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[segura]

The answer to your question is the same as the answer to the question: „what happens when you play Forager while having no cards in your hand?“.

There is still a problem. If you have $5 and 2 buys, and those piles are empty, are you allowed to buy a Duchy then claim you can't use all your buys, even though you could have bought a  Silver and an Estate? This will actually come up on games with Debt - can you buy Overlord and then nothing or do you have to gain a copper first. What about Mission?

I think "If you can buy cards, and there are cards in the supply costing up to the $ you have, you must spend  all your buys"  covers the edge cases.

I disagree. "Do as much as you can" is the general rule in most games (no idea whether this is formalizes in Dominion) and this does not imply some decision space reducing stuff like buy Copper first, then buy the Debt card.
To stick with the Forager example, Forager does not retroactively force you to have kept a card in your hand.

You do whatever you like, at the end of the Buy phase the check happens and if you then have Buys left but cannot buy something because you are in debt or because the $0 cost cards are out you can nonetheless end your Buy phase.

[NoMoreFun]

That's probably right, just seems like something stronger is implied by "You Must".

Rulebook I think would be: "If you can't buy cards, or if there aren't any cards you can buy, you can proceed to your clean up phase. This is still the case if you do something in your Buy phase that causes you to be unable to buy cards (e.g. buy a card costing Debt that you don't pay off)."

[grep]

Royal Forest
Victory - Reaction - $5
2VP
-
When you gain a card, you may discard this to gain a differently named card with the same cost.

[grep]

Because when youre at the top, nobody can dethrone you.

May be "play from your hand" as in Voyage, to avoid problems with mandatory play such as Herald an Golem

[Augie279]

24 Hour Warning

Get those cards in!

[grrgrrgrr]

Locked Treasure (Treasure-Liaison, $5)
You may spend a Favor for
+$3 Cards, +1 Buy
-
Setup: Choose an Action Supply pile. When you play a card from that pile, +1 Favor.

[LTaco]

[silverspawn]

nice idea. Also nice BM+X card.

[emtzalex]

My Submission:

	The Eye • Artifact You can't buy Annuit Cœptis. Setup: Put 3 tokens here.
	Annuit Cœptis • $0 • Event Take the Eye and put a token on it. Gain a card costing up to $1 per token on the Eye.

[segura]

I don’t get this. It just oscillates to and fro and an extra Buy is quickly (in 3P game literally on T2) worth a Province. In a 2P game greening will start on T3 so the game will be over on T6.

[Holger]

I don’t get this. It just oscillates to and fro and an extra Buy is quickly (in 3P game literally on T2) worth a Province. In a 2P game greening will start on T3 so the game will be over on T6.

At least in a 2P game, you would hesitate to buy AC as soon as there's six tokens on it, since your opponent would then be the first one to get a Province from it - and possibly the only one, since they can just wait until the last turn of the game to get the $8 Eye for an extra free Province. The game won't become a Province rush unless both players want it to.
I think it's an interesting interactive card in 2P. But I'd consider setting up the Eye with 2 or 4 tokens instead of 3, to make the first AC buy of the game a more difficult decision. With 3 tokens at set-up, if you're the first to buy the Event and it oscillates to and fro, you'll also be the first to gain a Province from it (since the token is added before the gaining).

But I agree that AC can be broken in multi-player games. There, if two (or more) of your opponents will just snatch it from each other each turn, you must join in if you don't want to lose.

It would be nice if the concept could be salvaged to also work in multi-player games. Maybe only allow a player to buy AC if their right neighbour has the Eye? That way each buy of AC would be a difficult decision instead of an automatic one in multi-player.

[LibraryAdventurer]

Taxidermy
$3 - Project
Once per turn: During your action phase, you may spend an action for +1 Card.

[Augie279]

Submissions Closed!

I'll have part 1 of the judging in by tomorrow at this time.

[emtzalex]

I don’t get this. It just oscillates to and fro and an extra Buy is quickly (in 3P game literally on T2) worth a Province. In a 2P game greening will start on T3 so the game will be over on T6.

At least in a 2P game, you would hesitate to buy AC as soon as there's six tokens on it, since your opponent would then be the first one to get a Province from it - and possibly the only one, since they can just wait until the last turn of the game to get the $8 Eye for an extra free Province. The game won't become a Province rush unless both players want it to.
I think it's an interesting interactive card in 2P. But I'd consider setting up the Eye with 2 or 4 tokens instead of 3, to make the first AC buy of the game a more difficult decision. With 3 tokens at set-up, if you're the first to buy the Event and it oscillates to and fro, you'll also be the first to gain a Province from it (since the token is added before the gaining).

