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[gemini6ice]

Matrimony

$10

During your buy phase, this costs $1 less for each player in the game.

Worth 1 VP for each copy in your deck of whichever kingdom card other than Matrimony your deck has the most of.

Victory

Note that it will not count any basic cards, expansion-specific basic cards, or spoils/prizes/ruins. If you have six copies each of two different kingdom cards, matrimony will count only 6, not 12.

I was hoping to get it to them Sunday, but I still haven't gotten their photos for the printing yet. But I did get them a moderately-priced item from their registry as well, so I can give them that gift alone for the meantime.

Thank you so much for your help!

[popsofctown]

"During your Buy phase" is unnecessary text on your card.  It's there on Peddler to make life simpler because the price would be in frequent fluctuation, but here you have the price fixed from the start of the game so there's no issue.

I'd encourage you to playtest your card, because Duke variants are very difficult to judge offhand. 

[DWetzel]

Maybe he wants to minimize the chance of Workshop-related shenanigans (Highway/Bridge and all that jazz)?

[popsofctown]

If he is, he shouldn't be, it's not a broken interaction.

[Captain_Frisk]

He might want to allow for trash for benefit @ the $10 price?

[popsofctown]

It's not worth justifying complexity imo.

[DWetzel]

[gemini6ice]

Is there a decent way to playtest solo? The recipients are the people I'd most likely have available to playtest it, unfortunately.

That's a good note about the buy phase. Thank you! I was trying to be consistent with the only other card (Peddler) that reduces its own cost from the supply. I kind of liked the idea of being able to develop it down to a province in a fringe situation, but that isn't worth the extra clause. Out it goes!

My main concern with the card is whether the cost and the VP are balanced. I feel I'm not the best judge of that./

[popsofctown]

My gut leans towards the cost and VP being balanced.  In two player you need a 7-3 of a pile to get value, and it's well within someone's means to block that.  It's almost unheard of for a player to get a 3-7 split when he was doing all he could to stop a particular stack from emptying.

At a 6-4 split of a pile, it's still interesting because you can buy Province alternatives, forcing your opponent into a longer game.  Meaning if you split the Oases 6-4 you could be in a good position.  So that's cool.

You can do some decent playtesting solo, I've tried it before; there's definitely things you can pick out and learn.  I set up "bots" against eachother, comparing one strategy directly to another head to head, and making sure the strategy that ought to win does. (for instance, if nothing on the board synergizes with your fan card and it still can beat BM/Embassy then there is probably something overpowered about your card.)

The nice thing about your card is that, being a Duke variant, it's tough for it to be overly weak.  The card will definitely change games, you have to mirror Minion in a game where normally you would try an alternate strategy, you have to contest the Lab stack even if you want to play Big Money, etc.  So I would skip to making sure it's not too strong.  I'd suggest pitting a "bot" that buys nothing but one Smithy, Labs, and money against a bot the also prioritizes Labs, to block the Matrimony strategy, but ends his Lab chains in a Steward.  The Smithy-Lab bot goes for Matrimony then Duchies or Provinces as appropriate, while the Lab-Steward bot should go for Provinces (he's trying to end the game, his deck is slimmer and accomodates green more poorly). 
I would think you want the Steward bot to be the one that wins in this situation.  If it can't, it would appear to me that the card is a little too dominant in two player, and forces the long game too easily.  Steward's trashing goes with the Lab strategy better than the no-trash BM approach, so if the Steward player appropriately cuts off the Lab pile at a 5-5 or 6-4 split then he should win.