Fool's Choice is a really, really intriguing idea, but the implementation bothers me. I thought about it for a while this morning before realizing why. I think it comes down to complexity -- complexity of the sort that will result in AP, both on the part of the player and on the part of the opponent sorting the piles.
Basically, the player of the card has two options to pick between: Put the "good" pile in hand and the "bad" pile in the discard, or put the "good" pile in the discard and the "bad" pile in the trash. See, even if the player is able to quickly determine which pile is the "good" pile, that doesn't necessarily also tell him anything about where either of the piles should go. But it might not even be that simple, because the ideal place for victory cards would be in the discard pile, and if that part of the decision is made easily, it's still not clear merely by process of elimination where the other pile should go. Complicating the picture is that this decision may need to be made differently based on whether or not the player has any spare actions left, allowing him to play any of the action cards he might pull into his hand, or if they'd be dead actions at that point. It's a slow decision and one that requires weighing a few different factors.
Moreover, if the decision for the player is going to be slow and complicated, this goes exponentially so for the opponent, who, if he is to play optimally, must anticipate what the player's decision will be
for all ways that the four cards may be separated into piles.
So here's what I suggest as a way to simplify the idea while hopefully retaining its gameplay value:
Fool's Choice
$4 - Action
+$2
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. The player to your left separates them into two piles [of at least one card each?]. Discard one of the piles and put the other on top of your deck in any order.
That's a much simpler decision. Good pile goes on deck. Bad pile gets discarded. Simple. Also, by not having "in hand" be one of the destinations, considerations of how many actions the player has left don't muddy the waters. I threw on a +$2 just so the player would get something on the present turn for playing the card (see also: Navigator), but this could be any number of alternative benefits instead.
If you're stuck on keeping it as a trasher of some sort, then I suggest this as a slightly more complex but still fairly simple version:
Fool's Choice
$4 - Action
+$2
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. The player to your left separates them into two piles [of at least one card each?]. Discard or trash one of the piles and put the other on top of your deck in any order.
As in your original, one of the piles gets a choice of destination, but at least it's clear, once one of the piles is identified as the "good" pile, where it will go. Thus, the decision of what to do with the "bad" pile can be made without having to take quite as many other factors into account.
Anyway, I think both of my versions (with the +$2 or comparable boon for the present turn) are $4 cards unless playtesting says otherwise. I suppose that means your version is probably a $4 card as well, although it's a lot harder to evaluate its power level at a glance.
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Church Bell...kind of dubious about this one. It seems very situational, as sometimes cleaning out $2- cards (Estates, Coppers, Curses, unneeded Chapels) is nice, sometimes (Pearl Diver, Pawn, Herbalist) close to neutral, and sometimes (still-needed Chapel, Hamlet, Lighthouse) devastating. This situationality isn't necessary a bad thing; I'm just thinking it through.
Also, I'm unclear as to whether one is supposed to trash ALL cards costing $2 or less or just one of them. I suppose just one of them, because if it trashed all of them it would be way overpowered for $4. [Edit: As ratxt1 beat me to explaining, I see.]
Even just trashing one $2- card, though, it may need to go to $5. Maybe not, but the reason I wonder is because of my experience with
this village card, which also draws a few cards from your deck, puts one in hand, and discards the rest. It turned out that that cherry-picked-cycling effect was vastly more powerful than I had anticipated, to the point where basically if I'm building any kind of village-based engine, that card, bar any of the official villages, is the best candidate for the job.
Now, your card is much weaker for not having any +actions, let alone 2. But it makes up for that by having trashing instead. And even though it only trashes one at a time, the cycling effect will cause it to be played more often -- almost doubly as often! -- which makes it a faster trasher than it first appears.
So if it were me, I'd probably start the playtesting at $5 and see how that felt. But, also if it were me, I think I'd probably remove the cost restrictions. That would make it more powerful still, but it would simplify the card quite a bit without changing its essential nature or potential.
