Sorry this took so long. I have had some family stuff going on and wasn't able to get to the judging for a while.
Nehemiah
Contractor - Activation
Once every turn, when you discard an Action from play, you may set it aside on this.
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When you trigger this, return it. Then play the set aside cards in any order.
(This isn't returned after three activations)
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Nehemiah combines the Contractor and Activation mechanics, setting aside Actions you discard from play and, when triggered, playing the set-aside cards. I am a little confused about how this works. Presumable, you can only use the above-the-line ability 3 times (corresponding to the 3 normal plays of a Contractor and the 3 tokens on it), then it remains in play with you until you trigger its Activation. If this is the case, I am a little unclear on what would happen if a player does not discard any Action cards from play on a given turn. That should probably be clarified.
Playing 3 Action cards at the cost of 1 Action (without playing any cards from your hand) is effectively +3 Cards, +2 Actions. This is a huge benefit to any engine (which should also have no trouble providing solid cards to go in), but is somewhat offset by having the first two cards unavailable for 1-2 turns. It's on the strong side, but not totally busted.
I like the idea of Activation cards playing other cards for their triggered ability, since it is a natural fit with that timing. I'm a little less certain about combining these two mechanics. Because there is only one copy of each Contractor, they are generally meant to only reside with a player for 3 turns, then become available again. With the Activation mechanic, a player ends up keeping the Contractor longer.
Nehemiah in particular has the potential of allowing one player to lock the card down. Because Nehemiah returns when triggered (during a player's Action phase), it is available for the player to re-acquire. Depending on what card/landscape provides for it to be gained, a player may well be able to build an engine that allows them to trigger Nehemiah and regain him on the same turn, locking all of the other player out from using the card. I think you could easily fix this by not having it return when it's triggered (just include an FAQ that explain that it's returned at the end of the turn when that happens).
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Foul Fog • Decree
When revealed, just before a player shuffles, they gain a Smog to be immediately shuffled.
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Foul Fog is a Decree which, when uncovered, junks players with a Smog. Since Smog is a Cursed card, it replaces the regular Curses in the game. Generally speaking, Decrees are somewhat unlikely to be uncovered, and if they are, it usually only happens late in the game. On one hand, engines and other fast-moving decks are disadvantaged, because they will shuffle more frequently than slower decks like Big Money+. On the other hand, a fast engine will be able to collide their copies of Smog and get rid of all but one of them. Thus, it's conceivable that the pile splits 8/2, but the engine ends up with only one Curse and the BM deck with 2.
The biggest issue I have with this is how the mechanics interact. The nature of Decrees is that it is extremely unlikely that any particular Decree will be active. Even if a pile empties, there's still only a 10% (or less) chance that the pile has that particular Decree. But since it gives a Cursed card, that changes the Curses into Smogs for every other purpose (e.g. Cursers, etc.). The vast majority of the time, that will be the only impact on the game, and (imo) that is just sort of an arbitrary change to how other cards (e.g. cursers) work.
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Frost Fair • Action • $4
+1 Card
+1 Action
+1 Purchase
You may freeze a card from your hand 3 times per Purchase token spent.
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Frost Fair is a cantrip that gives Buy tokens, and allows you to spend them to Freeze cards from your hand. In the very early game, you may want to Freeze your junk cards (which, without trashing, take up a relatively large portion of your deck at the start). In mid-game, you'll probably want the +Buy more, especially if you're building an engine. Once you start greening, you'll mostly want to Freeze your new Victory cards to keep your deck going, but (depending on your deck) you might want to save 1-2 tokens to grab an estate or two along with the final Provence.
I like the use of each mechanic, and the way in which they interact. By having the resource in token form, it allows players to multiply the Freezing while still only playing the ability once.
This is a solid engine component which I don't think is overpowered or too centralizing. Pretty much all sources of +Buy provide some other function. The most obvious comparison is Sanctuary, which always gives both the +Buy and the opportunity to take a card out of your deck (while still having it for scoring purposes). FF is cheaper, but I don't think it's too strong. It's very strong in a combo with highway, but still not OP.
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Beastbreaker • Action - Duration - Savior • $5
Now and at the start of your next turn, +1 Strength. Until the end of your next turn, when you return a Monster, +1 Worker.
When you gain this, +1 Card, +1 Action, and if it's your Buy phase, return to your Action phase. Firebelly • Action - Monster • 3 Strength
Gain a card costing exactly 1 Strength and play it twice.
(This costs 3 Strength)
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Beastbreaker is a Savior that gives 1 Strength both this turn and next, and when you "return" a Monster, gives a Worker (a +Buy token). It also has a Villa/Cavalry on-gain effect, letting you go back to your Action phase with an extra Card and Action. I'm not entirely clear what you mean by return. Presumably, you mean returning to the Supply, either as part of a card's effect or because your Monster manual is full (and not just when they return to your manual after being played). Firebelly is a 3STR monster that gains a copy of the 1STR monster and plays it twice.
