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[Davio]

This was my entry for challenge #12:

Thrift Shop / Ozu
$5 - Action

+1 Action

Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck.
Put 2 cards in your hand that do not share any type or subtype.
Discard the rest.

--
(Rule clarifications:  As always you try to do as much as you can. So if you reveal 3 Treasures, you can put 1 in hand and have to discard the others.)


So there was a lot of confusion, what is a subtype anyway? I designed this card with Dark Ages around the corner and feared there might be more funky types and subtypes in there, so I put this in. Afterwards, I think just "type" would have sufficed. What I meant was basically "don't share any words on the bottom" so with 2 Shelters you can only keep 1.

I thought about putting "you may" in there with the "put 2 in your hand", but I didn't want to put an unnecessary "you may" in for no good reason. But I guess it doesn't sit well with a lot of people if they often can't do what the card says., so in hindsight "you may" might have been better here.

I liked this card, but hey, I designed it!
But the comments were like "often you have to discard a good card and this is frustrating".

I look at this another way: You can always keep the best of the three cards, this is great! So even if you draw "Gold-Copper-Copper" you can keep a Gold and cycle those Coppers. And this brings me to another point: there's a small cycling effect going on here. You always cycle at least one and sometimes two cards. No, it's no Warehouse, but I think it's useful.

The obvious thing to do is to compare it to Lab. Lab draws 2 blind cards, this draws at least 1 good card  , but not more than one unless they are of a different type. So it's not that great in pure action engines but I thought it would be good enough in mixed decks with maybe a couple of terminals and a couple of treasure cards. The hard part was to not make it strictly better than Lab.

What do you guys think? Would this card be better with "reveal 4" or something?

Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy with 10th place! But I'd just like to know what you guys think.

[Schneau]

I actually liked this card and gave it a vote. Here's what I said (and still stand by) during my review:

This may be slightly weaker than Lab, but probably not in a "it's horrible" way. Lab is good. This would probably be mid-range $5, maybe in the lower half. But, they can't all be top 10, right? It needs a few wording tweaks ("Put up to 2 cards in your hand that do not share a type." would suffice). Otherwise, looks fine.

So, I would definitely recommend changing the wording - I think it would take away any ambiguity. I also think this will likely often be less strong than Lab, but sometimes more strong. Anyway, I say it's a good card!

[eHalcyon]

Don't see an issue with your wording without "you may".  You do everything you can.  If it really bothers people, you could say "put up to 2".

[Archetype]

It's true that sometimes you cycle through your bad stuff. But the exact opposite can happen if you reveal Gold-Gold-Gold when you only put one into your hand, and discard the rest.

[Schneau]

It's true that sometimes you cycle through your bad stuff. But the exact opposite can happen if you reveal Gold-Gold-Gold when you only put one into your hand, and discard the rest.

That's why you don't play Thrift Shop right after Treasure Map.

[Archetype]

Yes, or you are just really unlucky

[Davio]

It's true that sometimes you cycle through your bad stuff. But the exact opposite can happen if you reveal Gold-Gold-Gold when you only put one into your hand, and discard the rest.

True, but you can also reveal Gold-Gold-Gold on Lookout and yet people still buy and play that card. The negative possibility seems less harmful than Lookout's.

[Sakako]

It's true that sometimes you cycle through your bad stuff. But the exact opposite can happen if you reveal Gold-Gold-Gold when you only put one into your hand, and discard the rest.

True, but you can also reveal Gold-Gold-Gold on Lookout and yet people still buy and play that card. The negative possibility seems less harmful than Lookout's.

... Or Colony-Colony-Colony, which is what happened to me once. I thought the card was a cool idea, to be honest.

[Polk5440]

So there was a lot of confusion, what is a subtype anyway? I designed this card with Dark Ages around the corner and feared there might be more funky types and subtypes in there, so I put this in. Afterwards, I think just "type" would have sufficed. What I meant was basically "don't share any words on the bottom" so with 2 Shelters you can only keep 1.

I thought about putting "you may" in there with the "put 2 in your hand", but I didn't want to put an unnecessary "you may" in for no good reason. But I guess it doesn't sit well with a lot of people if they often can't do what the card says., so in hindsight "you may" might have been better here.

If you made those two changes, I personally would like the card a whole lot better.

[One Armed Man]

Would a description on the bottom of the card (Types include Action, Treasure, Victory, and Curse) be useful for this card?

[Davio]

Would a description on the bottom of the card (Types include Action, Treasure, Victory, and Curse) be useful for this card?

Perhaps, but not necessarily.

As I understand it, a type is anything that gives the card a certain color and types would have been sufficient. You can't for instance keep Watchtower and Fool's Gold, because they're both reactions and have a (part) blue color.

Or Harem and Nobles, because they're both VP cards and part green.

[Schlippy]

I like this card because it is somewhat of a "reverse menagerie" but I think it is too weak for $5. The problem is that you can not tweak the card that much to make it better. Sure, you could make it reveal 4 cards, but that is imho extremely strong compared to revealing only 3.

I'd rather keep the basic concept of variance and change it to something like this:

Name: Some card
Price: $4
Wording:
+1 Card
+1 Action

Reveal the top 2 cards of your deck. If they are not the same type (Treasure, Curse, Victory, Action), you may draw one of them. Discard the other revealed card(s).
[/wording]

That is a quite different iteration though.

[Rush_Clasic]

I don't like the original wording. It doesn't read in a way that allows me to do "as much as possible". It reads as though only cards that don't share types can go to your hand, so on a Gold-Silver-Copper reveal, nothing would qualify. Sure, with the rules clarification, it makes sense, but the natural read-through doesn't and that kills the understandability. I'd go with something like:

"Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck. Put 1 in your hand. You may put another in your hand if it shares no types with the first. Discard the rest."

[PurplePotato]

I like the card, and if I hadn't just joined the forum I expect it would have gotten my vote. I think the card would be worse if it put the cards back on top of the deck rather than discarding. Sure, some of the time you would loose your gold, but I think that most of the time you would get a net benefit to your next draw by discarding, and it's the average that counts. I think it's the fact that it discards and can improve future draws is what somewhat balances the fact that it will sometimes only get you one card (in comparison to lab). If the card said to put the cards back on top of the deck, then I don't think I would be likely to buy it. And here's another idea (I'm stealing Rush_Clasic's great wording improvement):

"Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck. Put 1 in your hand. You may put another in your hand if its cost is different than the first. Discard the rest."

If you have a lot of same card cost in your deck, you will of course have problems, but I think that most of the time it would be an improvement over the original card (which as I said, I already think is good ).