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[Robz888]

Emerald
$4 - Treasure

Reveal your hand. This is worth $1 per Victory card in your hand.
--
While this is in play, when you buy a Victory card, you may gain an Emerald.


There was a decent discussion surrounding my second-place submission to the Treasure Card challenge in rinkworks' fan contest, above. I'm not really sure I want to change it at all though, for the Runner-Up challenge. I am mildly convinced that $4 is the right price. At $5... well, this card has the potential to do absolutely nothing for you, if you don't have Victory cards in hand, so I think I would have to give it an automatic $1, or maybe a +1 buy to justify that. And I don't really want to do that, since there are a lot of +buy cards in the set already, and my card would start to just look like a version of Contraband/Cache/Royal Seal/Stash.

I like the on-buy aspect, mainly because I like the similar question raised when you buy a Duchy with Duchess present, "Is another one of these good for my deck? What about another another one?" I was a little conflicted on whether it should be on-buy or on-gain, and settled for on-buy, to prevent abuse with Ironworks/Gardens, essentially. In a similar vein, I wondered if I should limit it to a certain subset of Victory cards, either just Provinces/Colonies, or only cards costing less than Province.

Thoughts?

[AJD]

Emerald
$4 - Treasure

Reveal your hand. This is worth $1 per Victory card in your hand.
--
While this is in play, when you buy a Victory card, you may gain an Emerald.


There was a decent discussion surrounding my second-place submission to the Treasure Card challenge in rinkworks' fan contest, above. I'm not really sure I want to change it at all though, for the Runner-Up challenge. I am mildly convinced that $4 is the right price.

$4 even seems a little high for this. Consider, roughly, that Emerald : Secret Chamber :: Crossroads : Cellar. Secret Chamber, Crossroads, and Cellar are all $2 cards; is this so much better than Secret Chamber (which in many hands it will often be weaker than) as to cost $2 more?

[Robz888]

Emerald
$4 - Treasure

Reveal your hand. This is worth $1 per Victory card in your hand.
--
While this is in play, when you buy a Victory card, you may gain an Emerald.


There was a decent discussion surrounding my second-place submission to the Treasure Card challenge in rinkworks' fan contest, above. I'm not really sure I want to change it at all though, for the Runner-Up challenge. I am mildly convinced that $4 is the right price.

$4 even seems a little high for this. Consider, roughly, that Emerald : Secret Chamber :: Crossroads : Cellar. Secret Chamber, Crossroads, and Cellar are all $2 cards; is this so much better than Secret Chamber (which in many hands it will often be weaker than) as to cost $2 more?

That's a good point. I think the reason it needs to cost more than these other cards is that it as a Treasure, instead of an Action, it's much easier to take advantage of it after you play something like Smithy. If you're greening, and playing hand-size increasers, this is a very cheap Gold, maybe more, sometimes less. I see your point, but I'm conflicted, since other people thought it should cost more (which I don't think).

[ednever]

I had a similar thought.

If it really is worth $4 then presumably it is worth more the more you green. In which case it should always be a no-brainer to pick it up for free while you are greening.

Another way to look at it:

At the start of the game your deck is 30% green. Which means if you bought it and it replaced an copper, it produces an average of $1.5. In reality you pick up two non-green on your first turn, so it's worth less than than.

Not only that it gives you money when you have low money. The opposite of the variance you normally want. (lots of exceptions- specifically alt vp strategies)


So generally a really weak card that makes vo rushes a lot more powerful (due to the on buy)


But it also becomes super powerful in some specific engines. If you can build a draw your deck with +buy it let's you generate more money as you green - potentially a lot more money. it may not be an issue - the greening and the extra treasure may eliminate the ability to draw your deck, but it should definitely be play tested with particular kingdoms...

Just some thoughts. Sorry I don't have specific answers.

Ed

[AJD]

(By the way, "Emerald" is a great name for this card.)

[theory]

What if you changed it up so it counted +$1 for each card in your hand, then discard your hand?  But keep it as a Treasure.  A Secret Chamber-Treasure type card.

[Robz888]

What if you changed it up so it counted +$1 for each card in your hand, then discard your hand?  But keep it as a Treasure.  A Secret Chamber-Treasure type card.

That would make Emerald/Tunnel a thing. A really good thing. Interesting. I don't know though, I kind of liked the fact that mutliples of this are good (like Crossroads), but not crazy good, because every Emerald in hand is taking upa  space that you may rather have occupied by a Victory card, or just some regular Treasure, depending on how many VCs you have.

[One Armed Man]

What if you changed it up so it counted +$1 for each card in your hand, then discard your hand?  But keep it as a Treasure.  A Secret Chamber-Treasure type card.

What about Counterfeit?  Are there any other cards that require you play treasures? The situations where you have 2 emeralds, a copper, and 2 duchies, you would definitely want to play both emeralds. I think the Emerald you showed should cost $3. There is a lack of good $3 treasures.

Edit: I think you ninja edited your post, theory.

[Robz888]

A $3 Treasure is essentially getting stared down by an angry pile of Silvers who say, "You want to make something of it, punk?"

But perhaps you're right. I think there are enough situations where Emerald would be worse, and then better, than Silver. And you can gain it.