Because there is only one Monster at each price point, the strength of FB will be entirely dependent on what the 1STR cards is in the game. If it's Crawling Claws, FB is an anytime Smithy (with the option of turning some of the +Cards into +$). If it's Fairy or Skeleton, FB is an anytime village+. Both are potentially awesome engine components. If it's Slime, it's an anytime terminal Silver, which could also be pretty strong. FB will also have the effect of very quickly filling any empty space on your monster manual with 1STR Monsters, which occasional (e.g. in the case of Fairy) could have a big benefit. It's a solid entry.
Beastbreaker seems a little off. The on-gain effect is unusual in that it doesn't give any +Buy (as compared to Villa/Cavalry). While you might eventually get that from the BB itself, at the very least the first time you gain it, it will go to waste without an outside source of +Buy. It also seems (unless BB happens to get paired with FB) that it's not that BB will be regularly generating Workers. In most cases, return a Monster will mean buying one to replace another. That means BB doesn't generate Buys as much as it stores them.
Also, this didn't really get discussed during Week 96 because of the submissions, but when the only Savior is a terminal Action that generates a fixed amount of STR, then without a splitter/village/source of +Actions (or a different Savior), you can never get the higher Str Monsters, and those two cards will sit there completely unavailable. Here, you can combine the STR from last turn's BB with one from this turns BB to hit 2. And you could, in theory, use the on-gain ability to play additional copies of BB. But that will often be extremely difficult, if not nearly impossible, locking out the higher priced Monster cards.
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Plunderer • Action - Activation - Savior • $4
+$3
+1 Buyer
When you trigger this, +2STR. Gremlin • Action - Monster • 2 STR
+1 Buy
This turn, cards cost $1 less.
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Plunderer is a terminal Gold Activation card which gives a Buy token when played, and gives +2STR when triggered. At first, this kind of seemed like a random mash-up of three mechanics, without a particularly good reason for any of them. However, there is sort of an elegance. One thing about Saviors/Monsters/Strength is that by getting an entirely separate currency, there is a risk (in the absence of +Buy) that on the turn you get Strength, your Coins go to waste. Since Plunderer will often trigger (and give you the Str) on a later turn, it makes sense to have the +Buy from playing it then.
Terminal Gold (even double terminal) is too strong at $4. Even if you had no interest in the Monsters, you would definitely just open Silver/Plunderer, then just activate your Plunderer on a turn when you weren't going to play another. The fact that you're also getting a +Buy token makes this even stronger.
This didn't really get discussed during Week 96, because of the submissions, but when the only Savior is a terminal Action that generates a fixed amount of STR, then without a splitter/village/source of +Actions (or a different Savior), you can never get 3 or 4 Str, and those two cards will sit there uselessly. Here, you could fix that by having it give +1 STR per Plunderer you have in play; thus, even without a source of +Actions, a player could play 4 Plunderers (one at a time) and then trigger one to get a 4STR monster.
You mentioned that Monsters are like Shadow cards. That is true, but Monsters are better in many ways, since you don't have to wait for a shuffle to get them back, and can't accidentally draw them when you reach the bottom of your deck. This is somewhat balanced by the limit of 4. It's also not clear from the Monster rules whether you can use throne variants to play them like you can with Shadow cards.
Given all that, Gremlin is much too strong. At a minimum, it's a terminal version of Canals with a bonus +Buy (something which combines strongly with discounting). In a solid engine with a lot of +Actions, you could easily end up playing $4 each turn and getting 4 extra buys. At that point, you could buy 2 Provinces and 3 Duchies for $11, a 21 VP swing.
Both of these seem potentially fun, but both are overpowered as submitted.
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Leftovers
Decree
When you discard cards during Clean-up, freeze them.
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Leftovers is a Decree which, once exposed, Freezes once each card a player discards during Clean-up. Freezing once is an interesting effect; the card skips the discard pile for the end-of-turn shuffle (if there is one), draw, and any Attacks that effect your deck, but then goes there at the start of next turn. In most cases where you don't shuffle, this has no effect. If you do shuffle, this will generally have the effect of the cards missing the shuffle but still ending up in the same place.
Leftovers freezes all of the cards you discard during Clean-up, meaning all of the cards in your hand and the ones you have in play. This could be a pretty significant disadvantage if you shuffle; while you are missing the dead cards in your hand, you're also missing every single card you have in play. This will tend to have a much stronger impact on engines, as they both play more cards and shuffle more frequently. At the extreme, if you draw your deck, every single card you have will get frozen. Only the card(s) you gained that turn will end up in the shuffle, and be your hand. In the absence of +Buy, this means 1 Card; if you're greening, this blows the whole turn. In most games, this makes engines unplayable. To me, that's too big of a downside.
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Author
Topic: Fan Card Mechanics Week 100: Season 10 Finale (Read 1266 times)