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[Jack Rudd]

For some reason, designing a well-balanced Curse attack at 4$ is really hard for me.

That's because Curse attacks are very strong, and usually too strong to work at $4. The two $4 Curse attacks we already have, Sea Hag and Young Witch, both have severe vulnerabilities: Sea Hag grants no benefit to the Attacker and puts the Curse on the deck, where it can be dealt with by Upgrade, Lookout or Masquerade. Young Witch requires you to put a Moat-substitute in the game, in addition to any other defences the victim may have.

[ChaosRed]

Yeah agreed, but I feel both Young Witch and Sea Hag are both very strong cards though. I usually always buy them when they are on the board.

[jonts26]

Sea Hag grants no benefit to the Attacker and puts the Curse on the deck, where it can be dealt with by Upgrade, Lookout or Masquerade.

Putting the curse on top of the deck typically increases the severity of the attack. It is only preferable for the attackee when there are a very select few kingdom cards present, three of which you mentioned.

[Newcomer]

Hmmm... These variants make me think there's a good hybrid somewhere between them that would work better, but I'm not sure what it is.

Shyster 1

I like the VP bonus, and I think tying it to a card that trashes and deals out Curses is good, because it encourages the depletion of piles.  I think this is my favorite version.

Shyster 2

I think this version is way too weak for the player. Sea Hag works at $4 with no benefit to the player, but as a curser this compounds that problem by requiring you to discard Silver. I know you have some other cards in the set that trigger on discard, but typically this means -$2 is all the player gets out of it. If you're not going to be cursing, then there's no point to playing Shyster for the +Action unless you're activating Conspirators or something like that. In order to make this a non-terminal Curser, you have to discard $4, which is a lot of coin, especially since a Silver-centric deck will be light on Golds. Also consider that it will be very hard to chain when you have to discard 2 cards each time in order to keep the chain going. Your hand's only so big, and if your deck is mostly Silver, you won't have tons of card-drawing.

I would consider tying the two options together, as in, "You may discard a Silver. If you do, +1 Action and each other player gains a Curse." I'm not sure quite how strong that is, though.

Shyster 3

My first impression is that this card isn't all that great. It's a one-card trasher that attacks your opponents when you can trash your Estates and Coppers. Silvers are a relatively neutral card, but every time you trash one, that's $2 less you have to spend that turn. So I don't see it as brokenly powerful even without the gain effect.

But I don't think I have a very good idea of how it would play, so take that with several grains of salt. It might very well be as strong as you suspect.


In the end, I guess my main thought is by trashing or discarding Silver, you're hurting your current hand, so the benefit needs to be real. When you play Shyster, you'll go from being able to afford a Gold or a $5 Action to settling for a $4 Action or a Silver. The Silvers can keep the Shyster going, but it's not getting you closer to buying a Province.  Most Attack cards give a benefit to the player other than the attack on the opponents, usually +$2 or +2 Cards. Trashing cards can be a benefit, but trashing Silvers is usually not. So I like Shyster 1 best with its VP bonus.

I like the flavor of the card. I hope it ends up as a good, balanced card. You can certainly play-test with more than one version before deciding which one to include.

[ChaosRed]

Newcomer and Jack, thanks for your feedback. I moved Rummage to beta-testing, but killed another 4-attack card based on last night's testing.

I really want two 4-cost attacks in the game, so I will keep at it until I get it right. Here are two new 4-cost attack cards. One is a Shyster variant, another is an entirely new 4-cost attack, that's kind of like Swindler. I am hopeless in getting balanced attacks right, so please do feel free to criticize. I find attack cards are the hardest to design:


If you didn't see in this thread, we played this expansion for hours last night and had a ball. This is why some 4s are being revisited (or outright removed and replaced). On aggregate though, the expansion was a LOT of fun to play and produced very tight, compelling games.

Shyster breaks two of rinkwork's guidelines, it's a non-terminal source of VP and a non-terminal  Curse attack. However, I think given the price for both the Curse attack and the +1 Action is steep, I might have gotten away with it.

[Biderman]

Ravage seems strange to me. It basically will mill out the Estate pile? I can't see it having any other effect, besides trading coppers for curses if the opp is unlucky. I can't imagine that any 2 cost is worse than having an estate.

[ChaosRed]

Ravage seems strange to me. It basically will mill out the Estate pile? I can't see it having any other effect, besides trading coppers for curses if the opp is unlucky. I can't imagine that any 2 cost is worse than having an estate.

