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[BryGuy]

Howdy All,

This week's mechanic is Pupil, a mat that i found on Reddit. This is the best use of a +1 Card token i have found to date. The mat states:
"Pupil: Directly after playing an Action card, you may remove a token from here for +1 Card."

Your task is to design a card that would use this mat well.

Here are two of the Author's cards:

My main judging criteria is whether I would be excited to see the design in a Kingdom. Important factors:
* balance: is the card useful, but not overpowered (both in general and in a variety of Kingdoms)
* playability: the card is fun to play and works with more than one type of deck
* simplicity: this doesn't always mean fewer words; a card with lots of text that, once you understand it, can be easily and intuitively be played is better than one with four lines of text that is difficult to understand
* topicality: uses this mechanic in an interesting way

Since entries seam to be in short supply as of late, I'll run the contest for a minimum of a seven days, but long enough to garner four entries. Then i'll provide a deadline notice.

Have fun! I look forward to seeing your entries.

So i was a little surprised i won the last contest. I was also not prepared, but this offered the opportunity to review other mechanics and now i have some ideas ready for next time. If you need some ideas, there are plenty here:

[segura]

[emtzalex]

The Pupil mat says:

"Pupil: Directly after playing an Action card, you may remove a token from here for +1 Card."

By contrast, the Coffers mat say "you may remove tokens from this for +$1 each" and the Villagers mat says "you may remove tokens from this for +1 Action each" (emphasis added).

Am I correct in presuming that this means that you can only spend 1 Pupil for each play of an Action card?

[BryGuy]

The Pupil mat says:

"Pupil: Directly after playing an Action card, you may remove a token from here for +1 Card."

By contrast, the Coffers mat say "you may remove tokens from this for +$1 each" and the Villagers mat says "you may remove tokens from this for +1 Action each" (emphasis added).

Am I correct in presuming that this means that you can only spend 1 Pupil for each play of an Action card?

Yes. Up to one extra card per Action card played.

[Zoyarox]

Governess
$5 Action
Choose one:
Play an Action card from your hand twice; or +1 Action and +2 Pupils.

Only one Pupil per play? Well, if you have 2 plays you can spend 2 Pupils (almost) at the same time!
And if you just need more Pupils for later plays, you can get them.

[emtzalex]

My Submission:

Crowded Dormitory • $3 • Action - Activation +3 Actions When you trigger this, +1 Pupil per Crowded Dormitory you have in play (counting this).

(Updated with my description/explanation):

For my submission, I made Crowded Dormitory, a village variant that (when multiple copies are used) gain enough Pupils to not only make future plays not shrink your hand, but to boost other Action cards as well.

One thing I found tricky about this design space was the fact that, because the Pupils are used after the card is played, it makes +1 Pupil strictly better than +1 Card, since you can always use it right away (making it equivalent to +1 Card) or hold on to it. As a workaround, I used the Activation card mechanic from Week 42. As a reminder, in addition to their on-play effect, Activation cards have a second effect. They stay in play until that second effect is triggered, which the player can do during their Action phase by spending an Action. As I understand the rules of these two mechanics, since triggering an Activation card is not playing it, you cannot use the Pupils you get when when you trigger CD at that time.

[segura]

This is strictly better than Village and thus needs a price of $4.

[emtzalex]

This is strictly better than Village and thus needs a price of $4.

No it isn't. If you only have one copy of it, it's a net Necropolis on the first play and a net Village on each subsequent play. It's only when you have multiple copies that they get better (which you don't need with Village).

[segura]

OK dude, then you gotta explain the timing. The way I understand it is, the baseline is: you play the card, spend an Action to trigger the below the line stuff, get the Pupil and draw a card. Same net effect as Village.

[Will(ow|iam)]

Scout for Talent
$4 Event
+1 Pupil per differently-named card you have in play.

[BryGuy]

.         
24-hour Notice
                 
Please get your entries in to be judged.
.         

[emtzalex]

OK dude, then you gotta explain the timing. The way I understand it is, the baseline is: you play the card, spend an Action to trigger the below the line stuff, get the Pupil and draw a card. Same net effect as Village.

Fair enough. My understanding of Activation cards is that triggering them is a completely different thing from playing them so it (1) can't be done while the card's on-play is still resolving (before the time to use a Pupil would arrive), and (2) wouldn't count as playing an Action card for the purposes of the Pupils mat.

I added an explanation to the OP as well.

[segura]

OK, so the implicit assumption is that the post-Action-play window in which you can play a Pupil is closed after you do something else in-between Action card play, namely trigger an Activation card.

I don’t think that is very intuitive, I assumed wrongly that the second window does not close the first one just like any other inter-Action-play-intermission like e.g. using a Villager would not have done so.

[BryGuy]

.         
Contest Closed
                 
I plan to post results in less than 24-hours.
.         

[BryGuy]

Thank you all for your submissions!

Here are the submissions:
segura's University,
Zoyarox's Governess,
emtzalex's Crowded Dormitory, and
Will(ow|iam)'s Scout for Talent.

                                       

These are all great submissions, but there can only be one winner.

Winner: Zoyarox's Governess

Honorable mentions: emtzalex's Crowded Dormitory and Will(ow|iam)'s Scout for Talent.

These submissions are all so good, that I don't have any constructive criticism. Good effort all!

[Zoyarox]

Thanks for the win, will have the next contest up soon!

[fika monster]

Missed this contests theme.

a quick contribution (TOO LATE I KNOW)

Studious Village
Action
$4

+2 Actions
Discard any number of cards. Gain +1 Pupil per differently named card discarded.

A village variant that can save up pupils for you. But to gain those pupils you must suffer in your studies! Maybe you can get quite a lot of benefit from this, but you need preperation.