command actions. Edit: there is a loop, but it is not infinite because Parole Officer puts the card in play.
« Last Edit: November 04, 2021, 04:51:48 pm by JW »
Logged

LastFootnote

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7495
  • Shuffle iT Username: LastFootnote
  • Respect: +10721
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #55 on: November 04, 2021, 04:26:00 pm »
+1


Quote
Hostage Taker
Action - $4

Put this on your Tavern mat
-
When you shuffle your deck, you may call this, to gain a card costing up to $6, to the bottom of your deck

Delayed gainer, with Pearl Diver/Subdeck fan-mech interactions

So one weirdness here is that you'll often shuffle when drawing your new hand in Clean-up, after you've discarded everything from play. So if you call it during that period, this stays in play until the end of the next player's turn, presumably.
« Last Edit: November 05, 2021, 12:41:59 pm by LastFootnote »
Logged

emtzalex

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 840
  • Respect: +1450
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #56 on: November 04, 2021, 04:49:53 pm »
+1

I think there is also an infinite loop with Parole Officer, cost reduction, and an exiled Overseer (play Parole Officer as Overseer as Parole Officer twice…). The easiest solution seems to be to add the Command type and not let Parole Officer play Command actions.

It couldn't be infinite, because Parole Officer puts the Action card into play (presumably, based on the absence of "leaving it there" and the fact that it returns the card to Exile during Clean-Up), so they are no longer available for subsequent plays of PO. The two times Overseer plays PO would need other Exiled cards to throne.

I agree that the Command type is probably the best way to fix this. I presume that it isn't a command card because it is modelled off of Necromancer. But Necromancer does not play the card twice (if it did, the same combo would work with Necromancer / Lurker), so at most you can just play the Necromancers in a chain, then play one other card at the end. There is some potential to do something with that (if you trash a bunch of Necromancers and put one of your Adventures tokens on it, you could chain them by playing one, potentially getting +$10 or +10 Cards), but it would be considerably harder to do and still not yield as powerful a result as 5-10 Action cards of your choice being throned.
Logged
he/him/his

Thanks to Shard of Honor for his Extended Version of the Dominion Card Image Generator, which I use to mock up my fan cards, and to Violet CLM, who made the original.

The Alchemist

  • Golem
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 175
  • Respect: +214
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #57 on: November 04, 2021, 05:47:41 pm »
0



Quote
Mill Town: Action, $5
+1 Card
+2 Actions
You may play one or more Treasures from your hand to gain a card, costing up to $1 per Treasure played.

"You may play one or more Treasures" still sounds awkward to me. I've made this suggestion before, but I still think you should mirror's Artificer's text.
"Play any number of Treasures from your hand. You may gain a card costing (up to/exactly) $1 per Treasure played."
Same exact text as Artificer but replacing discard for play. Sounds more natural to me imo.
Logged

The Alchemist

  • Golem
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 175
  • Respect: +214
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #58 on: November 04, 2021, 06:01:03 pm »
+1



Joining the ranks of Artisan is a new vanilla $5 gainer, Spinster! Get a high-quality artisinal piece of luxury clothing, or settle for a cheaper quickly-sewn-together article of clothing for a discount! I considered whether a $5-cost $5 gainer was balanced, to me Vampire shows that it can be, it has two upsides over a straight $5 workshop, namely the attack and the non-terminality of being a Night, but also two downsides, that it cant self-gain and that it has half the normal potential plays like a duration. I think those cancel out, and that the only reason a $5 workshop doesn't exist is that it would just be boring.
Logged

emtzalex

  • Jester
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 840
  • Respect: +1450
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #59 on: November 04, 2021, 08:17:57 pm »
0



Joining the ranks of Artisan is a new vanilla $5 gainer, Spinster! Get a high-quality artisinal piece of luxury clothing, or settle for a cheaper quickly-sewn-together article of clothing for a discount! I considered whether a $5-cost $5 gainer was balanced, to me Vampire shows that it can be, it has two upsides over a straight $5 workshop, namely the attack and the non-terminality of being a Night, but also two downsides, that it cant self-gain and that it has half the normal potential plays like a duration. I think those cancel out, and that the only reason a $5 workshop doesn't exist is that it would just be boring.

