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[WanderingWinder]

So... I still don't think Fool's Gold is all that great on average, BUT I just played a game where I got a 5/2 open and council room and tactician were both on the board. 7 provinces in 11 turns. But that's a great board with a great draw.

[Zaphod]

In <a href="http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/14/game-20111014-113509-325ebe5e.html">this game</a> I found Fool's Gold makes a very good Remodel target for Copper.

Remodel/Fool's Gold has some potential as a combo...Remodel Coppers into Fool's Gold, convert them to Gold when your opponent buys a Province, Remodel the Gold into a Province.

[biopower]

Third of the previews are out at bgg.

Mandarin - $5
Action

+$3

Put a card from your hand on top of your deck.
---
When you gain this, put all treasures you have in play on top of your deck in any order.


Crossroads - $2
Action

Reveal your hand. +1 Card per Victory card revealed. If this is the first time you played a Crossroads this turn, +3 Actions.


Donald suggests some hijinks with Mandarin like buying a bunch with a 5/2, as the opening coppers have to be placed back on deck. Interesting to see how opening Mandarin/Fool's Gold/(another $5 card) plays out. Crossroads seems interesting as the only +3 Actions card (excepting fishing villages), but it's only redeemable as a village once. Donald called it a cellar for victory cards that leaves them in your hand; it might be decent in gardens decks because they are filled with junk, or possibly in Duke/Duchy games, or possibly as a neat card for late game drawing with an extra $2 and an extra buy.

[chwhite]

Crossroads is neat.  +3 Actions!  But only once.  I'm willing to bet it's more situational than it looks, but sometimes it's going to be incredible.

Mandarin... what?  Really?  The when-gain condition looks like it's going to be a huge disadvantage most of the time (yay, I'm going to slow my deck down Ghost Ship-style for terminal treasure!), and the Courtyard effect ain't no great shakes either.  Maybe it has combo potential I'm not seeing, but man this card looks Explorer-level bad on so many levels.  Opening Mandarin on a 5/2 seems to me that it just has to always be a recipe for losing, because then you're a full turn behind the opening reshuffle: if there's another good $5 you want, why not just get it and play it faster?

[tlloyd]

I think Mandarin is going to be a high-skill card. Very easy to use in a counter-productive way, but powerful when used with some insight.

I don't know how powerful Crossroads is, but it is FUN! Definitely has the potential to shake up the common strategies.

Here's a game with Mandarin and Crossroads (and Harem). http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201110/15/game-20111015-003946-c9907aaa.html

I happened to get a 2/5 opening, so I opened Crossroads/Mandarin mostly just to play out Donald's little scenario. Anyway, my plan was to grab a few crossroads and as many Harems as I could get. Unfortunately I kept hitting $5, so I just started grabbing duchies instead. Would you believe that turned out to be a winning strategy? I don't know that Mandarin helped all that much, although it was my primary source of money early on, and I did use it to put green cards back on my deck for the crossroads. Like I said...fun.

[Zaphod]

Mandarin could make for a wicked opener, if another good 5-coin card like Laboratory is in the set.  Like Courtyard, it would be useful in some sets where you really want two cards to show up in the same hand, as you can push one card from this hand to the next.  I can see situations where you might buy it just to use the acquisition power, perhaps to carry that Platinum over to the next hand, or to make those Coppers miss the next shuffle.

Crossroads looks like a card that works with a deck bloated with Victory cards, or with Victory cards in the kingdom (especially Nobles).  You may want to go for Duchies earlier than usual if you have a few of these.  Gardens and Dukes would no longer get in your way.  Playing multiple Crossroads in the same turn, using the same Victory cards to draw more cards, is intriguing.  No doubt the card's rules for + actions is there in part to keep you from buying out the stack and drawing your entire hand every turn.

Both of these probably have to be played a few times before we can understand their true power.  It's remarkable that, after so many expansions, Dominion can continue to redefine how we look at the game.  I guess that's why it's so much fun.

[rspeer]

Crossroads seems to require carefully balancing your mix of Crossroads, victory cards, and treasure, but it's remarkably effective when you do.

