I was recently playing through the Lonely Mountain Nightmare and was trying to figure out how this situation would be handled. The following are the steps of a burgle attempt:

Step 1 - When a card instructs the first player to make a burgle attempt, he must discard cards from the top of the encounter deck until a card with a burgle effect is discarded. Read and resolve the burgle effect as outlined in steps 2 and 3.

Step 2 - The first player shuffles his deck and reveals the top card. If the first player has no cards left in his deck, then the burgle attempt automatically fails.

Step 3 - Each burgle effect instructs the first player to discard a number of cards that match either the revealed card’s sphere, type, cost, or a combination of those things. If the first player discards the required cards from his hand, the burgle attempt is successful. If he cannot, the burgle attempt fails.

Having discarded cards and finding a card with a burgle effect, I shuffled my deck, and revealed the top card. Upon finding that it was nothing I could use, and being in a tough situation, I tried to figure out a way around it. I had Gandalf (Hero) in play, with both his staff and pipe attached. I checked online quick and in the frequently asked questions I found this:

Q: While making a Burgle attempt in The Lonely Mountain scenario, when can players take actions? A: Players can take actions after step 2, before step 3.

So my question is: how is this handled? If I'm able to take player actions and potentially draw cards and switch the top card of my deck around, does the revealed card remain the card I have to match still? Could I discard it as part of the 2 or 3 or whatever I have to match? It's my understanding the top card on the deck would only become the newly revealed card if I paid two Baggins resources to make is so, but I'm not sure. Hopefully someone can clear this up for me, any help is appreciated.

Yeah, it is kind of confusing. We got an answer in an old thread here . The 'revealed' card remains the 'revealed' card, even if you take it into your hand. The only way to get a new 'revealed' card is to use The Lonely Mountain's effect.

What's to stop you from just discarding that card to match the "revealed card?" Once it's in your hand is it fair game? Say you're looking for two cards that share the cost of the revealed card, and Unexpected Courage is revealed. You draw that. The rules only state "discard 2 cards from your hand to match the revealed card." The revealed card is now part of your hand? At this point I'm not even sure with all the weird tricks I pulled whether I won or not. =/

Nothing is stopping you from doing that... go ahead and do it, it's a guaranteed match. Most of the burgle effects call for multiple cards that match the revealed card in some way, so you'll still need to find some extra matching cards. But yes, very handy trick!

Haha, I'll keep that in my back pocket for the one that wants a sphere, type, and cost match of one card! I think I sort of understand how this whole mechanic works a little better now. Regardless of what happens to it, that revealed card is the revealed card until you pay the two Baggins resource, but whatever tricks you want to pull before that are fair game. Thanks a bunch GrandSpleen!