Puppeteer
$5 - Action - Attack
+$2.
Each other player reveals their hand and plays an Action or Treasure from it that you choose. If they then have less than 5 cards in hand, they get +1 Card.
Puppet
$2 - Action
If you didn't spend an Action to play this, +2 Cards. The player whose turn it is gets +$1, +1 Buy, and may discard 2 cards to play an Action card from their hand.
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While I don't think Puppet is confusing, it probably needs an FAQ to deal with the ambiguity of the first sentence. There are some instances where it clearly triggers, like an opponent's play of Puppeteer or when revealed by Piazza. I presume it would also trigger with the likes of Conclave, Imp, or throne variants, but since you had to spend an Action to play those initial cards, that could be open for interpretation. Arguably less clear are things were you are only spending an Action to play a card to only play it, as in the case of Command cards / Necromancer / Inheritance. I still think all of those would trigger it, but I am not 100% sure. Even less clear would be Way of the Turtle. You spent an Action to play it using WotT, which then causes it to be played the following turn. Does that trigger it? What about Citadel? Obviously the first play would not trigger the +2 Cards, but the second play might. Thus, I think an FAQ is in order.
Overall it's a pretty interesting design, but with some concerns. One issue I see is that, absent a strong synergy (either a card that will play Puppet and trigger its bonus or something that benefits from the discarding, like dtx or an on-discard reaction) there is very little incentive to buy Puppet. It is almost strictly worse than Candlestick Maker (absent those situations where discarding is good). Puppeteer doesn't provide the synergy for you, only for your opponent (unless you think that your opponent is bad at the game, and having a Puppet will lure them into make a strategically disadvantageous decision). Thus, I don't think Puppet will be bought in most games.
Puppeteer, on the other hand, seems overly strong. By making you opponent play one of their Action or Treasure cards on your turn, you are effectively making them waste that card (unless it does something useful not on their turn), which is the equivalent of discarding it. The obvious comparison is to Pillage, which costs the same, but is a 1-shot with a delayed payload. The attack is not quite as strong, as you can't use it on most draw cards, gainers, or attacks, and the +1 Card means it doesn't (usually) reduce the handsize. On the other hand, it is occasionally stronger than Pillage's attack, if playing the card benefits you (e.g. with Bridge) or harms them worse than just discarding it would (e.g. by making them play Horn of Plenty with no other cards in play, and gain a card costing up to $1). Even without that bonus, trading the best card in their hand for a random card from their deck is a pretty strong attack.
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Retreat • $4 • Action - Duration
+1 Card
+2 Action
You may set an Action card aside from your hand. If you did, at the start of your next turn, play it.
Regroup • $4 • Action
You may discard your hand.
If you did, gain 2 cards, each costing up to $1 per card discarded.
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First, I love the names. Retreat and Regroup sound like 2 things one would do in succession, but in this case "Retreat" seems to refer more to the noun than the verb.
Retreat is a village with an optional Delay effect. Often, the reason to put off playing a card until next turn is to avoid terminal collisions (think Barge, or using Way of the Turtle). But Retreat is a village, so players will usually have plenty of Actions available to play whatever they want. That makes Retreat more useful for the second reason to delay playing a card, which is trying to get a beneficial collision or combo. For example, WotT makes Treasure Map a much better card. You can play the first one as soon as it's in your hand (you don't even need to have gained the second one), and keep Turtling it until you have the second one. Retreat is not that flexible, as it makes you play the card next turn (like Delay). But if you have a Moneylender and no Coppers in your current hand, you may want to set it aside and hope to collide the following turn. It is nice that you make the choice of setting aside before playing.
There are some other benefits to playing a card at the start of the turn. In a pinch, Captain can turn a cheap non-terminal (cantrip or disappearing money) card into a village, if played at the start of the turn. Indeed, by playing a card at the start of the turn you are getting virtual village (with a net effect of a virtual +1 Action), so if you use Retreat's set aside ability, you are getting two villages (at the cost of delaying playing the second card). This also probably allows you to have slightly fewer Retreats proportional to the terminal cards it supports.
Regroup is interesting as well. Early on it can kind of serve as a virtual +Buy, turning the rest of your hand into Coppers but then letting you buy with them twice. From a regular hand it will gain you 2 cards worth up to $4, making it not dissimilar in terms of power level from most gainers (e.g. Workshop, Ironworks, Armory). If you can collide it with Retreat and play it at the start of your turn, it can get you 2 $5 cards, which (depending on the Kingdom) is a strong play well into mid-game (and, at the very end, gives you the choice of 2 Duchies on your next turn). The start-of-turn hand discard also has some interesting synergies, the most obvious being Guide. But if you can Retreat both a Regroup and a DtX, that will also work.