By spamming Crossroads, I just won a Colony game where my opponent got 8 of the Grand Markets.

[Kpratt]

Crossroads+Great Hall is downright filthy.

[rspeer]

In general, I love how these cards are expanding the space of possible openings. I can't wait to see a new version of CouncilRoom's best/worst openings list, with "opening" redefined to mean "everything you buy before your first shuffle". If it weren't too early to have enough data, I'd be tweaking and running it already.

I particularly would enjoy seeing how the Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/City opening stacks up on the list. Probably on the "worst openings" side, but I want to believe.

[jimjam]

Bgg:

salty53 wrote:
One use for Mandarin I would really like to pull off at some point: having the same Treasure card generate coin multiple times in one turn.

"Horn of Plenty, gain Border Village, gain Mandarin, stack Horn of Plenty. Venture, Horn of Plenty, gain Border Village, gain Mandarin, stack Venture and Horn of Plenty. Venture, Venture, Horn of Plenty, gain Border Village, gain Mandarin, stack 2 Ventures and Horn of Plenty. Venture, Venture, Venture, Horn of Plenty..."

This is not efficient at all and would definitely not be worth setting up. It still sounds really cool.


FTFY

Just to add another level of unlikely ridiculousness...
this would be insane if one also had diadem and a bunch of actions.

[def]

Hm, Crossroads with Nobles and Great Halls is crazy, but as tllloyd's game proves, it works well with normal Victory Cards, too. Just look at turn 17:

— tlloyd's turn 17 —
tlloyd plays a Crossroads.
... tlloyd reveals an Estate, 2 Duchies, and a Crossroads.
... drawing 3 cards and getting +3 actions.
tlloyd plays a Crossroads.
... tlloyd reveals an Estate, a Crossroads, 2 Duchies, and 2 Coppers.
... drawing 3 cards.
tlloyd plays a Crossroads.
... tlloyd reveals an Estate, a Crossroads, a Province, 2 Duchies, and 3 Coppers.
... (tlloyd reshuffles.)
... drawing 4 cards.
tlloyd plays a Crossroads.
... tlloyd reveals 2 Estates, a Mandarin, a Province, 3 Duchies, and 4 Coppers.
... drawing 6 cards.

So, it looks like there are many cards which are mediocre in many situations but can go totally crazy given the right circumstances and a good player jugding them right.
Looks promising.

[paulbaxter]

Crossroads-Torturer  is a nice combo.

[play2draw]

First, for those who don't know (I didn't, and I've been studying Mandarin), from Wikipedia:

The English word "mandarin" (from Portuguese mandarim, from Malay, from Hindi mantri, from Sanskrit mantrin, meaning "minister or counselor"), originally meant an official of the Chinese empire. As their home dialects were varied and often mutually unintelligible, these officials communicated using a koiné based on various northern dialects. When Jesuit missionaries learned this standard language in the 16th century, they called it Mandarin, from its Chinese name Guānhuŕ (官话/官話), or "language of the officials".

So it's essentially a Chinese bureaucrat, which is a good fit for the card considering you're putting treasures on top of your deck (albeit your own treasures). This card would be amazing in a deck with Minion, a Village and some form of +Buy... but I suspect there will be difficulty in getting all the parts to work together quickly enough. Border Village will speed up development of such a deck tremendously (and perhaps that +buy can be from a Nomad Camp). I love how it messes with the 5/2 opening. The "put a card back on top of the deck" ability is genuinely useful when your Mandarins start clashing. I'm still not quite sure what to make of it.

I initially misread Crossroads; I thought it said that you had to discard the victory cards, and thought it was meh. Since you don't discard them, it looks like quite the game-warping card, as it promotes buying points earlier. This might be the card Baron needed, as taking that Estate doesn't seem so bad and it helps guarantee the card hits an Estate. Matches well with Tournament/Followers or really any card that intends on doing stuff with the Victory cards in your hand.

I definitely agree with Axe Knight now; this really is looking more and more like the thinking-person's expansion.

