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[grep]

Prospector
Action - $3
Look at the top two cards of your deck. Choose one: put them into your hand, or discard them for +2 Actions

[silverspawn]

Prospector
Action - $3
Look at the top two cards of your deck. Choose one: put them into your hand, or discard them for +2 Actions

feels like against the spirit of the contest? since you're pretty unhappy taking 2 Actions here.

- Your card should provide +2 Actions or more without any real difficulty. See the Villages with no restrictions section on the Dominion Strategy Wiki for a list of examples.
- This means no Throne Room variants (as normal Throne Room already costs $4, that would be a bit too easy) or cards that need some condition to be fulfilled (for instance, Ironmonger, Herald, or Conclave).

[arowdok]

Penny Pincher
Action - Liason
+2 Actions
+2 Buys
+2 Favor

I notice not many cards give multiple favor in official dominion so I thought might be nice to have cheap card do that. I went rather simple as the complexity will mostly come for the Ally. If the ally sucks well at least this card gives players a cheap but bad +2 Actions effect or +Buy effect as most engine decks really needed both.

[faust]

Penny Pincher
Action - Liason
+2 Actions
+2 Buys
+2 Favor

I notice not many cards give multiple favor in official dominion so I thought might be nice to have cheap card do that. I went rather simple as the complexity will mostly come for the Ally. If the ally sucks well at least this card gives players a cheap but bad +2 Actions effect or +Buy effect as most engine decks really needed both.

This is just way too strong. Favors are generally good enough that a card doing nothing but terminally gaining +2 Favors would probably be fine at $2. Just some combinations with Allies for Penny Pincher (PP) would be:
Crafter's Guild: PP becomes a Village Workshop (though limited to 1 gain per turn, still extremely powerful).
Island Folk: If you can play just 2 PPs reliably, you get an extra turn each round.
Circle of Witches: PP is a nonterminal 2/3-Curser.
Fellowship of Scribes: Basically turns PP into a Village with 2 Buys attached.
Plateau Shepherds: Every PP is now also worth 2 VP.

An obvious comparison is Bauble, which effectively just gives +1 for each of the +2s that PP gives (with a bit more flexibility, but still).

[fika monster]

Penny Pincher
Action - Liason
+2 Actions
+2 Buys
+2 Favor

I notice not many cards give multiple favor in official dominion so I thought might be nice to have cheap card do that. I went rather simple as the complexity will mostly come for the Ally. If the ally sucks well at least this card gives players a cheap but bad +2 Actions effect or +Buy effect as most engine decks really needed both.

I think it should cost 3 or 4. Maybe add an alternate way to buy or gain? like it could cost 5$, but have "You may spend 1 favor to reduce this cost by 2, any amount of times"
That way you could open this at 3 or 4, but with the cost of spending favores which might be very bad in kingdoms with strong allys.

. too strong for 2 and as faust say, self synergizes too easily with plateu shepherd

[infangthief]

New Town
$1* Action

+1 Action per $1 this costs.
----
This costs $1 more per Action card in play (anywhere).

How many Actions will you need? It pays to plan ahead.
New Towns are also great trash-for-benefit fodder, if you can gain them at the right time.

[silverspawn]

^ may be a bit too easy to make provinces with this, since having a bunch of Action cards in play is pretty common. Stonemason one and whoop, 2 provinces.

[BryGuy]

This is interesting, but how do you envision tracking the cost of each one? Do i use a grease pencil on each card as i buy them? And erase after each game?

New Town
$1* Action

+1 Action per $1 this costs.
----
This costs $1 more per Action card in play (anywhere).

How many Actions will you need? It pays to plan ahead.
New Towns are also great trash-for-benefit fodder, if you can gain them at the right time.

[segura]

This is interesting, but how do you envision tracking the cost of each one? Do i use a grease pencil on each card as i buy them? And erase after each game?

New Town
$1* Action

+1 Action per $1 this costs.
----
This costs $1 more per Action card in play (anywhere).

How many Actions will you need? It pays to plan ahead.
New Towns are also great trash-for-benefit fodder, if you can gain them at the right time.

Huh? You simply count the Actions in play.

[arowdok]

Penny Pincher
Action - Liason
+2 Actions
+2 Buys
+2 Favor

I notice not many cards give multiple favor in official dominion so I thought might be nice to have cheap card do that. I went rather simple as the complexity will mostly come for the Ally. If the ally sucks well at least this card gives players a cheap but bad +2 Actions effect or +Buy effect as most engine decks really needed both.

This is just way too strong. Favors are generally good enough that a card doing nothing but terminally gaining +2 Favors would probably be fine at $2. Just some combinations with Allies for Penny Pincher (PP) would be:
Crafter's Guild: PP becomes a Village Workshop (though limited to 1 gain per turn, still extremely powerful).
Island Folk: If you can play just 2 PPs reliably, you get an extra turn each round.
Circle of Witches: PP is a nonterminal 2/3-Curser.
Fellowship of Scribes: Basically turns PP into a Village with 2 Buys attached.
Plateau Shepherds: Every PP is now also worth 2 VP.

An obvious comparison is Bauble, which effectively just gives +1 for each of the +2s that PP gives (with a bit more flexibility, but still).

These is kind of posts that ""show"" how strong/overpowered new cards are is one of the few comments you see on these forms. They all seem to be patterned after the a kingdom has X or Y this card would be too strong or comparing the card to many official cards that share DNA. Much of the ""gameplay"" of dominion is recognizing these power cases and if the board has enough support for the interaction without giving up other strong opportunities. So I wanted to go more into detail and compare PP to many other Dominion effects. Some combo are just strait too much such as autopileing, or infinite combos, or effects that generate mass value for too cheap. I don't believe PP has any of those issues assuming only using official Dominion cards.

