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[ehunt]

how do you price it?

[ehunt]

what about a treasure/reaction worth 2? i claim the answers to these questions have to be, respectively, 2, 5.

[popsofctown]

The treasure is definitely 5, it's a Minion/Venture variant, which forbids it from being 4, and it's not problematic enough to need to be 6, it's purely reactionary.

I think I would want the terminal Silver to be 3$ to cut off 5/2 players.  5$ strong terminal attack, 2$ terminal Silver that will have a relevant reaction when the 3/4 player struggles to catchup, is too strong.  Moat is not as much a problem in those cases because draw 2 is weaker than terminal silver between the first and second reshuffles, it averages less than 2$ in treasure and risks drawing your power 5 dead.  (the 5/2 player generally wants to press his advantage, so the idea of this being a good way to cycle through your deck faster at a risk seems kind of hollow).  \

[Davio]

I would price it at $2.

The other terminal silvers at $2 are Duchess and Embargo.
Duchess is a good example here as it provides an almost harmless Spy-action for yourself and even helps your opponent. It's so lackluster that you rarely buy it on its own merit and are more inclined to take it as a freebie when you get a Duchy.

$3 is where Woodcutter, Chancellor and Silver both are. Woodcutter and Chancellor are like the default terminal Silvers. But I think Moat's reaction isn't that strong. You still need to have it in hand when your opponent plays his attack. And if his attack is not so harmful then the reaction pales in comparison too.

We can simply compare it to Moat itself. The +2 cards will net $2 or more on average pretty quick in a BMU deck. At the start of the game, your average card value is already $7/10 = $0.7. So drawing 2 cards will get on average $1.4 and that's at the beginning. 3 Silvers later it's already $13/13 = $1 per card, giving $2 for 2 cards.

I think $2 is the right price for a terminal Silver Moat.

[rinkworks]

I'd say $3.  Davio is right that +2 Cards soon nets more money than +$2 on average (though it peters out in the endgame).  On the other hand, if you compare how the vanilla bonuses are valued on other cards, a consistent pattern of valuing +$ over (terminal) +Cards emerges.  It took me a while to figure out why, but I think I may have:  I think it's because cards with +$ are sufficient on its own to build up your deck, while cards with +Cards only get you in trouble if you aren't also buying other stuff.

Anyway, comparing and contrasting the value of (terminal) +Cards and with an equal number of +$:

At the $2 price tier:

* Moat's +2 Cards comes with a defense against attacks.  But the only +$2 cards at the same price tier are a one-shot (Embargo) and a card whose other powers offer no clear additional advantage (Duchess).

At the $4 price tier:

* Smithy offers +3 Cards, but +$3 is too much even for a $5 card without complications (Mandarin) or unreliability (Harvest).

At the $5 price tier:

* +3 Cards is paired up with attacks (Torturer, Rabble, Margrave), while +$3 is, again, too much for a $5 card without complications or unreliability.

--

Now compare what a +$2 Moat would be up against in the $3 price tier:  Chancellor, Woodcutter, Fortune Teller, Swindler, and Black Market.  Swindler is the clear winner of this group, but do the special abilities of the other cards seem any stronger than Moat's reaction?  Not to me they don't.

[Robz888]

I think you would be correct to price your Terminal Silver Moat at $3. Moat's defense is great; its big problem is that the card gets in the way of your deck. +2 Cards is so pathetically unspecial, so you need Village support there, and then you have this subpar draw deck that's getting beaten, not because the defense is bad, but because the vanilla bonus actually screws you over.

+ $2 is a much more manageable bonus. With the difference between cards priced at $2 and $3 being so slight anyway, I would definitely have no problem debuting this card at $3.

[ehunt]

the reason I said this had to be 2 was the sheer number of games you'd never buy it against silver. But I like rinkworks's comparison to the list of terminal 2s that cost 3.

[blueblimp]

the reason I said this had to be 2 was the sheer number of games you'd never buy it against silver.

What this really indicates to me is that a +$2 variant of Moat is a poor card design. (And Moat itself is already a little suspect, as later reactions tend to have value in non-attack games too.)

[iangoth]

It can't be $3 because it's strictly worse than silver if no attacks are on the board (edit: well, there are a few edge cases where you'd conceivably still prefer it--throne room/king's court, scheme, etc.--but you get the idea). But maybe it could be $3 if it had one more tiny bonus. Maybe something like a chancellor effect...

[ChocophileBenj]

The problem is :
->At $2, with or without effect, it would be strange with moat, and the problem of "designing a good terminal silver at $2" seem hard.
->At $3, without effect it would look OK in attack games, but useless in non-attack games. (Well, sometimes you have useless cards in the supply that nobody would ever buy, such as Transmute, Woodcutter/Chancellor and so on...)
->At $3 with effect, it would maybe be too strong in front of woodcutter and chancellor (oh yeah, them again !), except if a particulary weak effect.
->At $4, it begins to get high !
So, to me it's $3.

[rinkworks]

That's a good point about it being strictly worse than Silver at $3 on many boards.  Hadn't thought of that, but I should have.

