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[faust]

Contest closed!

Card evaluations soon to follow.

[faust]

Sorry, things are very busy at the moment. I'm afraid the judging will have to wait until the weekend.

[faust]

I'm very sorry about the long delay. I though I might get to this sooner... oh well. Here, finally, comes the judging:

4444: Inventor's Workshop
In a way, this feels quite dependent on having good (or, at least, spammable) $2s in the kingdom; that can make the difference between this being a Workers' Village+ or just a crappy Villa. It's also possible that you want to use this as your main Village, in which case you're not going to get the $2 most of the time. I wonder if the separation of option might not make this a bit too restrictive and kind of weak in absence of combos. If, on the other hand, you have something like Highway, Inventor's Workshop gets quite insane. Interesting, but I would like the power level to be at a more balanced out rather than really strong in some kingdoms and kind of underwhelming in most others. 7/10

4est: Playwright
Playing semi-random cards is a fun idea, and nice way to implement a Black-Market type deck. Props for making this not change out the cards with each play, I think that would have been too fiddly and random. Perhaps this is still a bit swingy, and can give some players a really good turn and others just crap. Problems are also present elsewhere though: Posit that you get a set of bad cards for Playwright. Potentially then, it might be optimal not to play your Playwright so you don't give your opponent a suit of good cards. Per this, you might get sort of degenerate gamestates which will not be much fun. Puny nitpick: Probably the deck this creates should not be named "Playwright too", so there is no confusion as to what "play 2 Playwright cards" refers to. 6/10

AJL828: Collector
Could be one of those cards that looks stronger in theory than in practice. Crazy good if you can draw cards and then play a Treasure from the discard, but you draw cards first, so it might well trigger a reshuffle. Cool reaction, too. Could be useless on some boards, but not too many, and it's nice that it further encourages a money-heavy engine build. Cards that make you do things differently are always a lot of fun. Caveat that this might be too strong with some kingdom Treasures, or in particular with Loot. 9/10

BryGuy: Stock Keep
So, this is like Ruined Library if you Exile Mat is empty, and uh most of the other times it's Ruined Village and you discard stuff from exile? Sorry, but I cannot see this being worth it. Stockpile being available does improve it somewhat. Still, best case for this is like "+1 Action, gain a Spoils", which is only barely worth $3. Surely your opponents can easily block you from doing even that if they get a Province into Exile. 2/10

Chappy77: Conundrum
Cute choice, but I feel like not all options are created equal. Can the Lookout-ish thing not at least be nonterminal? Classical draw-to-X decks can make so much use out of the other two options, getting their draw and economy from them. Considerations like "how many Libraries should I add?" are kind of unnecessary here. Convert excess drawing power into cash, simple! Could therefore be too automatic when draw-to-X is the way to go. 6/10

grep: Dromedary
Dromedary seems very powerful. Don't really get the comparison to Caravan, the two cards do not seem to have a lot in common. Draw-to-X is just so easy with this if you just have any sifting/discard for benefit. Distantly, this is related to Cursed Village, the other nonterminal draw-to-X; that one costs $5, comes with a downside, and is still very strong. Definitely this can still whiff, but nonetheless I feel it is too good. 6/10

JW: Collector
Combines Forager and uh, sort of Enchantress? Can't say that this is broken in any way, it's probably quite solid, but just... not particularly exciting? Cards like this fit into expansions to fill and extra need I think, but it's hardly going to end up as someone's favorite card. Could you argue there there is a bias towards extravagant designs in these contests? Clearly. 6/10

LibraryAdventurer: Calendar
Can't help but feel like this topdecking ability would be a lot more useful if it triggered at the end of the buy phase rather than at the start of it. Confused about the line in the post about how this interacts with Knight-type attacks... it doesn't, unless you somehow manage to play them during your Buy phase. Crystal Ball is a synergy, but I feel like some general utility was sacrificed to make that synergy happen. 5/10

