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[NoMoreFun]

I buy Margrave for the attack.

I usually do, but sometimes I just want the draw and the buy. It seems like Margrave without the attack would be a reasonable, if very boring, $5 card.

[Just a Rube]

Note that Margrave's attack is one of (the only?) attacks in the game that anti-stacks. That lets it get away with having a strong non-attack bit, b/c you are less happy to play a bunch of them in a row. I may draw up my entire deck, but I can pretty much guarantee that you will start your turn with everything you need for your engine to kick off as well.

Compare torturer, which would be vastly weaker without the +3 cards making it easy to set off a torturer chain.

[KingZog3]

Note that Margrave's attack is one of (the only?) attacks in the game that anti-stacks. That lets it get away with having a strong non-attack bit, b/c you are less happy to play a bunch of them in a row. I may draw up my entire deck, but I can pretty much guarantee that you will start your turn with everything you need for your engine to kick off as well.

Compare torturer, which would be vastly weaker without the +3 cards making it easy to set off a torturer chain.

It's not that it can get away with a strong top part. It's that you want to draw your deck, but you nullify your attack when you do. Giving it something else like +$2 and +buy would also probably be a $5 card, but in a way stronger, because it's harder to play a lot of them.

[Warfreak2]

It's not that it can get away with a strong top part. It's that you want to draw your deck, but you nullify your attack when you do. Giving it something else like +$2 and +buy would also probably be a $5 card, but in a way stronger, because it's harder to play a lot of them.

Without the +buy, that would be strictly worse than Militia; +1 buy isn't going to turn it into a $5 card.

[NoMoreFun]

Quick thought experiment:


The attacks, without attacks

Useless: Thief, Hag, Saboteur, Pirate Ship, Sir Michael
Awful: Noble Brigand, Familiar, Sir Vander, Sir Martin, Young Witch
Outclassed/Overpriced: Every other attack not mentioned including Spy (worse than ironmonger)
OK and unique: Bureaucrat, Pillage, Cultist, "Rogue" (really needs its attack to kickstart the non attack), Urchin/Mercenary
Possibly Worth Buying: Taxman, Oracle, Margrave
Strong Cards: Marauder, Scrying Pool, Minion, Soothsayer, Goons

[KingZog3]

It's not that it can get away with a strong top part. It's that you want to draw your deck, but you nullify your attack when you do. Giving it something else like +$2 and +buy would also probably be a $5 card, but in a way stronger, because it's harder to play a lot of them.

Without the +buy, that would be strictly worse than Militia; +1 buy isn't going to turn it into a $5 card.

Whatever, the point was the attack gets weak only because the top is +cards, meaning you play a lot of them.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Quick thought experiment:


The attacks, without attacks

Useless: Thief, Hag, Saboteur, Pirate Ship, Sir Michael
Awful: Noble Brigand, Familiar, Sir Vander, Sir Martin, Young Witch
Outclassed/Overpriced: Every other attack not mentioned including Spy (worse than ironmonger)
OK and unique: Bureaucrat, Pillage, Cultist, "Rogue" (really needs its attack to kickstart the non attack), Urchin/Mercenary
Possibly Worth Buying: Taxman, Oracle, Margrave
Strong Cards: Marauder, Scrying Pool, Minion, Soothsayer, Goons

Marauder and Soothsayer are not strong without the attack. Non-attacking Oracle and Margrave are likely better.

[SirPeebles]

Urchin belongs in Awful;  without attacks you could never gain a Mercenary.

[Powerman]

There are some changes I think would help out, but none very drastic:

Counting House: +1 Action / +1 Buy / You may gain a Copper (Not sure which of the three would be best)
Scout:  Change it to 5 cards, let it take in curses as well
Adventurer:  +1 Buy / Reveal 3 treasures, put 2 in your hand (Not sure which)
Transmute:  +1 Action
Thief:  If no opponent revealed a treasure, +$1.

[Warfreak2]

OK and unique: Bureaucrat, Pillage, Cultist, "Rogue" (really needs its attack to kickstart the non attack), Urchin/Mercenary

Cultist without the attack is just Laboratory with a nerf. Once the ruins are gone, you only buy Cultists if you already have a bunch of them to connect with, or to end the game.

