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[Mecherath]

The card as submitted was

#19 (tie) - Burnt Offering by Mecherath with 5 points (Theda)
$5 - Action
+1 Buy
+$1
+1 VP
Trash a card from your hand.  If it is an...
Action card, play it three times.
Treasure card, +$ equal to its cost.
Victory card, +VP equal to half its cost in coins, rounded down.

When I made it, it was trying to do too much.  Since it cost more than both Bishop and Salvager, I wanted to make sure it was strictly better than each, which is how the Buy, $1, and 1VP got added on.  That made the card too busy, and as at least one person said, trashing a card you're done with anyway, like a curser, makes the KC benefit extremely good.

I'm thinking of a version where the card is cheaper, but also has toned down abilities.  It would be:

Burnt Offering
$3 - Action
Trash a card from your hand.  If it is an...
Action card, instead play it twice, then trash it.
Treasure card, +$ equal to its cost.
Victory card, +VP equal to half its cost in coins, rounded down.

Knock the action down to Throne Room, and remove the extra stuff.  It imitates 3 different 4-cost cards but is weaker than any of them, except when dealing with multi-type cards.  It's missing the +Buy of Salvager, the +$1/VP of Bishop (though also its benefit to your opponents), and the ability to keep the card from Throne room.  It also can't do anything with Curses.

You can still make a Golden Deck out of it, though you need Gold, Gold, Silver to do it, and wouldn't be able to trash a gold on the final turn to keep the last Province.

Not sure if these changes would have made it do better in the challenge, but I think the sheer number of things it was doing made it harder to judge.  Thoughts?

[One Armed Man]

I like this version better, though it is now extremely weak. I would suggest costing it at 2.

[zahlman]

I like this version better, though it is now extremely weak. I would suggest costing it at 2.

I'm not convinced. Flexibility is valuable. Remember the lesson we all learned about JoaT.

I do like this version better, though.

[One Armed Man]

JOAT does a lot of things at once. Flexible is more like Steward.

[Dsell]

I think 3 is the right price point and the new version is, I think, a lot better. I would buy this card. In the endgame, trashing a gold for +$6 is so huge and playing an action twice that you weren't gonna play again anyway is great. IGG is also an awesome combo.

[gman314]

Steward gives you the choice of three things, each of which (except maybe +$2) is strictly worse than an existing $2-cost. +2 cards is worse than Moat, Trashing 2 cards is worse than Chapel and +$2's comparisons at the $2-cost level are Embargo and Duchess. Those both give you a little extra but can also hurt you (Embargo) or help your opponents (Duchess). So, +$2 might be priced at $2. (It's clearly not $3. Compare with Chancellor.)

Burnt Offering offers the services of a Bishop, Throne Room or Salvager, with the only constraints being that the service offered depends on the card trashed. The Bishop service is strictly worse than Bishop because it doesn't offer +$1 and +1VP and only works on Victory cards. The Throne Room service is strictly worse than Throne Room because you have to trash the action used. The Salvager service is strictly worse than Salvager because you don't get the + Buy and it only works on Treasures.

So, if Steward is to be used as a guideline for this card, it might be worthwhile at $5 since it offers a choice of three things, each of which is strictly worse than an existing $4. That being said, I think it could work at $4, but I think that it would be strong at $3 and totally op at $2.

[zahlman]

Steward gives you the choice of three things, each of which (except maybe +$2) is strictly worse than an existing $2-cost. +2 cards is worse than Moat, Trashing 2 cards is worse than Chapel and +$2's comparisons at the $2-cost level are Embargo and Duchess. Those both give you a little extra but can also hurt you (Embargo) or help your opponents (Duchess). So, +$2 might be priced at $2. (It's clearly not $3. Compare with Chancellor.)

Burnt Offering offers the services of a Bishop, Throne Room or Salvager, with the only constraints being that the service offered depends on the card trashed. The Bishop service is strictly worse than Bishop because it doesn't offer +$1 and +1VP and only works on Victory cards. The Throne Room service is strictly worse than Throne Room because you have to trash the action used. The Salvager service is strictly worse than Salvager because you don't get the + Buy and it only works on Treasures.

So, if Steward is to be used as a guideline for this card, it might be worthwhile at $5 since it offers a choice of three things, each of which is strictly worse than an existing $4. That being said, I think it could work at $4, but I think that it would be strong at $3 and totally op at $2.

The amount of strictly-worse-ness is a lot more here, though, I think. Taking away +$1 and +1VP is a big hit (Burnt Offering v. Bishop), even without the restriction on what can be trashed that way; taking away a reaction (Steward v. Moat) is much less important.

I still think this is a $3.

[Lhurgoyf]

I still think this is a $3.

And even at $3 it seems somewhat weak.
What this card actually does is:
Trash a Copper -> +0$  (Even Silver -> +3$ is bad, as that's +3$ for 2 cards with one of them trashed; the +buy from Salvager is very important)
Trash an Estate -> +1VP
Trash an Action -> play it twice (but it still remains trashed)

The first two options do nothing or very little on your turn and you give up 1 action and 2 cards for this.
The third option may make for one or two awsome turns, but then your deck will have nothing left in it.
That's the problem with Trading Route, too: It trashes, but if you don't use your buy, you won't have anything in your deck after a while playing it.

I know, lateron with more costing cards, it does more awesome things. But this card is really bad at cleaning your deck at the early part of the game.
Hm... thinking about it, maybe it is somewhat of a reversed Steward: Bad early and good lategame.

Also, I would word the third option

  If it's an...
  Action card, instead play it twice, then trash it.

Because by the rules all cards that get "played" go to the "in game" area, and not into the trash. With your wording, it would go into the trash and then, similar to Thief's Treasures, go to the "in game area" from the trash and then get cleaned up to end up in the discard pile.

[Mecherath]

Modified the wording as Lhurgoyf suggests.  I agree that without the perks it's definitely enough weaker than its $4 parents that it is safe at $3.  I don't believe it's weak enough that it needs to be a $2 though.

The loss of the buy definitely hurts the salvager portion, but it still can turn a $5 hand into a province in the late game.  In that circumstance it's acting more like Remodel, though without the option to buy an Estate with your extra $2.  Similarly, the loss of the VP and $1 makes it a lot harder to pull off a good Golden Deck with it, but can still be done.

It works well any dual type cards.  Burn that Harem to get $6 that will probably land a province, along with 3 VP.  Great Hall becomes +2 Cards, +2 Actions, and 1 VP.  Nobles can turn into +3 Cards, +2 Actions, and 3 VP.

It's also good with self-trashers, or cursers you might not want anymore when the curse pile is down to 2.  Get a Double Sea Hag or Familiar to empty the pile and then the card isn't taking up space anymore.  Plus, if you're pretty sure it's your last time through the deck, might as well play that action twice.  And for self-trashers like Feast (expecting at least one more in Dark Ages), it does the same thing as Throne Room, but is cheaper to set up.  It works as well as Throne Room with Island too, since you'll still set aside 2 cards, and will get 2 VP in tokens.

So I think $3 still works.  As for Steward, I think the main reason it's priced at $3 is that you have to take its best option into account.  It's a terminal silver with flexibility to do other things, and so would never fly at $2, since the other $2 terminal silvers need to be trashed or benefit your opponent. Even though the other two options are a reaction-less moat or a half-Chapel.  Plus as we all know, Chapel would be a good buy at $4.