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[NoMoreFun]

Weekly Design Contest #165: More Favorites, More Fun

For this contest, think about your favorite cards. The ones you picked on Dominion Online. What do you like about them? What makes games with them fun? Why do you like seeing them pop up in a kingdom when you're playing full random?

Your challenge this week is to create another card that replicates what you like about that card, as if to simulate the card being twice as likely to pop up. Maybe it's the mechanic. Maybe it's the niche it fills in kingdoms. Maybe it's just the way the card feels to play. It's not for me to say why you should or shouldn't like a card, so there are no formal rules for entering this competition. But it will help me with judging if you identify the card (shaped thing) you like and why. I also don't think saying a broad category of card ("Villages", "Trashing", "Terminal Draw") is what I had in mind.

This is basically an open round. I will be assessing on whether I think games with the card would be fun to play, but also on how creatively they fit what you find fun about a given card.  If Village is your favourite card and you submit Village but with +3 Actions instead of +2 Actions, I'm happy for you, but try and be a bit creative if you want to win. Again, your explanation of why you like a card you like is very welcome.

If they seem like they're brand new cards, but would also be talked about as "Original card/Your card" in threads here, you're on to a winner.

[BryGuy]

Market has always been one of my favorites since you get a little of everything offering versatility.


I've never played online, just with the boxes i own and more recently with the three dozen or so cards and two dozen horizontals i have printed.

[AJL828]

Pastor
Action ($5)

+1 Card
+1 Action
You may trash a card from your hand.
You may gain a card costing up to $1 per card you’ve trashed this turn.

Priest is my favourite card in Renaissance, and was my first introduction to just how interesting simple card effects can be when used in creative ways. Like Priest, Pastor functions primarily as a trasher, meaning it’ll be reasonable to gain in many boards just for the thinning. But in the right circumstances this can also act as a crazy payload card. Since it can always gain something, that allows it to provide fuel for future Pastors, although that alone probably won’t cut it. When paired with certain enablers (Fortress, Trail, cost reduction, other trashers, or even just plentiful gains with good draw) Pastor can allow you to have a Province - or even Colony megaturn.

[sumrex]

Old Uni 2P
+2 actions
Choose one:
Gain a copy of the next action you play this turn.
The next time you gain a action this turn, gain a copy of it.
Choose 3 actions cards from the supply: gain 1 of them that your left neighbor chooses.

I always found it fun that alchemy had a action chain theme that required you to buy a treasure. I wanted to preserve this with university 2! The options are mostly weaker, but you have more flexibility now. I have also woven elements of other cards I like in it, but Uni is the main inspiration.

[Builder_Roberts]

Young Pirate
At the start of your next turn, +1 Card and +$2.   
-
When any player gains a Treasure, you may play this from your hand.
$3 : Action - Duration - Reaction

I've realized that Pirate has grown on me. I like how nice it feels to play a card both when I gain a treasure and when my opponent does. This might be a little under-costed, I hope that won't count against me.
Edit: Switched around the +$2 and +1 Card for formatting reasons.

[X-tra]

Nobles is my favourite Dominion card. Here's how Lord recreates that which I love from Nobles:

• Victory cards usually portray pieces of land/property. Nobles twist that a bit and allows aristocracy to be worth too. Lord follows suit. I find that original.
• It's such a nice feeling to passively score some while still building your engine. Nobles and Lord are both green engine components.
• Nobles has a high price point you need to work for if you want to add them to your deck. Likewise, Lord is expensive, and you need a proper game plan to afford them. It acts kind of like an objective.
• Nobles is such a straightforward, quasi vanilla card. You know exactly the role it plays in your deck. Lord is pure vanilla as well, to capture that ease of play feeling.

[Augie279]

Outpost's extra turns are fun. Let's give it a different downside it has to play around.

[Udzu]

I love Band of Misfits because it plays differently with each kingdom. Here's a variant that can also play $5 cards (at a cost) and which adds an extra incentive to playing cheap cards. Its downside is that $4 cards cards are now more expensive to play too. I'll have to playtest to see whether that's enough.

[xyz123]

Yeoman
Action
$5

Discard a card. If it is a Victory card gain a cheaper non-Victory card. Otherwise gain a Silver.


Notes
- This is inspired by Tournament and Baron. What I like here is the reward for discarding a Victory card. I find it really satisfying when I have built an engine that has allowed me to gain multiple prizes in a turn even though I only have one Province, or can get multiple Barons into play for payload even though my deck only has a single Estate. I wanted to make another card you could build a similar engine around.
- I also decided to pay tribute to Explorer and take some inspiration from it, as although it plays very differently and does very different things to your deck, it does superficially appear to be in the same family of cards.
- I added the clause that the gained card must not be a victory card because I was concerned about the possibility of draining the Province pile in Colony games.

