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[PenPen]

Over the past few weeks/months it's been a great time and lots of fun in designing different types of cards for the mini-set contest. I've started submitting my designs starting from challenge #9, and I find myself thinking up different cards for the contest while my mind isn't occupied (e.g. at work).

I'd love to keep making up new cards but I'd need to take a look at my old cards first and see what I can do to improve them.  Obviously I'm still comparatively green to a lot of guys in here when it comes to familiarity and card design balance, but I'd like to sometime make a fan expansion that's not called "Weirdness in a box" or something similar. So anyway, here's the cards I made for the contest as they were, originally:

From challenge #9: Non-terminal silver

Scammer
$6 - Action-Attack
+$2
Each other player trashes a Treasure card from his hand. He then gains a Treasure card costing at most $3 less than it (cost of gained card must be no lower than $0), and may choose to put it in his hand. Otherwise he reveals his hand with no Treasure cards.

From challenge #10: Potion card

Red Stone
$5P - Action
Trash this card. Discard a Potion from your hand.
If you do both, trash a card from your hand, then gain a card of any cost.

From challenge #11: Dual-type card

Bronzeworks
$3 - Victory-Reaction
Worth 2 VP if you have the most Copper cards in your deck compared to other players (a tie for most would qualify as well).
--
When you would gain a card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, instead, gain a Copper. You may discard this card to put the Copper into your hand.

From challenge #12: Non-terminal draw

Theorist
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
All players reveal a card from his hand. If all players revealed a Treasure card, +1 Card for all (including you) and +$1 for you. Otherwise, all players gain a Copper, putting it into his hand (including you).

From challenge #13: One-shot card

Investment
$4 - Treasure
Worth $2
Trash this card. Gain a Silver, and the player to your right gains a Gold.
--
When you would gain this, the player to your left gains this card instead, and only that player can gain this card.
--
(Rules clarification: The player to the left cannot have the player to HIS left gain this card, he is the sole person gaining the card. Reactions to card gains apply in this situation however, e.g. Watchtower. When this card is played, the original buyer of this card will gain the Gold, and the "player to the left" gains the Silver.)

From challenge #14: Self-synergizing card

Samurai
$5 - Action-Attack-Reaction
+1 Card
Each other player discards a card.
You may return up to two Samurai tokens to its supply. Each other player discards an additional card per token returned.
Gain a Samurai token.
--
When another player plays an Attack card, you may return a Samurai token to its supply and discard this, then at the start of your next turn, +1 Card. You may instead trash this card if you do not return a Samurai token to its supply, if you do, gain a Samurai token.
If you do either, you are unaffected by that Attack.

From challenge #15: $2 card

Abandoned Village
$2 - Action
+2 Actions
+1 Buy
Discard any number of Curse cards. +1 Card per Curse card discarded.
--
When you gain this, gain a Curse.

From challenge #16: Treasure card

Mortgage
$3 - Treasure
Set aside a Victory card from your hand. This card is worth half the cost of that card (rounded up) in $, otherwise this is worth $0.
--
During your buy phase, you may buy any set aside Victory card at half its cost (rounded up) in $, you do not need to play this card to buy it.
--
When the game ends, any Victory cards that are still set aside by this card are not returned to your deck.
--
(Rules clarification: Getting back the Victory card works like buying it from supply, it uses a buy and you put it into the discard pile. You can just buy any Victory card you choose, provided that you can afford it and have enough buys. You can use multiple buys to gain as many Victory cards. You can put Vineyard aside, but it'll give you $0, and you can buy it back at $0.)

From challenge #17: +buy

Poseur
$2 - Action
+1 Buy
All players (including you) reveal a card from their hand. All cards revealed this way cost $1 less this turn, but not less than $0.
--
If you did not buy any copies of the revealed cards, you may put this card on top of your deck.

From challenge #18: Reaction card

Village Idiot
$2 - Action-Reaction
+2 Actions
--
When another player plays a card with the wording "+2 Actions" you may set this card aside from your hand. If you do, at the start of your next turn, return this card to your hand and +1 Card.

I'm going to take a look at these cards and try to revise them at maybe a card or two at a time and considerations etc. Feel free to comment on how absurd it was (a lot of them were pretty crazy and convoluted), and what you would recommend and whatnot. Cheers!

[DStu]

Each other player trashes a Treasure card from his hand. He then gains a Treasure card costing at most $3 less than it (cost of gained card must be no lower than $0), and may choose to put it in his hand. Otherwise he reveals his hand with no Treasure cards.

It seems like you want to achieve that you can always get at least a Copper, but you are doing the opposite.  When you trash a Copper, you "gain(s) a Treasure card costing at most -$3 (cost of gained card must be no lower then $0)".

