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[A Drowned Kernel]

Sea Hag
Action-Attack $4

Each other reveals the top card of his deck and either puts it back and discards it, his choice, then gains a curse on top of his deck.

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This is a possible change to Sea Hag I thought up that keeps the principle of a card- gain a curse on that mucks up your deck right away- while reducing the "swinginess" of the card a little, and still avoids the problem of multiple Sea Hags giving you a pile of curses for your next turn. Thoughts?

[Guy Srinivasan]

At first glance I like it a lot.

Would it be okay to let you also Spy your own deck? Then it's less of a nerf and more of a swinginess fix.

[SirPeebles]

At first glance I like it a lot.

Would it be okay to let you also Spy your own deck? Then it's less of a nerf and more of a swinginess fix.

Spying your own deck in a Sea Hag game is a significant buff which would bring in even more swinginess.

[enfynet]

I like that. I don't know how much it would "nerf" Sea Hag, or if it needs it, but I like the mechanic.

[HiveMindEmulator]

This is a nice clean way to do this. The downside is that it might waste a little time, since the reveal/choose has to be done sequentially as it might affect each other, and since you can count your draw pile, it might make people want to do that to control shuffle if possible.

[Davio]

Why not simply:

Sea Hag
Action-Attack $4

Each other player gains a Curse card, putting it on top of his deck.


The only reason for the discard is that you can't KC it to give players a hand with 3 Curses next turn. But I don't feel like that's a big problem. If you buy Sea Hag, you're already forgoing some early economy building, making it less likely you'll get an early KC. You might get an early Throne Room, but it will still be hard to connect it. All in all I think making it this way doesn't have the big ramifications you might think it would.

Of course, Dominion can be played with more than 2p, making this very, very annoying, but who still does that? We all play 2p online, right? 

Okay, shush, I hear you guys, stop screaming, I'll amend it:

Sea Hag
Action-Attack $4

Each other player reveals the top card of their deck. If it's a Curse, they discard it, otherwise they put it back. They gain a Curse card, putting it on top of their deck.

[Warfreak2]

The simplest nerf would be "each other player may discard the top card of their deck".

[Asper]

Of course, Dominion can be played with more than 2p, making this very, very annoying, but who still does that? We all play 2p online, right? 

Unless i'm playtesting cards, all my games happen in real live and with 3 or more players. I'm a fossil.

[KingZog3]

Of course, Dominion can be played with more than 2p, making this very, very annoying, but who still does that? We all play 2p online, right? 

Unless i'm playtesting cards, all my games happen in real live and with 3 or more players. I'm a fossil.

Most of my game are in real life too, but lets not get crazy. Only a small amount are 3 players.

[Tables]

This is a nice clean way to do this. The downside is that it might waste a little time, since the reveal/choose has to be done sequentially as it might affect each other, and since you can count your draw pile, it might make people want to do that to control shuffle if possible.

What about instead having:

Sea Hag
Action-Attack $4

Each other player looks at the top card of his deck and either puts it back, or discards it, his choice, then gains a curse, putting it on top of his deck.

Simple tweak means that, except in those rare cases where you care about what someone else is doing with their card,  everyone can be simultaneous.

[Warfreak2]

Why do they need to look at it? The only reason this mechanic exists in the first place is to prevent multiple Sea Hags putting multiple Curses on top. Ergo, to change the card as little as possible while preventing good cards from being skipped, the Curse left by a previous Sea Hag is the only thing that should be discarded. I see two and a half ways to do that:

1a) Each other player reveals the top card of their deck, if it's a Curse, they discard it.
1b) Each other player looks at the top card of their deck, if it's a Curse, they discard it.
2) Each other player may discard the top card of their deck (without looking at it).

#1 doesn't require everyone to make a decision, but gives information about next turns, in a different way to how Actual Sea Hag does. If Actual Sea Hag reveals a Sea Hag, you know you aren't getting a Curse next turn, whereas if Nerfed Sea Hag reveals one, you know you are getting one. OK, that's not so different as to change how the card is played in most situations; there are edge cases where you know the Curses will be empty before you can play a Sea Hag you could leave on your deck with Scheme/&c, or more commonly, knowing how many Curses are left helps you decide whether to buy a second Sea Hag. But the information about what card is coming up could affect how I play my next turn (e.g. I left a Silver on top, so it's better to play Steward for Cards than for Coins; I left a Sea Hag on top so I'd better not play it for Cards), which I think is a substantial difference. It also makes Wishing Well really good.

#2 is the minimal change, you will discard if you already saw your Sea Hag, or you know it's a Curse because somebody else played Sea Hag. It seems to change very little about how the card would be played, and also seems nicer to me for aesthetic reasons.