These are two very solid entries. While I don't think they need to be together, it certainly creates some interesting synergies.
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Living Tower
Action
Cost: 5
Reveal cards from your deck until you have revealed three Action cards. Put those into your hand and discard the rest.
Fairy Village
Cost: 3
Night - Action - Duration
If it is your Action phase:
+1 Action
At the start of your next turn:
+1 Action
+$1
When you gain this, put it at the bottom of your deck.
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First, although the design you ultimately submitted didn't use Potions, I think doing so was a good thought. The fact that, with the huge (and soon to be even bigger) number of potential cards in a game of Dominion, if a Kingdom has a Potion card, it tends to be solo. This means that the Potions have to be bought for that card alone. The Pair card mechanic is one way that you can ensure that at least two Kingdom cards use Potions.
Living Tower is an interesting card, that obviously needs a village (or some source of +Actions) to be of any use. That being said, I'm not sure whether it so plainly stronger than Smithy that it should cost $5. While it is a powerful engine component, absent payload from Action cards you will always need other sources of +Cards or it will be useless. I suspect that this could be priced at $4. It could definitely go for P$2. More of a concern is the fact that, as mentioned, it needs a solid source of +Actions to work, and Fairy Village is not that.
Fairy Village an extremely weak card, bordering on unbuyable. The obvious comparison is with Fishing Village. However, that card enables you to play other Actions both on the turn it is played an the following turn (and adds to payload on each). By contrast, Fairy Village (which costs the same) provides no benefit on the current turn. It's only advantage over Fishing Village is that it can be played when you are without Actions. However, I don't think that nearly makes up for the downside. (It can also be compared, unfavorably, to Ghost Town, which gives an extra card rather than $1).
I think this design has a ton of potential, but as is I think in many games neither card will end up being bought.
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Bricklayers - $2
Action
You may spend an Action (not Action card) to trash a card from your hand. If you do, gain a card costing up to $2 more than it. If you don't, +1 Card and +1 Villager.
Worksite - $4
Victory
1VP
----
When you gain this, +3 Villagers.
When you trash this, +2% and +1 Villager.
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Bricklayers provides the player two options: either a remodel variant for -1 Action or a cantrip that gives a Villager instead of an Action (allowing the player to "store" their extra Action if they don't need it). The card has a kind of self-synergy, with that villager potentially providing the extra Action needed to resolve the second effect. On one hand, a basic remodel every-other-shuffle is not exactly that great. On the other hand, $2 is a unique price point (since a player is not forgoing anything) and even a cantrip-that-may-be-useful can fit reasonably into a number of strategies, meaning that the card might even be reasonable without the remodel effect.
Worksite is a Victory card that is worth more trashed than in a player's deck. This is an interesting concept, one that I have looked at before. And, it is one which is "enabled" to work by a trasher. By itself, Worksite feels like it might be slightly on the strong side. The +3 Villagers it gives on-buy are comparable to those that a player gets with Acting Troup (if the player want to play another Action card that turn). Presuming you are only getting Worksite to trash it, they ultimately end up in the same place, but with Worksite you are +2VP. On the other hand, AT trashes itself, while Worksite is a dead card unless it collides with a trasher.
When it does collide with Bricklayers, it is a solid combo. The Worksite gets replaced with a Gold (or other $6), the player's score increases, and the Villager that was (presumably) used to trigger the combo is replaced. Also, even when the collisions miss, Bricklayers can be used to turn Estates in Worksites, setting up the subsequent conversion. The extra villagers from Worksite can also enable additional terminal cards to be played (or just smooth out what a player is otherwise doing).
That said, I don't think either of the cards or the combo of the two are broken or even overly powered. It is not at all obvious to me that players would want to open Bricklayer - Worksite (on either a $3/$4 or $2/$5 draw) with any regularity (although Bricklayers will frequently be bought on a $2/$5, but that is common for $2 cards). I'm also very impressed that you've pulled off a double-enable.
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Indolent Court
Action - $3
You may play an Action card cheaper than this from your hand three times.
Court Jester
Action - $2
+1 Card
+$1
+1 Buy
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Indolent Court is an interesting throne variant, playing a card 3 times, but only if it costs less than IC's $3. It is one of those designs that is actually nerfed by being as cheap as it is (a $4 Indolent Court would be significantly better). This obviously needs a $2 (or less) Action card to work, which makes it an interesting candidate for a Pair card. Here, it is enabled by Court Jester (discussed below).