[tlloyd]

I think Crossroads/Baron has some serious potential. Even if you draw the infamous Baron, Copper x4 hand on turn three, play the Baron to gain an estate, then buy two more crossroads or estates.

[philosophyguy]

So if you have $10 and 2 buys, you can use Mandarin to put your Treasurers on top of your deck and then buy a Mint without the trashing penalty?

[mischiefmaker]

Ironworks/Great Hall/Crossroads: Um, yes please.

[ChaosRed]

Yeah seems to me Great Hall and Crossroads work well together. Also any Gardens deck really benefits from Crossroads and Border Village. I am curious what alternate victory conditions are unveiled.

Mandarin is cool, it is strongest during certain windows. One gold, one silver and the rest is cak, means a purchase of Mandarin ensures a Province next round, as well as replacing one of your "next turn" cards back on top.

These cards are fun, well done.

[Amaranth]

I particularly would enjoy seeing how the Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/Mandarin/City opening stacks up on the list. Probably on the "worst openings" side, but I want to believe.

Sounds terrible, though Mandarin looks awesome in a Scrying Pool deck. Well, having Mandarins looks awesome. Buying them seems like a bit of a bear.

[def]

These cards are so fun!
So many great synergies.

— johnstuartkill's turn 8 —
  johnstuartkill plays a Witch.
   ... drawing 2 cards.
   ... def gains a Curse.
   ... ... def reveals a Trader to gain a Silver instead.
   ... ... def gains a Silver.
   ... ... ... revealing a Watchtower.
   ... ... ... putting the Silver on the deck.

or

def plays an Upgrade.
... drawing 1 card and getting +1 action.
... trashing a Witch.
... gaining a Border Village.
... ... revealing a Watchtower.
... ... putting the Border Village on the deck.
... ... gaining a Salvager.
... ... ... revealing a Watchtower.
... ... ... putting the Salvager on the deck.
def plays a Watchtower.
... drawing 3 cards.

and so on.

[philosophyguy]

Border Village + Apothecary will make for a really interesting engine deck. While Border Village is obviously useful for engines, it's hard to both get the critical density of actions you need for the engine (which is usually done with trashing). Apothecary, however, gets you the critical density (by sucking up your Coppers) while actually improving your buying power. So, I expect to see some wicked-fast engine building when that combo is on the table.

[Zaphod]

So, if a player buys a Mandarin and a Mint in the same turn, does he choose whether his treasure cards are trashed or placed atop the draw pile?  I assume it's all or nothing...he couldn't choose to trash his Coppers and put his Gold on the draw pile.  Perhaps it's a matter of which card he buys first?

[Qvist]

Good question. I think it's a matter of order.

If he buys a Mint first, he trashes his treasure cards and has no cards to put on his deck as he buys a Mandarin.
If he buys a Mandarin first, he puts his treasure cards on top of his deck and can trash no cards as he buys a Mint.

[guided]

Perhaps it's a matter of which card he buys first?

Well, traditionally you resolve effects in the order they actually occur, so yes perhaps

[jsh357]

the 10 Mandarin stack might work in a Vineyard deck, since it would get you all those actions and you could also return Potions to the top of the deck.  Sounds pretty gimmicky, but it could be a neat spoiler strategy.

[SquashMonster]

So, I don't think this is fantastic, but I found this setup pretty amusing -

0. Board contains Contraband, Mandarin, Border Village, and is a Prosperity game.
1. Somehow get a hand containing 17 or more money from treasures from at most five cards, one of which must be Contraband. (e.g. three Platinum and a Contraband)
2. Buy Colony and Mandarin, use Mandarin to put all the money you need back onto the deck.
3. If your opponent banned Colony, instead get Province
4. If your opponent banned Mandarin, instead get Border Village... then use it to gain a Mandarin, which lets you put your money back onto the deck.

Pretty simple, stable setup for a guaranteed Province or Colony buy per turn that never stops.  Crumbles if your opponent plays something that makes you discard, though.


Also, I think all of these "when you gain this card" effects will be very entertaining with Masquerade.