Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Schneau]

Commenting on two other cards.  I also want to talk more about Used Land Salesman, since many people here still say it's too strong but I am still unconvinced about that.  Hm.

I'm not really sure if it's too strong or not, but I don't really care -- to me, it's just not interesting enough. It feels like a worse Hunting Grounds early, and a better Hunting Grounds late. Given the fact that it could very well be terribroken, I'm just not into it.

[eHalcyon]

Used Land Salesman
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+4 Cards.
While this is in play, when you buy a card, gain a Victory cards costing less than it.

I really do think the in-play clause is neat.  It's a penalty that sometimes is a bonus.  It could support unusual early-greening strategies.  Not much to say about it -- I just like it a lot.

So your attention to this card has enhanced my own interest in this card. I find it fairly balanced as is in the context of an early-greening card in Terminal Draw BM. Gaining a Duchy every time you gain a Gold bloats your deck with a card that gets in the way of the draw, quickly making this as effective as Smithy for drawing treasure. Without good deck filtering, you choke hard.

But, I want to talk about its endgame potential now. Seen in another way, this is a Hunting Grounds fused with a Haggler that forces you to gain Victory cards. The Massive draw looks great for an engine, but the Haggler effect looks great for payload. So I see a big balance issue regarding its megaturn potential. In games using this, I'll want to build up a strong engine, then get a whole bunch of these. The next turn, I put 3 or 4 of these in play, and now I get a bunch of Duchies if I buy a card over $5 and a bunch of estates when I buy a card over $2. It could be bonkers. Just like with Bridge, Goons, and Merchant Guild, this is a terminal action that you want as many copies of in play as possible. But Bridge, Goons, and Merchant Guild act as obstacles to your draw. This is the opposite; it gives 4 cards on play! That's enough to make you Throne your village over this to ensure you have the actions to get as many of these in play as possible.

So I'm thinking that the part below the line is ill-suited for a card that draws more cards, at least as many as this one does. If this must be a draw card, it should give at most 3 cards on play. +2 cards might end up being the balanced number in the end, with a drop in cost if necessary.

With all that said, I like the bottom effect enough to consider voting for this.

I like this card a lot as well, but I agree that the endgame potential could make it too strong.  In particular, I think Colony games make it dominating; the ability to gain a Province when buying Colony seems like too much.

I understand the problem with it being a big draw card, but if it becomes a terminal money card as you suggest, then it may be too similar to Haggler.  So here's something else that I'm thinking: "While this is in play, when you buy a card that is not a victory card, gain a victory card costing less than it."  Then you can't rake in quite as many victory points by having multiple of them in play.  With four of them in play, you could still get a Gold and four Duchies, but this doesn't feel nearly as bad as a Province and four Duchies (12 VP instead of 18).  Or compared to maybe the double Province turn you would have had which could have been 36 VP, it's only 24 VP.  Actually that's a lot still, so maybe that's not the best fix...just a thought.

Another interesting case to consider is Duke, where you really want as many $5 victory cards as you can get.

Right then.

markusin compared this card to a Haggler, which I think is a poor comparison.  Haggler explicitly cannot gain Victory cards, ULS can ONLY gain Victory cards.  This is a very important difference.

markusin notes that he would want to build a strong engine and then get a bunch of ULS in order to have a big turn of gaining tons of Duchies, and that the potential of this makes him think that the card is too powerful with +cards.  I disagree. First, it's fairly difficult to get a *whole bunch* of ULS after building a strong engine, because ULS is a $5 card, and if you already have a strong engine then you could probably go for green immediately.  Second, if you can build a strong enough engine that this strategy works and gives you the win, you totally deserve that win.

There is an interesting comparison to cards where you want a bunch of them in play at once -- Bridge, Goons, Merchant Guild.  You want a lot of these because their bonuses stack so well.  Depending on your goal, you may want to stack a bunch of ULS as well to empty piles in a blaze of glory.  But markusin argues that the former 3 are obstacles to draw while ULS helps with its big draw.  But this is missing an important fact -- ULS may not itself be an obstacle, but it adds an obstacle to your deck every time you use it.  Bridge, Goons and MG all help you build your engine by making it easier to buy more pieces, or giving you VP tokens so you never have to buy a single dead green card.  But each play of ULS clogs your deck further.  +4 cards from ULS is great the first time, but your deck may have an early Estate or Duchy the next time around, clogging up that +4 cards.  And the time after that you have even more green.  Big draw is awesome, but it's less awesome when you're just drawing Estates and Duchies.

scott_pilgrim brings up Colony games as a situation where they might be particularly powerful.  This may be the case.  But Colony games tend to be longer which means you want ULS even less in the early game, because it just means more turns where you are forced to gain a junk card.  And note that gaining a Duchy is even worse in a Colony game than in a Province game.

