I'm inclined to agree. I really like the idea and flavor of the card though. What if instead of the +1 card, it was +1 coin or something? That way, sure, you could guarantee your hands will be full of infrastructures (could be a cool duchy rush strategy), but doing so has more of a cost to it, forcing you to actually combo it with card draw to be really useful. Or maybe give it a "discard 1 card". Again, I really like the idea, but as is it seems like too much of a no brainer to grab 2 and basically never want for actions again.

Blockade indeed seems totally whacky broken. A single play in a decent engine and you win forever. Each turn you shuffle bad cards (coppers, estates, non-drawing cards etc) into their deck until they only have 10 cards which they alternate between The best they'll do is buy a victory card, at which point your engine throws that in and a copper out. Meanwhile you build up until you win. It could be that often isn't the dominant strategy, but all it needs is an engine and it should be do-able.

Ooh, yeah. Heirloom + Horn of Plenty.

Buy Province or Colony with most your Treasure cards, use Horn of Plenty to gain Heirloom, shuffle only Treasure cards into your deck (don't bother shuffling in Heirloom!), repeat until the game ends or Heirlooms run out. It's actually pretty cool but maybe only for that once-in-a-while when they're both available.

Visionary is probably well-balanced, but not good card design: a Silver-with-a-bonus at $4 is uninteresting, because people buy Silver for $4 a large proportion of the time anyway.

For Circus, does that include cards opponents may have in play, such as Durations?

What constitutes a good card design? For me a good card design is 1) Balance 2) Adds something to the game it’s in (how ever small) and 3) Is fun. Visionary passes that test with flying colors. It is true that “people buy Silver for $4 a large proportion of the time anyway” but isn’t it more interesting and more fun to be able to get that silver and a small bonus?

When I first made the card it was +$1 +2 Actions with the other effect but after a few tests that turns out to be too powerful. After a while it became what it is today. While infrastructure still seems powerful in application it is not as powerful as it seems. The cycling of infrastructure takes longer than it seems it should take. I’d be interested in hearing both of your feedback on Infrastructure if you every try it.

Well, you've playtested it, so if your experience is that Visionary works, then I'll take your word for it, but on a more theoretical level, what he's getting at is that having a Silver+ at 4$ takes away an important decision from the game. Specifically, what should I do if I have 4$? Do I buy a silver or a 4 cost action card? Note that the VAST majority of 4 cost actions are either terminal or offer no coin (or have a significant cost or restriction). An argument could be made that the "what to do with 4$" decision is generally one of the most important tactical decisions in dominion. Having a Silver+ like this seems like it could hurt that quite a bit.

Have you tested Visionary in a Big Money variant? A Big Money deck with filtering that doesn't sacrifice any of its coin value might be unpleasantly strong relative to the simplicity of executing it.

Please explain. You haven't actually addressed any of our concerns which it the fact that once you play 2 different infrastructures you are guaranteed +1 additional action (more if you get more infrastructures) at the start of every future turn barring certain attacks/cards which might change the bottom card of your deck. I don't need to play test your set to know this is too powerful.

Herbalist + Edict = one supply pile turned upside down each turn you do it, without turning back up.

King's Court + Scheme + Herbalist + Edict = guaranteed way to do this every turn, until the entire kingdom is upside down.

Slightly broken. Not a huge deal, but not ideal

I see what your getting at. The majority of the games we played visionary in did not out shine any of the competing fours. I have yet to play visionary with a constructed big money deck, but on a few occasions visionary was paired with venture and bank and did not seem to (overly) impose on the other action four choices.

I'm sorry i did not realize that the +1 action for next turn was what you were concerned with.

Having a guaranteed extra action does not seem too powerful to me. The complaint about the way infrastructure gives the extra action is was is appealing to me. I look at the opportunity cost of buying two infrastructures and find that sufficient enough to level Infrastructure out.

Thanks for pointing that out. I did not see that combination, unfortunately I'll have to add some "can't leave play" clause.

Some of the cards are interesting and have good concepts, but there are a few that strike me as flawed.