This would be pretty crazy with Ferry (especially if there are a few really good $5 Action cards in the Kingdom). You could open with a self-gaining cantrip that, after you moved the token with Ferry (once you'd gained as many Spinsters as you wanted) became a cantrip that gained another $5 card (while you are still able to buy other cards).

EDIT: (But maybe not as crazy as Smithy - Lost Arts.)
Logged
he/him/his

Thanks to Shard of Honor for his Extended Version of the Dominion Card Image Generator, which I use to mock up my fan cards, and to Violet CLM, who made the original.

MochaMoko

  • Salvager
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 62
  • Shuffle iT Username: MochaMoko
  • Respect: +123
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #60 on: November 05, 2021, 03:32:41 am »
+1


Quote
Master Merchant
④ Action - Duration
Set aside a card from your
hand (on this). At the start of
each of your turns while this
has a card set aside, put it
into your hand, and gain a
card costing exactly ①
more than it, setting it aside.


Trade your way up the ladder! Each copy of this will likely stay in play for several turns, so you might find that trying to gain exactly that thing you want in the end gets to go a bit slowly. Hunting for good deals takes work!
Logged

LastFootnote

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7495
  • Shuffle iT Username: LastFootnote
  • Respect: +10721
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #61 on: November 05, 2021, 12:48:54 pm »
+1



Quote
Mill Town: Action, $5
+1 Card
+2 Actions
You may play one or more Treasures from your hand to gain a card, costing up to $1 per Treasure played.

"You may play one or more Treasures" still sounds awkward to me. I've made this suggestion before, but I still think you should mirror's Artificer's text.
"Play any number of Treasures from your hand. You may gain a card costing (up to/exactly) $1 per Treasure played."
Same exact text as Artificer but replacing discard for play. Sounds more natural to me imo.

If you have a stack of Mill Towns, that would allow you to empty e.g. the Curses or Ruins very quickly. Also I feel like there was another reason I didn't go with that wording, but I can't recall right now.

But, here's that version. Are there any other opinions about whether this wording is better?

Logged

Firestix

  • Swindler
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 19
  • Respect: +55
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #62 on: November 05, 2021, 08:57:03 pm »
+2

Thanks everybody for the feedback! I've modified my submission a bit to prevent it from comboing off itself.

Quote
Parole Officer ($6 Action - Command)
You may play a non-Command, non-Duration Action card you have in Exile twice, returning it to Exile at the start of Clean-up.

When you gain this, you may Exile a card from the Supply costing less than this.
Logged

exfret

  • Thief
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 92
  • Respect: +112
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #63 on: November 07, 2021, 01:04:12 am »
+4

Sorry, still only have access to my phone so the markup is a little weird, but hope this is okay!

« Last Edit: November 07, 2021, 02:40:10 am by spineflu »
Logged

Timinou

  • Witch
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 486
  • Respect: +634
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #64 on: November 07, 2021, 06:56:17 am »
+2

24 Hour Warning
Logged

Timinou

  • Witch
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 486
  • Respect: +634
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #65 on: November 08, 2021, 07:42:00 am »
+2

Submissions closed
Logged

LastFootnote

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 7495
  • Shuffle iT Username: LastFootnote
  • Respect: +10721
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #67 on: November 10, 2021, 11:05:54 am »
+2

LastFootNote's Mill Town LastFootNote, please confirm if that's the right version or if I should consider this one as the final one.

Please consider the second version. Thanks.
Logged

Timinou

  • Witch
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 486
  • Respect: +634
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #68 on: November 11, 2021, 11:55:30 am »
+7

JUDGEMENT

Thank you everyone for your entries and for your patience.  There were a lot of great submissions, and as always, judging isn't easy!  I wish I had the time to playtest the cards, but unfortunately I had to rely mainly on initial impressions.  Anyway, without any further ado, here are my comments:

Aquila's Hollow
Hollow can function as either a draw-to-X card or an Artificer-like gainer, and can be played immediately or as a duration.  The draw-to-X ability when played as a duration makes it a strong counter to handsize attacks, and otherwise functions like a non-cantrip Caravan.  The discard-for-benefit ability is watered down compared to Artificer, and playing it as a Duration for the purpose of gaining a card will often be suboptimal unless you have spammable cheap cards in the Kingdom. However, if you are able to play two or them (or throne one), the two functions of the card synergize quite beautifully. Interestingly, Hollow can pretty much guarantee that you are able to gain a $5-cost card in your next turn (barring any handsize attacks), so it could be useful for that purpose early in the game (although you would much rather see this on Turn 3 than Turn 4) or in a slog where being able to afford even a Duchy isn't always a given late in the game. I like the versatility of the card and with the right support, this can become fairly powerful.

mandioca15's Clairvoyant
Clairvoyant lets you gain a $5-cost card at the cost of either discarding a Treasure from your hand or receiving the next Hex.  In many decks, discarding a Treasure from hand will be a minor price to pay for being able to gain a $5-cost card, especially relative to receiving a Hex mid-turn, which can be quite brutal in some cases. There will be times when the choice of which penalty to take will be more interesting, but I would wager that more often than not the right choice will be fairly automatic and somewhat less interesting.

JW's Gala
Gala is an Action card version of Bargain (if you choose to gain a $5-cost card) the first time it is played in a turn, whereas for subsequent plays it becomes a vanilla Workshop. With the once-per-turn limitation and tried and true penalty of giving your opponent a Horse, the card seems balanced.  Bargain itself is rarely bought more than once per game in my experience, but there are obviously advantages to gaining a $5-cost card during your Action phase rather than in your buy phase, so I would expect players to use Gala's ability to gain a $5-cost card fairly often. 

Gubump's Larder *Short-List*
Larder makes use of the Journey token to alternate between gaining cards costing up to $3 and cards up to $5.  It's a clever use of the Journey token and I like that this costs the same as Workshop.  There will be certain Kingdoms where this will be much better than Workshop, but in others you may run the risk of adding cheap cards that your deck doesn't want.  I like the simplicity and elegance of the card.

Xen3k's Royal Foundries
Royal Foundries is a powerful $7-cost non-terminal gainer that let's you discard a card to gain a cheaper card to hand.  Ideally one would discard Colonies or Provinces but even discarding your expensive Actions or Treasures might not be much of a drawback if you can draw back around to them.  I prefer the revised version to the original one that self-trashed if it gained a card costing more than itself.  The card will be very strong, and in the greening phase you could even use Royal Foundries to gain and play more Royal Foundries. While it's definitely very strong, like with King's Court and Forge, Royal Foundries can whiff if you can't get it to collide with the right cards; while it's a card you probably want in your deck, the timing of when to buy one matters. I think the decision of when you start to green (as opposed to just buying more Royal Foundries) could also be interesting.

AJL828's Furnace
Furnace has an interesting concept whereby it allows you to reveal and discard any number of different named cards from your hand to gain a card costing up to $1 per card discarded.  It's relatively cheap compared to Artificer, but your deck would require quite a bit of work for it to function well as a gainer.  Games with Shelters or Heirlooms might make this more appealing early in the game, but I think on a lot of boards there will be more reliable gainers and unlike Artificer which also gives you some economy, Furnace doesn't do much else for you. I think it could even work at $2 as-is.

xyz123's Kitchen
Kitchen has similarities to Butcher in that it allows you to spend Coffers to gain cards.  The gaining is not contingent on trashing a card from your hand and so if you don't spend any Coffers you are forced to gain a $0-cost card.  I think the wording is a bit ambiguous since it could be misinterpreted as allowing you to gain multiple cards, each costing up to $2 per Coffer removed, rather than a single card costing up to $2 per Coffer removed.  This is an interesting twist on Workshop, and I like that it essentially forces you to spend Coffers if you don't want to junk your deck, because otherwise there would be a risk of this being too monolithic.  I'm not entirely sure about the balance of essentially doubling the value of your Coffers when playing Kitchen, as there are definitely strong synergies with other cards that give you Coffers.  Even the lowly Candlestick Maker can combo with Kitchen to let you gain expensive cards, and Kitchen could be quite potent in a Merchant Guild deck.