I don't think the problems you guys point out are actually problematic.  It is not trivial to get 4 of these in play at once.  These are still $5 cards, and they counter their own big draw by self-junking.  And if you are able to do it, you are probably running a decent engine.  It's OK for engines to give you nice results.

I actually think the most powerful use of ULS would be in decks that actually want the extra green.  Crossroads doesn't mind it.  Silk Roads loves it.  Gardens may appreciate the extra points and the help in emptying piles.  But these are combos, and I don't think they sound particularly broken.

Since I am defending this so much, I'll go ahead and state that this isn't my card.

Commenting on two other cards.  I also want to talk more about Used Land Salesman, since many people here still say it's too strong but I am still unconvinced about that.  Hm.

I'm not really sure if it's too strong or not, but I don't really care -- to me, it's just not interesting enough. It feels like a worse Hunting Grounds early, and a better Hunting Grounds late. Given the fact that it could very well be terribroken, I'm just not into it.

That's perfectly fair.  I personally find it extremely interesting, because the clause could be read as either penalty or reward and it depends so much on the board and how close the game is to ending.  I think it adds some nice strategy with a very simple concept.

[WanderingWinder]

Do you think Pilgrimage is completely broken, or can it be fixed with tweaks to the vanilla bonuses?

Well, of course changing the vanilla bonuses can make it to where the card isn't too powerful, but I don't know if it can be any interesting as well.
I mean the problem isn't that it's broken, it's that it's terribroken. The vanilla bonuses are already quite bad, to the pont that the card overall is really bad the vast majority of the time. But then you get to a situation where you can like play 3 of them, and BOOM, you are looking at huge gains. Actually even then, you need some money to get started. And since it doesn't help you build the engine to get to that point, it's very much a go verrrrry deep strategy. It HAS to be. The problem is there's no middle-ground where it just feels like a reasonable card. I mean, there are cards which are like that to some extent (cough KC cough), but this is even more so. So, what you need to do is change it so that it's better most of the time, first of all. Even if you don't actually make it worse in the play a million category, that's not as big a problem, because it's actually pretty hard to pull off, and it tends to end the game quickly. But ideally you'd make it a little less crazy in that situation as well. So, let's assume we want to keep the green-cheapening ability. First, might want to change it to on-buy rather than gain, so it doesn't have random spike interaction with gainers, though this isn't a HUGE deal. But more than that, probably reduce the number of buys it gives. Right now, 4 and a silver gets you 2 estates and SEVEN provinces. Okay, four of these is hard to do, but seven is an awful lot - three seems much more reasonable. On the other hand, the real problem is stacking these things. One of these, even with the buys, isn't that great - if you buy three victory cards, it provides $3, and that is a lot of work, that's not so crazy. The more you stack, it starts to explode quadratically. So if you notice, the other cards that do similar things are either terminal, or in highway's case don't give their own +buy. So maybe the simpler answer is to just make it a terminal.

Okay, any of these nerf changes, whatever comes down, you are gonna need to buff it, too, or else it will just be bad. So you look at vanilla bonuses to help it. If you give it $1, it starts looking a lot like Candlestick Maker (particularly if you get rid of a buy, which you probably need to, but which would make it fine). Or you can make it terminal and give it some money, but probably that needs to be $2, at which point it is just better than woodcutter, but maybe you can put it at 4? But anyway there it is pretty similar to woodcutter even with the buys. So you could terminalize it and give it cards. But even two cards and you start making it potentially very very good with most villages. So my best thought is to make it terminal, give it $1 and 1 card, make it buy rather than gain, and then test to see if you need to shift it to 4 or 2 or knock it down to 1 buy.

[WanderingWinder]

Okay, new comments:
Courier (A)  - I misread this as a secret chamber effect rather than discard-to-increase-the-cost-of-card-you're-gaining effect that it is. I actually think I liked it better as the SC/Vault effect. It's certainly less novel, but it's also certainly stronger that way (in general, yes yes there are cases where not).

Wagon Raider - the instead certainly makes this a lot weaker, and *basically* reduces the price of provinces (embargo, Contraband, playing cost-caring or adjusting cards notwithstanding) as opposed to doing the same but also giving you gold with your province, which was WAY better. This is a lot closer to balanced now, but I still don't think it's that interesting.

