$2 1P Treasure Constellation $? - Worth $1 for every Action card played during your turn, to a maximum of $5.
The trick here is that they vary so wildly in value, probably even more so than Diadem, which was variable enough in testing that it didn't work as a regular kingdom card. On some boards, this is no better than a Copper. On others, it'll give you $10 or more, which is just ridiculous.
$2 1P Action - Potionmaker - +1P, +1 Buy | While this is in play, if you buy a card with a Potion in its cost, you may put it on top of your deck.
Probably this is overpriced. Most $2P cards have a powerful level somewhere around $5 or so. This is a little better than a Woodcutter at first and worse later. Donald talked about +P as a vanilla bonus in the Secret History of the Alchemy Cards. The problem is, what if this is the only Potion-cost card out? The idea can work (and giving it a Potion cost is the right move, since that ensures that Potions are out in the first place), but the card needs to do something that will make picking these up worthwhile in the first place. In other words, you have to consider that the only use for this card would be to pick up more copies of itself more easily.
$3 1P Action Fairy Trash a card from your hand. Gain a card of a different card type costing up to $2 more, or gain a card of any type costing up to $1, 1P more.
I like the idea of a Remodel that lets you jump from non-potion to potion costs. I just question its power level. Remodel is not a great $4 card. This is a little better than Remodel, but probably only very little better. Because to get it, you have to have already bought a Potion, and if you have a Potion, the need for using a Remodel-style card to get another Potion card is quite diminished. Yet this card's $3P cost warrants a power level somewhere around $6.
It would be worth it on the right board, I guess, especially if you could dump an Estate to pick up an Alchemist. But if you've already scraped together $3P, why didn't you just buy an Alchemist in the first place? The other thing to consider is that the weakness of Potion-cost cards is how long it takes to get them in your deck. Buy a Potion, reshuffle, buy the potion-cost card, reshuffle. Double the usual time. But inserting a Remodel step into that chain means THREE shuffles before you get your first target Potion-cost card in hand. That's pretty brutal, even if you do get to reuse the Remodeller on future shuffles.
You also have to think about how the card would play in the absence of any other Potion-cost card. It can still be used as a conventional Remodel, so that's good -- it won't be a completely dead pile. But I think it needs to cost just a Potion, no coins, and then it might still be too slow for most boards.
I really like the idea, but I think it needs some thought.
$3 1P Action Valkyrie - +1 Action While this is in play, every time you would trash a card this turn you may either: discard the card instead, while still receiving the benefits trashing the card would have given you; or +1 Action.
-Mine a Gold into a Gold, keep the first Gold! Remodel a Gold into a Province, keep the Gold! Apprentice a Province, keep the Province! Moneylend a Copper, get +1 Action!
I've seen this idea before and liked it but was nervous about the power level. Giving it a potion cost makes me feel a lot better about it. $3P might be just right, too. However, again there is the problem that it's a dead card on many boards. Not every board has trashing.
Maybe this functionality could be turned into a Reaction ability. Then you can have it also be a Victory card, for example, or an Action that does something on its own. Then it will still be useful in the absence of trashers.
$4 Action-Attack Epic Poet Each other player discards a Treasure, or reveals a hand with no Treasure. Gain a copy of each Treasure discarded, and put these in your hand.
This is extremely swingy. It might do nothing, but when it hits, it hurts twice: your opponent loses the use of a Gold, while you gain one. Thief hits the top of the deck to keep the hurt in one place, and even then it's a somewhat swingy card.
$4 1P Action Leprechaun Reveal up to two treasures from your hand. Gain a copy of each, and put these in your hand.
-Doesnt replace Mint remember Mint lets you get rid of Coppers, and you may not want Treasures in your hand for some reason.
I can't think of a reason why the gain-to-hand would ever be a drawback. I'm sure there are reasons, but more the sort of reasons you'd ask in a Dominion puzzle question than something that you'd ever be in danger of encountering in a real game. If a small hand-size matters -- e.g., for Library -- you can always just play the Library first.
But the card is probably fine. $4P might be too expensive -- that's a LOT to pay for a card -- but I don't know why it wouldn't be okay at
some price.
$4 1P Action Wizard Discard a treasure. If you do, gain a Potion in your hand. You may trash a card. If you do, +1 Card, +1 Action, +$1.
In many (most?) Potion games, you only need one Potion. Two is pretty much tops. So buying a Potion-costed card that gains you a Potion every time you play it is probably not something you want. Of course, you can always trash the Potion you gain, but if you do that, the power level of the card actually worse than than Oasis. Like Oasis, you're up $1 and down a card, but unlike Oasis, you had to discard a treasure instead of being able to discard a victory card or curse instead.
Basically I don't think this card will work at any cost. The functionality requires a Potion in its cost, but the power level isn't strong enough to justify one.
$5 Victory Elysian Fields Worth 1V for every three cards in the Trash pile.