That means you are looking for a Treasure that costs less than -$3, but not less than $0, which is quite impossible for standard notions of '-', '0', '3', '$' and 'less'.
Better, but still not perfect wording would be "gain a Treasure costing at most $3 less, or $0".

If I'm wrong with my interpretation, and you really want to allow to trash Coppers without replacement, the "(cost of gained card must be no  lower than $0)" is unneccessary, as there anyway is no card that cost less than $0, so this restriction is none.

[PenPen]

From challenge #9: Non-terminal silver
Scammer
$6 - Action-Attack
+$2
Each other player trashes a Treasure card from his hand. He then gains a Treasure card costing at most $3 less than it (cost of gained card must be no lower than $0), and may choose to put it in his hand. Otherwise he reveals his hand with no Treasure cards.

Simply put this was intended as a reverse Mine. It was pretty weak. I worded it this way instead of simply saying "exactly $3 less" because there are treasure cards that cost differently like Bank, Fool's Gold etc and it'd be awkward. I also had the replaced card gained directly to hand, but if two Scammers are played, then it can probably turn a Gold into a Copper, which really sucks for whomever that's affected.

Here's what I have in mind...

Scammer
$5 - Action-Attack
+$2
Each other player trashes a Gold or Silver card from his hand. If he does, he gains a Treasure card costing exactly $3 less than the trashed card, and may put it into his hand. Otherwise he reveals his hand with no Gold or Silver cards.

Make it a reverse mine that specifies on Gold and Silver, and downgrade them. I know I missed out on Copper, and that would make this card a little bit focused for mid-to-late games. It is still a pretty specific card however, that targets on the opponents' treasures and lost a bit of flexibility on what can be targeted. This would also make the card a real reverse Mine.

I'd think this can probably be a $4, but would you choose this over a Silver if it's a $4? Or maybe a $5? I dunno.

From challenge #10: Potion card
Red Stone
$5P - Action
Trash this card. Discard a Potion from your hand.
If you do both, trash a card from your hand, then gain a card of any cost.

As simply put in the comments for this card, the cost is high, it requires matching with a Potion like Treasure Map, and at this cost you might just as well get a Province instead of this. It also takes away 3 cards from your hand, so the possibility of this card activating at full power is close to zero.

Now I'm bad at costing, but especially on Potions because I never played Alchemy. So obviously the cost is bad.

The theme for Red Stone is that you use it on something and make it much better, but the Red Stone breaks and you can't use it anymore. I'm not sure why I put in the Potion requirement when it's played, likely because of the "gain a card of any cost" that makes me worried and added a barrier to make it less abusive. But it made the card suck, probably being the weakest card in that contest as a result.

Here's what I thought...

Red Stone
$2P - Action
Trash this card and a card from your hand.
If you do, gain a card of any cost from the supply.

At $2P that would make this roughly a $6 card. I think it feels a bit fairer, but Potion cards are hard to cost, how often are you going to line up $2 with a Potion card, and buy a card that can only be used once? At $6 would you be better off with a Gold? I think I would still probably go for the Gold if I get to choose either still.

But this would give a better chance of getting a Province (eg if you have cash flow problems), and especially in Colony games you can gain a Colony with this at comparatively little cost. So I think it's a viable alternative on some boards, but it's not viable on all of them.

It still gives you an impression that this card is crazy (and it probably is themetically), and it'll make you feel like a demigod when you line this up with a Copper/Curse/blah card and gain a Province/Colony, but it sort of feels like a Remodel - you get yourself a card with a Gold-like cost and then Remodel said card into a Province, but the Remodel-like card is gone too.

Still not sure about this one, but I at least feel much better with this revised version.

[PenPen]

Each other player trashes a Treasure card from his hand. He then gains a Treasure card costing at most $3 less than it (cost of gained card must be no lower than $0), and may choose to put it in his hand. Otherwise he reveals his hand with no Treasure cards.

It seems like you want to achieve that you can always get at least a Copper, but you are doing the opposite.  When you trash a Copper, you "gain(s) a Treasure card costing at most -$3 (cost of gained card must be no lower then $0)".

That means you are looking for a Treasure that costs less than -$3, but not less than $0, which is quite impossible for standard notions of '-', '0', '3', '$' and 'less'.
Better, but still not perfect wording would be "gain a Treasure costing at most $3 less, or $0".

If I'm wrong with my interpretation, and you really want to allow to trash Coppers without replacement, the "(cost of gained card must be no  lower than $0)" is unneccessary, as there anyway is no card that cost less than $0, so this restriction is none.

Yes it was intended originally that it's going to downgrade treasures, but Coppers would be unaffected. I was essentially combining Mine's wording with Saboteur, but Saboteur doesn't cover lower cost cards, so I made a few wordings of my own. It was really weird. I did a double take when I wrote that out and jumbled a few words here and there...