Epic is a interesting card idea that shouldn't exist. All cards that give +1 victory point in prosperity are very careful about it. Bishop and Goons both require you either buy or trash cards, which require a well constructed deck to buy cards and trash them. Monument is a terminal action so in order to make good use of it you have to find natural combos to play it and still have enough money to improve your deck.

When epic is in play the most optimal strategy is buying nothing but epics. With 5 epics in hand you get 5 VP and have enough money to buy another epic. That's it, the optimal strategy for epic. Your deck will never be bloated and you can keep doing it forever. I don't think any +VP effect should exist on a treasure card, but maybe my instinct is off.

Copper Mine seems incredibly weak. For the same price as a silver it's essentially giving you +1 coin when everything is said and done, except that it requires you bloat your deck with copper. Compared to silver it's overpriced or underpowered.

It's meant to combo with select cards. Whether it should be two instead of three, or have some effect like "When you buy this, each other player gains two coppers", is an open question.

When you're going out of your way to playtest new cards, its probably even easier to lose sight of how your strategies stack up against big money and big money plus.
I say this because I'm skeptical that visionary didn't seem to outshine any of the "competing fours". This is suspicious to me because as a typical game drags on, its pretty common for silver to start to outshine the competing fours once you're crunched for actions, by virtue of it being a treasure card. So if a Silver+ isn't getting a ton of play, its possible that either a lot of your other cards are way overpowered, or that you're getting distracted by shiny new things and playing poorly.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Cattle yet, since it looks to me like a ridiculously strong trasher...
I can't believe that Cattle didn't vastly outshine most traditional trashing power in playtesting.

Ditto to what Salty just said but I guess after a Hunter finds ... any tract of land? to become a chainable Baron

Commune included twice as many cards in its supply pile

It might, Kev, provided that Counting House, Coppersmith, or Apothecary are available but even then it isn't the greatest strategy. I'd really hate to see something more powerful than the typical Workshop or Ironworks to vamp up a Gardens deck--mostly because I don't see that as an interesting combo but an exercise of seeing who does it more.
But the way I see it is that early on, your likely +1 Card is going to pull up another Copper. Later on, after extensive use of this card (and other copies of it; it is chainable and cheap), you'll have crapped so many Coppers into your deck that the +1 Card is still likely to pull another Copper. So the +1 Card, +1 Action, pseudo +1 coin is really just worth a Silver.
Of course, the card draw might be more useful than Copper but it might also not be. Unlike most chainable cards, this one really ups the frequency with which it will be exactly a Copper.
This is why earlier, I said that it looks like a way to merely avoid Silver.

Apparently all that rigorous playtesting didn't actually bring about any changes for two solid years.

For as weird as they all seem, most of them look fun to play in whatever situation. I've seen worse on official cards (I'm talking to you, Goons; listen up, Possession & Alchemist!) and I got to thinking if they were official cards, we'd probably accept most of them at face value or at least give them a chance first.

Don’t forget the buy on Baron ... Effectively hunter turns victory cards into silver, and without other draw cards hunter can only be played 4 times even in the luckiest situations.

I have heard that complaint about Commune, why is a double sized supply pile bad?

The way Kev looks at copper mine is very similar to how I look at copper mine. There are A LOT of “knobs” some more effective than others. I went real quickly through the randomizer deck and these are some cards found:
1) Counting House
2) Bank (lots of treasure in hand)
3) Ambassador (giving opponents copper)
4) Wishing Well (most of the deck will be copper)
5) Coppersmith
6) Trader (gain silver instead)
7) Conspirator (another action to chain)
8) Stables (mitigates all the copper)
9) Hunting Party (mitigates all the copper)
10) Trading Post (trash gained copper for silvers)
11) Moneylender (once you ran out of initial copper)
12) Trade Route (once you ran out of initial cards)
13) Spice Merchant (once you ran out of initial copper)
14) Philosopher’s Stone (Makes for big decks)
15) Foundry
16) Exchange Square
17) Apothecary
18) Gardens
19) Bishop (once you ran out of initial cards)
20) Hamlet (Free card to discard)
21) Stash (mitigates the copper for one turn)
22) Inn (put a bunch of copper mines into deck w/o copper)
23) Mine (upgrade the copper same turn)
24) Possession (punishes the possessor w/ copper)
25) Transmute (quick way to gain transmute)
I feel like I’ve missed a few. If I find some more I’ll edit this post.