LastFootNote's Mill Town  *Short-List*
Mill Town is a village that lets you play Treasures from your hand to gain a card costing up to $1 per Treasure played.  Playing Treasures during your Action phase could lead to some cool, sometimes funky, interactions as we've seen with Black Market and Storyteller, and Mill Town would be a great enabler of draw-to-X engines. In fact, for me this would be the main appeal of the card rather than its gaining ability.  Since the cost of the gained card is based on the number of Treasures played rather than the value of those Treasures, building a deck around Mill Towns could be awkward especially in a weak Kingdom. Keeping a bunch of Coppers in your deck will make you more likely to dud, although if you aren't planning to gain Provinces with this, then you can still get by with some Copper-thinning. You still get to spend the coin from your Treasures in your Buy phase, but you will have less ammo for any subsequent Mill Town plays. Moreover, it will be hard to make good use of Mill Town's gaining ability until you get your engine humming (especially if this the only village in the Kingdom), since you generally want to play your villages before any terminal draw cards to find more Mill Towns and Treasures. 

4est's Prized Hog  *Short-List*
This is a cheap cantrip that won't do much for you early in the game, but once your deck has more nice stuff in it, you are more likely to reveal something useful that you would be happy to trade your Prized Hog in for.  Prized Hog could really shine as a gainer in a Kingdom with deck inspectors like Cartographers or Apothecaries, but I think this would be a fun card in any Kingdom.  I like that the card self-trashes when you choose to gain a card with it, as otherwise there would be the potential for it to snowball if one player gets lucky with some good hits early on. I also like the flavour of the card (mmm....bacon).

NoMoreFun's Matryoshka  *Short-List*
Matryoshka is a neat $6-cost card that lets you gain a card costing up to $5, and then a card costing up to $4 that shares no types with it.  In many Kingdoms, this probably means that you will opt for an Action card and a Silver in the building phase and perhaps a Duchy and something else in the greening phase.  Too many silvers often are not ideal for your deck if you are trying to build an engine, but it may be a relatively small price to pay for gaining a card costing up to $5 (it's not clear to me if this is a worse "penalty" than topdecking a card with Artisan).  That said, there will be boards that will allow you to gain both Action cards and useful Night cards or Kingdom Treasures, where Matryoshka will be especially strong and getting one in your deck early would help accelerate it significantly. 

emtzalex's Deploy
Deploy is a $7-cost Event that let's you gain and Queue a card costing up to $5.  Queuing is a fan mechanic similar to Exiling, except that you can add one card from your Queue to your hand at the start of your turn.  Deploy could have been even more simply worded to say "Queue a card costing up to $5", but I prefer the submitted version since it triggers any on-gain effects while still using a small amount of text.  The Event is reminiscent of Summon, except it works for $5-cost cards and provides you with a lot more flexibility since you are not required to play it at the start of your turn.  One minor downside relative to Summon is that Deploy cannot act as a village, which can sometimes be a useful feature of Summon in Kingdoms without bona fide villages. A bigger limitation is that buying Deploy multiple times in a turn will not allow you to see the Deployed card in your hand at the start of your next turn because of the way the Queue mechanic works, whereas this limitation does not apply to Summon or Reap.  I did wonder about whether Deploy should cost more than Reap, but perhaps the latter limitation justifies having them at the same cost.

spheremonk's Fete
Fete is meant to be used in place of an official Prize, and is essentially an enhanced Wish, which let's you gain two cards costing up to $6, one of which you gain to hand. Fete is a one-shot, as it get's placed on your Island Mat the first time it is played.  How good Fete is relative to official Prizes like Followers or Trusty Steed will of course be situational, although on average I think it would probably be one of the weaker Prizes due to its one-shot nature (although probably strictly better than just gaining a Duchy if your opponent doesn't reveal a Province).  It's an interesting idea (and I don't recall if there has already been a contest for designing a Prize but that could be fun), but I'm not sure if including this as a potential Prize really incentivizes you to go for Tournaments (you're probably doing so for Followers or Trusty Steed, or Princess if there is no other +Buy).  On the other hand, this is arguably less swingy then some of the official Prizes, which some players might prefer.