[zahlman]

$3 is where Woodcutter, Chancellor and Silver both are. Woodcutter and Chancellor are like the default terminal Silvers. But I think Moat's reaction isn't that strong. You still need to have it in hand when your opponent plays his attack. And if his attack is not so harmful then the reaction pales in comparison too.

Is Moat's reaction really worth less than a +Buy, though?

[NoMoreFun]

If it would cost $3, it can be compared to:

$3 terminal silvers

Chancellor
Woodcutter
Steward
Swindler
Fortune Teller
Black Market

$3 +2 Cards
Masquerade
Steward
Oracle

[zahlman]

->At $3 with effect, it would maybe be too strong in front of woodcutter and chancellor (oh yeah, them again !), except if a particulary weak effect.

How about this for "a particularly weak effect": "Choose one: $2, or +1 Card, +1 Action". Now you have the choice to look for a good (previously topdecked?) card or do weird stuff with KC or power Conspirators or whatever, if it's worth $2 to you.

[Davio]

I still think it's $2.

Just because "What if the board has no attacks or lame attacks (Fortune Teller)?"

I think it can be an interesting decision whether to grab it on an extra buy like with Duchess. And I don't mind adding a card to the Mint/X Combo's.

[eHalcyon]

->At $3 with effect, it would maybe be too strong in front of woodcutter and chancellor (oh yeah, them again !), except if a particulary weak effect.

How about this for "a particularly weak effect": "Choose one: $2, or +1 Card, +1 Action". Now you have the choice to look for a good (previously topdecked?) card or do weird stuff with KC or power Conspirators or whatever, if it's worth $2 to you.

The Fan Card Creation Guide has a section about why cantrip reactions are probably not a good idea.

[zahlman]

The Fan Card Creation Guide has a section about why cantrip reactions are probably not a good idea.

Which states:

If you create a non-terminal reaction, it's important to think through the ramifications.  In particular, consider drawing non-terminal reactions very carefully.  The issue is that making reactions non-terminal allows a player to stock up on them and thus pretty much always have one in hand when needed. Imagine adding a Moat-like reaction to Laboratory. You could buy them all up without harm to your deck, render attacks useless on virtually every turn, and still have a strong deck in its own right.

I don't think it's a problem here because if you use the card for the cantrip, you don't get anything else out of it. If you're planning to keep yourself always defended that way, you need extra buys (or pay the associated opportunity cost).

[rinkworks]

The Fan Card Creation Guide has a section about why cantrip reactions are probably not a good idea.

Which states:

If you create a non-terminal reaction, it's important to think through the ramifications.  In particular, consider drawing non-terminal reactions very carefully.  The issue is that making reactions non-terminal allows a player to stock up on them and thus pretty much always have one in hand when needed. Imagine adding a Moat-like reaction to Laboratory. You could buy them all up without harm to your deck, render attacks useless on virtually every turn, and still have a strong deck in its own right.

I don't think it's a problem here because if you use the card for the cantrip, you don't get anything else out of it. If you're planning to keep yourself always defended that way, you need extra buys (or pay the associated opportunity cost).

I'm not sure what card we're talking about here?  Are we talking this...?

Super Moat
$? - Action/Reaction
Choose one: +$2; or +1 Card, +1 Action.
--
When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand.  If you do, you are unaffected by the attack.

If so, I definitely think that counts as a dangerous non-terminal Reaction card, because you can buy them up without harm to your deck.  If there are strong Attacks on the board, you might do so just to be protected at (nearly) all times.  The opportunity to occasionally use one for cash would be a side benefit and -- more to the point -- one you can still take advantage of after you've used it to protect yourself from Torturer, Ghost Ship, Witch, et al.  If they collide, no sweat; you just use one as a cantrip and cash the other in.

But I'm not sure from the discussion if that's the card we're actually talking about.  Just something like this:

Super Duchess
$3 - Action
Choose one: +$2; or +1 Card, +1 Action.

...seems like a perfectly balanced if possibly uninspiring $3 card.

[One Armed Man]

Super Duchess is often less useful than Pawn. Pawn can alway cantrip itself and can +1 Card +1 Coin, which is often weaker than +2 Coin coin, but the other 4 combinations it offers more than make up the difference.

A Half-Horse Traders Moat:
2
Action-Reaction
+2 Coin. +1 Buy. Discard 2 cards or 1 Copper.
Reveal to stop actions.

[zahlman]

because you can buy them up without harm to your deck.

Opportunity cost? You could have a Silver instead...

If they collide, no sweat; you just use one as a cantrip and cash the other in.

There is that, though.

[eHalcyon]

because you can buy them up without harm to your deck.

Opportunity cost? You could have a Silver instead...

rinkworks did point out the situation where there is a strong attack on the board.  The benefit of blocking almost every attack will easily outweigh the opportunity cost.  The main reason you wouldn't load up on Moat is all the terminal clash.  Consider how much worse Young Witch is when the bane is a cantrip like Pearl Diver.