I don't think buying AC will at all be automatic, especially in a 2 player game. Getting a free $4 card is significantly weaker than getting a free $5 card, which is significantly weaker than getting a free $6 card. That's part of the reason I started it at 3 tokens. There's not (imo) enough of a difference between gaining at $3 and gaining at $4 to make the free gain have a big drawback.

Also, while the first to buy AC will can ultimately be the first to gain a Province, that only opens up if the other player buys AC twice. They can (among other things) never buy AC (only giving their opponent a slight advantage with a free $4 card) or wait until the end of the game to buy a Duchy (ideally on the final turn of the game). And even if it does get to 7 tokens, the other player is still subject to the penultimate province rule. So, if each play has gained 3 Provinces and are otherwise tied (or close) in VP, the player that didn't first buy AC could use AC to gain a Duchy. Their opponent couldn't then use it to gain a Province, because that player would just do the same, and win (having the 3VP advantage).

But I agree that AC can be broken in multi-player games. There, if two (or more) of your opponents will just snatch it from each other each turn, you must join in if you don't want to lose.

Regardless of the number of players, every time you buy AC, it makes AC significantly better for your opponent(s) until you hit 7 (or in Colony games, 10) tokens (the one exception to this is when there are 5 tokens on the Eye, as most games don't have anything at $7). This is true even in multiplayer games. The notion that players will start spamming AC presumes they won't think strategically about the down-the-line impact of doing so, which I don't think is the case (although admittedly this does have something of a steeper learning curve than other Events).

In a 3P or 4P game, once the Eye hits 7 tokens it will set off a chain reaction in which each player will buy AC to gain a Province (or risk all of their opponents doing so and passing them), effectively ending the game. Where the Province pile is untouched (at 12), each player will get an equal share of the pile (unless they can use +Buy and $8 to double dip). This also means that when the Eye hits 6 (if no one has done any greening and you don't have reason to believe your opponents have significantly better access to +Buy that you), there's a very strong incentive to buy a Duchy, trigger the Province rush, and end the game with a 3VP victory. But everyone knows this, so no one will buy AC at 5 tokens unless they think they have some advantage in that rush.

Admittedly, this does create a risk of the Event being overly centralizing in multiplayer games (especially those with +Buy). There could be an incentive to try to navigate into the strongest position to set off that chain. But that can only happen if more than one player is going for it (as a single player cannot move the Eye past 4 tokens). And if one player is in that stronger position and buys AC at 5 tokens, the other players don't have to continue the chain.

It would be nice if the concept could be salvaged to also work in multi-player games. Maybe only allow a player to buy AC if their right neighbour has the Eye? That way each buy of AC would be a difficult decision instead of an automatic one in multi-player.

I thought about something like this as well. The problem with that is that if one player takes the (relatively) low-risk choice of doing the first AC buy, the only player that can choose to push the riskier buys is one who happens to be to that player's right. I had another idea, in which there would be a kind of trail of Eyes, so that you could only buy AC if (1) you hadn't bought it before, or (2) every other player had bought it. Those might look something like this (although probably with a more serious name):

Eye Shadow • Artifact You can't buy Annuit Cœptis. In games with at least 3 players, if you have the Eye and another player takes it, take this.	Eye Shadow Shadow • Artifact You can't buy Annuit Cœptis. In games with at least 4 players, if you have Eye Shadow and another player takes it, take this.
Eye Shadow Shadow Shadow • Artifact You can't buy Annuit Cœptis. In games with at least 5 players, if you have Eye Shadow Shadow and another player takes it, take this.	Eye Shadow Shadow Shadow Shadow • Artifact You can't buy Annuit Cœptis. In games with at least 6 players, if you have Eye Shadow Shadow Shadow and another player takes it, take this.

You could also dispense with the last two, and (in the rare 5P or 6P games) just require 3 other players to buy AC before you can go back to it. Ultimately, I'm not sure any of these strategies don't just further put off and complicate what would ultimately be every player using this as soon as they could to gain the Provinces until they are gone.

I really like the simplicity of the wording in this design, even if it creates so tricky strategy issues.