[NoMoreFun]

OK and unique: Bureaucrat, Pillage, Cultist, "Rogue" (really needs its attack to kickstart the non attack), Urchin/Mercenary

Cultist without the attack is just Laboratory with a nerf. Once the ruins are gone, you only buy Cultists if you already have a bunch of them to connect with, or to end the game.

There's the on trash, which is why I put it in that category, but it is pretty much just a worse lab.

[NoMoreFun]

Marauder and Soothsayer are not strong without the attack. Non-attacking Oracle and Margrave are likely better.

Marauder is pretty much: Gain a dead card and a gold that misses a reshuffle. As long as you can keep playing the marauder it strikes me as a decent option for $4.

Soothsayer would be just "Gain a gold" for $5 (the CR effect is tied to the curse), which most certainly isn't weak and would be very cost appropriate.

I rarely use oracle, but non attacking oracle would hold up OK compared to the attacking version.
Non attacking Margrave is good but unremarkable.

[HiveMindEmulator]

Marauder and Soothsayer are not strong without the attack. Non-attacking Oracle and Margrave are likely better.

Marauder is pretty much: Gain a dead card and a gold that misses a reshuffle. As long as you can keep playing the marauder it strikes me as a decent option for $4.

Soothsayer would be just "Gain a gold" for $5 (the CR effect is tied to the curse), which most certainly isn't weak and would be very cost appropriate.

I rarely use oracle, but non attacking oracle would hold up OK compared to the attacking version.
Non attacking Margrave is good but unremarkable.

Soothsayer without the attack would be $5 and be okay for adding money to your deck. But it wouldn't be "strong". It would match your description of Margrave: "good but unremarkable". A card with good draw and a buy contributes a lot to an engine, is still useful in big money, and would probably be better than Gold-gaining more often than not.

Marauder without the attack would be terrible. To borrow AJD's analogy idea:
non-attacking-Marauder : Abandoned Mine :: Bandit Camp : Bazaar
Note the latter 2 have the same cost.

[Awaclus]

Marauder without the attack would be terrible. To borrow AJD's analogy idea:
non-attacking-Marauder : Abandoned Mine :: Bandit Camp : Bazaar
Note the latter 2 have the same cost.

Yeah, it's terrible. But it's much better than Abandoned Mine, though; I would have a hard time deciding if or not I want to trash it with Chapel.

EDIT: My posts and respects are the same numbers, but in a different order! Yay!

[NoMoreFun]

Marauder and Soothsayer are not strong without the attack. Non-attacking Oracle and Margrave are likely better.

Marauder is pretty much: Gain a dead card and a gold that misses a reshuffle. As long as you can keep playing the marauder it strikes me as a decent option for $4.

Soothsayer would be just "Gain a gold" for $5 (the CR effect is tied to the curse), which most certainly isn't weak and would be very cost appropriate.

I rarely use oracle, but non attacking oracle would hold up OK compared to the attacking version.
Non attacking Margrave is good but unremarkable.

Soothsayer without the attack would be $5 and be okay for adding money to your deck. But it wouldn't be "strong". It would match your description of Margrave: "good but unremarkable". A card with good draw and a buy contributes a lot to an engine, is still useful in big money, and would probably be better than Gold-gaining more often than not.

Marauder without the attack would be terrible. To borrow AJD's analogy idea:
non-attacking-Marauder : Abandoned Mine :: Bandit Camp : Bazaar
Note the latter 2 have the same cost.

That's misleading though. You could similarly say Harem:Gold::Tunnel:Copper, and therefore Tunnel would cost $0 without its reaction.

Non attacking marauder can best be compared to using a Feast to gain a Cache. That sounds... horrible. Not ruins bad, but point taken.

[NoMoreFun]

To get back on point though, I think Goons should lose the attack because it's a strong attack that has little impact on whether you want the card or not.

