Let's say you're playing a card game. In particular I'm talking about Campaign Manager 2008 but it could be any game. It could be Fluxx. It could be Magic: the Gathering. Whatever. It's a card game. One of the cards you can play in this game says 'Draw two cards and play one of them immediately, adding the other to your hand.' How would you assume the following interactions work? (For simplicity's sake I'm going to call this effect an Oprah after the Obama card in Campaign Manager 2008.)
- The only card in your hand is Oprah and you play it. The two cards you draw both require you to discard two cards in order to play them. Can you play either one? If not, what happens?
- The only card in your hand is Oprah and you play it. The two cards you draw both require you to discard a card in order to play them. Can you play either one? If not, what happens?
- You have only one card left in your deck and 5 cards in your discard pile. You play Oprah. Do you get a card from your discard pile? If so, could you get Oprah?
- You have only one card left in your deck and no cards in your discard pile. You play Oprah. The one card you draw also has, as part of its effect, draw a card. Do you draw Oprah?
In the first scenario I'd say there's no way to actually get the effect out of a card. You can't discard two cards to pay the cost for either one. Depending on how the cards are worded you'd either get to keep both (probably having to reveal them to prove you couldn't play them) or you'd have to play one with no effect.
In the second scenario it's tricky. When exactly do you add the second card to your hand? The wording of the card says you play one immediately and tells you to add the other to your hand later in the text. I could see it being ruled either way.
The third scenario is pretty clear I think. You draw the one card in your deck, shuffle the discard, and draw another card. Then you put Oprah in the discard. I can see other ways it might work though. Maybe you should get a shot at Oprah? Maybe you don't reshuffle. (A Few Acres of Snow change their rules such that you don't reshuffle in the middle of a turn, for example.) But in general I'd assume you reshuffle right away and can't draw the card currently drawing you cards.
What about the fourth option? When, exactly, do you end up discarding Oprah. I think Oprah can't draw Oprah because it's 'being played' while you're drawing those cards but is it still 'being played' when you play the second card? Does the answer to the second scenario matter? I'd say if you can't discard the second card then you either can't draw Oprah here (we haven't added the second card to our hand so Oprah has to still be 'being played') or you can draw it off of Oprah itself. If you can discard the second card then I'd say you should probably be able to cycle into Oprah off the second card but I could see it going the other way.
Well, how is it implemented online? You're forced to discard without getting the effect in scenario 1. You can discard the card to get the effect in scenario 2. You do reshuffle in the middle of the turn in scenario 3 (but get no shot at Oprah). Scenario 4? It works both ways depending on how you click...
If you play it out normally you don't get the card. Oprah is in the discard pile when you resolve the second card but the reshuffle doesn't happen. Here's where things get tricky... I didn't put any thought into it and just assumed I should get the card. I thought I must have done something wrong (why didn't I get my card?) so I clicked the 'Reset Move' button to do it again to make sure. It resets back to after drawing the cards off Oprah (and rightly so, after I see what they are I shouldn't be able to undo playing Oprah) and lets me pick which one to play. This time around it forces me to draw a card which has to be Oprah.
Something's wrong here, right? The implementation has to be buggy one way or the other. I did this once in a game last week and didn't even give it a second thought. Maybe I'd screwed up clicking the first time or something but I managed to make it work the way I instinctively thought it should so all is well.
Today I got into a stalemate in a game. We both had all of our cards but one in our hands and were able to cycle the same game state forever. I was wondering about what should happen. Could I have built my deck differently to beat his infinite combo? Did he have anything up his sleeve to stop mine? Did the rules have a chess style draw rule? I opened up the rules and browsed a bit to find the following...
"If a player wishes to draw a card but has no cards remaining in his Campaign Deck, his discard pile is first reshuffled to form a new deck. If this occurs in the midst of a player’s turn, any cards played earlier on that turn should not be shuffled into the new deck."
Hmm.
So the way I thought it worked was wrong. And by finding a way to make it happen I've been cheating...
I reported it as a bug. My opponent also noticed and asked how I did it. I told him I'd reported it and offered a draw since I'd been cheating. Also since the game was unlikely to progress even if I stopped cheating. The odd thing there is we both gained TrueSkill rating for the draw.
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