First a general observation: Menagerie was by far the most popular expansion to use a Mixed Box with. It shows that the concepts it introduced are fairly versatile and could potentially be revisited later!
I'm now going to go card by card with the aim of trying to analyze each card. If you disagree with my evaluation -- you may very well be correct! I am not infallible. Just see this as one person's attempt to improve the cards. I'll leave comments where I can to think of ways to improve the card.
Thank you for everyone who took the time to submit. If you didn't have an image attached, I added one for you, but with no card art, I'm not made of time
Way of the Opposum
by Will(ow|iam).
Renaissance+Menagerie
A way that Gives you Coffers and everyone else a Villager |  | Way of the Opposum fits really well in your new Mixed Box 2. It uses Coffers and Villagers (Renaissance main-mechanic), is simple (Renaissance sub-theme), has non-attack interaction (Renaissance sub-theme), and is a Way (Menagerie main-mechanic). Nice work on that! In some games that are tight on villages, you would never use it. But that's totally fine, because it's a Way. One problem is that it gives 2 coffers -- have you noticed that the only cards to do that cost $5 (Villain, Butcher)? It's because it can be demoralizing to get a huge stack of coffers. So it seems less likely to be a printed card. Then again, the fact that it is a Way helps here -- everyone has equal access to the Way. I do worry about a situation where everyone uses it, so everyone has a surplus of Villagers, so then the drawback to giving opponents another villager doesn't hurt, and then more people use it, in a snowballing effect. This is less the intention of Ways as it turns several cards into using the Way.
Finalist
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Horse Trainer
by BryGuy.
Intrigue+Menagerie
A non-terminal horse gainer with a discard for draw or more horses |  | This uses choices (Intrigue) and Horses (Menagerie). To be honest, choices is a weak theme of Intrigue, and I would be looking for something a little more on-theme. For example, you could have it discard a victory card to gain extra horses, and that would be more on-theme.
Anyway, not taking that into account, I don't think this is well balanced. Horse gaining is similiar to + cards, so it's like a lab with a buy (already super powerful), and then it gives you the opportunity to filter for more cards, becoming a super-lab in the process. It's just far too strong.
I think an earlier version of the card was a lot more balanced "Gain a Horse. Choose one: gain a Horse; or discard a Silver or Horse to gain two Horses." though you would have to make it cheaper, like comparing it to Sleigh it would be a weak $3 probably. I think one version could be something like "Gain 2 Horses, you may discard a victory card to gain a horse" and cost it at $3
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Priestess
by segura.
Nocturne+Alchemy
A cantrip boon gainer or hexer |  | Priestess absolutely nails being a Nocturne+Alchemy fusion, using both boons and nights (Nocturne mechanic), caring about cards in play (Nocturne sub-theme and more specifically odd/even from Idol), Potion (Alchemy mechanic), and Action Chains/cards you want multiple copies of (Alchemy sub-theme). Of all the cards submitted, you did the best job making something that truly would represent your Mixed Box 2, and if that was the only judging criteria you would win. But now let's look into the balance and other aspects of this card.
Donald X has gone on to say that boons are slow to resolve, so there's always restrictions on cards giving boons, like only on gain, or being terminal, or being a one-shot. This card seems to grant boons more easily than other cards, so that would be a problem -- except brilliantly this costs potion which makes getting a lot more difficult. Excellent work! This seems like one of the few designs that really truly needed both expansion mechanics to make it work.
One problem with this card is it makes you over-think every single play of Priestess -- "do I want to play this as a boon or as a hex? " -- you have to stop and think after each action play. That leads to less-fun games. To combat this problem you could have it count copies of Priestess in play, like Idol does. This also simplifies counting.
Even so, I think boons and hexes are fun, so I like this card a lot. Power-level, most boons + a cantrip is equivalent to a 5-cost card, so this roughly makes sense. It also costs the same as can-trip curser Familiar, and it's a similar power level since, although hexes overall are less powerful than a straight curser, they also retain their potency far-longer (which is something you really want on a cantrip). Hm, the more I think about this card the more I like it.
