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[werothegreat]

"Fixed Harvest"
Action

Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck.  For each differently named card, +$2.


How much would this cost, and would it be better than the current version?

[blueblimp]

Even as a terminal gold = that's decent for $5, and terminal gold can have uses against thief/NB/Pirate Ship

That's actually pretty awful for $5. $5s are generally better than gold, this is worse, and significantly so in engines where it might be $0.

I agree, but one design characteristic of Dominion is that "terminal gold" is considered too good for $5. For example, Mandarin was introduced in a fairly late expansion, and it has _two_ mostly-disadvantages compared to gold. The problem is that if you want gold, then you'll usually just buy gold and not put up with the penalty. $5s are more often designed as Silver-with-small-bonus or terminal-Silver-with-large-bonus, and it's easier for those cards to compete with Gold because sometimes the bonus is worth more than the additional $1.

[Awaclus]

Even as a terminal gold = that's decent for $5, and terminal gold can have uses against thief/NB/Pirate Ship

That's actually pretty awful for $5. $5s are generally better than gold, this is worse, and significantly so in engines where it might be $0.

I agree, but one design characteristic of Dominion is that "terminal gold" is considered too good for $5. For example, Mandarin was introduced in a fairly late expansion, and it has _two_ mostly-disadvantages compared to gold. The problem is that if you want gold, then you'll usually just buy gold and not put up with the penalty. $5s are more often designed as Silver-with-small-bonus or terminal-Silver-with-large-bonus, and it's easier for those cards to compete with Gold because sometimes the bonus is worth more than the additional $1.

I always thought it had two mostly-advantages compared to Gold. You don't buy it in situations where topdecking is a drawback.

[michaeljb]

Most of the people I play rate watchtower where I feel it should be rated (rather highly). My baby for an underutilised card is Scout.

*Pause for Scout jokes*

I know it's a terrible card but there are games where both players decks get bogged down with green and I'm almost certain that a scout to filter some out for a turn would be better than a silver or other alternatives but people don't buy it just because it's scout.

I've noticed on Goko watchtower gets ignored a lot more than it should

The Watchtower interface IRL is just so much better.

[shark_bait]

Masterpiece.

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=9376.msg320971#msg320971

I also just played a Chapel/Upgrade/Masterpiece game.  So good and so resilient!  Who says Chapel/BM isn't a thing? 

[Stealth Tomato]

Getting back to Harvest, here's a game where I'm convinced that Harvest was a way better choice than Gold, because there are cards that care about actions: Throne Room and Herald, so the coin maximum of 1 Harvest increases significantly, comparing to Gold, and it isn't a stop card anymore.
Another good example where you want to prefer Harvest to Gold are Minstrel engines, maybe also Draw-to-X strategies.

Well, for starters, a single game, let alone a game won by 4 Provinces probably isn't the best indicator of any card's quality. But let's go for it.
Harvest gets you...
$2 on T12
$2 again on T12, leaving you with $7
$4 on T13
$3 on T14
$4 on T14
$4 on T15, but Gold would have given you $4 as well since you played Bank
$4 again on T15, but again, Gold would have given you $4 as well since you played Bank
$3 on T16
$3 on T17
$4 on T17
$3 on T18
$3 again on T18

To review, you get an average of just over $3... but on only three occasions do you get more than Gold would give you, and on two you get less. I'm not buying that it's terribly useful to you.


Anyway, the problem with Harvest is that for it to be better than Gold, you need two things to be true:
1. Its terminal-ness doesn't matter.
2. It will average more than $3 per play.
   2a. Your deck has high card variety.
   2b. Your deck has cards in it when you play Harvest.

2b directly conflicts with both 1 and 2a. For 1, decks with a surplus of +Action are usually either full-deck-drawers or poorly built. For 2a, this usually means trashing your start cards, which lends itself to very short decks, which can easily leave you without enough cards in the deck to get much out of Harvest.

Of course, good deck management is your friend... but when you're drawing your deck and Harvest shows up right near the bottom, you're just out of luck.

[markusin]

*Groan*

You get Harvest because it can be played by KC/TR/Golem/Herald/etc. but Gold can't. That or you hit 5$ and feel gutsy. That should cover almost all cases where you'd get Harvest.

 

[KingZog3]

*Groan*

You get Harvest because it can be played by KC/TR/Golem/Herald/etc. but Gold can't. That or you hit 5$ and are the insanity wolf. That should cover almost all cases where you'd get Harvest.

FTFY

[AHoppy]

Harvest is a good sifter of junk if you know the top of your deck.  Prime example: Apothecary.  It takes the crap apothecary leaves behind and turns it into money, and opens up your next turn so it isn't crap.  Plus it can help give you that extra couple $ you need to get to 8 with your apothecary deck.  Apart from deck inspection though, it's not great...

[KingZog3]

Harvest is a good sifter of junk if you know the top of your deck.  Prime example: Apothecary.  It takes the crap apothecary leaves behind and turns it into money, and opens up your next turn so it isn't crap.  Plus it can help give you that extra couple $ you need to get to 8 with your apothecary deck.  Apart from deck inspection though, it's not great...