The flat power level of +2 Actions with no +$ or +Cards  is pretty low as the Way of the Ox shows. The +2 Buys was added because to me PP still felt far too narrow to purchase this card if the Ally is middle power level and there was already another source of +Actions in the kingdom. But if the power level is too high I am willing to cut the +2 Buys as they are les core to PP's identify. The reason I did +2 vs +1 was it looked pretty mentally flows better with 2,2, vs 2,1,2 and +Buys to fall off in usefulness past the first unless Bridge effects are in the kingdom which typically break any decent card.

By the very nature of a Liaison its power level is highly dependent on the ally. Each of these ""break"" cases seems strong but not as centralizing as it first appears as many core official cards do better in similar situations already. Your statement that a terminally +2 Favor would be strong enough to see play feels silly to me. It would only see play on boards with plentiful +Actions from other sources and only if is is paired with the most strong Allies. Even then there are probably much better things players could be doing on that board. Now to focusing on the individual mentioned ""break"" cases.

Plateau Shepherds: Every PP is now also worth 2 VP.
If a board had a the basic village (+1 Card +2 Actions) would a player rather have more deck velocity with the +1 Card or flat 2VP? I am leaning toward early game the +1 Card as building as strong typically outdoes flat VP. If somebody had the $5$2 split then yes PP feels free and might lead to some feels bad, but so does most $5$2 split differences on like 30%+ boards. Now, in the mid to late game PP does provide some interesting options for amassing alt VP as the PP are worth 2VP but also Estates (which are easier to get with +2 Buys) can be worth 3VP. Gaining a PP card too late can easily lead to missing out on play it for favor meaning it is not worth 2VP and the more low velocity cards like PP and Estates players add to there deck the more often that will happen; which is common in alt VP strategies. This play pattern is very similar to distant lands, a bit easier as future plays of PP can prepay for late $2s, but also PP does self trash and has to remain in decks increase player's deck size while still providing very little value to players +$ or +cards engines. Feels like great deck to try out but not too dominate.

Fellowship of Scribes: Basically turns PP into a Village with 2 Buys attached. Now with this ally PP is very strong no doubt about that. PP is even more powerful as some decks PP becomes a Lost City with +2 favor can becoming +2 Cards if the hand is played right. But PP does get a bit clunky vs the official card listed as if a player gets a hand of 6 cards or above PP does a lot less. If PP is the only source source of draw they are limit to a 5 card hand with limits trashing opportunities and mega turn. This would be pretty common if VP card can't be trashed, Junkers or the payload in the kingdom are Treasure cards. Also if PP is paired with a more traditional draw effect the ability to get under 5 card can limit PP's ability to mimic Official Village or Lost City. A similar ally is League of Shopkeepers        with less of a hand management minigame it provides a lot value to the weak core of PP. Oddly enough though the +1 Action +1 Buy from the upgraded ally is much less relevant PP already does that. So not sure if scaling down the Flavor fixes this much vs just being decent. Also much like Merchant Camp the lack of +cards does make it much weaker then Market effects.

Circle of Witches: PP is a nonterminal 2/3-Curser. As I have learning in my experiences with Native Village the +1/2 Card +2 Actions tends to not work out as well as +1 Card + 2 Actions bit quite a huge margin. Some of the difference I suppose comes from the 1st play is doing basically nothing delaying the power spike by quite a bit. Other reasons is by doubling down on a faction effect much like journey token card Player maybe be trying to force a card vs play the reliable constant effects in the kingdom. This is doubly so when the combo faction effect miss shuffle and super delay the power spikes. So to me the 2/3 Curser seems slow enough to be nonterminal and not generate too many issues unless there is no trash and/or no shifting. Which in that case any half decent Junker would be too overcentralizing.

Island Folk: If you can play just 2 PPs reliably, you get an extra turn each round. It costs 5 favor not 4 favor right? so it take 3 plays of PP to get the 1st extra turn. Now given that players can pool favor on those extra turns PP could be quite overcentralizing. But still there are a few counters as Junker will slow down a low velocity card like PP a lot crippling there ability to loop there deck during the extra turn for much value or constancy. Mountain Folk has similar issues to Island Folk but as with both the ceiling of double turn much like ""Double Tactician"" decks. So good combo but more limit then first appears.

Crafter's Guild: PP becomes a Village Workshop (though limited to 1 gain per turn, still extremely powerful). I agree powerful but oddly limited as players pooling many tons of favor due to PP having +2 favor vs +1 would fall off. Architects' Guild seems to me to be the bigger gain focused break case as it can combo into its self to spend 4 or 6 favor in a turn.

League of Bankers seems to be the biggest break case as there is no ceiling for favor in a very direct +$ way. I have tried many game to break League of Bankers and have come up short more often then not, so having a custom card break that would be fun to me.

Peaceful Cult jumped out to be but official dominion puts strong trash at $2 pretty often and PP combining with it is quite comparable Rat Catcher a strong card but has awkward moments as that last curse is just never in the opening hand.

