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[ConMan]

As I said, I had an idea for the "Card Synergy" challenge, then realised it fell more under "Wrong Synergy" because it's a bit like Treasure Map - great to have multiple copies, but not to play them.

Cargo
Action $3
+1 Card
+1 Action
Discard any number of copies of Cargo from your hand. +$2 for each card discarded.

Priced at $3 because if you open with one, you're almost certainly going to want to open with two, resulting in a chance at non-terminal Silver on the reshuffle. If you miss that, then you'll have to wait until you've bought a few until it becomes useful. Combos with Menagerie, nombos with Hunting Party.

[chesskidnate]

Keep in mind that you're losing a 3-cost card from your hand to... gain 2$. That sounds eerily similar to, I don't know, silver . Basically, the effect of the second(and all subsequent) cargos is that of silver since you lose it from your hand and get 2$(except for edge cases where you just want a cantrip, or have a slim, overdrawing deck). If you want it to be a chance at a cantrip silver(i.e. +1 card, +1 action, +2$) you should make it +2$, +1 card for each card discarded. With this change I think it would probably be too strong(with good trashing it would be a monster, 5 of these as your deck would generate 20$)

[ConMan]

Keep in mind that you're losing a 3-cost card from your hand to... gain 2$. That sounds eerily similar to, I don't know, silver . Basically, the effect of the second(and all subsequent) cargos is that of silver since you lose it from your hand and get 2$(except for edge cases where you just want a cantrip, or have a slim, overdrawing deck). If you want it to be a chance at a cantrip silver(i.e. +1 card, +1 action, +2$) you should make it +2$, +1 card for each card discarded. With this change I think it would probably be too strong(with good trashing it would be a monster, 5 of these as your deck would generate 20$)

I do want it to be a cantrip silver, but in a way that benefits in a reasonable way with having a few copies - so something a bit like Treasure Map, maybe a bit like Cultists.

[rinkworks]

chesskidnate nailed the problem.  Having Cargo-Cargo-Cargo-Cargo-Cargo is not substantially different from having Cargo-Silver-Silver-Silver-Silver.  Both hands draw a card, restore your action, and produce $8.  So why bother with even the first Cargo?  Why not make that a Silver too?

Get +$3 for each discarded Cargo, and then there will be a reason to pick them up.

[ConMan]

chesskidnate nailed the problem.  Having Cargo-Cargo-Cargo-Cargo-Cargo is not substantially different from having Cargo-Silver-Silver-Silver-Silver.  Both hands draw a card, restore your action, and produce $8.  So why bother with even the first Cargo?  Why not make that a Silver too?

Get +$3 for each discarded Cargo, and then there will be a reason to pick them up.

Sure, you can ask why bother with the first cargo if you're looking just at Cargo and Silver, and it's a fair thing to look at initially, but I'd say that Cargo will do best when you can combo it with cards that let you draw a lot - so Lab, Menagerie, Library if you have Villages - and so the fact that it's as good as Silver in the absence of those is not necessarily a poor thing - but I'll agree that it might start looking a bit more worthwhile at +$3 per discard. Alternatively, what if it was +$1 for playing the Cargo, plus $2 for each one discarded? Now I'm curious. Let's call the +$3/discard C1, and +$1 +$2/discard C2, and I'll take a quick look at how a deck of them (i.e. assuming the only cards in deck are 1-5 Silver/C1/C2, and playing to maximise $).

#	Silver	C1	C2
1	$2	$0	$1
2	$4	$3	$3
3	$6	$6	$6
4	$8	$9	$9
5	$10	$12	$12

Huh. It looks like it doesn't really make a difference after a while, since to get the most benefit you have to do "Play, Draw, Discard the drawn copy". However, if there were another drawer in there, I think things would be different. Adding, say, a Menagerie into the mix:

#	Silver	C1+M	C2+M
1	$2	$0	$1
2	$4	$3	$4
3	$6	$9	$8
4	$8	$15	$13
5	$10	$18	$20

So adding a single Menagerie powers up C1 for low numbers of copies, while it seems to have a much more exaggerated effect on C2 once you hit about 4-5 copies (even looking at n Cargo versus n-1 Cargo and 1 Menagerie, it looks like C2 gets its real boost from the Menagerie at about 4 copies, which I suspect peaks around 6). The other thing about C2 is that it gives you something with just one copy, even if it is just a Peddler effect.

[eHalcyon]

chesskidnate nailed the problem.  Having Cargo-Cargo-Cargo-Cargo-Cargo is not substantially different from having Cargo-Silver-Silver-Silver-Silver.  Both hands draw a card, restore your action, and produce $8.  So why bother with even the first Cargo?  Why not make that a Silver too?

Get +$3 for each discarded Cargo, and then there will be a reason to pick them up.

Sure, you can ask why bother with the first cargo if you're looking just at Cargo and Silver, and it's a fair thing to look at initially, but I'd say that Cargo will do best when you can combo it with cards that let you draw a lot - so Lab, Menagerie, Library if you have Villages - and so the fact that it's as good as Silver in the absence of those is not necessarily a poor thing - but I'll agree that it might start looking a bit more worthwhile at +$3 per discard. Alternatively, what if it was +$1 for playing the Cargo, plus $2 for each one discarded? Now I'm curious. Let's call the +$3/discard C1, and +$1 +$2/discard C2, and I'll take a quick look at how a deck of them (i.e. assuming the only cards in deck are 1-5 Silver/C1/C2, and playing to maximise $).