[exfret]

My favorite card is possession

[nyxfulloftricks]

   

Gilded City Guardian $5 Action +1 Card +2 Actions Set aside the top Boon. You may receive it now or at the start of your next turn.

Gilded Staff $4 Treasure $3 Set aside the top Hex. Receive at the start of your next turn.

Picking a favorite is so hard, so I had to make a mashup of two.

Blessed Village and Cursed Village are two of my favorite Dominion cards. They are both villages, which I would rather die than play a kingdom with out much to my partner's avail. They additionally play with Boons and Hexes which I find add that little touch of RNG to games I think aides my play experience.

For my own cards, I also had to touch on Heirlooms, because creating a variable start is another thing Nocturne brought to Dominion that creates interesting experiences.

Gilded City Guardian and Gilded staff bring all of these lovely mechanics together into an homage to Blessed Village and Cursed Village. I have additionally added a "may" clause to the Boons as I have more than once been hurt by a Boon and moved when you receive a Hex to the start of your next turn as I have had turns where my Hex from cursed village did absolutely nothing to negatively affect my game.

Edit: I have adjusted the phrasing on my cards better clarification of how to take the Boon or Hex even though my original wording was matching that of Blessed Village

[nyxfulloftricks]

Young Pirate
At the start of your next turn, +$2 and +1 Card.   
-
When any player gains a Treasure, you may play this from your hand.
$3 : Action - Duration - Reaction
I've realized that Pirate has grown on me. I like how nice it feels to play a card both when I gain a treasure and when my opponent does.

I believe the formatting should be +1 Card +$2.
I think this card is a cute twist, but may be under-costed. I am excited to play it though with the number of treasure gaining cards.

[exfret]

I really like how Underling gives a lot of favors. Now imagine if it actually did something else! I introduce to you, loyal village. It's a village, AND it gives you favors.

[4est]

Fortress has always been one of my favorites and was one of the first Dominion cards to really blow my mind when it was first revealed--whoa! A card you can't trash! Ever since, cards with unique on-trash benefits like Hunting Grounds, Rats, Cultist, Lich, and most recently Trail have been exciting additions, for all the fun interactions they add to TfB cards and other trashers.

Redoubt is a non-terminal Watchtower with an on-trash Wish effect. It can do the Fortress thing sorta and gain a copy of itself back to your hand (until they run out), but you can also pop it for a Gold, Duchy, or other key Action cards in a pinch.

[MrHiTech]

   

Gilded City Guardian $5 Action +1 Card +2 Actions You may receive the next Boon now or at the start of your next turn.

Gilded Staff $4 Action $3 Receive the next Hex at the start of your next turn.

These should be Durations

[spineflu]

My favorite card is possession

Have you considered doing something like Visit/Relative?

[Gubump]

   

Gilded City Guardian $5 Action +1 Card +2 Actions You may receive the next Boon now or at the start of your next turn.

Gilded Staff $4 Action $3 Receive the next Hex at the start of your next turn.

These should be Durations

Or it could just set aside the next Hex like Blessed Village's on-gain effect does.

[exfret]

My favorite card is possession

Have you considered doing something like Visit/Relative?

I have! But I completely forgot about it. Might have a new submission upcoming.

[nyxfulloftricks]

Or it could just set aside the next Hex like Blessed Village's on-gain effect does.

I went ahead and adjusted the wording on my  cards to match Pixie's wording of Discard the next Hex/Boon for better clarification as I agree. They would not be durations just as Blessed Village is not.

[X-tra]

I went ahead and adjusted the wording on my  cards to match Pixie's wording of Discard the next Hex/Boon for better clarification as I agree. They would not be durations just as Blessed Village is not.

The problem there would be if you choose the discarded Boons/Hexes for next turn, but more Boons/Hexes get discarded atop of them (this has a good chance of happening, since the Boons are tied to a Village; and other players may flip some on their turn as well). The Boon and Hex piles could even get reshuffled until then! This is why the set aside seems handier in this situation.

[MrHiTech]

https://shardofhonor.github.io/dominion-card-generator/?title=Portcullis&description=%2B1%20Coffers%0A%2B1%20Villager%0AYou%20may%20trash%20a%20card%20from%20your%20hand.%0A-%0AWhen%20another%20player%20plays%20an%20Attack%20card%2C%20you%20may%20first%20play%20this%20from%20your%20hand.&type=Action-Reaction&credit=Illustration%3A%20Wikimedia&creator=v1.0%20MrHiTech&price=%243&preview=&type2=&color2split=1&boldkeys=&picture-x=0&picture-y=0&picture-zoom=1&picture=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FJACV5fe.png&expansion=&custom-icon=&color0=3&color1=0&size=0

One of the things that I really like about Watchtower, Secret Chamber, Horse Traders, etc. is how they're anti-Attack cards, but they don't just tell you that outright like Moat does. Instead, they just counter different Attack card types.