After looking at all the official Allies again I noticed a trend that the biggest powerful combos or break cases for PP were gains, +$, or +Cards which is the biggest downside PP has as it lack them. But the ratio of Allies that do that vs total allies is 7/23 so ~30% .Many of the other allies seem to be focused on providing extra +Buys, +Actions, or Shifting which are much less useful for PP. As breaking the cardis turning PP into a constant payoff source vs the decent enabler that I want it to be.

oh lastly comparison to Bauble is fair but doubling the favor output but losing the +$1 is big. As early PPs will very much cripple players ability to hit $5 on the early turns. Also being an action the generates +action vs Treasure is relevant often as most of us are aware, using our last action on a terminal draw hoping for treasure and getting villages. The timing is very different some allies don't care at all when the liaison is played some care a lot when the liaison is played.

[infangthief]

This is interesting, but how do you envision tracking the cost of each one? Do i use a grease pencil on each card as i buy them? And erase after each game?

Each copy of New Town has a variable cost. Whenever you want to know the cost of it you can work it out from the number of Action cards in play at that time. As segura says.

Might need an FAQ for how the cost-increase interacts with cost-reducers. Probably you just apply all increases/reductions and then check that the end result is not less than 0.

[AJL828]

The contest is officially closed!

I won’t be able to get the judging up tonight, but I’ll try my best to get it up tomorrow.

[faust]

These is kind of posts that ""show"" how strong/overpowered new cards are is one of the few comments you see on these forms. They all seem to be patterned after the a kingdom has X or Y this card would be too strong or comparing the card to many official cards that share DNA.

Not sure if this is supposed to be a criticism, but if so, I have to wonder what other way you suggest for judging the power level of a card? That is always relative to other cards.

You sometimes get comments here like "this interacts badly with some specific other card", and I agree that that's not generally a big problem unless the interaction is completely game-breaking, since it comes up quite rarely.

However, it's different for the interaction of a Liaison with an Ally. The chance of a Liaison being paired with a specific Ally is significantly bigger than the chance of it appearing in the same kingdom as some specific other card, and that won't change unless there's an expansion coming that revisits Allys.

After looking at all the official Allies again I noticed a trend that the biggest powerful combos or break cases for PP were gains, +$, or +Cards which is the biggest downside PP has as it lack them. But the ratio of Allies that do that vs total allies is 7/23 so ~30% .Many of the other allies seem to be focused on providing extra +Buys, +Actions, or Shifting which are much less useful for PP. As breaking the cardis turning PP into a constant payoff source vs the decent enabler that I want it to be.

Yeah it's "not all Allys" but if the card is OP 30% of the time it's still not a good design.

[segura]

Penny Pincher
Action - Liason
+2 Actions
+2 Buys
+2 Favor

I notice not many cards give multiple favor in official dominion so I thought might be nice to have cheap card do that. I went rather simple as the complexity will mostly come for the Ally. If the ally sucks well at least this card gives players a cheap but bad +2 Actions effect or +Buy effect as most engine decks really needed both.

This is just way too strong. Favors are generally good enough that a card doing nothing but terminally gaining +2 Favors would probably be fine at $2. Just some combinations with Allies for Penny Pincher (PP) would be:
Crafter's Guild: PP becomes a Village Workshop (though limited to 1 gain per turn, still extremely powerful).
Island Folk: If you can play just 2 PPs reliably, you get an extra turn each round.
Circle of Witches: PP is a nonterminal 2/3-Curser.
Fellowship of Scribes: Basically turns PP into a Village with 2 Buys attached.
Plateau Shepherds: Every PP is now also worth 2 VP.

An obvious comparison is Bauble, which effectively just gives +1 for each of the +2s that PP gives (with a bit more flexibility, but still).

These is kind of posts that ""show"" how strong/overpowered new cards are is one of the few comments you see on these forms. They all seem to be patterned after the a kingdom has X or Y this card would be too strong or comparing the card to many official cards that share DNA. Much of the ""gameplay"" of dominion is recognizing these power cases and if the board has enough support for the interaction without giving up other strong opportunities. So I wanted to go more into detail and compare PP to many other Dominion effects. Some combo are just strait too much such as autopileing, or infinite combos, or effects that generate mass value for too cheap. I don't believe PP has any of those issues assuming only using official Dominion cards.

The flat power level of +2 Actions with no +$ or +Cards  is pretty low as the Way of the Ox shows. The +2 Buys was added because to me PP still felt far too narrow to purchase this card if the Ally is middle power level and there was already another source of +Actions in the kingdom. But if the power level is too high I am willing to cut the +2 Buys as they are les core to PP's identify. The reason I did +2 vs +1 was it looked pretty mentally flows better with 2,2, vs 2,1,2 and +Buys to fall off in usefulness past the first unless Bridge effects are in the kingdom which typically break any decent card.

By the very nature of a Liaison its power level is highly dependent on the ally. Each of these ""break"" cases seems strong but not as centralizing as it first appears as many core official cards do better in similar situations already. Your statement that a terminally +2 Favor would be strong enough to see play feels silly to me. It would only see play on boards with plentiful +Actions from other sources and only if is is paired with the most strong Allies. Even then there are probably much better things players could be doing on that board. Now to focusing on the individual mentioned ""break"" cases.

Plateau Shepherds: Every PP is now also worth 2 VP.
If a board had a the basic village (+1 Card +2 Actions) would a player rather have more deck velocity with the +1 Card or flat 2VP? I am leaning toward early game the +1 Card as building as strong typically outdoes flat VP. If somebody had the $5$2 split then yes PP feels free and might lead to some feels bad, but so does most $5$2 split differences on like 30%+ boards. Now, in the mid to late game PP does provide some interesting options for amassing alt VP as the PP are worth 2VP but also Estates (which are easier to get with +2 Buys) can be worth 3VP. Gaining a PP card too late can easily lead to missing out on play it for favor meaning it is not worth 2VP and the more low velocity cards like PP and Estates players add to there deck the more often that will happen; which is common in alt VP strategies. This play pattern is very similar to distant lands, a bit easier as future plays of PP can prepay for late $2s, but also PP does self trash and has to remain in decks increase player's deck size while still providing very little value to players +$ or +cards engines. Feels like great deck to try out but not too dominate.