$1
1VP
When you gain this card, take a second Commune from the Supply and place it in your discard pile.

"Since anytime you acquire a card in dominion it is considered "gained"

Trash a Copper from your hand, or reveal a hand with no Copper. If you trashed a Copper, add two Coin tokens to your Foundry mat.
-----
At any time during any of your Buy phases, you may return a Coin token from your Foundry mat to the Supply. If you do, +$1.

2) Bank is not; you can easily improve the ratio of Treasure cards in hand by not getting other things or else choosing Action cards with draw power--essentially by playing well. Banks are not improved by putting the weakest Treasure cards in your deck. You lose all the integrity of the Bank's possible high value by having a handful of otherwise really weak Treasure cards. 2 Golds and a Bank = 4 Coppers and a Bank < 3 Silvers and a Bank. Copper is always worse.

8) Stables is also valid, but only as much as any +1 Buy.

9) Hunting Party is false. If the entire idea is to mitigate all the Copper by drawing beyond it with the Hunting Party, then why cram it into the deck in the first place? The idea that you ought to hurt yourself much of the time because sometimes, you can effectively deal with it is absurd and that is no kind of valid combo.

Commune I was going to say that the second Commune may as well be "gained", but of course, as Jaren Maddock pointed out, that would lead to an infinite loop, and the whole game would just be "first player to $3 wins". Anyway, here is my rewording:

Alternatively (and making for a weaker card): When you buy this card, gain a second Commune.

Cattle — Hmm. Maybe the drawback should be gaining more than one Copper

foundry…you would only ever want to spend such tokens during your Action and Buy phases, and not, for example, during someone else's turn, but as worded the card allows doing so.
Trash a Copper from your hand, or reveal a hand with no Copper. If you trashed a Copper, add two Coin tokens to your Foundry mat.
-----
At any time during any of your Buy phases, you may return a Coin token from your Foundry mat to the Supply. If you do, +$1.

Infrastructure —I guess I'm not terribly fond of cards that are "necessarily perpetual", since it's like the card is telling you what your strategy should be.

Edict In any case, both with Edict and my own idea, I am worried about possible rules conflicts for when a certain card "must" be gained. For example, could you Edict against the Curse pile, thus preventing all Cursing attacks from being effective? And when a card such as Ironworks gains you a card, can you deliberately choose an "Edicted" pile and then get nothing (say, you attempt to Ironworks a Nobles just for the cantripping), or do you have to treat the pile as if it were empty? Maybe the restriction should be solely against buying Edicted cards and not gaining them, as with Embargo. Although again, we would need to clarify interactions with, for example, Noble Brigand. (Should the sequence go: "I buy Noble Brigand. Everyone gets Briganded. I would now gain the card, except it has been Edicted." Probably not.)

Circus — Darn it, that's the name of a card I'm working on. This card looks like it has a lot of potential for confusion (appropriately enough!). For example, does the "$1 less" thing happen only during the Buy phase, or at all times? Does "differently named cards in play" include all players' Duration cards? Does the change only apply to the Supply, or to Circuses in general?
As for the "$8" bit, I'm not sure how that's supposed to mix with the other cost adjustment; is it meant to make the card weaker (because 8 is less than 11) or stronger (because the adjusted cost may well be 7 or less). Plus, there's only so many cards that trash-and-care-about-cost; the $8 thing may as well be more general.

thanks for pointing that out. As it is becoming more apparent my wording is not 100%. It should be:
Name: Circus
Card Type: Action
Text: +1 Card, +1 Action, +1 Buy, +$2. Circus costs $1 less per differently named cards you have in play. When circus is trashed it is worth $8
Cost:11

So... how would someone go about making up a set of these cards to mix in?