Finalist
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Sneak Thief
by Builder_Roberts.
Nocturne+Menagerie
A night drawer/exiler |  | I like how simple this card is. I have a soft-spot for 3-cost non-terminal thinners (Lookout, Loan, Forager, Goatherd, Student, Church, kind of Scrap) so we have to compare it with those cards. We also should consider comparing it with the other night-thinner, Monastery. Lastly we want to consider similar exilers, of which Bounty Hunter is the closest comparison.
Before we do that, I want to acknowledge that the draw during night phase is pretty interesting, it helps you get a card to exile, and it can possibly draw you more nights. There will definitely be players that feel bad drawing their good treasures and action cards dead. I'm not one of those players, but I do think it's the type of thing that often gets avoided in Dominion-designed cards.
First looking at those list of 3-cost non-terminal trashers, I probably prefer all of them (even loan -- I was a sucker for it) to Sneak Thief which makes me feel that it was weak, but then I consider I usually want a second copy of a non-terminal trasher, and I'd almost always pick Sneak Thief as the second copy, even when I had a lot of those options to choose from. That's because I like the versatility of exiling victory cards in the late game, and it can't be drawn-dead. So that makes me think it's actually super well priced. Compared to Monastery though, it comes up a little short for me, however, chapel makes all those $3-cost trashers look bad so maybe that's not a good comparison. Compare to bounty hunter, I can see some situations where I would want one over the other, so it seems appropriately priced.
Honestly, when I first reviewed this, I thought it was weak, but now I see it fits in well. I like that it's a card you almost always want at least one of, and you're not displeased with getting multiple copies since they can't be drawn dead by themselves (unlike mercenary). Nice job. I think the main thing hurting this card is the drawing-actions or non-Copper treasures in night phase feels really bad. You may consider a slightly more complicated and powerful design that allows the player to top-deck a single card from their hand. Maybe even "Choose one: Exile a card from your hand; or put a card from your hand on top of your deck." I could argue that that could still cost a $3.
Finalist
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Bezoar Stone
by majiponi.
Alchemy+Cornucopia
In in-hand harvest treasure with setup of adding more variety ala young witch's bane |  | This definitely fits in with both expansions, with Alchemy for the notable potions, and with Philosopher Stone, makes a sub-theme of Treasures whose value depends on counting! It also uses Cornucopia's variety theme, and reuses the Bane setup of adding to the Kingdom. What I like here is you've solved a problem with Alchemy in that Potion has a high opportunity cost, this card brilliantly lowers the opportunity cost by introducing two extra Piles. This card is similar to Pendant since you play it in your Buy phase however, Pendant gets to count itself. On the other hand, Bezoar Stone gets to count Victory Cards, so in early game, they probably the same value. Then Bezoar stone can count Night cards and unplayed Actions. Interesting! So, it's a little stronger than Pendant, and the cost is of course a little higher as well. So it seems balanced there. I do really like this card.
I do have a few critiques. I think that adding 2 whole extra Potion cards seems a little excessive. In general, most of the Potion-cost cards are designed so that they are worth it for just one card (Apothecary, Scrying Pool, University, Alchemist, Familiar -- kingdom depending), so it feels a bit over-kill to add two more. It also complicates things. What happens if there aren't enough Potion-costing cards to do the setup? It would be super rare since there are 9 other Potion cost cards currently (8 if you like many people ban possession), but it still feels strange to me.
You could solve everything by doing something like:
"Setup: If this is the only card with P in the cost, add an extra card to the Kingdom that has P in the cost."
Finalist
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Ghostly Steed
by JW.
Nocturne+Menagerie
A night-time Haunting attack and horse gainer |  | It's a little of a balance problem when an Attack card is its own defense. It makes it more of a must-buy which is not so interesting. The Horses are a soft-counter to the Haunting attack. I also think the Haunting attack is kind of brutal. Most Haunting attacks are terminal. The only exception is Clerk, but you have to have it in your opening hand. Ghostly Steed doesn't have that constraint, and you can even draw it with a terminal and still play it. To me this too easily enables constant top-decking which is just frustrating.