Fellowship of Scribes: Basically turns PP into a Village with 2 Buys attached. Now with this ally PP is very strong no doubt about that. PP is even more powerful as some decks PP becomes a Lost City with +2 favor can becoming +2 Cards if the hand is played right. But PP does get a bit clunky vs the official card listed as if a player gets a hand of 6 cards or above PP does a lot less. If PP is the only source source of draw they are limit to a 5 card hand with limits trashing opportunities and mega turn. This would be pretty common if VP card can't be trashed, Junkers or the payload in the kingdom are Treasure cards. Also if PP is paired with a more traditional draw effect the ability to get under 5 card can limit PP's ability to mimic Official Village or Lost City. A similar ally is League of Shopkeepers        with less of a hand management minigame it provides a lot value to the weak core of PP. Oddly enough though the +1 Action +1 Buy from the upgraded ally is much less relevant PP already does that. So not sure if scaling down the Flavor fixes this much vs just being decent. Also much like Merchant Camp the lack of +cards does make it much weaker then Market effects.

Circle of Witches: PP is a nonterminal 2/3-Curser. As I have learning in my experiences with Native Village the +1/2 Card +2 Actions tends to not work out as well as +1 Card + 2 Actions bit quite a huge margin. Some of the difference I suppose comes from the 1st play is doing basically nothing delaying the power spike by quite a bit. Other reasons is by doubling down on a faction effect much like journey token card Player maybe be trying to force a card vs play the reliable constant effects in the kingdom. This is doubly so when the combo faction effect miss shuffle and super delay the power spikes. So to me the 2/3 Curser seems slow enough to be nonterminal and not generate too many issues unless there is no trash and/or no shifting. Which in that case any half decent Junker would be too overcentralizing.

Island Folk: If you can play just 2 PPs reliably, you get an extra turn each round. It costs 5 favor not 4 favor right? so it take 3 plays of PP to get the 1st extra turn. Now given that players can pool favor on those extra turns PP could be quite overcentralizing. But still there are a few counters as Junker will slow down a low velocity card like PP a lot crippling there ability to loop there deck during the extra turn for much value or constancy. Mountain Folk has similar issues to Island Folk but as with both the ceiling of double turn much like ""Double Tactician"" decks. So good combo but more limit then first appears.

Crafter's Guild: PP becomes a Village Workshop (though limited to 1 gain per turn, still extremely powerful). I agree powerful but oddly limited as players pooling many tons of favor due to PP having +2 favor vs +1 would fall off. Architects' Guild seems to me to be the bigger gain focused break case as it can combo into its self to spend 4 or 6 favor in a turn.

League of Bankers seems to be the biggest break case as there is no ceiling for favor in a very direct +$ way. I have tried many game to break League of Bankers and have come up short more often then not, so having a custom card break that would be fun to me.

Peaceful Cult jumped out to be but official dominion puts strong trash at $2 pretty often and PP combining with it is quite comparable Rat Catcher a strong card but has awkward moments as that last curse is just never in the opening hand.

After looking at all the official Allies again I noticed a trend that the biggest powerful combos or break cases for PP were gains, +$, or +Cards which is the biggest downside PP has as it lack them. But the ratio of Allies that do that vs total allies is 7/23 so ~30% .Many of the other allies seem to be focused on providing extra +Buys, +Actions, or Shifting which are much less useful for PP. As breaking the cardis turning PP into a constant payoff source vs the decent enabler that I want it to be.

oh lastly comparison to Bauble is fair but doubling the favor output but losing the +$1 is big. As early PPs will very much cripple players ability to hit $5 on the early turns. Also being an action the generates +action vs Treasure is relevant often as most of us are aware, using our last action on a terminal draw hoping for treasure and getting villages. The timing is very different some allies don't care at all when the liaison is played some care a lot when the liaison is played.

I am just gonna comment on Plateau Shepherd. Dude, that is beyond crazy! You got 2VPs and then some (there is always Estates and perhaps some other $2) which could easily converge towards the VPs of a Duchy. A Duchy for $2 that is also a Necro with Buys.

You are absolutely correct in pointing out that a Necro with 2 Buys is weak, you’d rather have Villa or Festival and even those splitters have their issues as they don’t draw.
But trivializing stuff trashing, junking, drawing or extra turns is not gonna fix a totally broken card.

It might be OK with 1 Favour but even that seems dubious as the card still does 3 jobs then. Squire is also a flexible weak Village but at least you gotta play it terminally for the Buys, it is choose and not get everything.

[arowdok]

These is kind of posts that ""show"" how strong/overpowered new cards are is one of the few comments you see on these forms. They all seem to be patterned after the a kingdom has X or Y this card would be too strong or comparing the card to many official cards that share DNA.

Not sure if this is supposed to be a criticism, but if so, I have to wonder what other way you suggest for judging the power level of a card? That is always relative to other cards.

You sometimes get comments here like "this interacts badly with some specific other card", and I agree that that's not generally a big problem unless the interaction is completely game-breaking, since it comes up quite rarely.