Wayfarer (B) - the new card! And a sorta nifty sneaky one. I wonder how often you just gain copper with the second ability after 'missing'. This card is pretty deceptive - it looks like it wants you to play it straightforward, going for it and copper. But because you have your other starting cards, that won't really work. It's actually just a nice engine card. It starts off as terminal draw which doubles as an early workshop to help you grab components. And then by the time you are drawing your deck, (it's particularly good in sifting engines - can grab a whole bunch of discarded coppers...), it just gains you an extra province (okay, you have to get an 8th copper). So, I *really* like this card, though I think it might be a bit too good for $4.

New Ring Leader - I am pretty certain that this is now the very strongest card in the game, by a good margin (read: totally broken). I think that if you made it cost 5 (not 4, but 5), it would still be in the top 10% of cards overall. Yeah, it's really THAT good. I mean, spy attacks are at their best not when they leave you with a bad card (which you were going to draw anyway), but when they discard your good. Their drawback is that you sometimes basically have to leave a bad card and get no benefit, because you don't want to actually skip their bad cards for them. This nullifies that disadvantage and gives only good. So, it's like you are forcing them to take the worst bit of advisor without the handsize increase. Or you're anti-cartographer-ing them. And particularly in decks where there are just a few key cards (like... in the early game for every single deck), you can just hurt them very very badly. And there are just no counters at all, except moat and lighthouse (okay, stacking the top of your deck with 4 tunnels, you got me). On top of all this, if you take the attack away, it's still a reasonable (if slightly weak) 3-cost, and compares not totally unfavorably to oracle. But most of all, just not being able to play your good cards ever is not fun.

[markusin]

So Used Land Salesman probably isn't as OP as I made it out to be after all, though the argument I thought of to come to that conclusion is different from eHalcyon's. Basically, if you magically have 8 Used Land Salesman in play, you don't necessarily have a megaturn like you would with 8 Bridges/Goons/Merchant Guilds, because it doesn't give coin like those other cards do. You still need coin-generating cards from the rest of your deck. Having those cards in your deck while at the same time being able to get a whole bunch of these super-late is an impressive feat.

That leaves the edge cases where green cards improve your deck (hybrid-victory, crossroads) or games with Silk Roads. Those cases still might be enough to warrant reducing this to +3 cards instead. Only playtesting can say for sure.

[WanderingWinder]

Smelter
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+1 Buy. +$1.
While this is in play, when you buy a card, gain a Silver, putting it on top of your deck.

So, I want to like this card. I really do. It is my kind of card. And I think the power level is pretty good. But the thing which bugs me - and I think it's a fine card anyway, but this bugs me - is that if you want this card, you are ALWAYS going to buy that copper with your spare buy. Even if we forget the top-decking, it brings your money density towards 1.5, which is just always better then you're going to do in the province-centric treasure-based decks that are all that would ever make you buy this.
So I dunno, I like choices, interesting play choices, so maybe you make this be able to hit any 3-cost-or-less, and then you probably need to make it cost 5, which probably means you can bump it to $2. I mean, there is some itneresting tension this card wants to have "Do I want to buy copper to give myself another top-decked card my deck wants?" But right now, the tension isn't there - it's just always a yes.

Travelling Salesman
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $5
Discard any number of Treasure cards from your hand. +2 Cards per card discarded.
When another player gains a Victory card, you may discard this. If you do, gain a card costing less than the gained Victory card.

Okay, this one also interests me. Top part: if you have:
2 coppers - moat with filtering. (which is also how you'd describe Adventurer)
3 coppers - smithy with filtering. Not bad (compare Journeyman)
4 coppers - you get the idea.
Of course, you can also pitch other treasures, but you get the ballpark idea here, and I don't think it's unreasonable. So then there's the bottom. The bottom is fine, it's sorta interesting, it obviously makes the card better, since it's not compulsory AND you get to see the opportunity cost at every stage, and... I don't really like it? I mean, it's quite a strong reaction, totally messing with your opponent's ability to come back, mostly. They have to worry about buying the last province, because you just react this and get a duchy, and now you're ahead. Or you react 3 of these and get 3 duchies.... So I don't like that, and I don't think the card needs it anyway.

Thrift Shop
Types: Action
Cost: $6
+1 Action. +$2. If this is not the first time you played Thrift Shop this turn, you may gain a card from the Thrift Shop mat.
When you gain or play this, place a card costing up to $5 from the Supply onto the Thrift Shop mat.

Clarification: There is only one community Thrift Shop mat. Each player does not have his own.