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Group of Farriers by X-tra.
Allies+Menagerie
An ally that gives horses for different favor thresholds |  | In your post, you mentioned the fun of flooding everyone with Horses, but to me this sort of over-tips from crazy fun, to just too much. It basically turns the draw-engine into, just stock up on Liasons. Especially since you don't lose the favors. In games I play with my girlfriend she easily racks up 12 Favors without even a convincing reason to get so many. I think this needs some serious changes: You could either
1. Make players pay their favors to get Horses (ala Mountain Folk)
2. Up the threshold to 5 favors per Horse
3. Take more influence from League of Shop-keepers and have it gain once a threshold is met, but doesn't scale forever
Of course, your card got plenty of up-votes, so others may disagree. I simply don't have the time to do significant play testing to double check. It's true that craziness can be fun! Chapel/Donate games, Wall games, etc are wild and change the game quite a bit. However the main difference is that in those games, there are still lots of strategies and different decisions to make. At the current threshold of Group of Farriers, the game breaks down into "pile out the Baubles ASAP." It encourages monolithically reaching for favors in a way that I think is less fun. I could be wrong, though!
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Raiders Base
by NoMoreFun.
DarkAges+Renaissance
A project that discards treasures for spoils |  | Spoils are under-utilized, so I'm glad you used them. I see the forced-discard is interesting, it's sort of like a permanent lose $ for the rest of the game. Which is hard to evaluate without playing with it a lot. Comparing this to Bandit Camp, which also costs $5 makes this seem less favorable. If you're drawing your deck, you'd much rather have Bandit Camp, which gains you Spoils that you can still draw that turn, it provides actions for your engine, and does not force a discard. Of course Raiders Base always triggers, even if you don't want to discard. This seems frustrating, in late-game discarding a treasure from a hand of $8 is brutal, and in the early game, discarding down $5s to $4s is also equally brutal.
I think you basically solve all these problems if you make the discard optional, but required to gain a spoils.
So, something like "At the start of your Buy Phases, you may discard a Treasure to gain a Spoils" which also gets rid of the annoying "or reveal you can't" type clause. I still think this would still be appropriately priced at $5.
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Zoo
by 4444.
Empires+Menagerie
A landmark that rewards early Way plays, which adds a second Way |  | The problem with ways is that they have to be weak, because if they were strong, you'd always play them instead of cards. So, often you barely end up using Ways, or you have to wait for that ideal situation. Or sometimes, you just forget they are there, sitting on the table. Zoo perfectly solves that problem, giving an incentive for playing Ways early. It adds all the strategic choice of landmarks. I'm a big fan of this one; however, I don't like "add an extra Way." You'd have to add in sections to the rules about what multiple Ways mean (do you do both, or just choose one) and it's not so elegant. I think this card would be improved if the text read something like "Include a Way if there is none"
Finalist
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Mass Produced Resource
by Cutepelican126.
Reniassance+Menagerie
A Project that that can turn a given card into two different Ways |  | Welcome to the forums! I appreciate you submitting to this contest. I think there's a lot interesting here, the concept of using a project to power up a card is pretty cool. I think if you played some sample games with it you might see the drawback is that the power-level varies quite a bit. I'm going to draw some combos to see what happens.
- Turtle/Horse: Depending on interpretations of the losing track rule (if you set the card aside, does it still return to the pile as a horse?) it turns into a Lab, which is super strong. Or it just turns into way of the Horse which would be an unfortunate use of buying a Project just to get that way. So we see this combo seems either super strong or weak, and has confusing rule problems
- Butterfly/Mule: a non-terminal self-upgrading card with $1. There's two scenarios, either it's a card you wanted at some point in the game temporarily (like a trasher), or it's a card you don't want anyway. If it's a card you want temporarily, you probably don't want too many of them, and it's not clear that it's worth a buy and $3 to get rid of them. This is a slightly interesting decision though. If it's a card you don't want anyway, then the whole reason to do this is to upgrade it to a better card. But it seems like it is slow to upgrade (you have to gain the un-desired card, and then play it) that it would be faster just to buy the card you want to upgrade it to. Still not so convincing.