So I had to rework that first section a few time to not come off as hostile as I am become frustrated at this forms as it seems like many users here submit cards and get little to no helpful feedback. Most times posts just get met with silence or a mention on grammar issues. The other feedback I tend to see is usually a "This is too op" and not much data showing why? Very few posts comment on how exciting it would be to play that card or oh that is interesting but under-costed compared to these official cards or based on this writing from the designer that core design has been playtested found to be problematic. But as a commenter maybe I am wrong, you as the creator should playtest your card and get back to us at the forms with your findings. I know we all don't have too much time to commit to other people's creative efforts but isn't that the point of these forms, right?

Your comment that a +2 Favor terminal was a playable card felt to me like you were out of touch with the balance of the game. As you are a mod who does post quite a bit, I did initially doubt myself and had to reconsider my submission. So I spent a couple hours investigating how crazy my card was. Starting with you claim a terminal +2 Favor card at $2 would be see play at all.

This is my analysis for the ($2cost Terminal +2 Favor) not PP
  Plateau Shepherds - players can do an alt VP deck but it still takes time/actions, many buys/gains, and clutters their deck a lot with $2s. This would mostly see play to 3 pile rushes or an engine deck would try to use it to recoup the lead a Big money deck would have over them after taking time to build an engine. Now this is only playable in my mind if players have access to +Buys or workshops and there are no other better Alt VP cards in the kingdom. Still the best Ally for this +2 Favor terminal card.
  Crafters' Guild - this just turns it into a limited Armory that can be purchased alongside another $4/$5 on the first two turns. Decent but should not be too game warping. I see it similar to when a card is targeted by a trait and it is considered strong but really it is fine.
  Peaceful Cult - this would be like a double rat catcher but much worse as the +2 Favor card itself does not replace either the Action nor the Card. Still it would see play if other trash options were limited.
  League of Shopkeepers - this is after enough play it becomes a +$1, +1 Action, +1 Buy. Is this good enough no except when no other +buy options are on board or players need a non-Treasure payload for Library decks. as it is still worse than Candlestick Maker.

Please check my work as I am human and make errors. These are the only allies I would expect to even consider making the above card playable. So really 2/23 is 9% and if you were stretching 17% if all four cases were considered playable.

Now overall I do think my card Penny Pincher is overpowered and might need some tuning. I have found for my initial playtests of new designs it is far better to be overpowered by being undercosted for example then get ignored by players. So I am going to try out as is and get back to the form with my findings and I hope you can be okay with that. I am really excited to see if “too much Favor” can supercharge a very bad core into playability.

However, it's different for the interaction of a Liaison with an Ally. The chance of a Liaison being paired with a specific Ally is significantly bigger than the chance of it appearing in the same kingdom as some specific other card, and that won't change unless there's an expansion coming that revisits Allys.

After looking at all the official Allies again I noticed a trend that the biggest powerful combos or break cases for PP were gains, +$, or +Cards which is the biggest downside PP has as it lack them. But the ratio of Allies that do that vs total allies is 7/23 so ~30% .Many of the other allies seem to be focused on providing extra +Buys, +Actions, or Shifting which are much less useful for PP. As breaking the cardis turning PP into a constant payoff source vs the decent enabler that I want it to be.

Yeah it's "not all Allys" but if the card is OP 30% of the time it's still not a good design.

Now what level of OP%  is considered ok? like many of the official cards are over tuned and played well over 30% of kingdoms they appear in, right? Like Chapel, OG Witch, Gardens and Wharf either reshape how the game is played significantly or are on their face just a wrong number somewhere but they are still very core to Dominion and its play experience. Also with the inclusion of trait cards in the game, how balanced any card is in any given kingdom is really thrown out the window. Like half or more of the skill in the game of Dominion if finding the OP effects in the current kingdom and taking advantage of them. So personally a card being strong/OP in only 30% games is great, if its in more than half that maybe time to reconsider. Maybe I am way off base and would love to hear from others how much OP% they are okay in this community.

[segura]

Now what level of OP%  is considered ok?

A card being too strong or too weak is never ever OK. Just because the official game features some cards which are clearly overpowered does not imply that balance is irrelevant when you design fan cards.

There is also a difference between e.g. Cultist and Ironmonger, a broken design that is no fun and a very strong $4 that does not break anything. Your design isn't simply a strong $2, it is absolutey ludicrous at that price level.

The other feedback I tend to see is usually a "This is too op" and not much data showing why? Very few posts comment on how exciting it would be to play that card or oh that is interesting but under-costed compared to these official cards or based on this writing from the designer that core design has been playtested found to be problematic.

There is more (you exaggerate, most folks who host design contests provide deep feedback that includes other topics than balance) feedback on strength and costs here because that is easier to evaluate than how interesting, fun, innovative or game-warping a design is.

[silverspawn]

These is kind of posts that ""show"" how strong/overpowered new cards are is one of the few comments you see on these forms. They all seem to be patterned after the a kingdom has X or Y this card would be too strong or comparing the card to many official cards that share DNA.

Not sure if this is supposed to be a criticism, but if so, I have to wonder what other way you suggest for judging the power level of a card? That is always relative to other cards.

You sometimes get comments here like "this interacts badly with some specific other card", and I agree that that's not generally a big problem unless the interaction is completely game-breaking, since it comes up quite rarely.