Ah, so this one is really interesting. I have to assume that the author didn't want you to be able to gain the card you put on there with the same play of the card, as that almost totally takes away the main strategic point of having a communal mat.
I really wish it didn't have to be on the second play in a turn. I mean, as it is, you really need to get a critical mass of these for them to be any good, because otherwise it's an action-silver for 6 which trashes piles. The bigger point, though, is that if it didn't have to be the second play, you have to worry much more about your opponent hopping in if you put juicy stuff there, and I like that kind of decision-making. So this is so close to being something I'm very intrigued by (of course I intend the pun), but it's just not quite there.

Barn
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+1 Card. +1 Action. Discard a card. If you discarded a Victory or Curse card, gain a Treasure costing up to $4. Otherwise, +$1 and gain a Victory card costing up to $4. Put the gained card into your hand.
When you buy this, gain an Action card costing up to $4, putting it onto your deck.

I love the top of this. It's baron-like in a way I quite enjoy. It's self-feedback mechanism is just really nice... except that it mostly works one way - I mean, if you want to gain green, you nearly always can, so this is just really really really good with gardens, silk road et al. But whatever, silver-flooding sort of activated conspirator is pretty nice, gaining estates sometimes not the worst thing ever. Maybe too strong, but I love the idea.
Then there's a below-the-line. Man, card just doesn't need it. Feels tacked on. Okay, I know, it gives it all three main types. That just doesn't sell it for me. Also probably really pushes it over the $5 bump, sadly.

Pyramid
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+1 Action. +$1. +1 Card per Pyramid you have in play. Discard one card per Pyramid you have in play.
When you buy this, gain an extra copy of it.

I sorta wish this gave an extra copy to every player rather than just you. That's still a net good for you, because extra copies are better here, but it ought to be a bit less strong. You will have an early-pile-running problem anyway though.

[kn1tt3r]

Travelling Salesman
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $5
Discard any number of Treasure cards from your hand. +2 Cards per card discarded.
When another player gains a Victory card, you may discard this. If you do, gain a card costing less than the gained Victory card.

Okay, this one also interests me. Top part: if you have:
2 coppers - moat with filtering. (which is also how you'd describe Adventurer)
3 coppers - smithy with filtering. Not bad (compare Journeyman)
4 coppers - you get the idea.
Of course, you can also pitch other treasures, but you get the ballpark idea here, and I don't think it's unreasonable. So then there's the bottom. The bottom is fine, it's sorta interesting, it obviously makes the card better, since it's not compulsory AND you get to see the opportunity cost at every stage, and... I don't really like it? I mean, it's quite a strong reaction, totally messing with your opponent's ability to come back, mostly. They have to worry about buying the last province, because you just react this and get a duchy, and now you're ahead. Or you react 3 of these and get 3 duchies.... So I don't like that, and I don't think the card needs it anyway.

If feel like the reaction part is a bit overvalued. I mean, you have to discard a good $5 cost for the effect, so that's quite a trade-off. Sure, it tensens endgame play, but so does Governor trashing for example, or Smugglers, especially together with TR/KC. I agree though that the reaction is probably not really necessary.

[WanderingWinder]

Travelling Salesman
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $5
Discard any number of Treasure cards from your hand. +2 Cards per card discarded.
When another player gains a Victory card, you may discard this. If you do, gain a card costing less than the gained Victory card.

Okay, this one also interests me. Top part: if you have:
2 coppers - moat with filtering. (which is also how you'd describe Adventurer)
3 coppers - smithy with filtering. Not bad (compare Journeyman)
4 coppers - you get the idea.
Of course, you can also pitch other treasures, but you get the ballpark idea here, and I don't think it's unreasonable. So then there's the bottom. The bottom is fine, it's sorta interesting, it obviously makes the card better, since it's not compulsory AND you get to see the opportunity cost at every stage, and... I don't really like it? I mean, it's quite a strong reaction, totally messing with your opponent's ability to come back, mostly. They have to worry about buying the last province, because you just react this and get a duchy, and now you're ahead. Or you react 3 of these and get 3 duchies.... So I don't like that, and I don't think the card needs it anyway.

If feel like the reaction part is a bit overvalued. I mean, you have to discard a good $5 cost for the effect, so that's quite a trade-off. Sure, it tensens endgame play, but so does Governor trashing for example, or Smugglers, especially together with TR/KC. I agree though that the reaction is probably not really necessary.