- Monkey/Mouse: This depends on the kingdom a bit, but adding +1 Buy and a Money to a random 2 or 3 cost is pretty good. Like if it's on Pawn this becomes a Market. So this is very strong, but on a Chapel it's pretty weak.
- Monkey/Squirrel: this is pretty good. "Mass-produce" a cheap card, and use the extra Buy to get it.
- Sheep/Seal: a terminal $3 with ability to top-deck gained cards, this is super strong to put on a cheap "Mass-produce"d card.
- Butterfly/Frog: The Frog ability doesn't work so it just becomes Way of the Butterfly. Super weak
- Camel/Worm: both of these are things that you don't use many times in a game, but it makes for fun choices when to do it. The magic is that you can use these ways on any card. But you're limited to just a single card. And you have to spend a buy on the project makes it seem much less worth it
- Otter/Frog: an alchemist that top-decks regardless of potion. This is ridiculously, game-changingly strong and broken. Alchemist is tough to buy, but this is not tough to buy, and you can "Mass Produce" a super cheap card
- Mole/Sheep: non-terminal silver that mulligans your hand for 3 cards. This is fairly good, but the entire power of Mole is that any card can do it. Which means this combo is best if you overload on that card. If you make a whole strategy out of it it turns into a sort of Minion, which is sort of annoying to play live.
As you can see, most times this is either super week or broken. Other times it's confusing or annoying to play. Dominion is at its best when you have difficult and interesting decisions about what cards/projects to buy. It seems like the decision for this card is usually super easy. It's either too strong that you have to get it, and put it on the card you can easily get the most copies of (often the cheapest card), or it's super weak and you ignore it entirely.
I think you'd have to change the concept a lot to make it more balanced. I wish I could give you some more constructive criticism how to move this concept along to the next step. I hope you see my detailed feedback is a desire to help you out and not tear you down. Thanks again for submitting to the contest, and looking forward to see your future creations!
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Faerie Village
by Augie279.
Guilds+Nocturne
Village Coffer gainer that top decks, with an over-pay for spirit-gaining |  | Faerie Village Incorporates the spirits from Nocturne and overpay and coffers from Guild.
I like that you kept the sort of get a cheaper spirit idea from Exorcist. It does fit well in your Mixed Box 2. However, looking at that card's text "...Gain a cheaper Spirit from one of the Spirit piles." I think that your card is missing some text. Your card should be something like "Gain a spirit from one of the Spirit piles costing less than the amount overpaid."
There's two type of engines, normal draw and draw-to-x. This card is hard to work in both situations.
Playing this card lowers your hand-size by 3 which is challenging for a normal draw engine. And the cards you top-deck you just have to draw again. Same thing for a draw-to-x engine. This card doesn't even filter (discard) your bad cards, so you just draw them again. So that is kind of annoying. The top-decking does have a very nice combo with Will-o'-Wisp that I appreciate.
I imagine the mandatory top-decking is to balance out non-terminal +2 Coffers, which is strong. There's a reason why all the +2 Coffer cards are terminal. So I think you should re-design this card to make the top-decking optional, and then either replace +2 Coffers with +$2, or change it to +1 Coffers.
Will-o'-Wisps are pretty strong, so I think this card needs to cost at least $4 so that you have to pay $5 to get them. So this is priced well.
I also like a non-terminal top-decker enables combos with Wishing Well, Mystic, Zombie Mason, Native Village, etc.
This card was close to being a finalist, but I don't love the compulsory top-decking.
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Corral
by grep.
Adventures+Menagerie
A reserve that exiles with horse gaining depending on exile |  | This uses the reserve mechanic to keep it around until you have something you want to Exile, which is a pretty good fit with the two expansions. You always dream to bounty-hunter or displace your Provinces, but it's hard to line them up. My one complaint is that this card seems to do a lot, it gives you $, it lets you thin, and it provides draw (via horses). There's a place for versatile cards (Jack of Trades, Count, Steward), but they usually have constraints or weaknesses to balance it out, and they are all relatively simple in their affects. So I think the versatility here doesn't fit so well. I think it would be more streamlined if it drew cards instead of providing $. Still, I have a soft-spot for non-terminal thinning.
