Exhausting your play deck when you have no discard pile

The place to ask and debate all rules issues related to MECCG.
Post Reply
User avatar
Manuel
Council Chairman
Posts: 447
Joined: Thu Aug 10, 2006 11:31 am

Hello folks,

According to the MELE rules, this is what happens when you draw the last card of your deck:
Discard Pile — Your discarded cards are placed face down in your discard pile. When your play deck is exhausted, location cards in your discard pile are returned to your location deck. You shuffle the other cards in your discard pile and they become your new play deck.

Clarification: Your play deck is «exhausted» when you draw its last card. Some cards require that your play deck be manipulated and then reshuffled — this does not «exhaust» your play deck.
Now, there can be two possible situations where this could get messy:

1st: Say all of your deck consists in permanent events and cards that are played on the table but never discarded. You draw your last card, exhaust your deck, but now your discard pile is empty. What happens the next time you would have to draw cards, say, when an opponent's company moves?

2nd: You have only 1 card left in your deck and play Eyes of Mandos. You then reveal up to 8 cards (1 card, in this particular case) and put it into your hand (you don't draw it). Now you don't have any cards left in your deck, but according to this MELE rules clarification, this doesn't mean you are exhausting your deck. So ok, it's empty but you didn't exhaust it. Next time you have to draw, what happens? This could also happen when an opponent plays Desire All for Thy Belly and you have 1 card in your deck; in fact, there are more cards that have similar effects.

I found this on digest #59:
CoE RULINGS DIGEST #59
QUERY 9
One played Eyes of Mandos when his deck had ONLY ONE CARD in it. What happens?

The one card is drawn, it is put into that person’s hand, and Eyes of Mandos is discarded. After EoM is resolved and discarded, the deck is considered exhausted.
But I'm not sure this is correct. Technically, you don't draw that card, you put it into your hand.

Thanks a lot for your help,

Manuel
www.meccg.com
User avatar
Konrad Klar
Rules Wizard
Posts: 4345
Joined: Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:35 am
Location: Wałbrzych, Poland

I think that CoE RULINGS DIGEST #59 is incorrect.

What happens with the effects of exhausting of play deck when an amount of cards to draw exceeds a amount of cards in deck (e.g. Dark Tryst and a play deck containing only one card)?

Are they not triggered? Is the Bane of the Ithil-Stone not discarded? Player loses the opportunity to exchange the cards between deck and sideboard?

Bane of the Ithil-Stone is discarded, the cards are exchanged, the new deck is created, then drawing is continued.
We will not speak of such things even in the morning of the Shire.
User avatar
CDavis7M
Posts: 2816
Joined: Fri Jul 20, 2018 3:10 am
Location: California

Manuel wrote: Tue Jun 07, 2022 9:03 am1st: Say all of your deck consists in permanent events and cards that are played on the table but never discarded. You draw your last card, exhaust your deck, but now your discard pile is empty. What happens the next time you would have to draw cards, say, when an opponent's company moves?
The play deck is exhausted when drawing the last card, not when a card would be drawn from an empty deck, and not when a card effect removes all cards from the play deck and then reshuffles them (e.g., Lucky Search).
From: ich...@cstone.net (Ichabod)
Subject: Re: Crown of Flowers, Exhausting a Playdeck
Date: 1997/05/18
>1) The easy question: A playdeck is exhausted when the last card is
>drawn, *not* when the next card is needed. True or False?
True.
------ "The Crossing-guard of Mordor" ------
Craig "Ichabod" O'Brien http://www.cstone.net/~ichabod
ich...@cstone.net Me:CCG Official Netrep
Vegetarians Taste Better Praise "Bob"
--Self Proclaimed Most Mediocre Magic Player in the World--
----------
Manuel wrote: Tue Jun 07, 2022 9:03 am2nd: You have only 1 card left in your deck and play Eyes of Mandos. You then reveal up to 8 cards (1 card, in this particular case) and put it into your hand (you don't draw it). Now you don't have any cards left in your deck, but according to this MELE rules clarification, this doesn't mean you are exhausting your deck. So ok, it's empty but you didn't exhaust it. Next time you have to draw, what happens? This could also happen when an opponent plays Desire All for Thy Belly and you have 1 card in your deck; in fact, there are more cards that have similar effects.
Why do you say "you don't draw it"? By definition, taking a card from the top of the deck and then putting it in your hand is "drawing" a card. The fact that the card is also revealed doesn't mean that Eyes of Mandos does not draw a card.
----------
CoE RULINGS DIGEST #59
QUERY 9
One played Eyes of Mandos when his deck had ONLY ONE CARD in it. What happens?

The one card is drawn, it is put into that person’s hand, and Eyes of Mandos is discarded. After EoM is resolved and discarded, the deck is considered exhausted.
This is clearly wrong. MELE states "Meeting active conditions and exhausting a play deck are not actions--they are declared and resolve immediately." The play deck can be considered exhausted during resolution of an effect and all of the exhausting mechanics would happen before resolution continues.
User avatar
Konrad Klar
Rules Wizard
Posts: 4345
Joined: Sun Feb 04, 2007 9:35 am
Location: Wałbrzych, Poland

Simply: if exhausting of deck would have a power of terminating of some action, then it would terminate drawing of cards for movement or while reconciling of hand. And such situation would happen very often.