-I know the whole gain something from the Trash has been done before, but has this?
That's a really interesting idea. You still need to guarantee that cards *can* be trashed in any kingdom using this, or it'll be a strictly useless card. But maybe this can work as an Action-Victory where the action allows some trashing.
$5 1P Action-Reaction Unicorn You may put your deck in your discard pile. +3 Cards, +1 Buy. | When another player plays an Attack card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, ignore the Attack. If the Attack would have made you discard, draw the same number of cards you would have discarded; if the attack would have made you gain one or more cards, you may trash a card from your hand. You may only reveal this once per attack.
The last line is problematic: what if you have two such cards in your hand? If so, you could reveal one in response to one attack, and the other in response to another. But what holds the player accountable, preventing him from revealing the same one twice?
This is part of the reason that the Dominion rules allow a reaction card to be revealed any number of times in response to an event. Rather than overriding the rules, it's better for a card to be written in such a way as to work within them. Horse Traders is a great example of this.
I'm dubious on the reaction itself, too. A reaction card probably shouldn't help the player TOO much, or attack cards become bad things to play, and if attacks are bad to play, they're bad to buy, and if attacks are bad to buy, there is less reason to buy reactions. Lots of times, this reaction is probably fine, but sometimes it's crazy overpowered. It stops a Minion chain dead, for example. Each time your opponent plays a Minion, bam, you get FIVE more cards. Giving your opponent a free Tactician turn is stupendous already, but that happens EVERY time your opponent plays a Minion. He'd basically have to sacrifice his own turn by cutting it short just so you don't get to start your next turn with your entire deck in hand.
I also wonder if the rules can even be followed all the time. When someone plays Jester, you MIGHT have gained a card from the attack, but unless the attack goes through, you won't know. You can't even know when someone plays Saboteur. Sure, that usually trashes a card, but can either of you be sure you aren't holding all your $3+ cost cards in your hand, which would then cause Saboteur to cycle through your deck without finding anything to trash?
If you made the reaction a simple Moat, the card looks well-worth playtesting at about $2P.
$5 1P Action-Attack Cerberus Choose three: +2 Card; +1 Action; each other player with 4 or more cards discards a card. The choices do not have to be different.
-Its flexible!
+6 Cards, +3 Actions is going to be unworkable at any cost. You'd be passing up Colonies to buy this, even. But the general principle of requiring a choice between helping yourself and hurting your opponents is interesting and evident in the gameplay of Pirate Ship and Minion. Something like this might work:
Cerberus
$2P or $3P - Action-Attack
+1 Action.
Choose two: +1 Card; each player with 4 or more cards discards a card. (The choices don't have to be different.)
It's usually either a non-terminal Militia, a cantrip half-Militia, or a Laboratory. Seems pretty good for a $2P or $3P card. The price of Alchemist makes me think $3P is the best price, but it feels slightly weaker overall. You'd have to see if pricing it at $2P would make multiples too easy to accumulate.
Offhand, I can't think of a "choose three" version that works unless you take off the +1 Action. +3 Cards on a non-terminal is not only incredible but kind of boring once you've got enough to draw your whole deck every turn.
$6 Action Demigod - +1 Buy. Reveal Cards from your deck until you reveal 3 Action cards. Choose one, put the other revealed cards back on your deck in any order, then play the chosen card twice. | This card can only be played from your hand it cannot be played directly from the deck, such as through a card like Demigod. If this card is revealed from the deck in such a manner, discard it, and proceed as if it were not revealed.
-So if you Golem and find a Demigod, itll be discarded, and you keep searching for Actions. However, Scout/Cartographer would let you put this back on your deck.
What's your reasoning for the special case rule here? Special case rules just open up a can of worms when you hit weird snags, like with Golem. Except that you specified, it wouldn't be obvious to me that Golem should skip and discard the card. And indeed, why should it? You're breaking the rules on the Golem card if you do. You're breaking the Demigod rules if you don't. There's nothing saying which rule should take precedence. What you need is a way not to break ANY rules. I'm not really sure what you're trying to accomplish with that rule, though, so I don't know what to suggest as an alternative way to achieve the same goal.
Anyway, the only other thing is that I think putting all the revealed cards in any order is a bad idea: you might have 50 cards to put back, which will mean 20 minutes for the player to figure out how to arrange his next 10 turns optimally. If you just discarded them all and played the chosen action card twice, you've still got a power issue. Compare it with Golem, which lets you play two random actions. That's almost always going to be vastly inferior to playing the best of 3 action cards twice. Make it the best of 2 action cards, and you might be fine at $5P.
$6 1P Treasure Apple of Discord - $4 When cleaning up with this in play, trash all other treasures in play, except for other Apples of Discord.
This is probably fine, but I'd probably rather see a $1 or $2 treasure with this power at a cheaper price. $6P is pretty steep, and if you got any at all, you're probably not also going for Platinums anyway, so the trashing component is basically all upside.