[segura]

I don’t get this. It just oscillates to and fro and an extra Buy is quickly (in 3P game literally on T2) worth a Province. In a 2P game greening will start on T3 so the game will be over on T6.

At least in a 2P game, you would hesitate to buy AC as soon as there's six tokens on it, since your opponent would then be the first one to get a Province from it - and possibly the only one, since they can just wait until the last turn of the game to get the $8 Eye for an extra free Province. The game won't become a Province rush unless both players want it to.
I think it's an interesting interactive card in 2P. But I'd consider setting up the Eye with 2 or 4 tokens instead of 3, to make the first AC buy of the game a more difficult decision. With 3 tokens at set-up, if you're the first to buy the Event and it oscillates to and fro, you'll also be the first to gain a Province from it (since the token is added before the gaining).

I don't think buying AC will at all be automatic

I do like totally disagree. Unless you open 5/2, A will buy the Event to kickstart something that is beneficial for him. B cannot forsake gaining a $5 on T1 unless he has 5/2 so he will also buy it. A will gain a $5 or Gold on T2 and B cannot really skip buying the Event (unless he had 2/5). So we have a slightly asymmetric situation with A having weaker cards but the first player tempo advantage. He can always force a draw via gaining Provinces. That is scripted play and beyond boring.

If there has been gained anything with extra Buys, the situation becomes more complex as players could do something else on there turns besides just gaining Provinces.

In the end my point is fairly simple: Provinces gaining without any costs like Remodel or whatever just does not work. Not because it is mechanically unsound but because it can lead to simple, boring rushes.

I think that the card would still be boring with a non-Victory clause (it is like a scaling Alms) but at least it would work.

[emtzalex]

I do like totally disagree. Unless you open 5/2, A will buy the Event to kickstart something that is beneficial for him. B cannot forsake gaining a $5 on T1 unless he has 5/2 so he will also buy it. A will gain a $5 or Gold on T2 and B cannot really skip buying the Event (unless he had 2/5). So we have a slightly asymmetric situation with A having weaker cards but the first player tempo advantage. He can always force a draw via gaining Provinces. That is scripted play and beyond boring.

If there has been gained anything with extra Buys, the situation becomes more complex as players could do something else on there turns besides just gaining Provinces.

In the end my point is fairly simple: Provinces gaining without any costs like Remodel or whatever just does not work. Not because it is mechanically unsound but because it can lead to simple, boring rushes.

I think that the card would still be boring with a non-Victory clause (it is like a scaling Alms) but at least it would work.

In your vision of what would happen, players are behaving as they would in a normal game of Dominion despite knowing that they are not playing a normal game of Dominion (because, according to you, the Province rush is inevitable). You say that "B cannot forsake gaining a $5 on T1 . . . " But what good is a Minion or Torturer in a game where both players are just going to be buying a $0 Event every turn?

If anything, it creates something like the Bottle Imp paradox, where future transactions preclude (or at least heavily discourage) earlier ones. Buying AC with 6 tokens on the Eye effectively allows your opponent to start the Provinces rush. Not only does that allow them to force a tie, but (much more seriously) if they can buy the first Province and then you can't match them on the following turn, they can start the rush and win the split 5/3. Strategically, gaining a $5/$6/$7 card is not going to be worth that, so players just won't do it. That buy will (usually) only happen near the end of the game, if ever, and only if it gives the player doing it some sort of strategic advantage (see the PPR scenario in my last post).

Knowing this, the bargain for buying AC with 5 tokens on the Eye is probably gaining a Gold or $5/$6 card in exchange for the (relatively small) risk of your opponent being able to do something interesting at the end of the game. This is a pretty safe trade, which most players will probably make. Knowing that, the bargain for buying AC with 4 tokens on the Eye is that you gain a $5 card and your opponent gets something at least as good or better. This will almost never be a bargain worth taking in the early game, so players will almost never take it. Instead, they'll hold back and use it (if ever) in a more strategically advantageous situation. That might be in the midgame (e.g. getting the last card of a $5 pile rush) or the end game (e.g. gaining a Duchy when you miss $5).

None of that may ever happen, so the downside to buying AC for the first time is relatively low, but (in the vast majority of cases) so is the benefit.

