As I said, many good submissions this week! This was hard. I'm sorry judging took so long, I have been doing this mostly on my phone.
Forest by kru5hForest - Victory - $6
5VP
-
When scoring, don't count your first Forest.
As a pure Victory card, this is similar to going for Castles. Only once you have three of Forest do you get more points than if you had bought Duchies, but if you contest it, a 3-5 split is more devastating than if you'd both bought Duchies. But ultimately this has to be compared to Province. Imagine you have a deck that can consistently produce $6. Buying your first Forest enables you to buy 5 VP each turn, but if you just bought a Gold instead, you would be able to buy Provinces instead, with possibly a higher risk to dud. Deciding whether to go for this or not is theoretically interesting, and requires a lot of skill and intent. Although my first impression of this was that it was boring and bad when compared to Duchy, as an alternative to Province it seems like a solid card.
FinalistLand Restoration by Optimal_InefficiencyLand Restoration — ($2)(Action)(CADC_ 212v2)
+1 Card
+1 Action
Gain a Victory card from the trash. If you did, +1VP.
-
Setup: Trash 2 Estates per player.
You would very rarely want this card possibly unless you have extra buys in the early endgame. The problem is that you really don't want estates in your deck. It gets more interesting if you can mill Provinces and get them back the same turn, in which case it is really strong, especially with Rebuild. It has a spiky power distribution, and in that way it feels a lot like a Dark Ages card, but the regular case is just too bad. It also has the problem of being able to generate infinite vp easily, which can lead to stalemates.
Historic Park by LibraryAdventurerHistoric Park
$4 - Treasure - Victory - Reaction
+1 Coffers.
-
2 VP.
When you discard this (other than in clean-up), you may play it.
Firstly, let me give my opinion on dividing lines. The reason for a dividing line is to separate different effects, which would require two lines on this card. The reason why no official cards have two dividing lines is that it's not worth it with the text and complexity to have three different types of effect. Which ties into my opinion on the card. It does too much and too little of it feels interesting. You'd most often buy it for the points I feel like.
Foundry by JWFoundry
$5 - Action
+3 Cards and +1 Buy
—
In games using this, players begin each turn with an extra Action.
I really like this below-the-line effect. Changes up the game in a fun way. Problem is the card is weaker on play than Margrave. With some modification of the on-play effect this could be a really good card.
Eclipse by 4estEclipse - Action - Night - $3
This turn, Action cards are also Night cards.
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When you gain this, +1 Buy and return to your action phase.
Infinivillage but you can't buy stuff anymore. Play all your trashers, gainers and attacks for free, except for hand space. And sometimes, you can even use it to play a strong engine consisting mostly of draw cards (especially DtX), this and a gainer to return to your buy phase. Maybe you can even do it again. I don't know, I'm not the biggest fan of Villa, I think this is more fun and less akward as an event, which was done a few contests ago. Also, what happens if you gain this during Clean-up with Improve?
Cake by Udzu(Let them Eat) Cake($3 Treasure-Omen)
Reveal your hand. +1 Coffers per differently named Victory card revealed.
⸻
In games using this, when you gain a Province, +1☀️.
I don't know, this really doesn't feel that impactful to me. The above the line effect is rarely better than silver, and when it is, it's either really good, or not worth bothering about. I think it would work better with a +1 Buy. Now I don't like the below the line effect at all. In a two player game, the Prophesy will usually only activate once there are three Provinces left, and even though that may be interesting, Prophesies aren't made to activate that late. Many times the prophesy won't matter, or be unfair (e. g. if players buy one province per turn, only one player will get the benefit of Rapid expansion, and that only possibly once, and if they aim to buy one province per turn, the person aiming to take the 6th and 8th province will be screwed by Harsh Winter or Panic, or Divine Wind activates when noone wants to buy Actions or Treasures)
Sly Spy by BryGuySly Spy • $5 • Action - Reaction
Reveal your Deck's top six cards, discarding any.
-
If you discard this other than in Clean-up, reveal this for +2 Coffers.
This is worded really weirdly. Here's how I think it should be worded, to be clearer and avoid accountability issues:
Look at the top 6 cards of your deck, discard any number, and put the rest back in any order.
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When you discard this other than during Clean-up, you may reveal it for +2 Coffers.
I'm a bit bothered by the fact that the top is so weak, much worse than Night Watchman, and the bottom, with the proper support it is better than having a few doublepeddlers. Most often it lands in the camp of too weak or too strong, and no fun.
Natural Bridge by Gamer3000Natural Bridge - Action - 7$
+2 Buys
This turn, Victory cards cost $2 less.
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When you gain this, if you bought it, play it.