Harvest is terminal, which makes it really hard to do that. Similar to Navigator for setting up what you draw.

[Davio]

Develop.

Normally, terminal collision is bad.
With Develop and some well positioned cards, not so much.
Say you open Develop/$4 terminal silver, with Village on $3 and Torturer on $5, you'd be quite happy to topdeck those two.

[AHoppy]

Harvest is a good sifter of junk if you know the top of your deck.  Prime example: Apothecary.  It takes the crap apothecary leaves behind and turns it into money, and opens up your next turn so it isn't crap.  Plus it can help give you that extra couple $ you need to get to 8 with your apothecary deck.  Apart from deck inspection though, it's not great...

Harvest is terminal, which makes it really hard to do that. Similar to Navigator for setting up what you draw.

Yeah, but apothecary is not terminal.  Play a bunch of them, put your harvest on top last, draw it, sift through the remaining junk.  I guess it's more of a combo that I'm speculating about and have not tested.  But I suspect it would work with cartographer as well

[brokoli]

I can do point-by-point refutations, too

To clarify, I decided to go for the point-by-point refutations so I didn't have to make complicated argumentation sentences, In short I took the easy option
But serisouly, I don't understand why people always say that it is hard to have $4 from Harvest, from my experience it happens very often.

[Davio]

The main problem with Harvest is that it just provides money, without any other utility. You know what else provides money? Money!

Most action cards have some small utility that you don't get from regular treasure cards, that's why you get them. Some provide draw, actions, trashing, +buy, etc. Harvest doesn't do any of that.

Even if you KC-Harvest and get $12, you still need another card with +Buy to profit from it.

I wonder if tacking on a +Buy on Harvest would make it more attractive or some silly on-trash bonus or something.

[BadAssMutha]

Harvest is a good sifter of junk if you know the top of your deck.  Prime example: Apothecary.  It takes the crap apothecary leaves behind and turns it into money, and opens up your next turn so it isn't crap.  Plus it can help give you that extra couple $ you need to get to 8 with your apothecary deck.  Apart from deck inspection though, it's not great...

I don't think Harvest is that great a combo with deck inspection - are you really gonna forego playing it if you don't know the top of your deck? If not, knowing what's on top gets you practically nothing. I guess Apothecary can be useful to pull matching Coppers out of the next 4 cards, but that's about it. The cards it leaves behind might be dead VP or curses, but there's also a good chance that it's actions or other $, in which case you're not sifting junk. Even if you are, you usually wind up with multiple copies of the junk cards, meaning your Harvest makes less money. If Apothecary is working well, you should be drawing mostly coppers anyway (leaving you with no deck inspection), and if you don't draw any coppers, then the reordering it gets you doesn't affect Harvest at all. I think Cartographer might be a better example of useful deck inspection for Harvest, since you can just discard whatever duplicates you have directly. I can't even think of other deck inspection cards that let you see/discard multiple cards, so it seems the applications are limited.

[AHoppy]

Actually, my point was more that Apothecary needs something to sift the junk that inevitably stays on top of the deck and harvest is a card that could do that.  Now to make it most effective sure, you'd want a village.  But still, it's a sifter that can also get you some money from the sifting.  That's it's secondary benefit that Davio was talking about and saying it was lacking.  It's there, it's just not a very good benefit...

[werothegreat]

The main problem with Harvest is that it just provides money, without any other utility. You know what else provides money? Money!

Most action cards have some small utility that you don't get from regular treasure cards, that's why you get them. Some provide draw, actions, trashing, +buy, etc. Harvest doesn't do any of that.

Even if you KC-Harvest and get $12, you still need another card with +Buy to profit from it.

I wonder if tacking on a +Buy on Harvest would make it more attractive or some silly on-trash bonus or something.

It has the utility of discarding the top of your deck.  It's like Chancellor, except more money and less discard.  And unlike Chancellor, it can actually activate Tunnels.  Sure, revealing four Tunnels would only give you $1, but it would gain you four Golds.

[LastFootnote]

"Fixed Harvest"
Action

Reveal the top 3 cards of your deck.  For each differently named card, +$2.


How much would this cost, and would it be better than the current version?

The fewer cards you reveal, the less chance you have duplicates. Your suggested Harvest would nearly always produce $4, and very often $6, without the need to even build a variety-based deck. I wouldn't print it at any cost. The boost Harvest needs most is the ability to put one (or more) of the revealed cards back on your deck.

Harvest
Types: Action
Cost: $5
Reveal the top 4 cards of your deck. +$1 for each differently named card revealed. You may put one of them back on your deck. Discard the rest.

I'd playtest that first.

[jamespotter]

[Harvest] has the utility of discarding the top of your deck.  It's like Chancellor, except more money and less discard.  And unlike Chancellor, it can actually activate Tunnels.  Sure, revealing four Tunnels would only give you $1, but it would gain you four Golds.