[NoMoreFun]

Random idea

Sea Hag:
Action - $4
Each other player reveals the top card of his deck and gains a Curse if it is any other card, putting it on top of his deck.

This actually makes the card stronger when played once per turn, but not as strong in multiples.

[SirPeebles]

Random idea

Sea Hag:
Action - $4
Each other player reveals the top card of his deck and gains a Curse if it is any other card, putting it on top of his deck.

This actually makes the card stronger when played once per turn, but not as strong in multiples.

That's rough.  At least when my opponents play Militias, I still get $2 from mine.  Now, if two or more of my opponents play Sea Hag, mine does nothing.  Unless I can squeeze in a Spy or something.

[dominator 123]

Sea Hag should probably give a small vanilla bonus like +$2, and cost $5

[Warfreak2]

Then it would be a totally different card. We already have Witch; Sea Hag is a curser everyone can open with, and it slows everybody down doubly, with hands full of Curses and also having to spend their action on something that doesn't benefit themselves. At $5 with +$2, there would be no such thing as a Sea Hag slog.

[SirPeebles]

I agree with WarFreak.  Sea Hag has a unique feel to it, and a big part of that feel is it's ability to slow the game so swiftly, but in a sloggier way than Colonies.  And a much more engaging and equitable way than mass Saboteurs.

[awildnoobappeared]

I must be the only person who doesn't find Sea Hag all that great, at least not if there's any decent trashing of curses - you're slowing yourself down far more than your opponent. I've been steamrolled more than once by an Alchemist stack after opening Hag/Chapel.

Having said that there's no doubt that having your Hag hit is ragequit inducing, nearly as bad as having your Torturer swindled into a Duchy. I'd still like it to do *something* undesirable after the curses are gone though. Maybe something like this could strike a balance:

Each other player:
reveals the top of their deck. If it's a curse, or no more curses are available, discard it - otherwise put it back
gains a curse on top of their deck

This may be too wordy for what should be a fairly simple card though.

[eHalcyon]

Hag/Chapel is a difficult start because neither provide economy and Chapel actively removes it.  Alchemist and Chapel together are engine indicators too, so if you ignore Alchemist after Hag it could be difficult.  With Alchemist draw and Chapel, the trashing may be strong enough that Hag can be ignored.

[KingZog3]

I rarely go for junking attacks when Chapel is out. It's obviously strong at trashing, and since all the Coppers and Estates will be trashed, there is a high chance that the Curses will be trashed before doing major damage. Since Sea Hag does nothing for you, this hurts more than normal, since at least you get small bonuses with other cursers.

[HiveMindEmulator]

I must be the only person who doesn't find Sea Hag all that great, at least not if there's any decent trashing of curses - you're slowing yourself down far more than your opponent. I've been steamrolled more than once by an Alchemist stack after opening Hag/Chapel.

The instant impact of Sea Hag is slowing yourself more than your opponent since you cost them a card NEXT turn while costing yourself a card AND an action THIS turn. But the Curses add up over time, so you can't really ignore it without good trashing. Chapel, of course, is good trashing.

[scott_pilgrim]

I'd still like it to do *something* undesirable after the curses are gone though. Maybe something like this could strike a balance:

Each other player:
reveals the top of their deck. If it's a curse, or no more curses are available, discard it - otherwise put it back
gains a curse on top of their deck

But this on average does nothing for the player.  The current wording of Sea Hag is such that after the curses are out, the hag is a dead card.  There's not much reason to play it after curses are out, unless you have a way of knowing what's on top of the opponent's deck, or you know that you want to trigger their re-shuffle, etc.  Most of the time though it does nothing, it averages to giving you literally no benefit.  The potential benefit of intentional discarding is so small that it's not worth using any extra words to put it on the card.  Even if you do find a way to make it consistently benefit you, the benefit is so negligible that you don't want a whole card in your deck just to discard the top card of your opponent's deck.  It's just using a few extra words to add a tiny buff to a card which doesn't need a buff.

I must be the only person who doesn't find Sea Hag all that great, at least not if there's any decent trashing of curses - you're slowing yourself down far more than your opponent. I've been steamrolled more than once by an Alchemist stack after opening Hag/Chapel.

Sure it takes up a card spot in your deck, but remember that if you don't go for it, you're eventually going to be swimming through 10 curses.  Of course with Chapel it's a whole different story, because you can easily trash the curses as they are coming in.  And by "decent trashing" you must mean the top trashers in the game (Chapel, Steward, Remake, Doctor, etc.).  Otherwise, the cards that I would normally call "decent trashers" are not nearly enough to stop Sea Hag (Salvager, Bishop, Remodel, etc. just can't do their jobs fast enough).  Not every board has a heavy trasher; in fact most don't have one.  Sea Hag is very strong on pretty much every board that doesn't have a heavy trasher, so it's very strong on most boards.