Scary card. The fact that this jumps into play the moment you buy it means that if you ever have $28 and 4 Buys you just instantly empty the provinces, and if you have $21 and one in play that's six Provinces. This is too skewed for being played from the supply, since it doesn't require that much work to activate. For a Bridge or Engineer megaturn, you need to have some horsepower in your deck, but in a game with Coffers this is a bit silly. I don't know if straight Ducat + NB isn't the best strategy most of the time which is pretty boring. Double cost reduction is pretty strong, you practically have to go for this in many cases.
Alley Cat by NoMoreFunAlley Cat
Action/Reaction - $2
+2 Cards
______
You can play this from the trash as if in your hand
Playing from the trash is an interesting concept, but I think it would be better suited on a card you would want to trash. All of the cards that do something interesting on trash (correct me if I'm wrong) cost at least $4. Most interesting combo is maybe Lurker. +2 Cards is best when you can Shadow it, but for you to be able to do that yourself you would need mid-turn trashing, which is equal to Fortress in almost all ways.
Insurance by infangthiefInsurance - Event - Omen - $4
+1 Sun and +3 Coffers
-
Setup: Use an extra Prophesy this game
Using two prophesies seems pretty fun, especially after you've played with them for a while, but the Event portion of this is just too weak. You would rarely use this except when trying to intentionally activate the prophesy. A more fun version would maybe cost $2 and give +1 Buy and +1 Coffers.
Prism by grrgrrgrrPrism (Treasure, $5)
Choose one: +$2; or resolve the set aside Event.
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Setup: Set aside an unused Event costing $3 or $4.
I like this. "Playing" an event as a card seems sketchy, but this card makes it work. I think the alternative should be $2 +1 Buy, to make it more viable even when you wouldn't want to use the event all the time. And setting it aside á la Riverboat feels natural.
FinalistHomestead by binbag420Homestead - Victory - $3+
1VP
-
Overpay: Per $1 overpaid, trash a card from your hand and gain a card costing [exactly] $1 more.
Really similar to Ascetism and (in appearance) to Farmland. The best use of this, I think, is probably to get rid of your starting cards. Maybe this would see more late game play if it was worth 2 VP, but it has very limited use. I like that it can be used on itself if you need to use it to clear out cards again. Looks fine, but too similar to other cards IMO.
Horselord by seguraHorselord - Night - $5
Gain a Horse per non-Horse card you've gained this turn.
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This is gained to your hand.
I'm afraid that this is too weak compared to Livery, and not that different. Gaining to hand is nice, but maybe having this be a $4 Event would be more fun.
City of Riches by AJL828City of Riches
Action ($5)
+2 Cards
+2 Actions
_____
You can't buy this if you don't have at least 3 differently named Treasures in play.
Simple and elegant. With only vanilla Treasures this effectively costs $6, but often you can get it easier. No complaints.
FinalistAllspice by MochaMokoAllspice
④ Treasure
①
+1 Coffers
-
At any time during your turn,
you may rename all copies of
this card to any name.
Whacky! Mega Changeling. I think that the use cases of this are very non-obvious, and the edge cases are too many and confusing to introduce this mechanic. Reminds me of the Halloween kingdom. And giving +$1 and +1 Coffers is probably fine in a game, but feels just like you wanted to make it technically better than Silver.
Vaquero and Saddle by Snorka Vaquero - Action - 3$
+1 Action
+1 Buy
Gain a Horse
-
When you gain or trash this, take the Saddle.
Saddle - Artifact
When you gain a Horse, +1 Card.
The only two-card submisson. This artifact is really powerful, more so than Flag, effectively doubling the draw power of Horse cards. I like the fact that you aren't screwed if you lose it, since if you relied on it (which you would be unlikely to be able to do, if there is any competition) you will probably have enough horses to last you a turn. Unlike Flag though, you don't get the effect if someone takes the artifact between two of your turns. I wonder how often you'd wanna trash one Vaquero to power up your other ones.
FinalistEntrepreneur by LTacoEntrepreneur
+1 Card
+1 Action
+$1
-
When you gain this, trash it unless you Exile a non-Entrepreneur Action from your hand.
$2 - Action
This looks very nice, but I think that often the price is too steep to be worth it. It is a nice way to get rid of the Chapels and Witches you've used up, but otherwise, being able to buy this means that you will have to not play the card you had in your hand. And if it was left there because of terminal collision, you would often not want another one to get it out of Exile. I think it's probably fine at $2, but a harsh restriction of a not that strong card makes for something even less impactful. Compare with Siren.
Before you read the results, know that this is subjective and in my opinion, and that judging between these really good finalists was very hard.
Finalists:Forest by kru5hPrism by grrgrrgrrCity of Riches by AJL828Vaquero and Saddle by SnorkaWinner:
Prism by grrgrrgrr
Runner-ups in order:
City of Riches by AJL828
Vaquero and Saddle by Snorka
Forest by kru5h
Congrats to grrgrrgrr! Well done to everyone who submitted! This was fun.