I agree with wero that Harvest's advantage isn't the possible $4 payload, it's the sifting. It is never a strong card, but if you are looking at an alt-vp slog or have severely lost the Ruins battle, Harvest can sweep in to save the day.  Harvest still has fairly low utility, but I have had great success with it as a deck-patcher midgame. The reason I think it appears to be such a weak card is: most of the time, it performs one or the other of its functions. It hits your variety, and gives you good money, or it hits your junk and provides filtering. Either way, Harvest is more of a lubricant than a card that can be made the star of your engine.

[Polk5440]

Harvest, maybe for the community at large, but not for me! I love Harvest! If anything I buy it too often. Harvest + Shelters! Yes, please. I think Dark Ages was the boost Harvest needed. Dark Ages + Cornucopia games are really interesting.

For me, I am finding there are cards that I'd "never" buy -- and those, for me, are the most-underutilitzed cards.

Develop, FOR SURE. I used to over-use it because it seems fun to play, then stopped using it all together. Now, I try to find uses for it, but struggle. Sometimes I ignore it simply because thinking of strategies that use it requires coming up with strategies that are complicated. And it's hard to play complicated strategies. So I don't incorporate it as often as I should.

Counting House is another one I tend to ignore even when I shouldn't. I have conditioned myself to not see it, so even when it's a Mountebank-Colony game I sometimes don't even realize it's there until an opponent buys one....

Transmute. There has to be a time this plays, but I can't remember the last game I purchased a Transmute and won. I buy Scout more often than this card (seriously). Therefore, I have to be under-rating it, right?

[jsh357]

Saboteur and Develop (already mentioned here).  Saboteur can be absolutely brutal in games with a bad range of action costs, e.g. games with lots of $5s and nothing good at the 2-3 range.  Being able to play it consistently helps too.  It's frequently rated as one of the worst cards, but I personally would put it just below the middle range.  That said, it's not a card to buy blindly by any means.  You'd better have an intended use and be relatively sure it's going to happen.

I disagree about Watchtower being underrated; like WW says, that's probably just weaker players.  No offense to them.  I woudl easily put Watchtower in the top 5 $3 cards.

[LastFootnote]

Transmute. There has to be a time this plays, but I can't remember the last game I purchased a Transmute and won. I buy Scout more often than this card (seriously). Therefore, I have to be under-rating it, right?

In general, Donald tried to make the Potion-cost cards such that you'd be willing to buy a Potion even if there were no other Potion-cost cards on the board. He wasn't entirely successful with Transmute or Philosopher's Stone.

In a game with a bunch of other Potion-cost cards, Transmute is nice because you don't have to waste buys to accumulate Gold, and turning Coppers into Transmutes can actually be useful for Vineyards/Scrying Pool.

[markusin]

Harvest, maybe for the community at large, but not for me! I love Harvest! If anything I buy it too often. Harvest + Shelters! Yes, please. I think Dark Ages was the boost Harvest needed. Dark Ages + Cornucopia games are really interesting.

Dark Ages + Cornucopia is pretty cool at times. As you said, Harvest gets a boost from shelters, but it also gets a boost from Ruins and non-supply cards and stuff. At the same time, Hunting Party gets a bit more balanced when shelters and ruins are in the picture. In fact, Dark Ages and Cornucopia are the only two expansions I own the physical copies of right now (Intrigue would be the one I get next. The only card that messes everything up is Knights. They just boost every variety-seeking Cornucopia card in a rather outrageous way.

Back to Harvest: I'd say Harvest is better in slogs, where just getting a single Province is the best you can ever hope to do on a turn and where you're sure to have cards on the deck to discard. If nothing else, the discarding helps you see your Harvest again faster (except when it triggers a reshuffle, but you can use that to make other junk miss the reshuffle too). Hopefully, your Harvest has a good chance to produce $4 at that point.

I maintain that, for all its flaws, Harvest is the "fixed" Adventurer. It has you discard cards from the top of your deck to produce coin, but it only costs $5 and doesn't require you to have treasure in your deck, just variety.

[KingZog3]

I maintain that, for all its flaws, Harvest is the "fixed" Adventurer. It has you discard cards from the top of your deck to produce coin, but it only costs $5 and doesn't require you to have treasure in your deck, just variety.

But Adventurer changes with special Treasure cards, while Harvest does not. I don't see them as being similar at all.

[markusin]

I maintain that, for all its flaws, Harvest is the "fixed" Adventurer. It has you discard cards from the top of your deck to produce coin, but it only costs $5 and doesn't require you to have treasure in your deck, just variety.

But Adventurer changes with special Treasure cards, while Harvest does not. I don't see them as being similar at all.

Does too! Special Treasures = more variety.

Seriously though, you're right about Adventurer interacting with special treasures, like when you really want to see your HoP or your Quarry. Gosh, why was Adventurer not introduced in Prosperity.

I compare Harvest with Adventurer because they usually perform the same role, and have mostly the same drawbacks (weak early game, flop when you've drawn your deck, and lack of control over what's discarded from your deck). If Adventurer were to cost $5, I suspect it would be about as strong as Harvest in the absence of special treasures.