[segura]

The notion that this will somehow be a rare buy is ridiculous. I admit that the first buy might never happen if there are no good $4s in the game (and of course in a pure greening rush game, you would be one Duchy behind).
But afterwards there is no opportunity cost of any kind.  Converting a Buy into a $5 or a Province is not something that you often want to forsake. You get $5, they get a $5 (after the first Buy). You get a Province, they get a Province (after the 4th buy).
It is symmetrical (which is why your argument about the fourth Buy somehow never occuring is simply wrong). So all that matters is tempo.

[Augie279]

Judging's taking longer than expected, apologies. Should be done by two days from now.

[Augie279]

A good bit late. Oops. Let's get this show on the road, then!

Note: If your wording is messy or unclear, I tried to clean it up. Hopefully this didn't impact anything you're going for.

Dog Breeders - Ally
At the start of your turn, or directly after playing an Action, you may spend an Action and a Favor for +2 Cards.

An interesting Ally that benefits both BM and engines in two completely distinct and separate ways. Village + Underling with this becomes basically Village + Smithy with a lot more lenience due to being able to save the Favors for future turns and not spend them immediately. Where I think this shines though is in a deck with minimal +Actions. There, every Action is more valuable, and spending it for Cards is a risk you have to consider taking or choosing not to. Nice work!

Contender

Queen's Court - Action, $5
Choose one: gain up to two differently-named cards costing up to $4, or you may play an Action from your hand twice.

A nice Workshop variant/Throne Room. I really like this card as Ball put into card form, but even without the Throne Room effect, it's probably pretty powerful. With it, it effectively removes the Throne Room stack of doom problem all together as you can just Queen another Queen's Court for lots of gains. I want to like this, I do, but it's too busted at $5. Might still be at $6.

Smithy Village/Goldsmith - Action, $4; Action-Duration, $6
+1 Card, +3 Actions
You may let all players trash a card from their hand.
---
Now and at the start of your next turn: +2 Cards, all players may discard a card for +1 Card, and you may discard a card for +1 Action.

A split pile based around giving out bonuses. Smithy Village easily draws comparisons to Port and Bishop because I like comparing cards to existing ones in that you get net 2 extra Actions added to your deck and can let everyone trash. This seems pretty balanced compared to both of those. The upside feels like enough to balance out the downside of having it tied to one card instead of spreading your villages among two cards. Goldsmith works as a weird form of draw that I really have nothing to compare it to, and honestly? I really like it. Good but by no means busted, the free sifting to your opponents and ability to make it non-terminal (or even a village) roughly balancing each other out. Right at home as a $6 cost. Good work!

Contender

Two-Faced Assistant/Banned - Action-Duration, $4
+1 Card, +1 Action
At the start of your next turn: +2 Cards, then look through the discard pile of the player to your right and put the Banned marker on whichever non-empty Kingdom card pile they have the most copies of in their discard.
---
You can't buy or gain any cards from this pile. At the end of your turn, remove this.

Double Caravan, but limits your ability to buy whatever pile your opponent is going for if you use even one. ...I'm gonna be honest, this seems a bit too good compared to Caravan on boards with good variety, and on boards without, it suffers the Tournament problem of not being fun to play with but a necessary buy because it's effectively a delayed double-Lab. I want to like this, and I can tell you put a good bit of effort into it, but there's too many problems with it for me to be able to say it's a good card.

Coach - Action, $5
You may gain an Action costing up to $5 other than Coach from the Supply and play it twice. Each other player may discard two cards from hand to gain a copy of it or a Horse to their hand.

This feels... monolithic. Cards that can gain $5-costs usually have some restriction to prevent them from mass gaining $5s too quickly (Artisan costing $6, University costing Potion, Horn of Plenty only activating when you have a good amount of uniques, War Chest preventing you from gaining the best $5, etc.) Your opponent being able to gain a copy of the card to hand for two cards from hand is... a fine cost; it'd make it alright, a bit weak solo, but would go up in power as your opponent lost cards from their hand; but being able to immediately Throne the Action you just gained kills any semblance of balance this may have had.

Night Market - Action/Duration, $4
The next time you gain a Curse in your Buy phase, trash this. At the start of each turn this is in play, +1 Buy, +$1. | While this is in play, you can't buy Provinces.

Solid! Looks fun to play around the restriction of when to trash this so that you get the most Buy and Coins out of this you can, but are still able to buy Provinces. Having it still use "While this is in play" is nice because you can use the Buys and Coins it gives you after you buy a Curse that turn. One interesting aspect of this that I don't think was considered is that you can shut your opponent out from buying Provinces if you drain the Curses, but I actually think I like that. Given that there's a good amount of alt-VP and ways to threepile, being stuck without Provinces isn't the death sentence it seems like at first glance. Overall, a very dynamic card with lots of ways to play it. Nice work! I do agree with segura that this would probably be better at $3, but given how much this card does right, I think a slight mispricing is negligible.