So I had to rework that first section a few time to not come off as hostile as I am become frustrated at this forms as it seems like many users here submit cards and get little to no helpful feedback. Most times posts just get met with silence or a mention on grammar issues. The other feedback I tend to see is usually a "This is too op" and not much data showing why? Very few posts comment on how exciting it would be to play that card or oh that is interesting but under-costed compared to these official cards or based on this writing from the designer that core design has been playtested found to be problematic. But as a commenter maybe I am wrong, you as the creator should playtest your card and get back to us at the forms with your findings. I know we all don't have too much time to commit to other people's creative efforts but isn't that the point of these forms, right?

I kind of agree with this, especially because (as I said before) I think balance is an invalid concept to begin with. It works in one direction; cards that are too weak are bad designs because well they don't do anything. But there is no such thing as a card being too strong. If a card is bad, there's always a reason other than strength. To take the obvious example, I think chapel is awesome for the game, and it's a 2$ that would be an auto-buy at 4$ in almost every kingdom. (And hello, Donate? Seriously, Donate should have been the nail in the coffin for the "balance is inherently a meaningful concept in dominion" position.)

Like, generally we like interesting decisions. Figuring out whether to buy something is one such decision. If a card is very strong, this goes away. But if the card introduces other decisions -- like chapel or donate -- that's fine. Powerlevel tends to be more of an issue if the card is spammable and/or pretty easy to play.  But the point is, it's not an issue in itself; at least a high powerlevel isn't.  So even if the card has problems related to strength (which certainly happens), you should always explain why that's bad rather than just calling it OP.

I think people tend to focus on powerlevel and grammar because it's most objective. If you critique fun-ness, you risk being in a minority position -- perhaps most other people think the card is fun! And being in the minority is scary! And you also risk coming across as authoritative.  With grammar and powerlevel, you're safer. And I think pointing out grammar mistakes is good thing, even if mb we should talk more about funness.

(I'd comment on your card, but I don't know what favors do  )

Also, you shouldn't have to playtest your cards. I certainly don't.

[AJL828]

The judging is in! You guys sure made this one tough on me, there were so many great ideas this week!


Augie279

Forest Village
Action - $5
+2 Actions
Reveal cards from your deck until you reveal 3 Victory cards. Discard any number of them, then shuffle the revealed cards back into your deck.

It can be useful if you’re careful about triggering shuffles, but without any sifting  for your current hand and a -1 to handsize it seems a little too situational for me.

JW

Granary
$5 - Action
+1 Card and +2 Actions
You may discard up to two cards, revealed. For each Action or Gold discarded, +2 Cards.

Very strong once your deck is action or Gold rich, but of course it usually takes some time to get there. Also has a pleasant interaction with Shelters, which is always fun. I like this one.

BryGuy

Town Crazy
$5 Action
+2 Actions,
Choose one: discard a card for +2 Cards; or discard two same named cards, not costing $0, to gain a Madman.

The handsize neutral sifting option seems fine. Interesting use of Madman, however I feel this will wind up being too strong in many cases as playing multiple Madmen often results in overdraw and trivializes getting more Madmen for your next turn. There’s also the issue of them running out; with only 10 Madmen its very possible to shut opponents out of getting any, especially in 3 or 4 player games.

xyz123

Gentrified Village
Treasure-Duration
$5

$1
+1 Coffer
_______________________________________
At the start of your next turn +2 Actions

A very useful card in getting both $ and Actions when you need them most. I can easily see myself picking up a pair of these to keep my turns reliable. Great work!

majiponi

Poor Village
cost $3 - Action
+2 Actions
Reveal your hand.  If you don't have any Treasures, +2 Cards.

An awesome mishmash of Poor House and Shanty Town. Requiring exactly zero treasures in hand makes it play differently from Poor House, and with good trashing it’ll be much easier to activate than Shanty Town (plus it isn’t slowed down by extra copies of itself). Very thematic and a great $3 Village.

NoMoreFun

Outskirts
Action - $2
+1 Card
+2 Actions
_______
When you gain this, trash it if you have an Outskirts in play

A cheap village with a fun exercise of how to workaround its drawback, especially since many sources of +Buy and extra gains are terminal. You can try to scoop up a bunch at once or gain them early in your turn before you play any. And of course there’s always shenanigans with things like Watchtower or Tiara. Great entry!

czzzz

Thrifty Village
Action - $3
+2 Actions
Discard a card, then put a card from the discard pile into your hand. Reveal your hand. If there were exactly 2 Action cards in your hand, +$2.

Has the Harbinger problem of being somewhat limited in what it can do when your discard pile is empty (not quite as much as Harbinger though). I do really like the minigame of getting exactly 2 Actions in hand for +$2, I think that could work out well with DTX decks.

4est

Action - $5
Restored Village
+1 Card
+2 Actions
---
When you gain this, do this twice: Trash a card from your hand, then gain a card costing exactly $1 more than it other than Restored Village.

I love this on-gain effect, it’s very useful for kick-starting your engine building quickly. The fact that it’s mandatory also means you have to be careful in the lategame (with cards like Haggler for instance). I do agree with the note that this could be problematic if gained outside of your turn, mostly because it can knock your handsize down to 0 without a way for you to stop it. But other than that minor problem, I love this card.

faust

Pirate's Lair - $2
Action

+1 Card
+2 Actions

Gain a non-Victory card costing exactly $1 per card you've gained this turn.

I love cantrip gainers, I wish official Dominion had more of them! It seems a bit to difficult to use without any other gainers around, but I do like how it’ll only be junking you once a turn at worst. Its own low price also helps you get more of them through its effect, but the frequent lack of $1 cards makes sure it isn’t too easy to do so. Great job!

fika monster

Welcoming Village , $3 Action

+1 Card, +2 Villagers
-
When you gain this during your turn, you get +1 Buy, +2 Villagers, and all other players get a copy of Welcoming Village.