The biggest weakness of throne variants is the risk that they get drawn with no other cards they can play. That's why Crown and Royal Carriage make the significant jump from $4 to $5 despite, when they are used (on an Action), having no more of an effect than Throne Room. That problem is exacerbated greatly when a design is ineffective if drawn with any but a single other card (presuming there are no other $2 Actions). Thus, in order for it to be worth playing, there will need to be a strong $2 Action, and some ability to get them (probably via +Buy).
Here, the card it is paired with is Court Jester. Court Jester is another card that is hard to buy on its own. There are basically no terminal actions that give +1 Card (not counting Ruined Library), since drawing a single card dead is a pretty harsh outcome. Court Jester adds to that risk a terminal Copper and a Buy. The Buy itself will make the card worth getting in some contexts despite the other bonuses, but otherwise this is a hard sell to add to most decks.
If you do manage to collide them, the effect is strong, but I'm not sure its strong enough to justify buying both cards. It only nets +1 Card (terminally), although it does provide +$3 as many Buys as you are likely to need. But given that it is terminal, it is hard to have multiple copies in your deck, without which it will be hard to make them collide. I could see these being a part of a larger engine. But without a village, I don't know if even the combo is worth going for. (It would also work well with certain Ways).
I do think there are $2 cards that could make Indolent Court worth buying. Pawn might actually be enough to do that, as over the course of the 3 plays you could give yourself +3 Cards, +1 Action, and 2 more vanilla bonuses ($2 if you just want payload, $1 and 1 Buy; or $1 and an Action if you want it to be a Lost City instead of a lab). Obviously you couldn't have submitted Pawn, but maybe there is a way for Court Jester to give +1 Action some of the time (like, the 3rd time it's played in a row). Inheritance would also work very well (if there was a solid card to inherit).
I think there is something to the overall idea, but I don't think the cards are strong enough, alone or combined, to make this version of it really work.
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Salt Mine • $4 • Action
+1 Action
+1 Buy
+2 Coffers
When you gain this trash a non-Victory card from your hand or in play costing at least $2 (Or reveal you can't and trash this).
Salt Merchant • $4 • Action
+1 Action
+1 Coffers
You may remove any number of Coffers then for each one you removed choose one +1 Card; +1 Villager; gain a silver.; Cards cost $1 less this turn.
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Salt Mine is disappearing money that gives +1 Buy and +2 Coffers, but requires the player to trash a card on gain, usually a Silver they have in play. Salt Merchant starts as disappearing money, giving just 1 Coffer, but then can convert Coffers into a variety of other bonuses.
By itself, Salt Merchant seems overpriced. If you convert the Coffers right away, while it does allow a variety of options, none of them are that strong: either a cantrip, an Action and a Villager; a non-terminal Silver gainer; or Bridge without the +$1. If you stored up Coffers, you could get a more powerful effect, but then on the earlier plays you have a Ruined Village. With an additional source of +Coffers, the card potentially becomes stronger. Since it does not say "The choices must be different" you can (presumably) choose the options more than once. This seems to be where the card has the most potential. If you can save a number of Coffers and combine it with a source of +Buys, you can take the discount option multiple times. Alternatively, you can get multiple +Cards to power (or serve as) an engine.
Salt Mine provides double the Coffers and a Buy, but comes with an added cost: when it is gained, the player gaining it has to either trash a non-Victory card costing at least $2 from their hand or from play (and if they can't, Salt Mine gets trashed). Among other things, this prevents players from opening with the card. As previously mentioned, I suspect that in the vast majority of cases, players will end up trashing a Silver they have in play, which (in effect) means that their ultimate payload is not really increased: instead of a Treasure that provides $2, they have disappearing money that provides 2 Coffers and a Buy. While this is clearly better, I'm not sure it's better than having 2 Silvers, especially early on.
Ideally, you would use the extra Coffers from Salt Mine to power the abilities of Salt Merchant. A player could open Salt Merchant - Silver, then use the Merchant to gain more Silvers, which they convert into Mines. A hand with 4 Salt Mines and 1 Salt Merchant would yield 9 Coffers and 5 Buys, which is enough to take 5 Provinces and net 1 Coffers. But that requires what is basically the perfect hand, which a player is not likely to get. The odds of getting there could be improved with good trashing, which has the potential to help the combo a lot. Thus on one hand without some further support, I don't know how viable either of the cards are. On the other hand, a strong engine could get a player 8 Coffers and a Salt Merchant fairly easily, potentially enabling a megaturn much sooner than most existing cards (especially with an outside source of +Buys). Thus, while I think the cards might tend to be a bit weak in most situations, the could actually be overpowered in some narrow circumstances.