Yeah, it turns coppers into curses and villages into some other action card worth 3 or a silver or pawns into estates. It was initially set at 4 or less, it might need to go back to that.

One thing to factor though is you lose the card in your hand and it gets replaced with a card in the discard pile. So you can, for example take two dollars out of someone's hand and replace it with a  Chancellor in the discard pile. But I do think it might need to bump up to 4.

[ChaosRed]

You are right, Ravager needs more juice here's the latest revision:


It now punishes a strong hand with a discard, or a weak hand by eliminating a card from and making him gain one of same cost. Not the greatest card, a Swindler-derivative that removes cards from people's hands.

[Newcomer]

Re: Shyster and rinkworks's guide. I think the biggest problem with +VP cards is when you can just indefinitely gain VP instead of buying cards, and end up in a state where neither player wants to end the game. You can't go on indefinitely with Shyster, because, like Bishop, you have to trash a card in order to gain VP. Eventually, you'll run out of cards. As for the curse attack, I agree, I think you've made it hard enough to activate that it's probably okay. I like this version.

Here's how I would word Ravage:

[note: I originally wrote this out before your last revision but didn't send it right away. I think it still more or less applies, though.]

"Each other player trashes a card costing $3 [now $4] or less and gains a card with the same cost that you choose, or reveals a hand with no such cards."

As for my thoughts on it. Compare to Swindler: "+$2. Each other player trashes the top card of his deck and gains a card with the same cost that you choose." Swindler costs $3, gives you +$2, and is not limited to cards costing $3 or less. Since you're trashing from their hand, Ravage is also a weak hand-reducing attack. Weak because you're most likely to hit Estates, Coppers, or Curses, and Coppers are the only ones you want to keep in your hand usually. Ravage is also more likely to turn a Copper into a Curse. But a) if they have more than one cheap card, they get to choose which card they lose, and b) while Swindler will always hit a card, Ravage won't.

So my thoughts are that this is probably weaker than Swindler. I'd add a benefit to the player. That can be +$2 or something else. I think the card will work with that edit. Its attack seems like a weak Swindler and a weak Militia combined, so I think $4 will still work.

[ChaosRed]

Superb change of the wording, thanks! And I'll move Shyster to beta-testing.

Here's a more radical change to Ravage, and once again my inability to design attack cards continues, I'll keep at it:

[biopower]

3 or more means that a person with three cards in hand has to discard down to 2 which is ridiculously good when chained or in combination with any other discard-down-to-3 card (it will prevent BM from ever buying Province...)

[ChaosRed]

3 or more means that a person with three cards in hand has to discard down to 2 which is ridiculously good when chained or in combination with any other discard-down-to-3 card (it will prevent BM from ever buying Province...)

Yeah, that was part of the appeal, but when you point it out, I realize its too strong. I change it to four:



What do you think now?

[Jack Rudd]

...or he gains a copy of the discarded card.

Tunnel looks like quite a strong counter to this one.

[ChaosRed]

...or he gains a copy of the discarded card.

Tunnel looks like quite a strong counter to this one.

Fixed, thanks Jack! And yeah, Tunnel kick's this cards ass if its in your hand.

[ChaosRed]

Moved Ravage to beta-testing (I hope to beta-test it later this week). The card has just four cards left to peer review. Here are the next two:


The Architect is fairly unspectacular,  one of those cards that has a lot of options, all of them fine, but none of them amazing. It works best when it can work with cards that do something when discarded, or you are running a "Gardens" type deck and turning Victories into Cantrip is somewhat useful, (although the overall effect is card negative of course). It's useful in Silver Vein decks, because a lot of times you want to get rid of Silver anyway (because you often don't want to play them, just collect them).

The Black Knight might be broken. I modeled it after IGG obviously. Initially the Curse effect came when you trashed it, (which was kind of fun), but seeing how fun IGG was, I made this variant of it. Since IGG is costed so high though, I wonder if testing will reveal this card should actually be worth 6? I wanted a fun card, where it doesn't do a whole lot, but ruin other people's hands and then you mostly want to get rid of it afterward, being rewarded when you do.

[Biderman]

I fear Ravage is now more powerful than Jester, and cheaper.

What if it was simply: Each opponent trashes a card from there hand and gains a card costing the same of your choice.