[theory]

Yeah, you could rephrase it to, +$1 per card in hand, you can't play any more Treasures other than Emeralds.  But "can't" is such a dangerous word.  I can't imagine any conflict with existing cards though.

If you want to get really wacky, you could phrase it as:

When you play this, also play every other copy of Emerald in your hand.

Each Emerald is worth $1 per card remaining in your hand.  Then discard your hand.

[One Armed Man]

Yeah, you could rephrase it to, +$1 per card in hand, you can't play any more Treasures other than Emeralds.  But "can't" is such a dangerous word.  I can't imagine any conflict with existing cards though.

Are you a time traveller? Am I?

What about Counterfeit?  Are there any other cards that require you play treasures? It limits you on Horn of Plenty and Bank, I guess...

[theory]

It's cause when I edit posts, I don't get an edit timestamp

[Dsell]

I think this really really does not work for $3. $4 seems decent as written and is probably the final price to shoot for.

The thing is, I know it was built for alt-vp situations but it's pretty fantastic with strong engines too. If you can draw your deck without trashing your starting estates this thing is a cheap gold, and it only gets better from there. Throw in dual-vp cards or start greening and you're off to the races.

Edit: I love the name too. Perfect for the theme.

[theory]

Come to think of it, I rather like the "play all copies of X from your hand, then do something based on cards remaining in your hand" mechanic.  But it might be a little crazy here.  Smithy-BM with Emerald: Smithy, then play two Emeralds and bam, they are $5 each.

[One Armed Man]

I think this really really does not work for $3. $4 seems decent as written and is probably the final price to shoot for.

The thing is, I know it was built for alt-vp situations but it's pretty fantastic with strong engines too. If you can draw your deck without trashing your starting estates this thing is a cheap gold, and it only gets better from there. Throw in dual-vp cards or start greening and you're off to the races.

Edit: I love the name too. Perfect for the theme.

Just because a card is good in a situation doesn't make it not a $3 card. A double opening of this is fine. There are some boards where it is worth the same as a gold in certain situations, but if you haven't gone off yet, it is a Silver or Copper or nothing. Crossroads starts out as a +3 actions, and gives you +1 card for each Victory card. You can play it in the middle of your turn so that you can still play Island, Great Hall, or Nobles later. +1 card is arguably better because it stacks with itself. When you play the third one of that in a turn, it was like it was always a +1 action card. Most of the time, Crossroads is better, so I think Emerald shouldn't cost much more, if more at all.

[Dsell]

I think this really really does not work for $3. $4 seems decent as written and is probably the final price to shoot for.

The thing is, I know it was built for alt-vp situations but it's pretty fantastic with strong engines too. If you can draw your deck without trashing your starting estates this thing is a cheap gold, and it only gets better from there. Throw in dual-vp cards or start greening and you're off to the races.

Edit: I love the name too. Perfect for the theme.

Just because a card is good in a situation doesn't make it not a $3 card. A double opening of this is fine. There are some boards where it is worth the same as a gold in certain situations, but if you haven't gone off yet, it is a Silver or Copper or nothing. Crossroads starts out as a +3 actions, and gives you +1 card for each Victory card. You can play it in the middle of your turn so that you can still play Island, Great Hall, or Nobles later. +1 card is arguably better because it stacks with itself. When you play the third one of that in a turn, it was like it was always a +1 action card. Most of the time, Crossroads is better, so I think Emerald shouldn't cost much more, if more at all.

In this case it has very little to do with an opening, I think, because opening with this is almost always going to be a bad idea. I think at $3 it's both too favorable to silver (in nearly any situation where you even might want an emerald) and too easy to pick up a bunch of them.

Edit: I'm just now realizing that this doesn't work with most dual-victory cards since they'd already be in play. So I guess that makes it a bit weaker. It might be a cool twist to have it count victory cards in play too!

[Archetype]

I've created a card similar to this. It's pretty cool, but pretty swingy. When it's good, it's really good, but when it's bad it's really bad

I'd leave the pricing how it is, and change the bottom half to 'In games using this, when you gain a Victory card, you may also gain an Emerald'

[Drab Emordnilap]

What about this wording:

"When you play this, discard your hand. +$1 per non-Emerald card discarded. For each copy of Emerald discarded this way, +$1 card per non-Emerald card discarded."

'non-Emerald card' should probably actually read 'card other than a copy of Emerald', but that's so many words

[Robz888]

Now I don't know what to do with it!

[RichardNixon]

I was a little conflicted on whether it should be on-buy or on-gain, and settled for on-buy, to prevent abuse with Ironworks/Gardens, essentially.

Since the emerald must be in play, would this ever come up without black market?

[SirPeebles]

Perhaps Emeralds could help you acquire more green cards.  Something like "While in play, all Victory cards costs $1 less (but not less than $0).  Won't help with vineyards, but oh well.

[Powerman]

What about something like:

Emerald
$5 - Treasure/Victory

1 VP
Reveal your hand. This is worth $1 per Victory card in your hand.
--
While this is in play, when you buy a Victory card, you may gain an Emerald.

This way it combos more with itself.  But it's definitely to strong for 4, but I think 5 would work.

[popsofctown]

Why does Emerald use an in play clause instead of an in game clause a la duchess?