$7 2P Action-Attack - Dragon Each other player discards down to three cards, then gains a curse in hand. Gain a Gold and put it in your hand. While this is in play, all cards cost 1P less this turn, but not less than 0P.
-Is the cost good?
Tough to say. That's priced so far above what any other card costs, there isn't any point of reference with which the power level could be compared. It's also steep enough that by the time you can afford one, you probably should have already started buying Provinces (or even Colonies, in a Colony game). So the fact that you drew $7+2P instead of $8 is probably not a good thing.
It's significant that the most expensive kingdom cards cost no more than $7 or $6P. And even at that level, there are only 4 and 1 of each, respectively, out of the 160ish official kingdom cards. It's just more important to have a solid middle than to put prizes on the edges. Because even if you reined in the price of this card to the point where it's worth going for one, then the game would devolve into a race to get one of these, instead of a race to get the most VP cards.
$2 Action Lightbulb +1 Card. Play all other lightbulbs in your hand. Once there are no more lightbulbs in your hand, +1 Action for every two lightbulbs played, rounded down, but no less than 1 Action.
-I just thought this was nifty and cute.
Yeah, that's pretty cool. Too weak, I think, because the net benefit you reap is zero unless you can play at least four. (Otherwise they're all cantrips.) Actually, I think the problem is that +actions are the ultimate benefit you get from playing a chain of these -- but that's the effect you get out of playing a chain of Villages, so going to the effort of buying $2 cantrips that only become Villages under special circumstances seems like something you'd never want to bother with. But I do really like the idea of a card that lets you play other copies and grants a benefit based on how many you manage to play.
$3 Action Demolish Trash up to three cards in your hand. For each card, choose one: +$1; +1 Action.
-Should this be more expensive? Or should it be only two cards trashed?
In the early game, this is a monster. Trash 3 Coppers for +$3? Considering that +$3 alone should probably cost $5, this is outstanding by comparison. Admittedly, later in the game you'll stop having cards to trash for those benefits. But the ability to bootstrap up into power quickly probably makes it a losing strategy to open with ANY other card.
Reducing the trashing limit to 2 still compares very favorably with Steward, which only lets you trash two cards OR earn +$2, not both. But just this:
Trash a card from your hand. Choose one: +1 action or +$1.
...is probably a deceptively solid $3 card.
$3 Action Railroad Workers - +2 Actions. While this is in play, all cards cost $1 less, but no less than $2.
-May or may not be good just wanted a card called Railroad Workers.
Harder to chain than Highway, but lots easier to chain than Bridge. The lack of +Buy and cost-reduction limit makes me think $4 might be fine.
$4 Action Steam Engine - +4 Actions
-Used to power your 2-Action cards, get it?
This is very situational. You usually don't need +4 Actions all at once, because if you have that many terminals, they'll be clashing a lot and hurting you. On the other hand, if you had enough Steam Engines to mitigate that hazard, you'd probably be much better off with an equal number of Villages. The Villages will get you up to +4 Actions if you really need them to, AND they provide important drawing power for getting those actions into your hand in the first place.
$3 is probably the right price for this card.
$4 Action-Victory City Park Trash a card from your hand. | 2V.
Probably not worth playing very often, but $4 is a decent price for 2 VP already, so you're probably fine.
$4 Action Bankruptcy Reveal your hand. If there are no Treasures, gain a Gold in hand.
-Be careful: the more you play this, the less youll be able to. Use in conjunction with a discarding card, like Cellar. Throne Room-ing this would be silly.
A bit swingy, since two players with the same deck might see one player hit it three times and the other none. Cellars and so forth do make this interesting, because you might have to decide if it's worth discarding more than $3 in return for gaining a Gold. Black Market is another combo opportunity. But it's pretty unusual for any given kingdom to have a reliable cycler like Cellar with which you can manipulate your hand sufficiently, so 95+% of the time the effectiveness of the card is down to luck.
2-Action FAQ These cards cant be Throne Room-ed. You have to Throne Room a Throne Room, then these cards take up BOTH Throne Room slots. So you can play Throne Room/Throne Room/Sawmill, but then youre out of actions. The doubly Throne Roomed Sawmill would yield +4 Buys and +$8.
The Throne Room rules here introduce more rules snags like I mentioned with Golem before. In fact, Golem is also a problem here, since the card mandates that you play whatever action card you turn up. Similarly, if you play Throne Room, you HAVE to play an action card from your hand if you have one. If all you've got is one of these, you're forced to break one rule or the other.
The best mechanism I've seen for this is "-1 Action, if you do..." that was in another recent fan set thread here, but for the life of me I can't find it, which makes no sense. I'm sure I'm just being blind, but I actually have to run now, so I'll finish my commentary on the remaining cards later. If no one posts the link I'm looking for before I get back to this, I'll find it myself.
Anyway, good job.