I think that even with the changes you made this still provides too much benefit to your opponents, as in many cases they will be able to use their free village before you get to use your free Villagers. The pile will also run far too quick in 3 and 4 player games.

Nyxfulloftricks

Village Well - Action
+2 Actions
+1 Coffer
You may play an Heirloom from your hand to gain +1%.

Lucky Copper - Treasure - Heirloom
$1
Name a card. Reveal the top card of your deck. If it's the named card, put it into your hand.

I love cards that play Treasures during the Action Phase, but limiting it to just the Heirloom is a bit too restricted in my opinion. As for the Heirloom itself, it will often make for some frustrating openings as drawing it T2 will cause you to trigger a shuffle, which can be either very good or bad depending on how much money you had T1. I like things that mix up openings, but the way this Heirloom does it feels too random to me.

anordinaryman

Ransacked Village | Action | $2
+1 Card
+2 Actions
When you gain a Victory card this turn, trash this.
-
When you gain this from the supply, you may gain a non-Victory card from the trash.

Another cheap village with an interesting restriction to work around. I do think making the pile larger was a good call, and the extra gain from the trash seems really fun, although I think it would work a little better with a cost cap of $6 in place. Overall still a solid entry.

LibraryAdventurer

Hotel Pub
$5 - Action
+2 Cards
+2 Actions.
You may discard a treasure. If you didn't, gain a Copper on top of your deck.

This looks too weak for $5. The fact that the Copper is gained onto your deck means both choices of this card will effectively keep your handsize the same in most cases. I think this would be better if the Copper was gained to the discard.

sumrex

Laidback Life $3
Now and at the start of your next 2 turns:
+1 Action
+1$

Maybe very simple, but sometimes simple is all you need.

I think this compares too well to Taskmaster, and without the gaining restriction is also just less interesting. It’s a little too simple for my taste.

D782802859

Distant Village
$5 Action
+1 Card
+1 Buy
Choose one: +1 Card;
or +2 Actions.
-
When you gain this, draw an extra card for your next hand per unused Action you have (Action, not Action card).

Ideally you want to have just enough Actions to supply all your terminal cards, and at least for me this is the case in most engine games. The main exception to this games with Throne Room variants or Champion, in which this effect will be incredibly powerful. The on-play of the card is fine, but weak for $5. Overall I think this will fluctuate too much in strength, mostly being on the weak side.

segura

Action - $2
Country Village

+2 Actions
You may discard a Victory card for +1 VP.
---
When you gain this, you may play it.

A great enabler for DTX decks, and still a passable village otherwise. I appreciate the dilemma it creates, similar to Baron, about it being worthwhile to keep just one Estate around. Playing it on gain also allows for some neat tricks, what if that Workshop was suddenly also a village? Nice work!

emtzalex

Floating Village • $2 • Action - Duration
+1 Card
You may discard a card for +2 Actions. If
you discarded an Action card, then at the
start of your next turn, repeat this ability.

Once this is set up properly it can keep your engine super reliable (as keeping it in play will allow it to be a double village rather than a normal village). Timing when to get it is interesting, as it’s not very strong as a normal village (as you said, strictly worse than Hamlet when not discarding Actions). I don’t think it’s too strong but I also don’t think it would be too weak at $3 either. Either way, I like the card, I hope to see more official “repeat this ability” cards in the future.

Xen3k

Watchful Village - $3
Night - Duration
Now and at the start of your next turn, look at the top 3 cards of your deck. Trash one of them. Discard one of them. Put the last one back onto your deck.
Until then, each player starts their next turn with 2 Actions.

I like the double Lookout effect, it thins you down at a rate better than Amulet (as its non-terminal and sifts as well). However I’m not sure extra Actions is the best boost to give other players to compensate for its strength, as you’re mostly only going to be playing it early on and its quite likely that other players don’t draw colliding terminals at that point in the game (or if they do, it’ll be by pure chance).

silverspawn

Action - $2
Quiet Village

+2 Actions
---
When you gain this, you may discard your hand. If you do, +1 Villager per card discarded.

Another awesome on-gain bonus. This has many potential use cases like setting yourself up with Villagers to resolve upcoming terminal collision or spending a little extra cash to make sure your engine doesn’t dud in the lategame.

X-tra

Action - Reaction - $3
Shortcut

+2 Actions
+1 Buy
---
When you gain an Action card, you may reveal this from your hand, to play the gained card.

It seems you forgot to add a restriction to this to prevent it from autopiling Workshop type cards (personally I think the discard suggestion would be best). But other than that issue, this is a really fun reaction that allows this to act as a village in more than one way. Great work!

Lackar

Exiled Village
$5
Action - Duration
+2 Actions

At the start of your next turn.
+1 Card
You may Exile a card from your hand.

This seems too slow of a thinner for $5, as it can only thin 1 card every other turn at most. And as I had said earlier about Watchful Village, utilizing the extra Actions early on will also be hard to do reliably.

Will(ow | iam)

Crafty Village
$5 Action
+2 Actions
Gain a card costing up to $4

This seems okay for $5 but just doesn’t excite me very much; it’s just a Workshop that’s also a village.

Gubump

Action - Duration - $3
Hidden Village

+1 Card
+1 Action
At the start of your next turn, +1 Villager.

I think this will have the most interesting decisions when also in a board with the standard Village; do you want a more reliable, but smaller Village effect, or a larger, but riskier one? To me they seem pretty much evenly matched which is excellent design.