faust's Monk
Monk is an interesting card that lets you can trash a card from hand, and if there are no copies of it in the trash, you can gain a card costing up to $5.  If there are copies of it, you get to trash another card from hand.  It's quite a strong card in the opening, as both a decent trasher and allowing you to gain at least one $5-cost card unless you get unlucky.  As with most trashers, the utility of the card will dwindle over the course of the game and once you run out of uniques to trash you will no longer be able to use it as a gainer. There are scenarios where shuffle luck could turn players off Monk e.g. one player is able to trash a Copper with Monk and gain a $5-cost card, while their opponent then draws Monk in a hand with 4 Coppers (although the consolation would be getting to trash an extra Copper). You could also have rare scenarios where one player gets an Estate and Copper trash before the other even if they both open with Monk. To be fair, you can get nightmare draws with official cards as well (e.g. opening with Baron and not getting it to collide with an Estate). However, I think it will feel worse with Monk since you are almost forced to go for it if your opponent does (or if you think they will go for it). There may be boards with stronger openings where you could possibly skip or delay Monk, but I think those would be in the minority.

grep's Trapper  *Short-List*
Trapper is a non-terminal, Night gainer that lets you gain cards costing up to $5 and also lets you topdeck them if you wish.  The catch is that it only lets you gain cards that you don't already have in play (including itself), so it's ideal for strategies that want a variety of different cards in your deck.  Nevertheless, Trapper would be quite strong early in the game and looks like a great option as a first $5.  At worst, you can still gain Duchies with during the greening phase.

X-tra's Staircase  *Short-List*
Boom! Another $10-cost Event that allows you to add a bunch of stuff to your deck.  It gives you more flexibility than with Populate (although the degree of flexibility will vary in each Kingdom), and could potentially add less junk to your deck relative to Alliance (although it generally won't score you as much points).  While reminiscent of the other official $10-cost Events, I think this is different enough and moreover gives you a bit more to think about.  I like it!

spineflu's Bribe
Bribe is an interesting card that requires you to trash it along with a Gold from your hand to gain 2 differently named cards from the Supply.  If you can't or don't want to trash it and a Gold for the gaining ability, then Bribe reduces the cost of Gold, so there is a nice self-synergy there.  Bribe lets you gain any 2 differently named cards regardless of cost (including Colony, Possession, City Quarter, or a revealed Fortune), so the potential payoff could be huge. Like with cards like Treasure Map, it's probably best to have some deck control before plopping Bribes into your deck, which would mitigate the luck factor.  Where deck control is not possible (or if you don't have gold gainers in the Kingdom), I could see this sometimes being quite swingy even with the consolation of making Gold cheaper.

LibraryAdventurer's Bronzeworks
Bronzeworks lets you gain a card costing up to $5, and if it happens to be an Action, Bronzeworks becomes non-terminal and you get to topdeck that Action.  Bronzeworks also has an interesting twist whereby you can gain a Curse for 3VP.  All other types of cards are gained to hand, which can be quite useful when you need Treasures as payload or if you want to gain a Victory card and are able to Exile it or place it on your Island mat right away.  I think this looks quite good compared to Artisan for gaining Actions even if they aren't gained to hand; because of the non-terminal nature you could still draw any Action that you topdeck (and sometimes with Artisan you need to topdeck the gained card anyway). You would need to be wary of Curse pile-outs in games with Bronzeworks (with a net gain of 2VP, they will score more than Estates) - especially if there are any throne room variants around - even if you have a decent points lead, which I think is a unique dimension that Bronzeworks brings.

Chappy7's Binge
Binge is a cheap $2-cost Event that lets you gain a card costing up to $5 at the expense of gaining a Copper onto your deck as well as Exiling a Curse if the gained card costs $5.  It comes with a necessary (IMO) once-per-turn limitation that prevents you from simultaneously emptying Duchies and Curses if you have at least $16 and 8 Buys. You can't do the same Watchtower trick as you can with Banquet as you still need to Exile a Curse, but other than that I think this looks quite good compared to Banquet because arguably adding an extra Copper to your deck is worse than Exiling a Curse when building. Moreover, any cost reduction would provide a fairly trivial loophole to prevent Exiling Curses.