[One Armed Man]

Scammer
$6 - Action-Attack
+$2
Each other player trashes a Treasure card from his hand. He then gains a Treasure card costing at most $3 less than it (cost of gained card must be no lower than $0), and may choose to put it in his hand. Otherwise he reveals his hand with no Treasure cards.

Either scammer decreases the value of the other player's hand by 1 and their deck by 3, which is more than Saboteur does. At the same time, it increases the value of your hand by $2. At $6, the choice to get Scammer over Gold is often obvious because it protects you from other Scammers. All the other "treasure attacking" cards, Cutpurse, Noble Brigand, Pirate Ship, and Thief cost $4, less than gold costs. The modified Scammer is at a better price, but still is too strong. It should probably only give +$1. At that point, look at the card again. It is nearly the same as Noble Brigand, but Scammer still decreases the value of their hand and doesn't gain you treasures (scammer also gives a silver if a gold is trashed unlike NB).

Red Stone
$5P - Action
Trash this card. Discard a Potion from your hand.
If you do both, trash a card from your hand, then gain a card of any cost.

Neither this nor the other card have the balance right. Red Stone costs as much as a Province, I'd say. This seems like trying to be too much in the flavor of Full Metal Alchemist, rather than what the game needs. 2 and a potion is more like 5 than 6. Altar is a good point of comparison, but Altar doesn't trash itself. "2P- Trash this card and a card from your hand. If you do, gain a card costing up to $5 more than  or $3+P more than the other trashed card."

Bronzeworks
$3 - Victory-Reaction
Worth 2 VP if you have the most Copper cards in your deck compared to other players (a tie for most would qualify as well).
--
When you would gain a card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, instead, gain a Copper. You may discard this card to put the Copper into your hand.

This only responds to junking. How does a Copper scaled victory play differently than a deck-size one? Actually, this  is one of the better of the cards here. "Worth 2 VP if you have the the same number or more Copper cards in your deck as other players" is a wording to consider.

Theorist
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
All players reveal a card from his hand. If all players revealed a Treasure card, +1 Card for all (including you) and +$1 for you. Otherwise, all players gain a Copper, putting it into his hand (including you).

Very political. It seems like more players would reveal non-treasure cards if they thought you were ahead because it benefits you most.

Investment
$4 - Treasure
Worth $2
Trash this card. Gain a Silver, and the player to your right gains a Gold.
--
When you would gain this, the player to your left gains this card instead, and only that player can gain this card.
--
(Rules clarification: The player to the left cannot have the player to HIS left gain this card, he is the sole person gaining the card. Reactions to card gains apply in this situation however, e.g. Watchtower. When this card is played, the original buyer of this card will gain the Gold, and the "player to the left" gains the Silver.)

This interacts with a specific player too much. What does this "add" to the game? It is a Gold that you have to wait 2 deck cycles (5-7 turns) to actually get. You give the player to your left a silver they can use much more quickly, often in a way that helps them more than the gold you might eventually get.

Samurai
$5 - Action-Attack-Reaction
+1 Card
Each other player discards a card.
You may return up to two Samurai tokens to its supply. Each other player discards an additional card per token returned.
Gain a Samurai token.
--
When another player plays an Attack card, you may return a Samurai token to its supply and discard this, then at the start of your next turn, +1 Card. You may instead trash this card if you do not return a Samurai token to its supply, if you do, gain a Samurai token.
If you do either, you are unaffected by that Attack.

The discarding in Dominion is set up so that you are rarely denied your entire turn. This breaks that rule. Does defending yourself require a Samurai token and a Samurai in hand? There are so many little rulings on the card and none of them seem particularly helpful. The card is just flavor.

Abandoned Village
$2 - Action
+2 Actions
+1 Buy
Discard any number of Curse cards. +1 Card per Curse card discarded.
--
When you gain this, gain a Curse.

This is too weak at any cost. Requiring a Curse gain is the worst part. The card would be much more reasonable with the Curse-gain being optional.

Mortgage
$3 - Treasure
Set aside a Victory card from your hand. This card is worth half the cost of that card (rounded up) in $, otherwise this is worth $0.
--
During your buy phase, you may buy any set aside Victory card at half its cost (rounded up) in $, you do not need to play this card to buy it.
--
When the game ends, any Victory cards that are still set aside by this card are not returned to your deck.
--
(Rules clarification: Getting back the Victory card works like buying it from supply, it uses a buy and you put it into the discard pile. You can just buy any Victory card you choose, provided that you can afford it and have enough buys. You can use multiple buys to gain as many Victory cards. You can put Vineyard aside, but it'll give you $0, and you can buy it back at $0.)