The point isn't really that the bottom - by itself- is overpowered. Indeed, my first thought was you just aren't going to use it often, it's not going to be worth it. But because you can use it, it only makes the card better. Particularly because while sometimes it's a good 5 effect, sometimes you have like 0 or 1 treasures you'd want to discard, and it's just very good to trade that play in. As for the endgame thing, I thought about governor, and that has the same problem to an extent, but this is a bit worse because of the problem of multiples.
I mean, overall, tl;dr I'm not sure it's too much of a problem in general, I just think that on *this card* it makes it too strong without tying into things well enough.

[Fragasnap]

Pilgrimage
Types: Action
Cost: $3
+1 Action. +2 Buys.
While this is in play, when you gain a Victory card, Victory cards cost $1 less this turn, but not less than $0.

I would raise that with just 2 Pilgrimage cards and $4, a player can buy 3 Estates and 2 Provinces. That is certainly not an unreasonable random occurence in a deck of cards with 3 or 4 Pilgrimage cards in it.

The issue is that if you give Pilgrimage anything different Vanilla effects, it's going to look too much like another card. If you drop that buying Victory-cards stacks the effect (so just a flat $1 decrement for Victory cards) or draw cards, it looks an awful lot like Highway. If you make it terminal or give coins, it looks like Bridge.

Mountain Dwellers
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+1 Card. +1 Action. Reveal your hand. If you revealed 3 or more Treasure cards, +$1.
When you buy this, you may trash a Treasure card you have in play. Gain a Treasure card costing exactly $3 more than it.

Interesting. So this is a Peddler variant that wants no Treasure trashing, but deals differently with this issue (so, nicely on-theme). The thing is, I suppose this is a bit swingy a slightly too weak. I mean, Peddler plus is usually $5, but the Plus is only on-buy here, which makes it rather mediocre, AND the issue of not maybe having 3 Treasures in hand really really nerfs it. So: Nice idea, but a bit weak I think.

Great analysis here. I don't like the swing to this one: If I have a lot of Mountain Dwellerses, they will impede each other. If you remove the condition to the Peddler effect, I wouldn't like that it's nothing more than a Peddler on play.
Flavorwise, I kind of like that we can assume the Mountain Dwellers do a lot of mining when commissioned but get pretty lazy thereafter.

Smelter
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+1 Buy. +$1.
While this is in play, when you buy a card, gain a Silver, putting it on top of your deck.

So, I want to like this card. I really do. It is my kind of card. And I think the power level is pretty good. But the thing which bugs me - and I think it's a fine card anyway, but this bugs me - is that if you want this card, you are ALWAYS going to buy that copper with your spare buy. Even if we forget the top-decking, it brings your money density towards 1.5, which is just always better then you're going to do in the province-centric treasure-based decks that are all that would ever make you buy this.
So I dunno, I like choices, interesting play choices, so maybe you make this be able to hit any 3-cost-or-less, and then you probably need to make it cost 5, which probably means you can bump it to $2. I mean, there is some itneresting tension this card wants to have "Do I want to buy copper to give myself another top-decked card my deck wants?" But right now, the tension isn't there - it's just always a yes.

I like this idea, but I think you're right that right now it's too much of a no-brainer.
I don't understand the name though. What am I smelting to get all this Silver? Sounds like I should be trashing stuff.

Witch Doctor
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+$1. Look through your deck; reveal and discard any number of Victory and Curse cards from it. Shuffle your deck.
When you gain this, put your deck into your discard pile.

I would worry about this being too strong at filtering for alternate Victory and simple end-game variance at possibly drawing a Witch Doctor just after the last shuffle. I'd like this card a lot more if its discard was capped-- maybe to 4 or something. Probably one of my favorite submissions here for theme and effect. I like that it's a weak on play, so you won't want to put more than one or two into your deck which mitigates how fiddly shuffling each time you play it is.

Takes the niche effect of Chancellor and gives it on-gain, allowing greater control of when trigger it.  That's cool.  Epic-level filtering, but swingy because it's onl good if you draw it early in the shuffle.  Mediocre effect.

Possible broken combo: Tunnel.  If I do not vote for it, Tunnel will be the reason.

Good point about Tunnel being broken. It could easily be fixed by name dropping cards ("Curses, Duchies, Estates, and Provinces" rather than "Victory and Curse cards"). It would make it weaker with alternate Victory cards though, but I like the thing enough without synergizing with Gardens.

Travelling Salesman
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $5
Discard any number of Treasure cards from your hand. +2 Cards per card discarded.
When another player gains a Victory card, you may discard this. If you do, gain a card costing less than the gained Victory card.

