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[silverspawn]

WDC #223: Weak is good, actually!

You may have heard me complain about conflating "good" and "strong" before, so let's make it a theme. Design a card that's in the bottom half of cards in terms of powerlevel. This criterion is not measurable, so I recommend aiming for, say, the bottom 25% to avoid ambiguity. Of course you don't want your card to be too weak since then it'll never be used, so it's a balancing act. I'll try to be lenient but will disqualify something if I strongly feel that it has above-average powerlevel.

Examples from official cards are, well, half of all cards ever published! There are plenty of great designs of weak-ish cards, like Oracle, Beggar, Shanty Town, Treasure Map, Rats, Windfall, Explorer, etc etc. Qvist's Ratings are an optional but maybe useful resource.

Any card or Sideways is eligible, including split piles, knight/castle variants, cards with not-in-supply components, whatever. As always, no mechanics from Allies or Plunder are permitted, but everything up to and including Menagerie is fair game.

(H/t to D782802859 who won the previous contest but didn't have time to host this one.)

[NoMoreFun]

Sherpa
Action - $5
Gain and play a Silver
You may pay any number of $ for +1 Action per $ paid

[JW]

Quill

Treasure - Duration
At the start of your next turn, +1 Card and you may play an Action from your hand twice.

Notes: A simpler Mastermind variant (because it can’t be used on itself), which is much weaker because it only doubles an Action instead of tripling it.

[segura]

Quill

Treasure - Duration
At the start of your next turn, +1 Card and you may play an Action from your hand twice.

Notes: A simpler Mastermind variant (because it can’t be used on itself), which is much weaker because it only doubles an Action instead of tripling it.

Seems more like a weaker Royal Galley to me.

[LibraryAdventurer]

I wasn't thinking I probably wouldn't participate this week because I'll be out of town for most of it, but since it's a prompt where it's easy to use a card I already have made, I will.

Gemcutter
$4 - Action - Duration
Trash a treasure from your hand. Gain a Treasure costing up to $3 more than it.
At the start of your next turn: discard a card, then draw up to 6 cards in hand.
-
When you gain this, you may play it.

PS: Why forbid mechanics from Allies or Plunder?

[silverspawn]

PS: Why forbid mechanics from Allies or Plunder?

I'm very notoriously bad at doing-competitive-things-I'm-good-at in moderation, so with dominion, it was either play a ton or don't play at all. I decided that playing a ton was not a good idea, so I vowed to stop playing sometime after Menagerie. Which means now I don't have experience with the new mechanics and couldn't do a good job judging them

[faust]

Goody Two-Shoes - $2
Action

If you have exactly 2 cards in...
...play, +2 Actions.
...your hand, +$2.
...your discard, +2 Buys.
...your deck, +2 Cards.

[fika monster]

I dont have access to a computer to edit the card so refer to the  quoted text please

Slum
2$ action

+2 Actions
look at the top card of your deck. You may discard it.
-
This is gained onto your deck (instead of to your discard pile).

[infangthief]

Entry withdrawn.

Builder
$4 Action

Gain 2 cards with a total cost of up to $6.

FAQ: You select the two cards, ensuring that their costs add up to $6 or less, then gain them in either order.

[faust]

Builder
$4 Action

Gain 2 cards with a total cost of up to $6.

FAQ: You select the two cards, ensuring that their costs add up to $6 or less, then gain them in either order.

I'm not convinced this fully fits the contest. Ironworks is about right in the middle of $4 cost ratings, and Builder with its ability to gain $5s and even $6s with a downside might well be better.

[segura]

[HorazVitae]

Pidgeon
+1 Card
+1 Action
Gain a Pidgeon. If you did, gain a copper into your hand. Otherwise, gain a copper into your discard.
2 Cost Action
-> There is 15 in the pile, instead of 10

It's rats, but in the sky. And instead of eating your deck, they shit on it.^^

I'll add a mock-up once i have the time to draw one of my wonderful paint pictures.

[segura]

This is very narrow, I only see this with Gardens or Guildhall.

[anordinaryman]

Lucky Charm | Action  | $4
+1 Action
+1 Buy
Gain a Silver. You may play a Treasure from your hand.

+1 Card per Silver you have in play.

Silver isn't that good, right? But then again, non-terminal + Buy is always going to be fine. And it gives you a silver.

If you line it up with a silver, (then play that Silver using the lucky charm) it's kind of like a market square. If you line a second one up with a second Silver, it's a lab! And a third one is a super lab, woohoo! Of course, it might be difficult to line all of those up.