I like Black Night, but I would reword it as: "When you trash this"

[ChaosRed]

I was hoping it wouldn't be as strong as Jester, because the opponent gets to chose which card to let go. Essentially the trick to Ravage is to pick a fairly neutral card (silver), or pick one that goes contrary to the engine of your opponent (but would benefit yours). With Jester, you not only have a danger of a Curse, but you often have to watch as a Province goes into your attacker's hand while you gain that Curse.

It's an important point you make though, is losing a card in your hand, more severe than a random copy/gain attack on top of the deck? Perhaps Ravage is worth 5? That is something I am open to. I like the idea of a trash/swindle combination, that's something I need to consider.

Thank you for improving the wording on Black Knight! I'll make that adjustment and post it up tomorrow

[Biderman]

Ah, for some reason I thought you added the words"at random" before "reveals"... That would actually be a stronger Jester.

As is, its an interesting idea, though it might be a little too strong at 4, but it's not bad.

[Deadlock39]

Jester does not gain VP cards for the active player.  It only gives out the Curse.  It would be ridiculous if it could gain you a Province and Curse your opponent (or give them a Curse and an Estate).

[ChaosRed]

Jester does not gain VP cards for the active player.  It only gives out the Curse.  It would be ridiculous if it could gain you a Province and Curse your opponent (or give them a Curse and an Estate).

Yup quite right, still I think Jester is the stronger card, although I do concede that perhaps Ravage needs to be 5$...take a look, it needs to be bumped to 5$, don't you think?



Adjusted the Black Knight text, as per Biderman's suggestion...

[ChaosRed]

Moved the Black Knight and Architect to best testing and hope to beta test them later today.

Also one random utility I added for myself, was an online shuffler, to pick the board. It currently only supports this fan expansion, but will eventually support Base Set and other expansions. It's just written in VBScript, because I happen to have a small server that supports that (but not one that supports PHP or  .NET/C#). It allowed me however to write the silly thing rather fast, here it is:

Silver Lining Shuffler

A tad slow as the images load, but once your cache gets them all, it loads rather quickly. Chalk that up to a rather slow server on my end.

Also there's only 3 more cards to go, until I have a complete 25-card expansion! So I am very grateful to all of you for helping me reach the end-goal. Here's two more heavy-hitters, for the expansion, feel free to rip them apart, as I want the cards to be strong, but also balanced:


My syntax for Emporium is a bit clunky, essentially it sets a card aside (like Island) or you just discard the cards. One of the things coming up in play-testing the expansion (inter-set testing only), is that you can green up fast in Silver Lining, as there are lots of ways to mitigate the green cards in your deck. So Emporium was changed to be compatible with the theme. One early version, let you keep one of the cards, if you put the other aside. Interesting I thought, as you might put a card you kinda like aside, just to get another you need in the later rounds. I worried it was too strong though.

Also some of the more dead cards in the set, might get revised with a discard-reaction (like Tunnel but with different gains), so this complements that as well.

Argent I worry is too strong, but probably only inter-set, (where racing to buy/acquire silver is a large part of the game). But provides superb synergy with the overall expansion, so I want something like it, so feel free to critique so it is balanced, but still compatible with the overall expansion.

[Biderman]

Very cool cards! I think Ravage is indeed too strong at 4, but wasn't the point of it to have a second 4 cost attack?

Love Argent. Perfect.

Emporium could be reworded as:

Look at the top 2 cards of your deck. You may place one of them on your Emporium mat. Discard the rest.

[rinkworks]

Looks like two potentially solid cards here.  Emporium is an interesting mix of stuff, tough to predict exactly how it will play, or if it's priced right.  I think it's probably a good card, just not sure if it's a $5-cost or not.  Thinking it through:  If what you draw isn't anything you'd want to set aside, it kind of hurts.  "+2 Actions, +1 Buy" is only about a $2-cost card on its own.  Worse, if you didn't want to Island-away one of the two cards you drew, the cycling effect probably hurt you -- because you've probably just skipped over two cards you'd rather have had the chance to use.

If it hits, though, then it's pretty strong.  Every time you successfully Island-away a bad or unplayable card, it's kind of like adding an invisible Laboratory to your deck.  So obviously a card that lets you add an invisible Laboratory to your deck every time you play it is huge.  Are those vanilla bonuses enough compensation for the fact that it will miss sometimes?  Not sure.