Another piece of feedback is that you could simplify it to something like "...hand. If you have 3 differently named cards in Exile, gain a Horse." This is only more powerful in the case that you have an empty hand at the start of your turn, you can still call this to gain a Horse. Of course the edge-case is so rare (all I can think of Tormentor and Vault shenanigans), that it's fine to do it.
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Kelpie
by D782802859.
Nocturne+Menagerie
Night-time hand-gainer (or horse hand-gainer) with reaction to play |  | This one does a good job of incorporating the two sets together. Obviously there's the night phase from nocturne, and it has horse-gaining and reaction-to-play from Menagerie. The thing I'm wondering is why it has to be a night card. It seems like it could accomplish everything if it was a treasure card, with the gaining to hand making treasure gaining more viable. Compared to other gainers, the cost seems about right for this. I wonder why you have the non-Victory card restriction on it? It doesn't seem super necessary to me, as it starts weakening this card in the end-game unnecessarily, since it can't really gain helpful victory cards any way. I really like the concept of "gain a Horse or a card costing up to $4" I do like this card a lot, but other finalists had less things I could think to improve, and also seemed to fit with their expansions more. It seems like this is mainly a Night because you wanted to create a Night card, rather than working from the concept and thinking which phase made it make most sense.
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Night Owl
by fika monster.
Nocturne+Renaissance
Night-time leftover-action -> villager and leftover $ -> coffer converter |  | This one got disqualified unfortunately by breaking several contest rules: the original post labeled 3 different expansions, you did not include an image, and you edited your post which are all against contest rules. But the biggest problem is you edited after the contest deadline so I can't see the original post anymore and I can't judge what was submitted in time. The wording I did see previously was confusing, maybe consider designing a card that only deals with actions -> villagers or $ -> coffers. That could have simplified the text a lot and given you room to be more clear how the converter works.
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Deposit
by RovingBear.
Prosperity+Adventures
A sort of reserve super-plunder |  | This needs something like, "At the start of your Buy phase" in the beginning of the reserve section. This wouldn't be published as a Dominion card without it, since all reserve cards need to specify their trigger point. Look at the wiki for examples. This does fit as nice blend of the expansions, using treasures (prosperity), VP (prosperity), and reserve (adventures). I am just not that compelled by the general idea. It's like a much slower Plunder that requires you to discard your "good" treasures to recover. It's just not that exciting to me. I also can't evaluate it properly because the card would have different strengths if you said "At the start of your turn" vs "At the start of your Buy phase."
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--- so now I'll look at 3 randomly generated Kingdoms. I will generate 10 Kingdom cards and mark the alphabetically first one in (parentheses) to be included only if the finalist card I'm analyzing is not a Kingdom Card. For Bezoar, I will randomly roll two additional alchemy cards, and for Zoo I will draw a random Way
First Kingdom(Apothecary), Clerk, Hunting Party, Inventor, Market, Remodel, Secret Cave, Throne Room, Tiara, Trade Route.
without apothecary, looks like a really great hunting party board -- lots of cards you can fit into your deck, +Buy, remodel, a fairy strong engine. You get tripped up on the shelters, and magic lamp, though. Weak trashing, but you can definitely make this engine work. It's a little awkward in that the action $ is weak, but there is Clerk and tiara'd golds should help. Your village is Throne Room can-trips, which is always interesting. You expect to get Magic Lamp off relatively soon with copper, silver, magic lamp, necropolis, Hunting Party, Trade Route or something. This is super helpful to get those expensive can trips you need for villages/draw. Way of the Opposum. (and Apothecary): The coffers help a ton you spike up to the Hunting Party's. Not sure if you go for Apothecary's but if you don't, you'll need the draw and winning the Hunting Party split is important. So a few early coffers helps a lot. Plus the Villager you give to opponents doesn't help them too much with all the non-terminals.