LTaco: Pedestal
Pedestal brings like, a big scaling Island to the table. Provinces on Pedestals are uh... maybe a bit weird flavor-wise, but fine. Prompt was to have specific card synergies, I didn't consider a synergy with a basic card that you want pretty much all the time anyways, but I have appreciation for that subversion. Practically, this will often lead to longer games, as there are kind of twice as many Provinces, but at the same time, your deck is diluted less, so it doesn't disintegrate. Power-level wise, this is probably alright, however I don't feel like it's particularly exciting. Putting some kind of emphasis on having things other than Provinces on Pedestals might make this a bit more interesting rather than automatic. 6/10

majoponi: Buried Chancellor
Bit of a shame that this doesn't list a synergistic card with B, so it does not qualify for the contest. But I will say that I kind of like the fact that this is a Silver+ at $4 balanced by the fact that it skip every other shuffle.

NoMoreFun: Audience
All of this seems rather well considered. After all, without the $6 cap this could probably gain Provinces too easily. At the same time, haivng the cap be $6 and not five still allows you to do cute combos like Throne Room/Audience gaining Throne Room/Audience. Articier and others are always great fun to me, and I was looking for ways that this could be broken, but didn't fine anything. 10/10

SignError: Wind Chime
Well, this is kind of like a Copper-Cavalry. Which I don't really like so much, because by being nonterminal and super cheap, there is much less punishment for just spamming them. Without the super-easy pileout, this could be a very solid card, but as it is I feel like too often, one player can abuse it and then the pile is empty and the others can't catch up. 6/10

silverspawn: Coastal Village
Counterintuitive to see a "next time" on a non-Duration, but it works here. Compared to Harbor Village, this seems easier to trigger though, and also it has an additional trigger; that seems a bit much. Controlling when you gain a card is quite easy, after all, and if you have any card that allows that you can simply play it after all Coastal Villages to reap the rewards. Could be improved, I think, by just focusing on the discard trigger, which seems more interesting to me, and just making the benefit for that a bit better. 7/10

sumrex: Transformation
To be honest, I never expected Transmute would be a target for synergy in this challenge. Testing what this looks like on an actual card, there is just way too much text. This would need to be streamlined significantly to work; there is just too much going on at the moment. Then there's a "would gain" trigger, which I don't love either, and overall the card seems confused. 3/10

Will(ow|iam): Shrimp Farm
So here's a submission that a low-key just adore. Seemingly, the effect is so simple, but it completely warps the game. Silvers that make +2 Cards don't look all that impressive, especially since you can still only play them during the Buy phase, but in the right circumstances this can really kickstart a Treasure-engine. Situational yes, but that's a massive plus for a Project.Still worried that there might be situations where this is broken, but I can't help but give this 10/10

xyz123: Tycoon
This takes up 10 lines of text on a card, which is just too much. Trimming some things to make the effect simpler would help, like maybe revealing a fixed amount of cards, but only if you trash a Treasue/Victory, something along those lines. The effect itself seems potentially very swingy, especially in the early game when you just trash Estates and hope for the best. There is a good core idea in here, but I think it requires more work to fully come together. 5/10

Zoyarox: Vampire Village
Very much the crowning achievement of this challenge was to come up with the letter V as your alliteration target. Vigirously shall I study this card. Viewing the card, I get a bit doubtful of the necessity to have this kind of convoluted attack. Various Hexes can usually be ignored with this, in particular handsize attacks. Volatility is built into this by having each opponent get attacked differently. Vastly most common will be the case when each player gets hit exactly once per Vampire Village, and then I wonder whether the extra complications from dishing the Hex out late really are warranted. Versions of this where either the attack triggers at a different time and may be avoided by clever play or that aren't Durations would be preferable to me. 7/10

This was a difficult one as there are two entries I think are pretty much perfect. But my decision is this:

Runner-Up: Audience by NoMoreFun
Winner: Shrimp Farm by Will(ow|iam)

Congratulations!

[Will(ow|iam)]

Thanks for the high praise! New contest up soon!