| Card details | Judgement Analysis |
Kingswood
by grep.
A victory rewarding Action variety, with an Overpay to get those actions.
| I'm a huge fan of Fairgrounds, so I don't mind having another VP card that rewards variety. Although it does feel a little bit like a lesser-fairgrounds. With the VP thresholds, it seems to be less interesting. You want a variety of cards in your deck anyway when playing with Cornucopia, so getting 8 out of 9 remaining Kingdom actions to make this 4VP will can easily happen. At the very least it will easily be 3VP, and now you've created a strictly better Duchy. Which doesnt feel balanced. Compare this to Fairgrounds, where I have to balance keeping Coppers in my deck, buying Curses, not trashing all estates, etc. and there's not as many interesting decisions on this (plus Fairgrounds costs more than duchy). I love the over-pay mechanic on here, though it's strictly dependent on if there are good spammable $4s. It does help encourage you to get Victory cards early, something I think is a great design space. And it's priced properly for the overpay. I just think the VP doesn't scale properly. I think that portion of the card would be more balanced at a cost of $4 saying with being "Worth 1vp per three differently named Action cards." It makes it more challenging to get it to a Duchy, and if you work hard, with Horses and Prizes, and Banes, and Ferryman, there's a good chance you could get it to 4vp.
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Prism
by BryGuy.
A Treasure granting coffers or Horses based on variety
| This is way overpowered. You can see in this thread there was a discussion of how strong a treasure that says "gain a Horse per differently named Treasure in play" is. It's broken strong. And saving a Coffer is a small price to pay for that, it's still bonkers good, easily acting as a double lab for $4. But then the first part is also over-powered. It's a silver+ -- if you spend the Coffers each turn, it's literally silver + a buy, for $4. And Silver+ needs to be $5. But Coffers are a lot stronger anyway, and this card gives you the +Buy to use those coffers efficiently. This card, as is, should at least cost $6. |
Conformist
by czzzz.
A Coffer gaining smugglers for in-play cards, that plays from hand when duplicates are played
| Gain a copy is pretty nice, and it fits to be on a terminal card when you have played your other cards first. I also love with Menagerie and its "play Action at odd times" motif works with this to help you gain Treasures. It's simple and seems about balanced. Nice.
Finalist
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Beguiler
by 4est.
A sort of storyteller for Coffers that can be played when anyone gets Coffers
| I can't help but feel this is weak, especially compared to similiar $5s. First let's look at Butcher, whose extra bonus of remodeling is pretty great, especially since you can save coffers to turn coppers into $3 or $4 actions. Saving the same Coffers for terminal draw is less appealing, especially since you don't even get to do both on one play! Storyteller let's you use any source of $, not just coffers, and it is non-terminal, giving you that same draw for $. The only way this card stands out is that it can be played when anyone gets Coffers, you can make your second play non-terminal if you already played one. But if you used the first one for Coffers, and the second one to draw, you turned two 5 cost cards into a net $0 cantrip. Even if you got to choose both effects (which you need to modify this card for it to be remotely playable), there's a lot of $5s it seems less favorable to. I like the idea but it's weak.
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Ancient Gear
by J410.
A terminal draw Menagerie that rewards with Coffers instead of more draw
and it costs less if you didn't gain Coffers that turn
| I find the costing less not very elegant. It requires players to remember if they gained Coffers in a particular turn, normally that should be easy since you can look at the Actions in play. It still feels odd to me. I also have a hard time wrapping my head around it. As a $2, it seems on the strong side of balanced. At $6 -- it seems unbuyable. I feel most of the menagerie alternate costs you would possibly buy it for either cost. So now the $6 cost is mainly remodel fuel which seems an unnecesary strength to give a card you buy for only $2 |
Diversify
by Will(ow|iam).
An Event granting Coffers for treasure variety
| This is a tricky one. You can't give it a +Buy, because with many unique treasures (Loot or Heirlooms) you can get infinite $. So it can't give a +Buy which then means this is really expensive since you have to lose a buy for it, just to transfer some $ to Coffers. And the exchange rate isn't even very good. Most games you'll be lucky to have 3 unique treasures in play, and I don't see 3 Coffers being worth $5. Even in games where you can make it work with more unique treasures, sacrificing a Buy to get extra Coffers seems silly. Especially since you could have just used that extra buy to spend the $ this turn instead. Not every event needs to be Strong, but they at least need to be interesting, and to me this is neither. Perhaps playtesting would prove me wrong. |
Bounty
by AJL828.