Priestess: It's another bit of variety to help your Hunting Party, and it's can-trip variety which is Hunting Party's favorite. I think you do consider going for this, the extra hexs could hurt your opponent a lot, and you could help for the boons. It's a little weak as the only potion cost card, but still reasonable. I probably pick one up because the boons and hexes are fun and justifiable. Plus remodel helps me get rid of that Potion later.
Sneak Thief: Trashing is relatively weak this game, so you're happy to get this non-terminal thinner. But with no other nights, your going to end up drawing dead in the mid-game. Still, this is definitely worth getting as it will help the engine out a lot.
Bezoar Stone (and Transmute, and Scrying Pool): Well, Scrying Pool enables a whole engine, so the addition of it warps the entire game. At this point, you definitely want your Potions, and Bezoar stone's power increases greatly because of the shelters and Heirloom. Combining it with the Tiara and you get get a bunch of buys and money. I see this is as a relatively strong payload this game, plus there's a good chance you over-draw and can count your extra can-trips as more $. Definitely this helps the engine a ton. Even without the addition of Scrying Pool, I still see it as having value on this board.
Zoo (and Way of the Pig): So, trashing early is important. But this turns every card into a cantrip 2VP which is very good. I see this being a hard and interesting decision about when to do it. Since the engine's potential is so high, with +Buys and inventor cost lowering, that maybe the Zoo VP split isn't as important. Still it's an interesting decision, and the cantrip nature makes it all the more tempting.
Second Kingdom(Carpenter), Guide, Mountain Village, Pillage, Relic, Spice Merchant, Squire, Storeroom, Tactician, Vagrant. Project: Guildhall
Kind of an awkward engine where Vagrant and Tactician are the only way to increase your hand-size. Guide and Storeroom help you line up the correct cards though. I always want to make a double-tactician game work, but it's fairly awkward with there being no way to turn a single card into $2 (spice merchant takes two cards, store room turns cards into $1, etc). I wonder if a sort of good-stuff big money deck works better, letting you attack your opponent more (Pillage them and use the spoils), Relic, Gold might be stronger. Guild Hall does tip the balance towards money even more. An interesting balance. Let's see what the finalist do to the kingdom Way of the Opposum. (and Carpenter): All the sudden we have made our double-tactician engine semi-viable. This tips the scales in an interesting way. The Big Money/good-stuff player certainly benefits from a few villagers, but not as much as the double-tactician player. Interesting it means mirroring makes each player stronger. Carpenter helps you get those needed Mountain Villages for the engine and lets you then draw them. Squire also is a decent splitter here. Cool stuff.
Priestess: It just seems like there may be too high of an opportunity cost to go for Potion here. The only consolation is that Spice Merchant can trash it at the end. I think I'm either trying to build the engine, in which I don't have time for Potion, or I'm trying to do good-stuff Big Money in which I don't have time for the Potion -- plus I have Pillage and Relic to harass my opponents any way. So I don't think I go for it. Which isn't necessarily a problem with the design, since similiar logic would apply to Familiar as well (although with a lack of curse-trashing, probably Familiar is more worth it in this Kingdom).
Sneak Thief: Ah, we now have some more trashing to support the spice merchant. You definitely get this card, but it becomes a super dead card in a double-tactician engine which is slightly frustrating, but trashers become dead anyway.
Bezoar Stone (and Apothecary, and Alchemist): Alchemist enables an entirely new type of engine and makes the Potion worth it, even Apothecary does with such little trashing and helping you get your coppers for Spice Merchant to trash. Bezoar stone is powered up since you can't trash estates, it's pretty easy for it to become $5 (estate, copper, silver, Relic, Gold) and can't be ignored. This totally gets rid of any double-tactician dreams, but that's fine. The +Buy is also helpful being on a non-terminal here. Also makes Guildhall more appealing.