Since both piles involve disappearing money, the Pair is strong with those cards that combo well with it, such as draw-to-X or Tactician. Given that, one solution to both your problems might be to add a "The choices must be different." limitation to Salt Merchant's ability, but then change the +1 Card to "draw until you have 5 cards in hand." It's still only a cantrip from a 5-card hand, but if you can get multiple copies of the cards, it becomes a lot strong. Maybe add a choice of "+1 Buy" to that list as well.
Copy editing:
You may rRemove any number of tokens from your Coffers. then fFor each onetoken you removed, choose one: +1 Card; or +1 Villager; or gain a sSilver.; or Ccards cost $1 less this turn.
If it's "any number" you don't need "may" (see Chapel; you "remove tokens from your Coffers" per Butcher; there is a colon between "choose [X]" and the list items, and those items are separated by a semicolon and the word "or" (see Courtier).
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Progress
Action/Reaction - $1
Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card costing up to $1 more than it.
_________
When you gain a card, you may return it and this to the supply to gain a card costing up to $1 more than it to your hand.
Revenue
Action - $7
+1 Action
Gain a Gold to your hand
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This is sort of an odd design. While the concept of (usually) covering every value from $0 to $8 is interesting, I'm not sure how much of an impact it would really have on a game. Absent some insane engine that ends up drawing the entire deck with 7 plays of Kings Court still available, it is hard to imagine using Progress or Upgrade on a card 8 times.
All that being said, I think Progress is pretty strong at $1. It's an odd price point, as the bigger issue will often be the need to spend a buy, rather than the $1. However, in the presence of +Buy, it is quite strong. It turns Estates into Silvers, and even if it gives copies of itself when $0 cards are trashed, that isn't really more junk. If you end up with them dead in your hand, they are easily gotten rid of during your buy phase by trading them in to get a $1 better card [even if you didn't want that, you can always buy a cheaper card and return it to trade up; in that sense covering all the price points could be important]. Additionally, having Progress in your hand acts as a complete defense against being junked with $0 cards: Curses, Coppers, or Ruins. When you gain them, you can react with Progress, return Progress and the junk, and gain the Progress back to your hand. This works when you're junked with multiple cards (e.g. from Mountebank), and even from self-junking effects like Banquet or Cache.
I would also point out that Progress's Reaction needs to specify from where you return Progress to gain the better card (I presume your hand, but it should specify).
Revenue is a strong card as well. Unless you draw it terminally, it is effectively a Gold that gains another Gold every time you play it. It reminds me of Reap, in that if you have $7 and would otherwise buy a Gold, it is almost self-evident that you should buy it instead. But the amount better Reap is than Gold is far surpassed by Revenue. While there are some exceptions, in the large majority of games there is not really a point at which you want to stop gaining Golds. Thus, this is also a little on the strong side.
Overall there is some interesting potential going on here, but I'm not sure that it really comes together, and I think both of these cards are a bit on the strong side.
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Wine Cellar • $5 • Action
When you discard this from play, +3 Coffers. Wine Fraud • $4 • Action - Attack
+1 Coffers
Each other player gets -1 Coffers. For each player that could not lose a Coffer this way, +1 Buy.
You may play an Action that gives +$ from your hand.
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The idea of using Pair cards to provide the target for an attack that takes away Coffers (or some other element not present in every game) is an interesting one, as it could go either of two directions: it might enable a card like Wine Fraud to work (which is the aim of this and many Pair card designs), or it might lead to players passing on both cards (which, as you pointed out, is perhaps the biggest potential risk of Pair cards).
To me, the answer to this conundrum would be to make the enabling card (here, Wine Cellar) so good that players would still want to buy it even if they know they will be subject to being attacked. This may mean that the card is too good to exist in a Kingdom without the attack, in which case the cards potentially cross-enable. The provider (Wine Cellar) gives the element (Coffers) that enables the attack (Wine Fraud) to work, while the attack weakens the enabler so that it isn't broken.
I'm not sure if Wine Cellar is strong enough to work under that framework. While +3 Coffers is great, having to wait for them makes the card play (effectively) dead the turn you get it. I do kind of like the idea of giving Coffers too late to be used on the turn as a kind of quasi-Duration effect (in that you don't get to use the Coffers until later, but the card still gets discarded and is reusable that turn) and explored in in one of my WDC submissions, making it a Night card to achieve that effect. Making Wine Cellar into a Night-Reaction (or otherwise somehow make it better than a plain Night card that gives +3 Coffers) might be a way to strengthen it enough to make players want it despite the risk of Fraud.