Violet CLM

Tourist Trap
$3 Action

+5 Actions

I think this is too good for $3, it provides more Actions than Snowy Village without the huge restriction that that card has. I also find this to be too simple for my tastes, it’s just a lot of one vanilla effect and nothing else.

RovingBear

Action - Duration - $6
Vassal City

+1 Card
+2 Actions
Discard 1 card.
At the start of each of your turns for the rest of the game, +1 Action.

Strength wise I think this is fine, but it seems really awkward to have an on play effect for a single turn and then just have the card sit there. It’s also very similar to Barracks for this reason.

grep

Prospector
Action - $3
Look at the top two cards of your deck. Choose one: put them into your hand, or discard them for +2 Actions

Like Forest Village, I think this is going to be too difficult to use in most cases as it doesn’t allow you to sift what’s in your hand. The search space on this card is also quite small, so you might be forced into discarding some good Actions or otherwise draw them dead.

arowdok

Penny Pincher
Action - Liason - $2
+2 Actions
+2 Buys
+2 Favors

From my scanning of all the Allies in the game, I do think this would be very strong with quite a lot of them. I’m not sure if it’s enough to consider it overpowered though. Looking beyond strength, the card just provides vanilla bonuses with the Favors you get, which is again a little too simple for my taste.

infangthief

New Town
$1* Action

+1 Action per $1 this costs.
----
This costs $1 more per Action card in play (anywhere).

With workshops I think this will be too potent of a village and/or TFB card. Peddler is pretty notoriously good as TFB, but its price is high during the Action phase meaning you’ll have to rack up a lot of Buys to get some. And with the unlimited potential of this card’s cost scaling (unlike Peddler) some TFB cards will be able to get far more mileage out of it. I think this concept could work if it was a bit more restricted in how high it can get.


Final Results:

Honourable Mentions: Poor Village by majiponi, Outskirts by NoMoreFun, Country Village by segura, Shortcut by X-tra, Hidden Village by Gubump

Runner Ups: Restored Village by 4est and Pirate's Lair by faust

Winner: Quiet Village by silverspawn

Congrats to silverspawn for winning and thank you all for your participation!

[silverspawn]

woo, thanks!!

So I'd love to host the next contest, but I stopped playing after Menagerie, which means I don't know the mechanics of the last two expansions, Allies and Plunder. (I wouldn't mind looking them up, but I don't think I should judge mechanics that I haven't played with.) That means you couldn't do Favors and these other fancy new thing for one contest (but everything up to and including Menagerie is okay). I'm assuming this is fine, but if not I'm giving anyone a chance to complain before I put up the next thread.

[faust]

woo, thanks!!

So I'd love to host the next contest, but I stopped playing after Menagerie, which means I don't know the mechanics of the last two expansions, Allies and Plunder. (I wouldn't mind looking them up, but I don't think I should judge mechanics that I haven't played with.) That means you couldn't do Favors and these other fancy new thing for one contest (but everything up to and including Menagerie is okay). I'm assuming this is fine, but if not I'm giving anyone a chance to complain before I put up the next thread.

That should be fine; I mean, it's just another constraint for that week's challenge.

[fika monster]

A mixture of Port and Lost city

v2

Welcoming Village , $3 Action

+1 Card, +2 Villagers
-
When you gain this during your turn, you get +1 Buy, +2 Villagers, and all other players get a copy of Welcoming Village.

The pile has 12 16 Cards in it, since its very attractive and will probably run out fast.

I don't think there has been a card that is put into OTHER PLAYERS hands, and in a good way: and so i wanted to play with that. Since its essentially a +1 Card effect, i wanted to make it feel good for the giving player, so therefore gaining it during your turn would give you a village effect.
This should be the first kind of card that GIVES other players a genuilly good card. Games with this should be plentiful with actions and draw, becoming unusual and different, maybe too quick.

The card shouldnt have a infinite loop that runs out immideatly with the "gain during your turn" clause: it would be very awkward if giving this card away once would immideatly empty its pile.

last edit before i give up on the card

Added "gain two horses" when you gain it. Considered having it say "+1 card" when you gain it, but then you could empty it way too quickly imo if you happened to draw into the workshops.

Also added a "first time you gain this during your turn" To make the pile emptying happen a bit more slowly

[faust]

A mixture of Port and Lost city

v2

Welcoming Village , $3 Action

+1 Card, +2 Villagers
-
When you gain this during your turn, you get +1 Buy, +2 Villagers, and all other players get a copy of Welcoming Village.

The pile has 12 16 Cards in it, since its very attractive and will probably run out fast.

I don't think there has been a card that is put into OTHER PLAYERS hands, and in a good way: and so i wanted to play with that. Since its essentially a +1 Card effect, i wanted to make it feel good for the giving player, so therefore gaining it during your turn would give you a village effect.
This should be the first kind of card that GIVES other players a genuilly good card. Games with this should be plentiful with actions and draw, becoming unusual and different, maybe too quick.

The card shouldnt have a infinite loop that runs out immideatly with the "gain during your turn" clause: it would be very awkward if giving this card away once would immideatly empty its pile.

last edit before i give up on the card

Added "gain two horses" when you gain it. Considered having it say "+1 card" when you gain it, but then you could empty it way too quickly imo if you happened to draw into the workshops.

Also added a "first time you gain this during your turn" To make the pile emptying happen a bit more slowly

Unfortunately, I think this is now again too good. With the "gain 2 Horses", it is pretty much strictly better than Experiment.