Scrying Pool's attack is fairly benign.
Oracle and Minion would probably be fine without their attacks but there's no other good thematic place for those attack effects and I'm glad they're there.
Margrave's attack effect is unique; it just doesn't seem quite right that the card's vanilla effect alone would make a good $5 for such a strong attack; the +buy could probably go. On the other hand, I like how playing multiple Margraves helps the opponent, and if not having the +buy there makes players hesitant do to this then it could stay.

Related to Margrave, Council Room could probably be bumped up to +5 cards. "Wash" effects benefit your opponent far more than you, since you had to go out of your way to buy the card. On a terminal this opportunity cost is even higher. I would think without the +buy, it would be worse than smithy and possibly a $3 card (if you open with doubles you'll get major terminal clash issues); the card's saving grace is in Megaturns and the fact that the +buy often finds itself very useful. Still, I think +5 cards would be more pronounced and competitive while not really being a must buy.

[HiveMindEmulator]

If anything should lose its attack, it's Scrying Pool. The attack is pretty strong since usually SP decks have a lot of them. But since the counter to the SP attack is SP, it results in a lot of mirrors in which the attack just wastes a lot of time while not having a major impact.

Goons could lose the attack, but then it wouldn't be like "goons", so it might need a new name too...

And Council Room, well I think you're very wrong about this one. At first glance, CR without a buy is worse than Smithy since with 2 otherwise identical decks going head-to-head, the Smithy one would have an advantage, but the effect of cards goes beyond that. Say only one of the cards were in the kingdom. Smithy BM isn't strong enough to force BM games too often, but CR without a buy for less than $5 might be able to. It just has a much greater effect of shortening the game. So I think it would be pretty broken at a lower price point. CR with +5 cards also looks like it would be much too strong for engines. 5 cards is a lot. As long as you have a few villages, you're drawing your deck in no time. Real CR : Smithy :: 5-card-CR : Hunting Grounds.

[markusin]

Tribute? Maybe try

Tribute - Action - $5
The player to your left reveals then discards the top 2 cards of his deck. For each differently named card revealed, if it is an… Action Card; +2 Actions; Treasure Card; +$2; Victory Card; +2 Cards. If a duplicate is revealed, then if it is an...
Action Card; +1 Actions; Treasure Card; +$1; Victory Card; +1 Card.

Too Wordy?

[Warfreak2]

Actually your second clause is technically equivalent to simply removing the "differently named" clause, since if I reveal two Golds, I revealed one differently named card, but two duplicates; each Gold is a duplicate of the other one :-D

[HiveMindEmulator]

Or you could try:

"+$ 2; The player to your left names a card, then reveals the top 2 cards of his deck. For each card that is not the named card, if it is an..."

Early on, they will name Copper, and it will be the same as it is now. Later on, you can get some really big bonuses since you can get $2 + 2 other bonuses, but you can get blocked out from some key card like Nobles, and if they know what's in their deck, they have a reasonable chance of stopping you from getting too much. It also goes from synergizing with Spy to not, but I don't know if that was that great of a combo too often anyway.

[Warfreak2]

Early on, they will name Copper, and it will be the same as it is now.

No it won't, it will most likely be a terminal nothing, followed by Moat, and very rarely Hunting Grounds, but an opponent with good deck tracking may know their Estates are coming up and you get a terminal Silver instead.

[HiveMindEmulator]

^You must have not noticed that I added +$2...

[Warfreak2]

Right you are. I think that probably makes it too strong, though, if your opponent plays an engine it's basically always Silver Village, and if they play BM it's on average terminal Platinum.

[HiveMindEmulator]

^If they play BM, they can name Copper or Silver, and you can't get those bonuses, so again, it's about as strong as now. It's only stronger when they name a card that doesn't show up. This can allow you to get some pretty wildly strong bonuses, but only later in the game, when your opponent has a more varied deck.

[hockeysemlan]

The only cards I tweaked with my gamegroup would be Scout and Rebuild..

Seriously. Why do Rebuild have that extra action? It takes it from being insanely strong too be strictly overpowered and unfun in non-DA games. I mean, there's absolutely no risk in throwing in one or two rebuilds in your deck. If it would be terminal you still have to choose it before the other terminal you wanted. Either I missed out something or DXV did, and it's more likely I did... So, what is rebuilds weakness?