There is also a bit of a rules issue. The phrase "When you discard this from play," only appears on official cards at the start of a below-the-line section (in Treasury, Herbalist, Alchemist, Hermit, the Traveller cards, and Capital). Way of the Frog does use the phrase as part of it's on-play ability, but clarifies "this turn." It's not clear if Wine Cellar still gives the Coffers if played using a Way, or if using a throne variant gives you additional Coffers.
The Attack in Wine Fraud could work anyway, as it give the players a Coffers as well. But an opponent could simply opt out of buying either, in which case WF is badly overpriced at $4.
I'd also note that while Wine Fraud is conditionally non-terminal, Wine Cellar doesn't meet that condition. While a terminal collision can be avoided both with villages or disappearing/cantrip money, that still creates a fair number of boards on which the cards can't reasonably be played together, making going after both of them more challenging.
Copy editing:
On Wine Fraud, I believe it should be "For each player that could not lose a Coffers this way, +1 Buy." Coffers is always plural, even if there is just one of them (you got this right twice on the card before).
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Duality Moon
$4
Treasure
+1 Coffers
When you play this, you may play a Action from your hand twice.
Duality Sun
$4
Action
+1 Villager
You may play a Treasure from your hand twice.
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This one gave me some trouble. At first I felt that these were mismatched, and somewhat imbalanced. Duality Sun is similar to Patron, giving a Villager and (effectively) some Coin. By throning a Treasure, it is effectively worth whatever that Treasure is worth, so if you have a Silver it is worth $2 (the same as Patron), if you only have a Copper it is worth $1, but if you have a Gold or better, it can be stronger than Patron. This would seem to advise against opening with it (as opposed to opening Silver/Silver, then buying DS once it has a better chance of colliding with at least a Silver.
DS is also the ultimate embodiment of disappearing money. While there is no advantage to the first play of the Treasure in terms of payload (since you would play it anyway during your Buy phase), it does have the advantage of playing the Treasure during your Action phase, non-terminally. Like all disappearing money, this has some nice synergies (mainly DtX and Tactician). And while Festival or Minion take themselves out of your hand, DS takes both itself and one of your Treasures.
At first blush I thought Duality Moon was a lot weaker. Playing Action cards during your buy phase tends to be a bit of a marginal activity (thinking of the likes of Gamble and Innovation): +Actions are (mostly) worthless, and Action cards you drawn (generally) can't be played. DM's on-play ability is better than the on-buy those landscapes (where Innovation is triggered by buying a card/landscape, rather than via a gainer), since you can still play gained Treasures. But it is still a limited activity. On the other hand, DM actually compares somewhat favorable to Scepter, which, while not amazing in every game, can actually be a fairly strong card. When you play Scepter's second ability, you are playing an Action card for the second time. DS does that as well, but without having needed the Action for the first play, and while also providing +1 Coffers. If you have more than one, it also has the advantage of allowing you to play those Actions you drew during your Buy phase, which Scepter can't do (unless you can use a Conclave or Imp). This makes DM combine really well with terminal draw cards. On the other hand, there are some downsides. With Scepter, the first play of the Action is during your Action phase, so with mixed useful/not-useful effects (think Festival), you get to use the +Actions (or whatever) from the first play during your Action phase. Also, when there is no good Action to use, Scepter can give you $2. (And because Scepter is strictly better than Silver, it probably has to cost $5). Still, in any kind of engine DM is a solid addition (especially since it can be gained by most gainers).
Together, they are even stronger. Having a Duality Moon and a Duality Sun in your hand compares favorably to having 2 copies of Crown: you can still double throne in either your Action phase (throning 2 Actions) or your Buy phase (throning 2 Treasures), but you also get 2 Coffers or 2 Villagers, respectively. On the other hand, you can split the two Crowns, throning a Lab/Smithy/Hunting Ground during your Action phase, then throne a Gold/Platinum during your buy phase. Still, in an engine the combo is powerful, fueling the engine's drawing when needed, but with the ability to shift and help with payload when not.
When I first saw these I didn't think I was going to like them. They don't really meet the model of enabling an otherwise unusable card (although that was not a requirement), but they actually seem like they would be a lot of fun. Ultimately, this is a deceptively simple entry that is actually both broadly useful (at least DS is), and create interesting synergies both with each other and with a number of other cards.
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Topic: Fan Card Mechanics Week 29: Gone Pair-Shaped (Read 3866 times)