#	Silver	C1	C2
1	$2	$0	$1
2	$4	$3	$3
3	$6	$6	$6
4	$8	$9	$9
5	$10	$12	$12

Huh. It looks like it doesn't really make a difference after a while, since to get the most benefit you have to do "Play, Draw, Discard the drawn copy". However, if there were another drawer in there, I think things would be different. Adding, say, a Menagerie into the mix:

#	Silver	C1+M	C2+M
1	$2	$0	$1
2	$4	$3	$4
3	$6	$9	$8
4	$8	$15	$13
5	$10	$18	$20

So adding a single Menagerie powers up C1 for low numbers of copies, while it seems to have a much more exaggerated effect on C2 once you hit about 4-5 copies (even looking at n Cargo versus n-1 Cargo and 1 Menagerie, it looks like C2 gets its real boost from the Menagerie at about 4 copies, which I suspect peaks around 6). The other thing about C2 is that it gives you something with just one copy, even if it is just a Peddler effect.

How are you calculating those numbers?

I mean, for the first table, your numbers for C2 are wrong.  It would not grow 1/3/6/9/12.  It would go 1/3/5/7/9.

As for your second table, are you assuming that menagerie draws 3 more Cargos?

Menagerie and draw-to-X cards of course benefit from cards you can get out of your hand, thus favouring actions over treasure.  But in general, Cargo in multiples is not significantly different from Silver in multiples.  If your deck's average value per card is less than $2, it can quite easily be worse.  A single silver will give $2.  A single Cargo will just give you a new card which is worth less than $2 on average.

The $3/card discarded is much better, but even then it would be a rather niche option.  Requiring collision to get any money makes it rather unreliable.  Still feasible though, and it can be worth it.  But it is too niche at only $2/discard.

[Archetype]

But +1 Card, +1 Action, +1$ is already too strong for 3. See Oasis.

[ConMan]

How are you calculating those numbers?

I mean, for the first table, your numbers for C2 are wrong.  It would not grow 1/3/6/9/12.  It would go 1/3/5/7/9.

As for your second table, are you assuming that menagerie draws 3 more Cargos?

So, like I said, these are all assuming that I have magically dropped my deck down to just that number of Cargos. Or equivalently, that I have conveniently top-decked as many replacement Cargos as I need. Call it my "best case scenario". So, for example, when playing C2, I can discard a Cargo each time I play it, happily drawing it again with the next one I play. Similarly, with the Menagerie table, I am indeed assuming that I will always draw 3 more Cargos, since I can first play a Cargo (in the case of 5 Cargos drawing whatever the last card of the deck is), discard most/all of the Cargos in hand, then draw them all back with Menagerie, effectively letting me play almost all of them again.

But +1 Card, +1 Action, +1$ is already too strong for 3. See Oasis.

This is a pretty fair criticism. So C2 can't be $3, meaning you can't open with two of it, but I assume it's still too weak for $4, since it's still close in power to silver.

So, how *would* you balance something like this - where you can Vault, but only copies of itself? Taking out the cantrip seems to make it too weak for any reasonable +$ to balance.

[rinkworks]

chesskidnate nailed the problem.  Having Cargo-Cargo-Cargo-Cargo-Cargo is not substantially different from having Cargo-Silver-Silver-Silver-Silver.  Both hands draw a card, restore your action, and produce $8.  So why bother with even the first Cargo?  Why not make that a Silver too?

Get +$3 for each discarded Cargo, and then there will be a reason to pick them up.

Sure, you can ask why bother with the first cargo if you're looking just at Cargo and Silver, and it's a fair thing to look at initially, but I'd say that Cargo will do best when you can combo it with cards that let you draw a lot - so Lab, Menagerie, Library if you have Villages -

I think you're missing what I'm saying.  I'm saying it's ALWAYS worse than Silver, no matter what the circumstance (barring combos with TR/KC to turn it into a Village, Golem finding it for you, Scrying Pool drawing a bunch, and weird edge case stuff like that).

So let's say you have lots of Labs, and you finally wind up with a hand of 15 Cargoes.  Great -- you can play one, discard the others, and poof, you get $28!  That's great, but if you'd had 15 Silvers instead, you'd have $30 to spend.  No matter what you do, no matter how many Cargoes you have, Cargos can never produce more than an equivalent number of Silvers would have.

Again, with combos like Scrying Pool that take advantage of the fact that it's an Action card instead of a Treasure, you can make them better than Silver.  But they need those combos to improve upon Silver, and usually there won't be any available in the kingdom.

Under-rewarding collisions is pretty common, I think, in fan cards.  Tournament awards a Prize, Treasure Map puts four Golds on your deck, Baron gives you +$4.  So why does Cargo only turn other Cargos into Silvers?  Since failure to collide is a cantrip effect (instead of a dead card in hand), you can't go overboard like having four Golds in your deck, but you certainly need an effect that is stronger than what a $3 card would normally just give you outright.

Archetype is quite correct that adding a flat +$1 bonus to Cargo is the wrong way to go, as that powers up the default effect too much -- and then you wouldn't want to discard other Cargoes to a Cargo anyway, because you'd get better use out of playing each Cargo separately (Peddler effect, worth ~$4) than to discard them to another Cargo (Silver effect, worth $3).

If you want this card to work, it has to be better when you collide them and not good when they don't.  Mess with either side of that scale, and the card will be over- or under-powered, and/or entail an option that players will never want to take advantage of.

[zahlman]

Guys. This is simple. Just do Conspirator, in reverse:

+1 Card
+1 Action

If you have 3 or more Cargoes in play (including this): +$2.