I like the Action, but don't like the Reaction. The ability to gain Provinces in response to game-ending Colony buys seems too swingy to me and it's on a card that isn't bad to begin with.

Edit: Maybe the bottom part would be better like "When another player gains a Victory card, you may reveal this. If you do, gain a Copper, putting it into your hand" to make it more thematic and a bit weaker.

I love this suggested change (though the wording right now lets me gain the Copper pile). "When another player gains a Victory card, you may set this aside from your hand. If you do, gain a Copper, putting it into your hand. At the start of your next turn, put this into your hand." Would be better wording.

Oicho-Kabu
Types: Action – Victory
Cost: $5
+1 Buy. +$2.
Worth 1 VP. While this is in play, when you buy a card, +$2 and discard the top card of your deck. If it's a Victory card, trash this.

This is an awesome Woodcutter variant. A little bit swingy, maybe too strong, yes, but just because of this:

So, I gave in and looked up Oicho-Kabu on Wikipedia, and apparently it's a Japanese card game resembling Black Jack and Baccarat. I'm now envisioning a player using this card, buying something, and saying "hit me". If they have multiple buys, they can keep doing this until they hit a Victory card, at which point they go bust. So kudos for the theme.

I love it. I hope whoever made the card posts after the results come up so I can give him +1's for theme.

Nomadic Village
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $4
+1 Card. +2 Actions.
When you gain this, put it into your hand.
When an opponent gains an Action card, you may discard this. If you do, search your discard pile for an Action card and put it into your hand.

I don't really like the on-gain effect putting it into hand. It seems too niche to be worthwhile.

This also does the "find an action" thing, but it does it as a reaction.  That makes it far more tolerable.  Even so, it's a reaction to a pretty common occurrence and pushes players into playing more BM.  Not sure I like that.

I thought this too. I'd love it if the Reaction was in response to Attacks instead-- especially because you could hunt for another Reaction.

Used Land Salesman
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+4 Cards.
While this is in play, when you buy a card, gain a Victory cards costing less than it.

...
So I'm thinking that the part below the line is ill-suited for a card that draws more cards, at least as many as this one does. If this must be a draw card, it should give at most 3 cards on play. +2 cards might end up being the balanced number in the end, with a drop in cost if necessary.

With all that said, I like the bottom effect enough to consider voting for this.

This in Big Money seems to pretty handily beat BM+Smithy, for what it's worth.
The way Goons, Bridge, and Merchant Guild stack are good enough for me. I don't need a card that's awesome when it stacks that enables its own stacking.

[kn1tt3r]

Travelling Salesman
Types: Action – Reaction
Cost: $5
Discard any number of Treasure cards from your hand. +2 Cards per card discarded.
When another player gains a Victory card, you may discard this. If you do, gain a card costing less than the gained Victory card.

I like the Action, but don't like the Reaction. The ability to gain Provinces in response to game-ending Colony buys seems too swingy to me and it's on a card that isn't bad to begin with.

Edit: Maybe the bottom part would be better like "When another player gains a Victory card, you may reveal this. If you do, gain a Copper, putting it into your hand" to make it more thematic and a bit weaker.

I love this suggested change (though the wording right now lets me gain the Copper pile). "When another player gains a Victory card, you may set this aside from your hand. If you do, gain a Copper, putting it into your hand. At the start of your next turn, put this into your hand." Would be better wording.

You're perfectly right of course.

[markusin]

Witch Doctor
Types: Action
Cost: $4
+$1. Look through your deck; reveal and discard any number of Victory and Curse cards from it. Shuffle your deck.
When you gain this, put your deck into your discard pile.

I would worry about this being too strong at filtering for alternate Victory and simple end-game variance at possibly drawing a Witch Doctor just after the last shuffle. I'd like this card a lot more if its discard was capped-- maybe to 4 or something. Probably one of my favorite submissions here for theme and effect. I like that it's a weak on play, so you won't want to put more than one or two into your deck which mitigates how fiddly shuffling each time you play it is.

Takes the niche effect of Chancellor and gives it on-gain, allowing greater control of when trigger it.  That's cool.  Epic-level filtering, but swingy because it's onl good if you draw it early in the shuffle.  Mediocre effect.

Possible broken combo: Tunnel.  If I do not vote for it, Tunnel will be the reason.

Good point about Tunnel being broken. It could easily be fixed by name dropping cards ("Curses, Duchies, Estates, and Provinces" rather than "Victory and Curse cards"). It would make it weaker with alternate Victory cards though, but I like the thing enough without synergizing with Gardens.