A treasure-victory action player and gainer. With gaining and VP based on card type variety.
| First, let's analyze the victory component. Without trying, this is worth 1VP (action, treasure, victory). The hunt for the next 3 is a little more interesting. We of course always have Curse. We probably have two of Reaction/Duration/Attack. So there's a good chance this can be made a Duchy, but it requires some variety diligence or buying Curse. I like that. For the gain, we can't have Curse in play, but we get a $3 for free, which means we need at least a Reaction/Duration/Attack/other to make this a strong $4 gainer, and maybe we can get it as a strong $5 gainer. If you're able to get it to $5 it becomes over-powered. If we look at Hill Fort, University, Horn of Plenty, for an Action gainer this seems a little strong if you can easily have 4 types in play. My biggest problem with this card is there's not much of a downside. It's a strong gainer, AND it's a source of VP, there's no drawback here. I love the concept though, it just seems too strong.
Finalist
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Harvester
by LibraryAdventurer.
A silver +buy action exiler that grants coffers for exiling more expensive cards
| I like the simplicity of this. As a +Buy treasure producing thinner, this is a solid buy on most boards. I'd prefer to grant the Coffer on victory cards as well personally. The Coffers synergizes because this card has a +Buy to use those Coffers. Nice.
Finalist
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Convoy
by silverspawn.
Cheap terminal draw that becomes non-terminal to release Victory cards from Exile,
with an Exile on overpay mechanic.
| Releasing a Victory card is a pretty steep price to pay for non-terminality, but its a $2, so that makes sense. And sometimes you will be desperate to continue your turn. I like that a lot. My one gripe here is that the the overpay is prohibitively expensive. You're requiring me to pay $4 to just thin a single card. Then $6 to just thin two cards. Compare that to say Bonfire, or Mint -- of course those cards only help you thin treasures, and of course this is Exile, which is better than trashing Estates. Still, it makes this seem a little weak. I wouldn't mind this card being stronger, perhaps base cost of $3 and exiling one card per $1 overpaid would be better. I love Mint as a trasher, so I really like the design space of this card as well.
I liked this concept a lot, but due to the overpay being so high, it is not a finalist.
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Donkey Tamer
by grrgrrgrr.
A non-terminal horse Gainer that when in the game, changes +cards to draw-to-x
| To cut the chase, I'm not a fan of the game changing rule on this. One, you abbreviated a word "respectively," which is confusing. In fact, the whole setup could be simplified. "In games using this, when you get +2 Cards, instead draw until you have 6 cards in hand." You can leave the +3 cards alone, as Horses only do +2. Even such, game-warping cards should be fun! They should offer more possibilities. This just makes Horses more annoying to use. Of course, Donkey Tamer itself is non-terminal hand-size reducer, so it helps the draw-to-x, but I think this game-warping is less fun and a bit deprives the joy out of normal horses.
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Financial Center
by JW.
A Village that grants coffers based on variety of cards in play
| So, Bazaar costs $5. In most games, it's pretty simple to get three uniquely named cards in play, especially if you have a Village (Financial Center). Coffers are better than $, so for most cases this card becomes strictly better than Bazaar. Then of course, there's the high likelihood of getting later plays to be two coffers, now it's Grand Market status. The reason menagerie (the card) is so fun, is because it requires you to have a lot of variety such that it is represented in a given draw of 5 cards. Same idea for Carnival, you must have so much variety that every set of 4 cards has variety. Financial Center just needs you to play the cards at some point (followed by Financial Centers), so it doesn't need as much variety overall, you just have to play them at some point. So, overall I find this a little too strong and not as compelling as other variety cards.
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Trendsetter
by NoMoreFun.
A cantrip or terminal + coffer,
that can be played out of turn when other player gains duplicates of cards you have in hand
| I love that you made +1 Card work. If it's an action, I make this a cantrip to play it. If it's not, hey I get a Coffer. And if your opponent has the same cards as you, you get to basically make it a peddler with Coffers, pretty strong. It creates a cool incentive for variety, as long as that variety mirrors what your opponent might gain! Quite interesting
Finalist
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Cache
by Augie279.
A non-terminal treasure gain and play with +buy
that costs less if you have no duplicates in play
| I think this could be a lot cleaner as a treasure that gains treasures to hand. Although there are some good reasons to play treasures in your Action phase. (Supplies, Coronet!) It's over-powered with Platinums, but oh well. Also, theme-wise it should be called something Hero (since it says "gain a treasure.") I am not sure this needs to have a +Buy with it. It's a pretty solid card, and in many gains you'll be able to get it for $4 (which will be fun to do)
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Caravanserai
by chronostrike.
Cantrip discard for Exile and/or discard for Horse
| Double hand decreaser for thinning is a tough penalty. And thinning one card is *sort of* like adding a lab to your deck, or in this case, a Horse. But because you had to filter for the Horse, it basically turns this card into a sifter. So, this card might be a little weak-unexciting. Of course, it's non-terminal thinner, so I'm likely to incorporate one in most decks. I just am not that excited by it.