This is far too complex for a treasure. Buying back is too complex. The card doesn't encourage early greening in an interesting way. It can feel like crap if the game ends before you buy back your cards.

Poseur
$2 - Action
+1 Buy
All players (including you) reveal a card from their hand. All cards revealed this way cost $1 less this turn, but not less than $0.
--
If you did not buy any copies of the revealed cards, you may put this card on top of your deck.

This is just worse than Woodcutter and definitely not something you would want every turn.

Village Idiot
$2 - Action-Reaction
+2 Actions
--
When another player plays a card with the wording "+2 Actions" you may set this card aside from your hand. If you do, at the start of your next turn, return this card to your hand and +1 Card.

This is just silly. It is nearly never better than a Village, which $2 should be sometimes. It could respond to a player with 3 actions in play during their buy phase, but that doesn't fix the original problem

[PenPen]

OAM thanks for the feedback. Most of the cards that I made weren't very well-polished in retrospect, so it's good to get them from you.

Scammer
$6 - Action-Attack
+$2
Each other player trashes a Treasure card from his hand. He then gains a Treasure card costing at most $3 less than it (cost of gained card must be no lower than $0), and may choose to put it in his hand. Otherwise he reveals his hand with no Treasure cards.

Either scammer decreases the value of the other player's hand by 1 and their deck by 3, which is more than Saboteur does. At the same time, it increases the value of your hand by $2. At $6, the choice to get Scammer over Gold is often obvious because it protects you from other Scammers. All the other "treasure attacking" cards, Cutpurse, Noble Brigand, Pirate Ship, and Thief cost $4, less than gold costs. The modified Scammer is at a better price, but still is too strong. It should probably only give +$1. At that point, look at the card again. It is nearly the same as Noble Brigand, but Scammer still decreases the value of their hand and doesn't gain you treasures (scammer also gives a silver if a gold is trashed unlike NB).

I'm not too sure I quite follow on what you meant by decreasing their deck's value by 3...do you mean the total cost of the cards in the deck?

Money attacks cost $4 but at the same time Noble Brigand, Pirate Ship and Thief don't deal with the hand directly, they all look at the top two cards from the deck and take them away if required. I suppose we can say this is more like a modified version of Cutpurse (mixed with the choosy selection of Noble Brigand) as both cards would deal with the hand directly, just that Cutpurse only deals with Coppers and this one deals with Silver and Gold while both are +$2.

I don't know whether the +$2 being a +$1 would be any different (that would also void my personal desire to keep the cards within the contest requirements). Thief and Pirate Ship don't even gain you any virtual coins immediately. so I think I would cost this at $5 without the +$, but I doubt anyone would want this card at that range.

My gut tells me +$2 is fine, it's a terminal card so unless you have some crazy action-draw combo I'd think this won't get abused much. I'll hopefully have some way to try this out and see whether it works well or not, but like Cutpurse, it'd probably suck being the last guy in multiplayer during mid-late game.

Red Stone
$5P - Action
Trash this card. Discard a Potion from your hand.
If you do both, trash a card from your hand, then gain a card of any cost.

Neither this nor the other card have the balance right. Red Stone costs as much as a Province, I'd say. This seems like trying to be too much in the flavor of Full Metal Alchemist, rather than what the game needs. 2 and a potion is more like 5 than 6. Altar is a good point of comparison, but Altar doesn't trash itself. "2P- Trash this card and a card from your hand. If you do, gain a card costing up to $5 more than  or $3+P more than the other trashed card."

I had trouble determining the cost for the fixed card (let's just ditch the original one because it was really bad). I felt that it's more like a $1.5P, as you're trashing two cards and leaving your hand with 3 other cards. As I said, it's really more of an alternate-choice thing on most decks, and at this cost as I mentioned earlier, I don't think I'd go for this, especially if this is the only Potion card available.

And yes, it was a reference to FMA (Alchemy => FMA, viola! New card idea). At this point, I'd just leave this alone until I get better in my Alchemy-fu, which is virtually non-existent.

Bronzeworks
$3 - Victory-Reaction
Worth 2 VP if you have the most Copper cards in your deck compared to other players (a tie for most would qualify as well).
--
When you would gain a card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, instead, gain a Copper. You may discard this card to put the Copper into your hand.

This only responds to junking. How does a Copper scaled victory play differently than a deck-size one? Actually, this  is one of the better of the cards here. "Worth 2 VP if you have the the same number or more Copper cards in your deck as other players" is a wording to consider.

I'll comment on this first as I've thought up of a revision of this card (I'm working chronologically), as for the others I'll discuss them as I get there.