Mahowrath's Hostage Taker  *Short-List*
Hostage Taker is a unique Reserve card which lets you call it when you shuffle your deck to gain a card costing up to $6 to the bottom of your deck. I think there may be an FAQ required to address whether or not you can "shuffle" a deck that contains no cards or only 1 card, but rules ambiguities aside, I like the premise of the card.  The gaining of the card is delayed early in the game, but with sufficient thinning or draw, the frequency at which you can call Hostage taker will accelerate and will eventually allow for gain and play which I think would be fun to build towards.

Firestix's Parole Officer
Parole Officer lets you Exile a carding costing less than itself when you buy it, and comes with a cool on-play ability that lets you play an Action card that you have in Exile twice. It looks fun, but I think it's too strong even if you don't have other ways of getting Action cards into Exile.  Unlike other Throne Room variants, Parole Officer doesn't have the risk of whiffing, as long as you don't shoot yourself in the foot by somehow discarding your Action cards from Exile.  I feel like the first person to hit $6 and essentially get a double-Mountebank, for instance, into their deck will have a huge advantage over their opponent.  I would recommend a version that doesn't return the played card to Exile (you could consider giving Parole Officer an on-play ability to Exile cards).

The Alchemist's Spinster  *Short-List*
Spinster is an elegant card that let's you gain a card costing up to $5.  It's non-terminal if the gained card costs $4 or less and if the gained card costs $3 or less it is a cantrip gainer.  I think the card offers some interesting choices of what to gain.  I do have a slight concern about making games lean towards rushes since you could gain a bunch of Spinsters and then start rushing down the Duchies, but I don't think it would necessarily be scripted.

MochaMoko's Master Merchant
Master Merchant has an interesting concept whereby you can set aside a card from your hand and then at the start of each subsequent turn, you put the set-aside card in hand and gain a card costing exactly $1 more, setting that card aside and then you rinse and repeat.  The chain will be broken if there are no cards that can be gained by it, but on some boards it will be possible to trade your way up to Provinces or Platinums.  While gaining expensive cards will be a slow process, Master Merchant increases your starting handsize for as long as Master Merchant stays in play (which on most boards can be for at least 4 subsequent turns if you set aside an Estate with it).  There will be boards where Master Merchant might not be ideal, but overall it looks like the payoff could be worth it.  In the greening phase, being able to Haven Duchies to gain a Gold (or Province for Platinum) to hand two turns later could also be useful in some situations.

exfret's Down Payment 
Down Payment lets you gain a card costing up to $6 if you can discard an Action or Treasure other than a Copper from your hand.  It's tempting in the opening, especially in games with Shelters or Heirlooms, but can be risky if you don't get it to collide with the right cards.  It would be safer to gain Down Payments once you have more deck control and more stuff in your deck, since it will then become quite strong (and obviously combos well with Village Green) since you could still draw back around to the discarded card.  Down Payment also mitigates the risk of being slightly over-terminalled since you could then discard any Action cards that you wouldn't be able to play without any qualms.



RESULTS:
Runners-up:

Mahowrath's Hostage Taker
X-tra's Staircase

Winner:
4est's Prized Hog

Congrats 4est!
« Last Edit: November 11, 2021, 11:59:59 am by Timinou »
Logged

4est

  • Duke
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 374
  • Shuffle iT Username: 4est
  • Respect: +1454
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #69 on: November 11, 2021, 12:49:40 pm »
+1

Thanks Timinou! Excellent judging and fun prompt, there were so many great entries this week.

I'll post a new challenge later today.
Logged

The Alchemist

  • Golem
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 175
  • Respect: +214
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #70 on: November 11, 2021, 05:37:39 pm »
0

What is *Short-List* ?
Logged

silverspawn

  • Adventurer
  • ******
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5301
  • Shuffle iT Username: sty.silver
  • Respect: +3188
    • View Profile
Re: Weekly Design Contest #133: A Time to Feast
« Reply #71 on: November 11, 2021, 06:05:48 pm »
+2

It's like an award saying that you made it into the set of finalists / the cards that Timinou liked the most.
Pages: 1 2 [3]  All
 

Page created in 0.103 seconds with 21 queries.