Experimenting on a single-card deck

I feel like I've asked this befoe, but I can't find the post, if so.

Super-Scientific Tachyon uses Experiment on a deck that has exactly one card in it.  What happens?

1) Nothing.  (If so, on what reasoning?)

2) The single card is revealed (on the principle of "do as much as you can"), and then:

2a) The revealed card is discarded, because it cleary doesn't share a keyword with <null card>.

2b) The revealed card is returned, because it is nonsensical to compare something with nothing.

2c) The revealed card is put into play, because a <null crad> doesn't *lack* any keywords.  (I don't buy this one myself, but include it for completeness.)

I lean towards 2a, myself, but I'd be interested in hearing other arguments and/or offical rulings.

The answer is 1: Nothing (the power fizzles). It requires you to reveal 2 cards, and you cannot, so nothing happens.

That doesn't sit quite well with me. You can use Dark Vixionary's power with just a single card in the deck and still get to know what that card is. You can play Call Forth, discarding a 4 spell value card with a single card left in the deck and still get that card if it is a relic. And really any other reveal will still reveal, even if the printed number is unable to be reached. I can't see any reason why this card works any different than any other revealing effect.

Call forth says nothing about requiring more than one card, it just reveals until it can reveal no more. Dark Visionary's ruling does seem inconsistent here, though. Unless that isn't actually supposed to work, either.

I hate to say it, but I agree with Ronway on this.

From previous rulings the choice should be 2a.

With only one card revealed there are no keywords to match, so it is discarded.

Call Forth says nothing about revealing until it can reveal no more. 

Discard a card.

Reveal cards from the top of your deck until the discarded card's (spell value) relics are revealed. Put the relics into your hand. Shuffle the other revealed cards back into your deck.

/agree

Do you have a reference for that? The answer I gave is from a discussion with Christopher when implementing the game.

Call Forth (and other "reveal cards until" cards) work differently, because of the "until" part. Experiment requires you to reveal exactly 2 cards.

For what it's worth, my own instinct was 2A, but I checked with Christopher and he was emphatic that the answer was #1.

None at all, I can't remember where it said that reveal can be less than the number stated.

Though if the "until" part is the only part that makes it where you can reveal less than specified, then I am super excited that Karmic Distjunction, Primeval Eruption, and Diversionary Tactics just became less threatening cards when the deck has started to run low!

I can point at Spiiff's FAQ were it talks about

What causes a deck Reshuffle

Searching decks/revealing cards

Effects which direct you to “reveal” cards are slightly different from effects  which direct you to “search” for a card. When “revealing” cards, you must  pull the cards off the top of the deck in order until you find the card you’re  looking for. When you “search” a deck for a card, you are allowed to  choose which card you want as long as it satisfies the criteria you’re searching  for; you don’t necessarily have to pick the first one you come upon.

W hat if an effect tells you to search the deck/reveal cards until you find a  card and then do something once you’ve found it, but you don’t find the card?

Feel free to bring it up with Christopher. A difference between Experiment and anything described in Spiff's document is that Experiment is written such that two cards are necessary for the power to do anything. It includes instructions on what to do with those exact two cards. If there are not two cards, the power can't work - hence, fizzle.

Call Forth has no specified deck size requirement, Dark Visionary and SST's innate powers do. Unlike Call Forth, they give an exact speficication as to how many cards are needed in order to play the power. Call Forth will try to search for X relics, but obviously you can't always have that many in even a deck of 10 cards.

This is similar to Summon Staff. You can try to summon a staff, but once you're done searching and you yeild no results, you end up drawing a card and playing a card. 

As Matchstickman explained, whenever you're searching or revealing for an unknown amount of cards, it's possible you will or will not find what you're looking for. I'm not sure why cards like Arcane Cadence are the exception, however. 

So I need to count how many card I have in my deck before I can use Experiment?

It shouldn't take much counting to figure out there's only one card left in your deck.

Yeah but it's an extra step for every single instruction that names a number of cards to reveal, and seems like an unneccessary complication that is against the rules we have previously used.

I agree that the power can't complete, but it can do something – reveal the lone card.  Which, if you don't have your deck memorized, could be quite valuable, even if nothing else happened.

If we take the rule that explicit numbers either complete or fizzle, that leads to a bizarrre situation with Baron Blade.  Baron Blade's flip text says (in part) "All 3 copies of "Mobile Defense Platform" are moved to the villain trash."  What happens if BB flips while one (or more) of the Mobile Defense Platforms is under Savage Mana?  The interpretation above suggests that none of the MDPs would move, since you can't move all 3, and THAT doesn't seem at all right.

(What the app actually does in the BB/SM case seems correct to me: The two non-Mana-ed MDPs go in the trash, while the Mana-ed one stays where it is.  Since it is under another card, it isn't (currently) a "Mobile Defense Platform".)

I think it is fair to say this rule isn't applying universally to explicit numbers.  Otherwise cards like Plunder will be crushed, and healing would be rather awkward, since you can't go above full HP.

I wouldn't say there's any reason why Scientific Tachyon wouldn't be able to simply look at the one and only card in her deck. I've always understood that you always try to do as much as you can when following the card text. If this is true, then any time a card calls for an action that would allow you to look at a partial remainder of a deck, such as Arcane Cadence (for example, three), you would then be able to play one, add one to your hand, and put on on top of your deck with no problem. After all, you are fulfilling the possible actions and ignoring the impossible actions. In Tachyon's case, it is impossible to compare one card with anything, so all that you can do is look at it.

In the situation you mention the player would be able to put 1 in their hand, 1 on top of the deck, and 1 on the bottom.

You still complete the card text in order, so you don't get to put one in play unless you reveal 5 cards.

That's one reason I am surprised by this ruling, since the Argent Adept situation works out so well if you are short. (and by well I mean you don't get the best effect)

I can not find it, but I could swear Arcane Cadence came up in a conversation with Christopher and this is how it was resolved.  Or given as an example for another card.

Does anyone remember this?  I might be crazy.

Nah, you're not misremembering it. (I'm not a good judge of crazy, so I'll leave that to others. )

Christopher has always (in the past) said you do as much as you can of an action. You can see this in all these examples of previous rulings.

I can understand why Christopher ruled it differently here, though. This is a very different situation for one reason only: the cards revealed are then compared. In the past, we've never had the revealed cards matter to each other - each could be managed independent of the other. That's not an option here. So Christopher had to come up with something that makes sense.

I do agree that it would be more consistent to say the single card revealed, compared to nothing, and - since it doesn't match - is discarded. But I can understand why this situation is different from past rulings.

I'm convinced! 2a! Rabit is correct as to my reasoning, but I have no problem with the "reveal and compare to nothing so discard" ruling. Strong work, everyone!

And thanks for keeping it civil and friendly! You are the best forum community ever. We will certainly win in the upcoming forum wars.


I... I got something rules-related correct?!


wow


Excuse me for a moment. I'm going to go write this down for future reference...


Thanks for the response, Christopher!

And now that the training phase for the upcoming forum wars is done, we can get started on the instigation phase... 

Yay!

I suppose I'll put the code back to the way it was then ;)

That won't be in the 1.1 update but it will be in the next one.

Look at that, now even Christopher is changing the rules to agree with me. All shall tremble before my mighty might!

Until you see the WotC rulebook, and the new rule it contains:

Whenever a hero target incapacitates another hero, Ronway loses.

Travel Phase and Installation Phase.

We're actually going to be moving to the Requisition Phase.