Exhausting of deck has power of interrupting of some action - some cards are discarded, cards are exchanged between deck and sideboard, new deck is created.
We will not speak of such things even in the morning of the Shire.
User avatar
Theo
Posts: 1393
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:49 pm
Location: Denver, CO

I think you guys are missing Manuel's (1) point. The scenario is that you have to draw but have no cards to draw because when you previously exhausted your deck there was nothing in your discard or to be discarded. The answer is: congratulations, you broke the game. As far as I know, no rules explain anything special to do. Until some effect puts a card back into your deck, you seem to be stuck with nothing to draw. For Desire All for thy Belly, opponent should probably choose to decrease hand size.

I agree that Eye of Mandos would draw the card if there was only 1, and CoE was wrong.
One [online community] with hammer and chisel might mar more than they make...
All players are welcome at Meduseld! https://theo-donly.github.io/MECCG/
User avatar
CDavis7M
Posts: 2816
Joined: Fri Jul 20, 2018 3:10 am
Location: California

Theo wrote: Wed Jun 08, 2022 10:27 pm I think you guys are missing Manuel's (1) point. The scenario is that you have to draw but have no cards to draw because when you previously exhausted your deck there was nothing in your discard or to be discarded. The answer is: congratulations, you broke the game.
I already answered (1) - the deck is not exhausted. I don't think the game is broken, the player can still continue using their characters and they still have a hand with cards. Most effects to sideboard require 5 cards in the play deck but this player doesn't want cards in their deck anyway. Now if both players are playing non-exhausting decks in a multi-deck game they could potentially get into a situation where the game never ends. That's fine for them. This is a non-issue.
Frodo
Ex Council Member
Posts: 506
Joined: Tue Apr 18, 2006 5:09 am
Location: NYC, NY

Back in 2003 or so, I had a pretty cool deck whose purpose was to have every single card in play, so I would exhaust, and have no discard pile. It was only middling-strong in tourneys... but in THEORY, it was cool! The best part was that when you exhaust, you can add cards from the SB, but then you can exhaust again pretty quickly, and add more cards from the SB. This was confirmed by the NetRep.

Here are all the rulings I collected on the matter. Btw, I found these in the "Play and Examples" file, which I made around 2005.

Exhausting a Play Deck
• “Clarification: Your play deck is “exhausted” when you draw its last card. Some cards require that your play deck be manipulated and then reshuffled—this does not “exhaust” your play deck.” [COE 21]
• If you are required to draw cards and your playdeck is zero, you are not considered to be “exhausting” your play deck (because of the above rule). [COE 82]
• If a card is sent to your discard pile while your playdeck contains zero cards, the discarded card immediately becomes your new play deck [COE 82]. If multiple cards are sent to your discard pile while your playdeck contains zero cards, those multiple cards are shuffled into your play deck at the same time. In other words, you can never have a card in your discard pile but not in your play deck.
• If your playdeck and discard pile contain zero cards, you may still take actions that require you to shuffle a card into your playdeck, such as Smoke Rings. [COE 82]
User avatar
Manuel
Council Chairman
Posts: 447
Joined: Thu Aug 10, 2006 11:31 am

Thanks a lot for your help guys, all clear now.
www.meccg.com
User avatar
Theo
Posts: 1393
Joined: Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:49 pm
Location: Denver, CO

There is also:
CoE Digest 114 wrote:(2) Joe Bisz asked: "You ruled in COE 82 that when a card is send to your discard pile while your playdeck contains zero cards, that card immediately becomes your new play deck. What if multiple cards are simultaneously sent to your discard pile, such as by your wizard tapping to put 5 in there? If only one of these 5 go immediately to the playdeck, would the player get to choose which of the 5?"
He went on to ask: "In regards to my multiple cards in discard pile question, you wrote: "All five become your play deck, since they all hit your discard pile at the same time, so you cycle them and shuffle them to become your deck." This was probably a quick oversight on your part, but the cards wouldn't actually "cycle" (exhaust) because you ruled that you don't actually exhaust a deck unless you *draw* the last card of the deck. I assume all 5 would still get SHUFFLED, even if you aren't cycling? Or is "shuffling" only an action that is triggered by "exhausting"? (That's what I thought. That's why I asked if I could choose which card gets put on the top of my playdeck, or even the order of all of them. I think there's no precedent in the rules for shuffling in this unusual case.)"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They all go to the discard pile, and then all shuffle to the deck immediately. There is a process/product ambiguity involved here:
(a) Process-exhaust: the ongoing state of one's play deck having no cards in it.
(b) Product-exhaust: the drawing of the last card in one's play deck.
The rules seem, understandably, only to consider (2). (1) is the most reasonable way to interpret the rules as applying to the situation in which someone has 0 cards in his play deck and also 0 cards in his discard pile. If that occurs, his play deck is considered to be in a state of continuous process-exhaustion.
-----
Frodo wrote: Fri Jul 08, 2022 5:09 amThe best part was that when you exhaust, you can add cards from the SB, but then you can exhaust again pretty quickly, and add more cards from the SB. This was confirmed by the NetRep.
The rule is actually that you must exchange cards. With no cards in the deck+discard, you'd have no way to add any from sideboard.

If a Netrep told you otherwise, there seems to be no documentation of it in the Digests.
One [online community] with hammer and chisel might mar more than they make...
All players are welcome at Meduseld! https://theo-donly.github.io/MECCG/
User avatar
CDavis7M
Posts: 2816
Joined: Fri Jul 20, 2018 3:10 am
Location: California

Pretty wild how so many "rulings" were made without even bothering to read 1 sentence in the rules.
Post Reply

Return to “Rules Questions & Debate (unofficial)”