This card was designed with the mindset that the mini-set was going towards a Copper-themed set. It's now more varied, but at that time we had Almoner, Museum, and especially Pawn Shop when it came out. I was looking at Pawn Shop and thought it'd be cool to have a Victory card that goes with this hand-in-hand. Thus this card was born.

Some thought went into this card where I tried playtesting a bit. It was never meant to be the focus of any strategy, the Copper-count on VP only makes this a card that helps out in getting you VP.

If you succeed.

And that's the problem...in the two games I played with varied sets from the base set (one had Witch iirc), it sucked even if I got the VP. Even if you win the Copper-counting battle, the maximum VP gained on a 2 player game with all Bronzeworks in your deck is 16. That's like two Provinces + Duchy for a cost of 21 versus 24 (and 3 cards versus 8), and even if I did some mix and match this was never a prevalent strategy. If you're trying to end the game asap you'd find yourself in a losing position in the end.

The fact that the reaction is only useful against gaining Curses and now Ruins makes it close to useless, not many people would want to get a card that gives them more Copper unless they're jockeying for the Copper VP crown. It also makes the deck bloated and inefficient.

So it needs a rework. I'm also changing the dual-card type as well.

Bronzeworks
$3 - Treasure-Victory
Worth $1.
--
Worth 1 VP.
Worth an additional 1 VP if you have as many or more Copper cards in your deck as other players.
When the game ends, this counts as a Copper card.

I think I like this better...but I still added some of my personal weirdness in it.

The old one was too all-or-nothing in that if you lose, you get screwed and your Bronzeworks (or Bronzeworkses) are worthless. You now have 1 VP, and you may want to work towards the goal of getting more Coppers. This card would help out in addition to giving out some value as a treasure.

The last part is weird and I really wanted to make this worth $2 and then say "this card counts as two Coppers" when it's put in play.  This would open a can of worms involving card counting mechanics like Bank. It's not a big list, but you'd want to make the wording so it won't confuse anyone.

I then made the card say "When the game ends, this counts as TWO Copper cards" in the last line and it didn't feel as weird initially. It felt like yeah, it helps this card and Copper counting more! Then I thought about card counting VPs like Gardens, Silk Road etc. And ditched it almost immediately.

So it'd just be considered as one Copper at the end of games. You get the VP and you can even count this card for the extra VP contest in Copper-comparison. Silk Road would probably be confused by this card though...but as per the wordings in the card this is intended as a Victory card even in game end.

It was a $3 card, but it felt more like a $2 card - it wasn't too huge of a difference really, it wouldn't be a card that'd be like "oh crap, here comes Bronzeworks, let's gather them up like it's a nuclear winter in the next turn" thing. I would probably be fine if this costs $3, still.

Edit: As Archetype mentioned, this would compete with Estate which I somehow totally forgot. Fixed cost to $3.

[Archetype]

I don't think it can cost 2. It'll always (barring edge cases) be preferable to Estate.

That's also why 2 cost Victories can't exist, they have to have something about them that can make them either worse than an Estate, or better than an Estate, depending on what you have to do for it.

Plus, the cost differeention between 2 and 3 is so small that you might as well make it cost 3.

[PenPen]

I don't think it can cost 2. It'll always (barring edge cases) be preferable to Estate.

That's also why 2 cost Victories can't exist, they have to have something about them that can make them either worse than an Estate, or better than an Estate, depending on what you have to do for it.

Plus, the cost differeention between 2 and 3 is so small that you might as well make it cost 3.

Oh yes...I totally forgot. Yeah, I'd make it $3.

[PenPen]

Theorist
$4 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
All players reveal a card from his hand. If all players revealed a Treasure card, +1 Card for all (including you) and +$1 for you. Otherwise, all players gain a Copper, putting it into his hand (including you).

Onwards, the Theorist card is based on the idea of game theory, or prisoner's dilemma. Trying to put this into the context of Dominion is weird, simply put.

And it's a weird card, it gives you the prerequisite +1 Card, +1 Action and all players reveal a card and you need everyone to reveal a Treasure to draw a card. You do get a slight bonus of +$1 but it's not really that much. I thought that this would be a crappier Laboratory, but I didn't count the fact that mostly other players aren't as likely to help each other out, and maybe a Copper to hand isn't so bad if they won't (or can't) comply. And that's actually a more likely outcome when this is played.

This card is like revealing your deepest desires to not help anyone out! Or not. Maybe.

I'd still want to keep this as a theoretical mind-game card, just that it's not so weirded out and so political where all players sort of "vote" on whether they should be giving everyone else a bonus.

Here's what I have in mind.

Theorist (rev 1)
$2 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
All players (including you) look at the top card of his deck, and may either put it back on top or discard it. If any other players discards any cards this way, +1 Action and +$1.