I don't like the swinginess of this, that if you start to line a few up, it kind of explodes so that you are more likely to line others up. Of course, each one adds another Silver to your deck, bloating your deck and making it difficult to line up future Lucky Charms. I priced it at $4 to delay mass stock-piling early (T1/T2). Having only one in your deck for the second shuffle is basically worse than buying a Silver T1/T2 since the +Buy won't benefit you early game.

Of course, there's all the fun of playing Treasures in your Action phase. I guess variation on a theme as I try to come up with more designs lately that "play a Treasure" during your Action phase.


If I happen to win this contest, I cannot judge next week.

[Augie279]

Dragon Egg
Treasure - $5
$2
+1 Buy
If it's your Action phase, +$1.
-----------------------------
When you trash this, play it.

Indestructible +Buy of last resort! I suppose Silver with a Buy isn't the weakest card (Charm, Cauldron) but it's definitely overpriced for what it gives you. Manage to play it during your Action phase and it's now a Gold with a Buy! If you're lucky, you've got a Lookout or Sentinel in your deck that can find these outside your hand, but there's other ways to get this into play.

I imagine this being in a Dark Ages 2E. Let me know if my personal judgement of the balance is off.

[silverspawn]

now we have the awkward situation where I feel like this doesn't fit the theme because this seems very strong to me. Granted, if you don't get the +card, it's meh. If you get 1 card, it's already a decent effect for a BM strategy. 2 is excellent, anything more makes it amazing, and that doesn't seem that hard to achieve. And if you get it lined up right once and get 1-2-3-4-5 cards, you'll draw your entire deck (which is full of silver) and the card has the +buy right there.

My honest guess is that Mass Lucky Charm will win the game more quickly than Rebuild. BUt maybe I'm missing something. Thoughts?

[anordinaryman]

now we have the awkward situation where I feel like this doesn't fit the theme because this seems very strong to me. Granted, if you don't get the +card, it's meh. If you get 1 card, it's already a decent effect for a BM strategy. 2 is excellent, anything more makes it amazing, and that doesn't seem that hard to achieve. And if you get it lined up right once and get 1-2-3-4-5 cards, you'll draw your entire deck (which is full of silver) and the card has the +buy right there.

My honest guess is that Mass Lucky Charm will win the game more quickly than Rebuild. BUt maybe I'm missing something. Thoughts?

I think you’re right. I went through a few iterations and got here and through those iterations I may have lost sight of the original goal and this contest specific. Withdraw my entry but I won’t have time to submit another.

[infangthief]

Builder
$4 Action

Gain 2 cards with a total cost of up to $6.

FAQ: You select the two cards, ensuring that their costs add up to $6 or less, then gain them in either order.

I'm not convinced this fully fits the contest. Ironworks is about right in the middle of $4 cost ratings, and Builder with its ability to gain $5s and even $6s with a downside might well be better.

Perhaps yes. I mean, Ironworks' ability to gain Actions non-terminally is a boost that Builder doesn't have.
But still maybe Builder would be too strong too often, considering also that cost reduction would have twice the normal effect.
I'll withdraw this one.

[infangthief]

New entry:

Straw
$3 Treasure

$1
Trash up to 2 cards from your hand.
Gain a Copper.

There's that chap who can spin straw into gold. I only ever get copper. And the straw is still there afterwards.

[silverspawn]

Perhaps yes. I mean, Ironworks' ability to gain Actions non-terminally is a boost that Builder doesn't have.
But still maybe Builder would be too strong too often, considering also that cost reduction would have twice the normal effect.
I'll withdraw this one.

I was unsure about that one; would have let it pass. (I think 5$ or $6 + junk is probably fine; 3$ + 3$ or 4$ + 2$ may have been quite strong on some boards.) New entry passes no problem.

[D782802859]

Got home early, so ended up being able to make a card for this one.
What if we took the on-gain of one of the best cards in the game... and did it for everyone else?

[silverspawn]

24 hour warning

[grrgrrgrr]

Royal Glove (Action, $4)
+2 Actions
You may play a Treasure from your hand twice.

My original version is a Liaison with a below-the-line part "In games using this, at the start of your Buy phase, you may exchange $ for Favors". But for the sake of this contest, I omitted that part.

[LTaco]

This can only have tokens on it if it's in play; if it leaves play, it has no tokens.

You get n(n-1)/2 cards per Safe House played if you cash in only on the last one and without throne rooming, so

• 1 -> 0
• 2 -> 1
• 3 -> 3
• 4 -> 6
• 5 -> 10

[silverspawn]

Contest Closed