You know, I was worried about this being too strong, but as you said, it's rather weak on play. There's only so many times that you'd want to reshuffle your deck with the on-gain ability before it stops being worth it. This one could grow on me.

Voting is going to be tricky for me. I've changed my mind about a whole bunch of cards since the start.

[eHalcyon]

Used Land Salesman
Types: Action
Cost: $5
+4 Cards.
While this is in play, when you buy a card, gain a Victory cards costing less than it.

...
So I'm thinking that the part below the line is ill-suited for a card that draws more cards, at least as many as this one does. If this must be a draw card, it should give at most 3 cards on play. +2 cards might end up being the balanced number in the end, with a drop in cost if necessary.

With all that said, I like the bottom effect enough to consider voting for this.

This in Big Money seems to pretty handily beat BM+Smithy, for what it's worth.
The way Goons, Bridge, and Merchant Guild stack are good enough for me. I don't need a card that's awesome when it stacks that enables its own stacking.

Is that from testing, or from theory?  I would say that it's fine if it handily beats Smithy considering that this is a $5 card and Smithy is a $4.  Wharf also handily beats Smithy!

But I still question it.  When you play Smithy-BM, you'll still buy Silver and Gold through the game.  Are you going to do that with ULS?  Late in the game it's fine, but it's really bad early.  And consider -- the first time you play ULS you get an extra card over Smithy.  But then you buy something, and now there is an extra dead green card in your deck.  The next time you play ULS you might get +4 cards, but since you have an extra dead card you can imagine that it lowers the effectiveness of ULS' draw to that of Smithy (I know it's not the same, but it's close).  Subsequent plays are even worse.

I would not say that ULS enables self-stacking that much better than Bridge or Goons, since it is still a terminal card.  It helps sure, but you still need villages.  I'm also unconvinced that ULS stacks as well as Bridge and Goons, and I've explained my reasoning before.  Stacking ULS just gives you more dead cards.  Occasionally you get to use it to great effect and build a strong lead, but I think those are rare cases where it's a cool combo, not a broken one.  If it does stack, it does so in a way that I think would feel very different from Bridge, Goons or Merchant Ship.

[XerxesPraelor]

I noticed that there seems to be much smaller a gap between the cards that are good and bad, and I expect the votes to show that. Hinterlands has just not as obvious a theme as Prosperity or Dark ages, for that matter.

[Warfreak2]

I think BM/ULS would be pretty good, normally the question on $6 for BM is "Gold or Duchy?", with this you get both. If it's time for green, getting a Duchy free with your Province is also a plus. One more green card in your deck isn't such a big deal when ULS draws one more card than Smithy anyway, though I expect that at +3 Cards it would still beat BM/Smithy.

As for buying Silver, how are you going to draw 4 cards (or even 3 cards) and not have $6? If it's late enough that you're going to draw so many green cards to not hit $6, it's late enough that you do want that free Estate with your Silver (or Duchy).

[WalrusMcFishSr]

How much does one have to use land before it becomes "used"? Am I using my land right now???

[Fragasnap]

I think BM/ULS would be pretty good, normally the question on $6 for BM is "Gold or Duchy?", with this you get both. If it's time for green, getting a Duchy free with your Province is also a plus. One more green card in your deck isn't such a big deal when ULS draws one more card than Smithy anyway, though I expect that at +3 Cards it would still beat BM/Smithy.

As for buying Silver, how are you going to draw 4 cards (or even 3 cards) and not have $6? If it's late enough that you're going to draw so many green cards to not hit $6, it's late enough that you do want that free Estate with your Silver (or Duchy).

This precisely. So much this.
It makes buying Gold or Duchy a boring decision in an already boring strategy and discourages buying fun $5 cards and instead buying boring, functional Gold. You want to talk about assisting Big Money: How about practically requiring it? Wharf is powerful, but is powerful in both engines and big money. I don't think Used Land Saleman is worth dealing with its power in big money for the times its going to do something more interesting.

I also really don't like the name, but that can be fixed in post.

[scott_pilgrim]

I think BM/ULS would be pretty good, normally the question on $6 for BM is "Gold or Duchy?", with this you get both. If it's time for green, getting a Duchy free with your Province is also a plus. One more green card in your deck isn't such a big deal when ULS draws one more card than Smithy anyway, though I expect that at +3 Cards it would still beat BM/Smithy.

As for buying Silver, how are you going to draw 4 cards (or even 3 cards) and not have $6? If it's late enough that you're going to draw so many green cards to not hit $6, it's late enough that you do want that free Estate with your Silver (or Duchy).