This is eerily like a Pearl Diver (that looks at your top card) with a line of JoAT but it affects everyone. If it works, you get a Village. If it doesn't, well you still got 1 action left.

This won't affect other players as much on what to reveal, but it still retains a very slight part of the 'mind-game' where they decide if they want to give you a +1 Action and extra virtual coin. It's probably miniscule but if you run this card a few times in your turn it'll be much better. But it also gives your opponent(s) a chance to do a light next hand manipulation from their deck.

Investment
$4 - Treasure
Worth $2
Trash this card. Gain a Silver, and the player to your right gains a Gold.
--
When you would gain this, the player to your left gains this card instead, and only that player can gain this card.
--
(Rules clarification: The player to the left cannot have the player to HIS left gain this card, he is the sole person gaining the card. Reactions to card gains apply in this situation however, e.g. Watchtower. When this card is played, the original buyer of this card will gain the Gold, and the "player to the left" gains the Silver.)

Investment is my second favorite card from what I created. The premise is simple, you invest in someone else, they use your investment, you reap the rewards.

But the wording is complex, even though the concept is simple. It also works really weird with Ambassador. It also only focuses on the player to your left. So it's a weird little card. I think concept-wise, it's nice. But it really could have a rework.

There was also an issue where this card was put into the one-shot contest, so I can't make it an Action-Reaction or a Treasure-Reaction (well I can, but a one-shot Reaction feels really weird to me, since you need to trash the card on both parts as per the contest rules).

What if I make the other player invest into me?

Investment (rev 1)
$3 - Action-Attack
Trash this card. Each other player reveals the top 2 cards of his deck. If they revealed any Treasure cards, they trash one of them that they choose. If the total cost in coins of the trashed cards is $3 or above, you gain a Gold, otherwise you gain a Silver.

This really looks like Thief or Noble Brigand. It's too similar and I wonder whether a $3 total cost into a Gold would be right. You'd mostly get a Silver when it's 2 players and early on for multiplayer, and get a Gold really early if you have a good luck (but it also is up to what they choose, if they can). It also has some weirdness with stuff like Philosopher's Stone and Bank where cards needs to be counted. And I didn't really like this as it's not really investing, it's more like forcing people to buy your Enron stocks or whatever.

Investment (rev 2)
$4 - Action
Trash this card. All other players may reveal a Treasure card from their hand. If any player revealed a Silver or Gold, gain a Gold; otherwise gain a Silver. Players who revealed any Treasures may gain a Silver.

Maybe this would be a little better - you won't be forcing other players to give you treasures, and they get the benefit of gaining a Silver (if they want) if they decide to help you out. I think this is a very popular card if it's $4 though, since it'll pile up money easily for all involved. Hopefully the one-shot nature of this card can help balance it out.

Thoughts?

[One Armed Man]

Investment
$4 - Treasure
Worth $2
Trash this card. The player to your right gains a Gold.
--
When you buy this, the player to your left gains this card instead of you.

This version seems fine. It is just a slow gold if the other player lets it be.

[Drab Emordnilap]

I think this mechanic is flawed. Could you imagine a card that said this?

"The player on your left may gain a silver. If he does, gain a gold; otherwise that player gains a curse."

Investment is just a time-delayed version of this, and I think is thus unprintable with current Dominion philosophy.

[Archetype]

I think this mechanic is flawed. Could you imagine a card that said this?

"The player on your left may gain a silver. If he does, gain a gold; otherwise that player gains a curse."

Investment is just a time-delayed version of this, and I think is thus unprintable with current Dominion philosophy.

Exactly, there's nothing that makes the player actually play the card.

[Jack Rudd]

Investment
$4 - Treasure
Worth $2
Trash this card. The player to your right gains a Gold.
--
When you buy this, the player to your left gains this card instead of you.

What happens if this is bought in a Possession turn?

[PenPen]

For Possession, it probably would go back to you, as when he bought the card, it goes to you, but it won't get passed back to him for card-passing limbo because it's an on-buy effect?

This is also why I made my original one so weird in its wording. Concept wise it's really simple, but once you put it in Dominion and think of the ways that other cards can interact with this, there's a lot of holes to plug. I thought I plugged some holes, but it never covered all of them.

Investment
$4 - Treasure
Worth $2
Trash this card. The player to your right gains a Gold.
--
When you buy this, the player to your left gains this card instead of you.

This version seems fine. It is just a slow gold if the other player lets it be.

I think if I got this card I don't really have an incentive to play it though...I'd still prefer getting a Silver after trashing it, because at least you'd get something back.

I think this mechanic is interesting conceptually but still it's too weird. Maybe there's a more elegant way to make use of the idea and expand on that. As you guys see, I ditched the idea of passing the card to the next guy in my redos.