Contender

Slumlord - Action, $5
+3 Cards, +2 Actions
This turn, you can't play Actions costing $5 or more from your hand.

Simple yet strong. Very much a powerhouse in the earlygame when this may be the only $5 you have, but being unable to play other copies of itself is a balanced restriction. Seems very nice in a BM game where your draw is short anyway. My only concern is that this seems too powerful with cost reduction, and with being able to chain up copies of itself after just one Bridge play... this might be too good with cost reduction. A clause to make it so that you can't play Actions costing as much as this or more might be necessary, but good card aside from that nitpick.

Shady Market - Action, $5
+2 Cards, +1 Action, +1 Buy, +$1
This turn, you must spend all your Buys.

Short, simple, and sweet. One of the rare few cards to use "must" in this contest and does it well. High skill cap... on a good amount of boards, with playing around having to add a bunch of low-cost cards or Copper to your deck a key feature of this card. Or just get a bunch of money so the buys are a benefit and not a hindrance! Big concern for this one, and it's that you can burn all your Buys on 0-cost events such as Advance to completely ignore the downside of this. Comparing this to other cards, is the quality of this over Lab to the point where that's a game-breaking interaction? I say no, and what we have here is a card that's more swingy in terms of power level yet still just as fun. Nice work!

Contender

Royal Forest - Victory-Reaction, $5
2 VP
When you gain a card, you may discard this to gain a differently named card with the same cost.

Discard for a Charm effect. Seems about right at $5. You could buy this with some in hand to drain e.g. Duchies, but that tends to not be a concern with Charm itself. Nice card. Not flashy, but not every card needs to be.

Contender

Locked Treasure - Treasure-Liaison, $4
You may spend a Favor for +1 Buy, +$3.
Setup:Choose an Action Supply pile. When you play a card from that pile, first get +1 Favor.

Makes a pile a Liaison! Uh, this feels a bit too good? If the pile is weak or has cards that are hard to play (e.g. Search) this seems fine, but if this hits something like the Village of the board, then this is just a Gold with +Buy, which certainly is good at $4. I do like the dynamic of spend the Favors or get the money here, but it seems like you'd unlock the Treasure too many times over using the Favors. Try this at $5, I think it'd be alright there. Good card, though!

Contender

Mining Company - Action, $5
+4 Cards, +1 Buy
The first card you buy this turn must be a Treasure.

Man, I like this, but it compares too favorably to Council Room. Council Room's downside of allowing your opponents to draw a card does have counterplay, but it importantly is stackable so that there's a downside to playing too many CRs. Contrarily, no matter how many Mining Companies you play each turn, you only have to buy 1 treasure to trigger its effect. This is just too powerful, unfortunately.

Annuit Cœptis/The Eye - Event, $0; Artifact
Take the Eye and put a Token on it. Gain a card costing $1 per Token on the Eye.
---
You can't buy Annuit Cœptis.
Setup: Put 3 Tokens on here.

Other people have made better commentary than I could on this Event. tl;dr: Either this doesn't get touched because there's too much benefit from letting your opponent buy it, this gets bought a couple times and unfairly biases one player, or both players use this to drain the Provinces. In all cases, this isn't healthy design for a card. Sorry. This looks cool, but absolutely doesn't play well.

Taxidermy - Project, $3
Once per turn: During your Action phase, you may spend an Action for +1 Card.

Feels similar to Dog Breeders, submitted before this, but there's a good bit of distinction here. For one, this is limited to once per turn, where Dog Breeders can be done as many times as you want given you have a Champion or something. This also costs money and can be opened with, whereas Dog Breeders you can just do turn 1. Already talked about the spend-Actions-for-draw thing that Dog Breeders did, so I'm not gonna repeat myself and just say that this is good.

Contender


Honorable Mentions: Dog Breeders, Shady Market, Royal Forest, Locked Treasure, Taxidermy

Runner-Up: Smithy Village/Goldsmith

Winner: Night Market

Congrats to anordinaryman on the win, and thank you to all who entered!

[anordinaryman]

Thanks for the nod, will get out my contest shortly!