Zoo (and Way of the Camel): Sadly exile doesn't trigger Guildhall. But I think this encourages early plays of the Camel which is interesting because it does nothing for your current hand, and I think the temptation to play it earlier makes it really interesting. Definitely brings in some decisions here.
Third Kingdom(Berserker), Bureaucrat, Captain, City Quarter, Distant Lands, Duchess, Horn of Plenty, Nomads, Relic, Skulk, Spice Merchant
Well, this is a bit of a trash kingdom. It's appealing to make the engine out of City Quarter, but with weak payload and no trashing, it seems tough to do. Seems this is more $ oriented, which means there is no draw since the only draw is City Quarter. Captain doesnt have very good targets. Seems like a deck where you try to hurt your opponent when you can with Beserkers (if in the Kingdom), Relics, Skulks Way of the Opposum. (and Berserker): It seems like the villagers might enable your opponent to do more terminals, which you want to avoid. Not sure if that is worth the extra coffers you get -- they are helpful for spiking to Gold though.
Priestess: With such a weak engine, it's hard to know if Potion is worth it. However, I do think some Boons could really come in handy in the right time, and some extra hex-ing. It's hard to justify it though.
Sneak Thief: Well, we got thinning now! This actually makes engines potentially viable, however they don't count for city quarter, so it's not for free.
Bezoar Stone (and Familiar and Scrying Pool): Interestingly enough, the Scrying Pool engine is also difficult to make work without trashing, but introducing another cantrip in Familiar helps both it and City Quarter. Bezoar stone also could easily be worth a gold (potion, relic, copper), although with relics in play it will be hard to get a bunch. It still seems interesting though.
Zoo (and Way of the Worm): Interesting! Way of the Worm is now worth 3VP on each play, which in a deck hard to get an engine going is super worth it, so for my opening buy, rather than Silver, I'd get a Duchess.
Overall, I learned that Bezoar Stone's additional Potion cards really transforms the Kingdom in a way that I honestly like a lot. I still like my idea to change it to something like "Setup: If this is the only card with P in the cost..." or "Setup: If there are less than 3 cards with P in the cost..." I also learned that Priestess's main drawback is it costing Potion and the opportunity cost of Potion; however, this is much less of a big deal in Mixed Box 2, so may not be a fair criticism, since it does apply to all alchemy cards. I learned that Sneak Thief is more powerful than I thought, although that may have been a symptom of the specific randomly-generated Kingdoms. I learned that Zoo _super_ encourages early Way plays as expected. I learned that Way of the Opossum makes for some interesting decisions to play it occasionally, like all good Ways do. Though it feels too strong overall.
So, overall, a worthwhile exercise. And I'd be happy to have any of these 5 cards added to Dominion!
But there can only be one winner.
I do really love the non-attack interaction of
Way of the Opossum, but I find the +2 Coffers problematic and overall just not as exciting of a decision as the other finalists.
Priestess has a major problem of slowing down play when you decide what order to play cantrips. I really love this card a lot and wish it was based on the number of Priestess's in play to remove that slow-down. With that modification, it may have won the contest.
Zoo I like a lot, but I find the decisions involved seem fairly straight-forward.
Sneak Thief is wickedly simple, but could benefit from being a greater mix of the two expansions and help deal with the problem of drawing actions and treasures in Night phase. I don't see Donald X. ever publishing the card in its current state if we had a promo for that mixed box, so it won't be winning.
Bezoar Stone Is a solid fit with all the expansions, gives a use for unplayed trashers later (extra $), combos with Nights well. Plus the setup rules works well. I do think you should adjust the condition to account for cases where every Potion cost card is already in the Kingdom, but I do like it.
I have to give it Bezoar Stone by majiponi as the winner!You did a wonderful job combing both expansion concepts and designed a cool treasure. It's hard to make treasures exciting, and you did it!
Runner ups:
1. Sneak Thief by Builder_Roberts
2. Priestess by segura
Sadly, the judgement is final, but if you think I've totally misevaluated things, I'd love to hear it and be convinced where I'm wrong.
Author
Topic: Weekly Design Contest #203: Mixed Box 2 (Read 2271 times)