[PenPen]

Back in business with the next card in line:

Samurai
$5 - Action-Attack-Reaction
+1 Card
Each other player discards a card.
You may return up to two Samurai tokens to its supply. Each other player discards an additional card per token returned.
Gain a Samurai token.
--
When another player plays an Attack card, you may return a Samurai token to its supply and discard this, then at the start of your next turn, +1 Card. You may instead trash this card if you do not return a Samurai token to its supply, if you do, gain a Samurai token.
If you do either, you are unaffected by that Attack.

I took quite a bit of time designing this card, to be honest. I already thought of usable tokens first as currently in Dominion there's no such feature. That would fit the requirement of self-synergy pretty well.

I also don't want the tokens to become a one-dimensional use thing. So you can use it in your attack, and use it in defense as well. Thematically, a samurai would not only be attacking for their lord, they're also supposed to protect their lords. Sometimes they die (which is why the reaction has a choice of not using/no tokens because the samurai will die when they used their strength to defend you etc).

An interesting tidbit was that I named those tokens as "honor tokens" or "bushido tokens" but I think rinkworks changed that for me, which I don't mind. The card was designed with possibly other uses for these tokens in mind.

Now back to the card itself. I totally forgot about the fact that you can essentially discard someone's full hand with this. Or a KC-Samurai.

So err yeah. It's also pretty complex because of the optional use of tokens (and it was wordy). There's also an issue that was raised out by someone that if you don't have Samurais, the tokens are useless.

While I still think discarding attacks would still be the way to go (I don't think you would imagine samurais handing out Curses), I'd rather go with an attack that becomes a "discard down to" card like Militia.

Samurai
$5 - Action-Attack-Victory rev1
+1 Card
Each other players discards down to three cards in his hand.
You may return up to two Samurai tokens to its supply. +1 Card per token returned.
Gain a Samurai token.
--
When the game ends, if you have any Samurai tokens left, 1VP for every 5 Samurai tokens left.

The meat still feels a little too much like a Militia, and compares a little poorly to Margrave. The VP giving is nice though, but I wish I could make use of the tokens a bit more.

Samurai
$5 - Action-Attack-Victory rev2
+1 Card
Each other players reveals cards from his deck, until a Victory card is revealed. He puts the Victory card in his hand and discards the rest.
You may return up to two Samurai tokens to its supply. Choose one for each token: +$2; or +1 Card.
Gain a Samurai token.
--
When the game ends, if you have any Samurai tokens left, 1VP for every 5 Samurai tokens.

I think I like this a better, but I'm really not sure the discard from deck until revealing a Victory card is too powerful. It might ruin a few turns for Action or BM decks. It can be quite swingy...

The tokens are now a little more multi-purposed but I think it drops a bit in the self-synergy section. Hopefully this doesn't give the players too much AP (even though I suspect a new guy will have two-three layers of AP: whether to use the tokens and which one to choose if he uses one, or maybe he should use two?)

Thoughts appreciated on either of the above ideas!

Abandoned Village
$2 - Action
+2 Actions
+1 Buy
Discard any number of Curse cards. +1 Card per Curse card discarded.
--
When you gain this, gain a Curse.

For Abandoned Village it was originally just a lazier entry using my Cursed Village design (it was +1 Card instead of +1 Buy at $2 as well) but because a lot of feedback by then was about the lack of + Buy cards, I changed it to a + Buy card instead.

That's pretty much it!

A lot of people didn't like the gain a curse part. You might not get the Curse card to draw more cards. It's like a Fishing Village at $2 cost and a freebie curse, but without the duration effect.

So what about a totally new card that would fit the "Abandoned Village" theme and still make it a $2 card?

Abandoned Village
$2 - Action
+2 Action
Return an Abandoned Village token to the supply. If you do, choose one: +1 Card; +1 Buy
You may gain an Abandoned Village if you do not have any Abandoned Village tokens. If you do, trash this card.
--
When you gain this, gain 3 Abandoned Village tokens.

Totally new card time!

This is also a play on tokens. It can work as either a vanilla Village or a one-turn Fishing Village, but essentially for 3 turns at most (or less if you TR/KC this).

The thought is that if you use an abandoned village enough times, it doesn't become abandoned anymore. I originally wanted to allow for the ability to trash this and make it become a vanilla Village or gaining a Village card that costs at least $4. But that needs you to put a village card as an additional pile, which I don't really like.

So instead of that, it makes you find for a new useful Abandoned Village once you use up the old one (note the new gained AV would also give you 3 tokens). At that point, you don't really need a card that does nothing but give you +2 actions, so you look for a new village to use.

