JudgingCommune by kru5h
Very clever! Turning what's usually an upside into a downside is really cool here. The card is simple, it knows exactly what it wants to do, and I think it's balanced enough. It certainly compares unfavorably to vanilla Village, but Village was already strong and in games without other +action, Commune is absolutely worth it. Excellent work.
Bounty/Vigilante by Optimal_Inefficiency
 |  |
Bounty — ($4)(Treasure)
$2
You may trash this.
-
When you trash this, gain an Attack card. | Vigilante — ($5)(Action - Attack)
If there are any cards in the trash costing
from $3 to $6, gain one of them.
Return this to its pile. If you did, +2 Cards,
+$2, and each other player discards down
to 3 cards in hand. |
Smart recontextualization here. Bounty is pretty good on tables with strong Attacks(margrave and witch come to mind), but even without them Vigilante makes it fine. Vigilante does too many different things in my opinion; I don't know if taking Mercenary's text was the smartest move here. Being a one-shot somewhat rectifies that but not entirely. I do like the interaction between the two cards; they're much better together than apart.
Holy Grail by grrgrrgrr
Holy Grail (Action - Omen - Fate, 6D)
+1 Sun
+1 Card
+1 Action
Receive one of the set-aside Boons (leaving it there).
-
Setup: Set aside the top 3 Boons face up.
Tons of variety to this card, it having both prophecies and 3 set aside boons. Cantrip Druid isn't any kind of super clever groundbreaking interaction, but it's interesting nonetheless. I don't really know what this gains from being an Omen, but I don't really see anything wrong with it. Same deal with the Debt cost. Obviously the quality of Boons that come out is a huge deal for this. The Flames' Gift especially is crazy, and the Forest's, Fields', and Sea's Gifts can all turn this into a solid $5-cost.
Prospector by SirGriffin
Lots of cards in this contest have had names that I've used on my own fan cards. Prospector, Bounty, and the rescinded entry Usurper have all been names I've used. Well anyway. I don't really see much of a focused theme to this card besides a thematic one, which is admittedly pretty darn good. The card seems a bit too strong, but not enough to ruin it. I would say that a Coffers and gaining a Silver are at least as good as drawing a card, which would make this compare favorably to Smithy, even without the below-the-line text. I'm sure it plays fine, but it isn't a standout to me.
Tunnel Map by BryGuy
Tunnel Map[/b] • $4 • Action - Reaction
Look at the top 4 cards of your deck.
Put 2 into your hand and discard the rest.
-
When you discard this other than during Clean-up,
you may reveal it to gain a Gold.
Taking the top of Mapmaker and the bottom of Tunnel is a pretty simple design, but the two halves go together nicely. I’m a little worried that this might be able to gain a lot of Gold really quickly, which might not be the most fun. But overall this seems like a really solid and fun design.
Horse Market by LibraryAdventurer
Horse Market
$4 - Action - Reaction.
+$1.
+1 Buy.
Gain a Horse.
Discard any number of cards for +$1 each.
-
When you discard this other than in clean-up, you may play it.
Sorry I missed this when I gave the 24 hour warning. Honestly no clue how that happened. Well anyway. This card really wants you to get a ton of them, which some people don't like, but I think it's pretty fun. Having +Buy is smart because it can push one to pick this up when they otherwise wouldn't. It absolutely seems strong to me. One thing that I find interesting is that since Horses are one-shots, they can be pretty good discard fodder (admittedly not nearly as good as more Horse Markets). The name is good; this is a fun twist on Market. If I were to change it at all, I would either cap the discarding to one or do some kind of small buff to $5. Cool card anyway.
Monk by JW
Monk
$4 - Action
+3 Cards. +1 Buy. You may trash a Copper from your hand. Each other player may trash a card from their hand.
When I first read this, I thought it was strictly better than Smithy. But it isn’t. This is a quite clever combination of effects. It definitely will be bought, but the interactivity makes it quite interesting. Love it.
Unnamed by Tiago
Action, $5
You may play an Action card from your hand three times that you don't have a copy of in play.
Unfortunately this is disqualified as that sentence doesn’t appear on any official cards verbatim. Sorry for not catching that before the contest closed. There’s probably some way to do something similar using sentences from Shop and Scepter or something. Well anyway. Throne variants are fun; this seems fun enough to play, but I suspect that this is likely to be frustratingly drawn with nothing it can play(what with Durations and drawing mid-turn). And it’s probably too good to cost $5. Solid enough though.
Golden Goose by NoMoreFun
Golden Goose
Action - $7*
Gain a card to your hand costing less than this.
________
During your turns, this costs $1 less per card you've gained this turn.
Very very clever. I like that playing multiple of them makes them worse but cheaper to gain. I do think this is maybe bad and boring on some tables. It could maybe be improved by, say, being in a split pile with a Horse or Spoils gainer or something. Still very solid.
Everyone’s submissions were solid and smart, it’s been super hard to pick a winner!
Final results:
Disqualified: Unnamed by Tiago
#8: Holy Grail by grrgrrgrr
#7: Prospector by SirGriffin
#6: Bounty/Vigilante by Optimal_Inefficiency
#5: Monk by JW
#4: Golden Goose by NoMoreFun
#3: Tunnel Map by BryGuy
#2: Horse Market by LibraryAdventurer
#1: Commune by kru5h
The winner is kru5h! Congratulations.
Author
Topic: Weekly Design Contest #235: Polly Want a Cracker! (Read 1648 times)