This precisely. So much this.
It makes buying Gold or Duchy a boring decision in an already boring strategy and discourages buying fun $5 cards and instead buying boring, functional Gold. You want to talk about assisting Big Money: How about practically requiring it? Wharf is powerful, but is powerful in both engines and big money. I don't think Used Land Saleman is worth dealing with its power in big money for the times its going to do something more interesting.

I also really don't like the name, but that can be fixed in post.

How often do you buy Duchy to get the Gold when you have Hoard?  I feel like this is exactly the same situation.  Obviously there are a lot of other ways that ULS differs from Hoard, but Hoard isn't game-breaking because it gives you Gold and Duchy at the same time.  That's not really something you want to do until after you've started greening usually.

I'm still wondering why you think BM+ULS is better than BM Smithy, because it's not at all obvious to me which is better.  If you have simulations to back it up, or at least some play testing, I would believe it, but you just asserted it without explaining where it came from.

[dghunter79]

I'm still wondering why you think BM+ULS is better than BM Smithy, because it's not at all obvious to me which is better.  If you have simulations to back it up, or at least some play testing, I would believe it, but you just asserted it without explaining where it came from.

To be fair, he didn't assert anything, he just hypothesized.

[Fragasnap]

How often do you buy Duchy to get the Gold when you have Hoard?  I feel like this is exactly the same situation.  Obviously there are a lot of other ways that ULS differs from Hoard, but Hoard isn't game-breaking because it gives you Gold and Duchy at the same time.  That's not really something you want to do until after you've started greening usually.

Hoard is a Treasure that produces $2 at a cost of $6. Used Land Salesman is an Action that draws 4 cards (which needs a money density of 0.5 to be worse than +$2 on average) at a cost of $5. Opportunity cost is a lot higher on Hoard.

I'm still wondering why you think BM+ULS is better than BM Smithy, because it's not at all obvious to me which is better.  If you have simulations to back it up, or at least some play testing, I would believe it, but you just asserted it without explaining where it came from.

To be fair, he didn't assert anything, he just hypothesized.

Apologies. I'm extrapolating my hypothesis from a very small sample of real play tests, thus my noncommittal statement of it seeming to best Smithy Big Money.

[Warfreak2]

Actually I always take the Duchy with Hoard, otherwise what did I want the Hoard for? I'll even take an Estate if that's the best I can do. With two Hoards, my deck generally doesn't stall, because I can buy more money with other hands, and sometimes you get both Hoards in play at once.

I think Fragasnap is probably right that ULS is practically unusable outside of BM, to the detriment of the game. The only exceptions I can think of are the obvious combo with Silk Road, and taking a free Great Hall or Island (or, when buying a Province, a free Nobles or Harem). Maybe you could play it with Watchtower trashing the Estates, just because you want the +4 Cards...

[SirPeebles]

Ugh.  I have no idea which cards to vote for.

[eHalcyon]

How often do you buy Duchy to get the Gold when you have Hoard?  I feel like this is exactly the same situation.  Obviously there are a lot of other ways that ULS differs from Hoard, but Hoard isn't game-breaking because it gives you Gold and Duchy at the same time.  That's not really something you want to do until after you've started greening usually.

Hoard is a Treasure that produces $2 at a cost of $6. Used Land Salesman is an Action that draws 4 cards (which needs a money density of 0.5 to be worse than +$2 on average) at a cost of $5. Opportunity cost is a lot higher on Hoard.

I'm still wondering why you think BM+ULS is better than BM Smithy, because it's not at all obvious to me which is better.  If you have simulations to back it up, or at least some play testing, I would believe it, but you just asserted it without explaining where it came from.

To be fair, he didn't assert anything, he just hypothesized.

Apologies. I'm extrapolating my hypothesis from a very small sample of real play tests, thus my noncommittal statement of it seeming to best Smithy Big Money.

Initial opportunity cost doesn't matter here. After you have Hoard, is it game breaking that you can buy a Duchy to get a Gold? No; in fact it may be inadvisable. Likewise, buying Gold  and being forced to take a Duchy is not actually amazing early on.

If ULS only gave +3 cards, i would actually think Smithy-BM has a better chance of winning.

[nopawnsintended]

Ugh.  I have no idea which cards to vote for.

Vote for mine.

[nopawnsintended]

Ugh.  I have no idea which cards to vote for.

Vote for mine.

or Mine.

[Archetype]

Ugh.  I have no idea which cards to vote for.

Vote for mine.

or Mine.

<insert Mine and Mint mix-up joke here>