I originally wanted to limit the number of tokens as you can gain a lot of this card to stock up on tokens, and use the AVs as you see fit in a megaturn. I don't think it would really happen though. We'll have to wait and see.

[PenPen]

Here's the last 3 cards.

Mortgage
$3 - Treasure
Set aside a Victory card from your hand. This card is worth half the cost of that card (rounded up) in $, otherwise this is worth $0.
--
During your buy phase, you may buy any set aside Victory card at half its cost (rounded up) in $, you do not need to play this card to buy it.
--
When the game ends, any Victory cards that are still set aside by this card are not returned to your deck.
--
(Rules clarification: Getting back the Victory card works like buying it from supply, it uses a buy and you put it into the discard pile. You can just buy any Victory card you choose, provided that you can afford it and have enough buys. You can use multiple buys to gain as many Victory cards. You can put Vineyard aside, but it'll give you $0, and you can buy it back at $0.)

This is my favorite card that I've made so far. It is based on a real-life concept and made into a card (however I doubt there's mortgaging in the medieval era). But actually in retrospect I was probably thinking more in line of Monopoly's mortgage, you do the mortgage on something you own to the bank to get some quick cash.

It was pretty wordy though. The card, if you have a Province can worth up to $4 once you mortgage that, which is pretty swell for a $3 card. It also has an Island-ish effect where you can take out the useless victory cards. The other concept is if you put the victory card on mortgage, you need to buy them back because well, they're currently held by the bank.

I had trouble in how to make the buyback work though. I originally made this a choice thing sort of like Native Village, you can choose to buy the card back. But that would seriously hinder the chances of getting all your Victory cards back to your deck before the game ends. So I just think maybe it's better to have these set aside cards as your personal set-aside pile that you can buy as if they're from supply.

What I have below is a redesign of the theme in another type of mortgage: You buy a house, but the bank pays for you first, and you pay them back eventually.

Mortgage
$3 - Treasure
Worth $1.
You may buy a Victory card at half its cost (rounded up) in $. If you gain a Victory card that way, put the card on your Mortgage mat.
--
During your buy phase, you may buy a Victory card on your Mortgage mat at half its cost (rounded up) in $, you do not need to play this card to buy it.
--
When the game ends, any Victory cards that are still set aside by this card are not returned to your deck.

I think I still like the original one, to be honest.

Poseur
$2 - Action
+1 Buy
All players (including you) reveal a card from their hand. All cards revealed this way cost $1 less this turn, but not less than $0.
--
If you did not buy any copies of the revealed cards, you may put this card on top of your deck.

Poseur was originally called "Wannabe" but it didn't fit the Dominion theme, so I had to look up online thesauruses to see what name would fit a little better. So Poseur was chosen.

The premise of this card is basically a limited Bridge where you can probably buy a card at a cheaper rate than someone else. But the most likely outcome is you're buying the card you showed, because other players are going to show you crap cards like Copper, Curse, Estate etc. That's fine, it's why the card is worth $2. The card originally didn't have the last clause of returning to deck, but at the last minute I added that, because it was pretty weak otherwise.

As stated in the thread this card is probably better served if a +$1 would be put in, however it's probably too similar to the normal Bridge that way. I was thinking that revealing the top card of deck would be better, but I can't tell if it would be too swingy, however this would prevent other players from showing you a crap card:

Poseur
$2 - Action
+1 Buy
All players (including you) reveal the top card from their deck. All cards revealed this way cost $1 less this turn, but not less than $0.
--
If you did not buy any copies of the revealed cards, you may put this card on top of your deck.

If I can luck into a Gold or a Province using this it would be pretty cool. But I don't think there's any way you'd build a deck revolving around this card though.

Village Idiot
$2 - Action-Reaction
+2 Actions
--
When another player plays a card with the wording "+2 Actions" you may set this card aside from your hand. If you do, at the start of your next turn, return this card to your hand and +1 Card.

The last card in the contest is a joke entry just for lols. This is essentially a Village, but a reactionary one. You can't play this by itself, it would be crap. But once someone started a village, you can show this and it becomes a Village! Hooray!

As originally designed, it was a lot more wild. It's just a village normally, but if you play this, the reaction allows you to search your deck for all other copies of this card and play them immediately without using any actions. But there's no +Cards for this particular version, so it'd be like getting half a dozen Necropolises on your hand. That kind of sucked (and it was pretty mad).

So instead of 'fixing' that up I'd offer an alternate version as below for additional fun.

Horse Village
$2 - Action-Reaction
+2 Actions
+$1
--
When another player plays a card with at least 1 horse in the drawing, you may set this card aside from your hand. If you do, at the start of your next turn, return this card to your hand and +1 Card.

And that's all from me here. Enjoy finding cards that combos with horses!