Tournament

Tournament {{Cardbox|

|Card = Tournament
|Cost = 4
|Set = Cornucopia
|Type = Action
|Illustrator = 
|Text = +1 Action

Each player may reveal a [[Province] from his hand.
If you do, discard it and gain a Prize (from the Prize pile) or a Duchy, putting it on top of your deck.
If no-one else does, +1 Card, +$1.

}}

FAQ

Official FAQ

First you get +1 Action. Then each player, including you, may reveal a Province card from his hand. Then, if you revealed a Province, discard that card, and you gain a Prize of your choice, or a Duchy, putting whatever card you took on top of your deck. If there were no cards in your deck, it becomes the only card in your deck. There are five Prizes, set out at the start of the game; see Preparation. You can only take a Prize from the Prize pile. You can take any Prize from the Prize pile; you do not have to take the top one. You can take a Duchy instead, whether or not the Prizes have run out. You can opt to take a Duchy even if the Duchy pile is empty, or a Prize even if no Prizes are left; in these cases you gain nothing. After gaining your card or not, if no other player revealed a Province, you draw a card and get +$1 . So this card will play out one of four ways:
1) if you do not reveal a Province and no-one else does either, you will get +1 Action +1 Card +$1;
2) if you reveal a Province and no one else does, you will gain a Prize or a Duchy and draw it, as well as get +1 Action +$1;
3) if you reveal a Province and so does someone else, you will get +1 Action and gain a Prize or a Duchy, which will be on top of your deck;
4) if you do not reveal a Province but someone else does, you will just get +1 Action.
When you gain a Prize, take whichever remaining Prize you want. You can look through the Prizes that players have not gained yet whenever you want.

Trivia

Secret History

Long ago, when working on what at the time was going to be the 4th expansion, with a player interaction theme, I hit on the idea of caring about whether or not people had bought Provinces. I made two cards with this concept. The first turned into Trade Route, and migrated into Prosperity when I split up the player interaction cards (every set needed those cards). The second soon became $4, "Each player may reveal a Province from his hand. If you do, +3 Cards. If no-one else does, +3 Cards." So you got 0, 3, or 6 cards, depending. I moved it into Alchemy, then moved it from there to Prosperity, where revealing a Province was an extra-cute condition.

It had a certain charm, but was a dud for some people. The problem was, a lot of the time, it was Smithy. It just didn't play differently enough from Smithy to be interesting. So it left Prosperity and was consigned to the limbo of promising ideas to work on later.

When I started working on Cornucopia, I tried it again, as something that fit the hand theme. The dull part was the card-drawing, so I had to replace that. The version I tried cost $5, and was, "Each player may reveal a Province card from his hand. If you do, gain a Treasure. If no-one else does, gain an Action card." It's fun to just say "gain an Action card," no qualifiers, but it doesn't work. We played one game with this and Possession. I got six Possessions and lost. Possession was typically not as good as Workshop, as everyone crammed their decks full of VP cards. Another insane thing was using it to gain copies of itself and Golems, then using the Golems to dig it up and do this more. You would have turns where you gained a pile of cards and then played them all. Anyway these games are fun once, but that's that. I killed the card again.

So a while later, I was working on the set, and realized I could push variety by actually adding more cards to the game. I had cards that cared if you had variety, and some cards helped you get that variety, but nothing increased the total amount of variety possible.

The first thing to try was a Black Market variant. Black Market came up a lot as a card that was cool with this expansion. Why not make a new one? And I could fix all of the problems Black Market had. Instead of buying a card in your Action phase, it would gain you a card directly. Instead of having to build a Black Market Deck, it would just come with one pre-built. Then that deck could be new cards, which was nice too, especially for a small expansion, although it could only be five cards, because that's how much space there was.

Tournament's province-revealing mechanic was perfect for this. And so it came to pass. I made a Black Market variant, that came with the cards you gained from it, that gained you the cards directly, via revealing a Province. There were still some things to work out though.

You got your Prize for revealing Province yourself, so that it wouldn't happen right away, and it went on your deck, so you'd draw it before the game was over. What did you get if they didn't stop you? At first it was a Silver, which was obviously bad. Steve Wampler suggested that it be something involving drawing a card, so that you'd get your Prize that turn if you had Province and no-one else did. I went with Peddler - +1 Action +1 Card +$1. That had the problem though of, if someone revealed Province, you didn't get +1 Action, and couldn't play another card. You'd have turns where you stared at your hand, deciding whether or not to risk playing Tournament. That was no fun, so, you always get the +1 Action.

Another thing was the booby prize. Originally it was Silver. That was unimpressive, but was there for a bit before turning into Duchy.

Originally you didn't discard the Province you revealed, but winning multiple Tournaments in a turn was too much. It's still possible of course, just harder.

And finally there are the Prizes themselves. There were always five; that's just how much space was left, and was a fine number anyway. I was not going to take out a card so I could have sixteen Prizes. They always cost $0. They need a cost because some cards care about card costs. There are various arguments for why they should have what cost, but I think a crucial one in favor of $0* is, that it makes it extra clear that you cannot actually buy them. I also like that you don't think, "oh man the correct play is to Remodel my prize."

The Prizes wanted to be cards that I wasn't "wasting" as Prizes. Cards that I couldn't do normally, because they were too hard to price well, or were too powerful in multiples, or too narrow. You don't always have extra actions for Diadem, but you can just take another Prize instead; it's not a whole unused pile.

The first set of Prizes was less exciting, and people complained and I excitified them. Bag of Gold originally did not give +1 Action. Princess only made VP cards cheaper. Trusty Steed gave you +2 Cards and +$2, no choice. Diadem went unchanged, look at that. And in place of Followers I had a VP-Action card. It didn't work out because, you know, you buy VP cards later in the game, for the points they're worth. I just couldn't make a VP prize exciting enough without making it too good. It couldn't be something you built your deck around, because you might not get it and at most got one. Something like Harem or Nobles just wasn't going to look pretty next to the other Prizes, because part of what you "paid for" was the 2 VP. Anyway Followers, who doesn't like Followers.

Diadem started in the large version of Alchemy long ago, as an Action: "+$2. Return this to your hand." It was a cute combo with Villages, but useless without them. I then tried some "choose one" versions, which solved the problem of it sometimes being dead, but didn't make the actions-to-money part any better. I eventually gave up on it, and well here it is at last.

Followers meanwhile started out as a Goons in Prosperity. I tried a bunch of "choose one" cards in that slot, and then tried this attack-two-ways, profit-the-opposite-ways thing. It was the same except it cost $6 and gave you a VP token instead of an Estate. It was too strong. An Estate is obv. a lot worse than a VP token, and being a Prize means it doesn't get to hit you that often or early either.

At one point Trusty Steed also gave you +2 Buys when you picked +2 Actions, and at one point Princess gave you +1 Action too.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, from the Secret History of the Cornucopia Cards