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ROUNDABOUT
by fika monster.
A now-or-next-turn draw-to-7 that can play a unique card
| So you basically have to open this as it will cost $3 with just Coppers. And it's a pretty solid card, one of them is almost +3cards +1action. Later on this card will very quickly become prohibitively expensive. With just two actions in play and Coppers it's as expensive to Library. It's better than Library, but quickly it just becomes too expensive to buy. I feel like in most cases, I might double open Roundabout, then load up on variety after that. Which is kinda cool, but it doesn't feel so fun that the price increases so dramatically so quickly.
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Horseshoes
by Tiago.
A treasure that gains Horses per treasure variety,
that "in games using this" grants Coffers when Victory cards are gained.
| With Copper and Silver, this acts sort of like a Lab. And if you work hard to have 3 treasures in play, it could be stronger. I think it's priced correctly, though the balance falls apart a bit with heirlooms or loot. Still, a fine card. I'm not a fan of the bottom half. One coffer is not compelling enough to incentivize early greening, so this basically does one of two things. It either unbalances victory-action (and victory-treasure cards), or it creates momentum for whoever starts greening first. Dominion has the nice design of when you get VP, your deck gets worse, as opposed to games like Catan where building another settlement gives you VP and a stronger game. A card like this throws that balance off a bit. It's not dramatic, but it's enough to be a less interesting form of Dominion. I think something like "when you gain a duchy +2 Coffers" would be a lot more interesting.
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Rancher
by MochaMoko.
A vault that gives horses instead of draws, and coffers instead of $ for discard.
| Vault, without hand-size reduction, guarantees $6. So this card, buy delaying the draw, only guarantees $4. But that $4 of Coffers is fairly strong, turning many future hands into $5. This card also combos less with Draw-to-X, since the Horses don't work as well with draw-to-x, and I like that balance. I don't have critiques here, it just feels not super novel to me, and possibly too strong.
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Hoarder
by Sverre.
An Exiler granting + cards for unique cards in Exile.
| Thinners that don't decrease hand-size are always going to be strong. And the mandatory Exile isn't so bad, since I can just release the card I exiled later. Despite the fact you can get a $4 cost up to +4 cards without too much hassle, it's still balanced, since each play requires you to Exile something and that lowers your hand size again. Pretty elegant, nice.
Finalist
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I do like all the finalists a lot, but there has to be one winner. I am not feeling well so I'm going to do this a little more quickly than normal.
Conformist, Bounty, and Hoarder are the most interesting of the finalists, so it's going to be one of those.
I wanted to know if Bounty was too strong, so I generated a bunch of random Kingdoms Of Menagerie/Cornucopia and Guilds.
First kingdom: Bounty, Menagerie, Plaza, Animal Fair, Camel Train, Destrier, Groom, Kiln, Sleigh, Village Green with Way of the Rat.
Village Green means Bounty will easily make you gain $5s, and a curse turns them into Duchies. The gaining of Kilns (plus if you used Sleigh earlier you can get Destrier is fairly strong, plus the ability to play Actions this game works because there's several that would like to be played in the Buy Phase (Plaza, Animal Fair, Camel Train, Groom, Kiln, Sleigh, Village Green). Bounty is uningorable here.
Second Kingdom: Remake, Herald, Merchant Guild, Plaza, Hostelry, Mastermind, Sanctuary, Sleigh, Snowy Village, Way of the Goat. Mastermind being in play will make you always be able to non-terminally gain $4s with Bounty and loading up on some of those villages are decent, plus the ability to save all your treasures for Hostelry discarding is nice, especially since that's your main draw this game. Having played a Sleigh you can gain and play Merchant Guilds or Mastermind which are both buy-time plays. So bounty is fairly strong, and is going to be worth a duchy this game as well.
Third Kingdom: Candlestick Maker, Bounty Hunter, Displace, Fisherman, Goatherd, Scrap, Stockpile, Supplies, Wayfarer.
Well, there's only 3 playable card-types this Kingdom, and you don't want a bunch of Candle Stick makers, Goatherds, or Scraps. You can potentially gain Wayfarer, which is nice, but with the lack of village, you probably don't want a bunch of them anyway. So bounty doesn't work.
In this small sample size, Bounty was either too strong or too weak, instead of that middle-ground of interesting. So it's third place in this contest. Still a great card, though.
I'm having trouble debating between Conformist and Hoarder. Hoarder seems straight like it should have been printed in Menagerie, excellent card. Conformist feels like it could only exist because of this contest. So that's giving it the edge this time around.
Author
Topic: Weekly Design Contest #214: Cornucopia AND Guilds AND Menagerie (Read 2165 times)