It may turn out to be a situational card:  an outright bad buy in high-quality decks, but a strong one to add to a weak deck.  It's probably nice in rush strategies and cursing-without-trashing games, for example.  Probably great with Hoard.  If this is indeed how it turns out, I'd say keep the card exactly as it is.  It's a good thing if it's not useful all the time.

Argent is a tough call.  You may have noticed that WW had a similar card in his Conquest set.  It was essentially the same card without the penalty and priced at $3.  I playtested that, and it turned out to be overpowered even as a $5 card.  But your version has an interesting penalty attached to it.  I'm not convinced it's enough -- because when you use this card at all, you're probably working as hard as you can to increase your Silver density anyhow, and if you're successful at that, the penalty won't matter.  But it's worth trying.  In particular, try benchmarking it in a BM+X strategy, experimenting with buying different numbers of copies before switching to pure money.

I'd also want to try it with key combos (Trader, in particular), not that a single strong combo is necessarily a game-breaker.

[ChaosRed]

Very cool cards! I think Ravage is indeed too strong at 4, but wasn't the point of it to have a second 4 cost attack?

Yeah it was what I wanted. When it was on the board last night, both my wife and I didn't touch it, we both knew it would be like starting nuclear war. I suspect it either needs to move to 5$, or have some kind of governor/tweak put on it. I need to test it and it will become apparent.

Look at the top 2 cards of your deck. You may place one of them on your Emporium mat. Discard the rest.

Thanks for this, I'll change it to something similar to this, this is much cleaner.

Looks like two potentially solid cards here.  Emporium is an interesting mix of stuff, tough to predict exactly how it will play, or if it's priced right.  I think it's probably a good card, just not sure if it's a $5-cost or not.  Thinking it through:  If what you draw isn't anything you'd want to set aside, it kind of hurts.  "+2 Actions, +1 Buy" is only about a $2-cost card on its own.  Worse, if you didn't want to Island-away one of the two cards you drew, the cycling effect probably hurt you -- because you've probably just skipped over two cards you'd rather have had the chance to use.

Yeah Emporium seems like a lottery card. It's meant to help mitigate the risk of greening early, as this has become an unintended theme of the set. But I think you are right, it might be pricey at 5, and I can move it down to 4, testing will help me figure that out, but I also think you are right that it is worth testing at 5. As you told me long ago, at some point its much better to just re-cost a card rather than rethink it as a specific price. I am learning through play-testing this is precisely correct. I am also learning you need to play with the cards quite a bit to get a real handle on their value. You've been invaluable in this small project of mine rink, I am much obliged. Your advice here and in your article about creating Variants, so far, has been right on.

Argent is a tough call.  You may have noticed that WW had a similar card in his Conquest set.  It was essentially the same card without the penalty and priced at $3.  I playtested that, and it turned out to be overpowered even as a $5 card.  But your version has an interesting penalty attached to it.  I'm not convinced it's enough -- because when you use this card at all, you're probably working as hard as you can to increase your Silver density anyhow, and if you're successful at that, the penalty won't matter.  But it's worth trying.  In particular, try benchmarking it in a BM+X strategy, experimenting with buying different numbers of copies before switching to pure money.

I suspect it is too strong too. And the nice thing about testing a BM+X strategy as you suggest, is I can test it on my own, by having the opponent follow a basic algorithm, similar to what Geronimoo sets up for his simulators.

So, testing will help me figure it out. I might have to add a discard penalty. The governor on it now, is absolutely necessary for it to work I think, but even then, this card can largely make gold irrelevant and the +buy enables you to buy two silver instead of one gold, knowing this card will push you where you need to go. That's the intention of the card obviously, but I wonder if it enables the tactic a little too easily? I'll test it, but I may have overdone the focus on silver. Too many of the card complement one another in the set, but are almost useless when mixed with other sets on their own.

And while that is poor design, perhaps that's not such a terrible thing for a noobish expansion. The set is fun to play on its own (my wife and I have had a ball playing it), but probably doesn't work nearly as well when combined with the whole pantheon of real Dominion.

It's been a great exercise and I'm nearly at the end of this phase of it, which has been fun.

[ChaosRed]

Last card! This is my one and only 6$ in the set and I've worried I've overdone it:



What do you think? Is it too much? I fear that it is. Initially the governor on it was you had to gain a Victory card costing 5 or less, which might be a way to tone it down.