Take Watchtower for instance. The top is draw-to-X, which removes the penalty from discard attacks (albeit in a terminal way). The bottom is a defense against junkers, since it lets you trash a gained card.

Portcullis is kind of like a reverse Watchtower. Its top trashes junk, and its bottom protects against discard attacks (playing it and trashing a card gets you down to 3 cards in hand). It also has some of that Caravan Guard next-turn stuff without ripping it off too completely.

[CaptainReklaw]

My favorite card is tournament.
In games with tournament I'm more interested in winning prizes than actually winning the game.
I like the tricky to trigger concept and unique cards with no other way to get them.
So here's my submission: the Lost City Explorer


And the Lost Cities:



They're a little wordy, Should probably get simplified down.

[Gubump]

My favorite card is tournament.
In games with tournament I'm more interested in winning prizes than actually winning the game.
I like the tricky to trigger concept and unique cards with no other way to get them.
So here's my submission: the Lost City Explorer


And the Lost Cities:



They're a little wordy, Should probably get simplified down.

Lost City Explorer needs to specify where the Secret Card and the Treasure you trash comes from (presumably your hand).

This applies to all of the Hidden Cities: Official Action - Victory cards have the Action part before the VP, not after, so e.g. El Dorado should be

Worth 1 per Treasure you have costing or more.

Atlantis could be simplified:

Gain a card to your hand.
Worth 8 if the last turn wasn't yours (otherwise worth 0).

Machu Picchu's Attack is problematic, it should take a page from Warlord (also, the line separating the vanilla bonuses from the Attack is unnecessary since both are on-play effects):

+1 Card
+1 Action
+
Until your next turn, each other player can't play Action cards from their hand that they have any copies of in play.
Worth 4. When you trash this, discard it.

Questions about Lost City Explorer: What does it mean to "replace one of the starting Shelters/Ruins"? Ruins aren't a starting card. Also, is the Hidden City pile like Prizes in that you can gain any of them that you choose, or are they shuffled together and therefore random?

Lastly, it's weird thematically to call the Fountain of Youth a "city."

[Gubump]

Kind of a loose connection here, but I love Trail because it's a Reaction card with lots of cool combos, designed specifically around said combos. So, this is a Reaction card with cool combos, designed specifically to enable said combos.

[MrHiTech]

My favorite card is tournament.
In games with tournament I'm more interested in winning prizes than actually winning the game.
I like the tricky to trigger concept and unique cards with no other way to get them.
So here's my submission: the Lost City Explorer


And the Lost Cities:



They're a little wordy, Should probably get simplified down.

Firstly, I LOVE THIS IDEA SO MUCH.
Secondly, mechanics:
I'd recommend switching the +1 Card and +1 Action on LCE. Donald X. explained in the secret history that Tournament used to not give +1 Action when another player revealed a Province, but it was no fun since you'd be stuck wondering whether you should risk your last Action on Tournament or not.

In terms of the lost cities, I honestly think they're all way too overpowered. To be concise: El Dorado, FoY , and SL are probably fine by comparison. Don't get me wrong, though. They're still really strong. They just aren't game-ending. Meanwhile, Atlantis is absurdly broken in any context and Machu Picchu is a big "fuck you" to your opponent if they spent all turn making an Engine deck. In that case it's basically an instant win card.

Thirdly, presentation:
VP amounts should be under what the card does when played. So Atlantis' and FoY's top and middle should be switched. El Dorado should be flipped. Machu Picchu's first segment should go after its (current) third one, and the (current) second and third segments should be combined since Duration effects don't cause a dividing line.

Fourthly, wording:
Atlantis should read "Gain a card to your hand" (*cough* overpowered *cough*) since "gain a card" implies that the restriction that gained cards have to be from the Supply is in place, whereas saying "gain any card" implies that that restriction is out the window and you can also gain the card from your opponents' cards, the Trash, the Lost City pile, etc.

The bottom should also be something more concrete and not subject to interpretation. For example, if you moated (or didn't moat) an Attack and that caused your opponent to change their strategy and end the game, did you end the game? It needs to be less vague and more measurable, for example:

If the game ends on your turn, trash this before scoring

Or:

When the game ends, if you were the last player to gain a card, look through your cards and trash this.

El Dorado should say "costs", not "cost"

There should be a comma in Machu Picchu's bottom. The wording in its (currently) third part (*cough* overpowered *cough*) is also extremely vague. Opponents can only play one Action card? Is that one Action each or one Action total? What if they play a Throne Room? Can they play another Action with it? I recommend the unambiguous "during each other player's turn, they ignore any +Actions they get".

Shangri-La should read "Worth 1% per...", not "1% per..." to keep it consistent with cards like Gardens.

Oh and of course finally: There's already a card called Lost City. Just something to keep in mind. I love the flavor though.