I appreciate those of you who tried your Luck with this contest. Here is the judging:
Diviner • $5 • Action - Dawn
+2 Cards
+1 Action
Discard a card.
Reveal your hand. If the revealed cards are all differently named, gain a Luck.
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Diviner is a Fugitive variant at $5 with two fan-mechanic buffs: it's a Dawn card, so any copies you play before regular Action cards function as a village in addition to sifting; and, after you sift, there's a Menagerie-esque ability to gain a Luck card if you have all different cards in your hand. There's then a back-synergy, as Luck can both help enable a no-doubles hand that will get you another Luck, and/or set up Diviner to be in your hand during your next Dawn phase, enabling you to get the extra Action(s).
Triggering the Luck gain seems like it would be pretty hard to pull off, especially early in most games. It also potentially provides a strategic challenge: if your had is Copper - Silver - Silver - cantrip - Diviner - Estate, do you drop one of the Silvers and trade hitting a lower price point for a Luck (or two)? Given that, and given that the uncertainty of triggering the Dawn ability makes it hard to rely on this as a village for an engine, I think this might be a bit underpowered.
However, it is ultimately a fun engine component with a mini-game aspect to it, which makes solid use of the two mechanics.
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Wild Fae
$5 Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
Reveal your deck's top card, if it is not an Action, gain a Luck; otherwise you may discard it.
You may discard a card from your Hand to gain a Luck, Frozen once.
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When gained, Freeze this once.
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It think there may be an error in your card's text, but it is hard to be sure. As written, Wild Fae is a cantrip (with a 1 turn Freeze penalty on-gain) which, after drawing the card to replace itself:
- Reveals the top card of your deck
- If the revealed card isn't an Action, gains a Luck
- If it is an Action, gives the player the option to discard it
- Then gives the player the option to discard a card for a Luck (with its own 1 turn Freeze penalty)
I don't know if you meant to write "if it is an Action, gain a Luck" or not. As it is, WF will gain a Luck most times (especially early on), and a second if you discard. That's not terribly broken, but it isn't reflective of your suggestion that "the first use of Wild Fae may not operate optimally." It very likely will, and will only become likely to miss the first Luck gain as you fill your deck with Action cards. More strange is the option to discard a revealed Action. Absent a handful of special circumstances--Actions you no longer need (Moneylender), or never wanted (Ruins, Snow), or Reactions with on-discard triggers--you will very rarely want to discard an Action.
This kind of works as a card that just gains two Lucks a lot of the time. That's probably pretty balanced at $5 (a kind of delayed Cartographer). I'm not sure it needs the Freeze penalty (at least not the on-gain one), and the use of that mechanic feels kind of tacked on, as it does not really relate thematically or have any particularly interesting interaction.
Copy editing notes:
You don't need to say "discard a card from your Hand" as the "from your hand part" is implied, and you only need to specify from where a card is discarded if it is from somewhere else.
The below-the-line syntax should be "When you gain this, Freeze it once."
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Mountain Path • $4 • Action
+2 Cards
+1 Action
If you have exactly 3 or exactly 8 Action cards in play, gain a Luck. Otherwise, gain a Snow.
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A Lab when played, Mountain Pass will usually junk the player with a Snow, unless they can align it properly to be either the 3rd or 8th Action card they have in play, in which case it will gain a Luck instead. Given that the Snow-gaining is the default outcome, this functions as a kind of Fugitive variant, but instead of causing the player to discard a card, the -1 Card effect is caused by drawing a Snow later on in the game. Given the view (which I share) that a Kingdom card Fugitive would be too strong at $4, that makes me think this is pretty busted.
There are a number of ways in which this is stronger than Fugitive. First, delaying a card's drawback always provides a couple of benefits. First, by having more cards now, you can (generally) hit a better price point, allowing you to buy a better card an improve your deck by more, for the rest of the game. Also, plays of the card near the end of the game may only accrue the benefit (if the game ends before the harm arrives--in this case, before you draw the Snow). Also, there are a number of synergies that could mitigate the harm: certain Ways (especially WotH), Watchtower, and TfB cards that care about type (like Death Card or Sacrifice). Also, this comparison is all before you get to the fact that this sometimes gains Luck, which means you not only get to play it as a pure Lab, but the Luck may well set up another 3rd or 8th play of MP. Plus, cards like Hireling and Quartermaster can help ensure that you'll get at least one hit on the Luck gaining.
There are some ways in which MP's effect is worse than Fugitive's. Fugitive will often let you sift a dead or very weak card. With MP, you have to draw both that card and the Snow (although this disadvantage goes away in a Kingdom with great thinning). Also, with Fugitive the -1 Card always comes right after a net +1 Card, so you have cards to spare. There's no guarantee of that with MP, and you could end up being buried in Snows and losing a whole turn. Still, while a non-Luck gaining MP may not be strictly better than Fugitive, it's not strictly worse, and this card is strictly better than that. Thus, I think it's too strong at $4 (although it would probably be too weak at $5).
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Shrine Attendant - $3
Action
+1 Action
Reveal a card in your hand, then the top card of your deck. If they match, gain 2 Luck. Either way, you may discard the top card of your deck, then +1 Card.
Heritage: Local Shrine
Local Shrine - $2
Action - Victory - Heritage
+1 Action
Look at the top 2 cards of your deck. Discard any number of them and return the rest in any order.
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1VP
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Shrine Attendant is a sifting cantrip, a weaker version of Border Guard that lets you either keep the top card of your deck or discard it for the next (unknown) one. But if, before revealing it, you can match that top card with a card from your hand, you get 2 Lucks (which are likely to help you set up future matches). SA also uses the Heritage card mechanic, swapping one of a player's starting Estates for a Local Shrine, which adds the (non-terminal) ability to keep, discard, or rearrange the top 2 cards on your deck.
The Luck gaining on SA feels a lot more generous than any of the other submissions. Early on it will not be hard to hit Copper/Copper, and the fact that it gains 2 Lucks per hit substantially increases the chance of being able to use a previously gained Luck to hit another match. This is further enhanced by LS, which can set up a collision by letting you see what is on top of your deck. However, I don't think this is busted, as SA and the Lucks it gains can never (by themselves) do anything more than optimize what's in your hand; they can never increase your handsize, add to your payload, thin your deck, or gain you cards (other than the ephemeral Lucks). This actually sets up a kind of village-idiot-esque trap for players who aren't careful/are inexperienced. You can open with double SA, but all that will do is help you get a bunch of Coppers. You still need other cards to actually make your deck more powerful (and able to buy Provinces).
LS itself can have some potentially disruptive effects on an opening, as it can enable a player to trigger the shuffle before their Clean-up phase on turn 2. However, I don't see that as so disruptive . There may be a handful of cases where it can significantly strengthen a player opening 5/2, but I'm not sure that's really such a problem.
I actually really like this design. It makes solid use of both mechanics, can be a lot of fun to play, but isn't overpowering without other cards to go along with it.
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Topic: Fan Card Mechanics Week 62: Be a Lady Tonight (Read 1244 times)